Page 12 of Safari Murder Party
The landing strip eased into view, a short stretch of creased pavement at the center of the island in a clawed-out clearing among the forest.
Without warning, the plane’s nose tipped, pitching toward the earth. Landing gear rattled underneath, and the wings leveled. As the wheels touched down, slowing the plane to a grinding halt, some of the tension eased out of Fletcher’s shoulders.
Across the aisle, Waylon raised the last of his in-flight aperitif toward Fletcher and said, “Welcome to the wild.”
The wild, apparently, had white-glove service.
As soon as they deplaned, a flurry of staff in crisp yellow shirts whisked them onto a flatbed safari truck with an arched canvas roof. Fletcher squeezed onto the last seat next to Sheila.
“Oh my god, Fifi, this is going to be—so!—much!—fun!” Sheila’s voice was the human equivalent of a helium balloon. Spiraled blonde curls had been tied into a knot on her head with a handkerchief, but it did very little to keep them in place. “Opal told me last year she went zip-lining and snorkeling and—”
“What did I tell you about talking about me like I’m not here?” Opal asked from Sheila’s other side. Her wide deep brown eyes hid behind a pair of pink bedazzled sunglasses that she somehow managed to make look couture. (Were they? Opal’s commission was probably six times Fletcher’s salary.) Peering around toward Fletcher,Opal added, “Last year, I arrived as an associate and left as a team lead. Best week of my life.”
Hope thrummed in Fletcher’s chest, and her gaze landed on Jackie across the truck. Her first real photography publication was so close she could almost reach out and grab it.
The truck chugged into the jungle canopy, aiming down a narrow trail through the thicket. Instantly, the sun faded into a soupy green, determined to shine through the leafy mosaic. The air temperature plummeted enough to raise a chill on Fletcher’s arms as they carved through the undergrowth.
Here, everything was salt and earth, iron and the scent of something indistinguishably sweet. Not a skyscraper or a streetlight or another soul in sight. A wind, ancient and all-knowing but graciously soft, kicked a few strands loose from Fletcher’s braid, and they tickled the back of her neck—the way it felt when someone was watching you.
“Look! A monkey!” Sheila squealed.
Hanging from the vines, a primate swung through the jungle, all sleek black fur and impeccable upper-body strength. Then the monkey opened its mouth. Deep and guttural, the call shook through Fletcher, something primal coming alert inside of her.
The longer she looked, the more she noticed. Blinking yellow eyes stalked through the greenery. Vibrant birds flitted from one branch to the next—toucans and parrots and macaws. In a wide, murky river, an anaconda slithered.
“For some reason, I didn’t expect so many wild animals,” Fletcher said as diplomatically as she could, given the way her heart jostled around her ribs.
“Egbert Cartwright had them all imported,” Theo chimed in. His collared Ralph Lauren shirt was an aggressively pastel plaid thatdid little for his ruddy complexion. “The electric fence keeps them away from the buildings, but out here, they can get pretty close.”
“Doesn’t this break endangered-animal protection laws or something?” Fletcher dared to ask.
Too eager, Theo answered, “It’s a sovereign island. The rules are different when you’re a Cartwright. You don’t play by them—you make them.”
“There’s no place like Lydell,” Dyer said with a twinkle in his eye.
Seeing her boss outside the office felt like bumping into your first-grade teacher at the supermarket. Here, the blue of Dyer’s eyes grew sharper, his posture straighter. She’d always thought him synonymous with his penthouse office and steamed suit jackets, but the island brought out a different side of Dyer Cartwright entirely. Something wilder. Less predictable.
Fletcher tightened her grip on the railing as her stomach somersaulted. When the tree line broke, the high savanna unraveled before them. Windswept plains, covered in a tall-grass peach fuzz, stretched toward the cliffs.
Out here, the sweltering sun seemed less harsh somehow, as though it had been hung from the sky only to sweep across this scrap of land. Gauzy and bright, the sunlight cast spearing shadows behind everything it touched.
Acacia trees with their umbrella tops dotted the horizon, and the truck followed a grooved path across the untamed landscape. Giraffes plucked eucalyptus leaves straight from the branches. Zebras grazed in mesmerizing packs. Cheetahs raced through the grasses.
None of these species belonged to this Indian Ocean lava rock formation, but there they were. Chartered in by greed and curiosity, a bone-deep selfishness. Curated only for the Cartwrights’ pleasurefor over a century by Dyer and his father before him andhisfather before him. A cruel caricature of real wilderness.
Up ahead, her oblivious colleagues discussed quarterly OKRs and SLAs with the passion of fraternity brothers defending their fantasy football leagues. Completely unfazed by the zoo they’d entered.
“Let me check the conversion rate on our last web banner,” Brian was saying. He had a swatch of dark hair, gelled out of his face, and thick-rimmed glasses nudged up his nose. His laptop teetered on his kneecaps.
Next to him, Raul’s heavy brows furrowed. Words without functional meaning to Fletcher spilled from his lips—cloud access point,authentication,encryption protocol.
“What would we do without you?” Other Brian said with a relieved sigh, since evidently his web page had loaded.
“Come on, everyone. We aren’t here to talk shop,” Dyer said. His arm rested easily on the guardrail despite how bumpy their journey was.
Joplin, with her hot-pink pixie cut and watercolor tattoos trailing down her warm brown arms, hung halfway over the railing, watching the horizon pass. “No, we’re here for the salt and tequila. Ain’t that right, Bubbles?”
Bubbles?Fletcher scanned her coworkers’ faces for anyone who could convincingly respond toBubbles. Her eyes gravitated toward Sheila—arguably the bubbliest person here—when a deep baritone pulverized her every thought.
