Page 38 of Safari Murder Party
The first time Fletcher saw the cigar lounge, she assumed there had been some primal lapse in judgment. A surge of testosterone responsible for the decor so tacky it bordered on outright offensive. As if Dyer had briefly been possessed by the spirit of Clayton fromTarzan.
Mahogany hutches housed hunting paraphernalia, none of it nearly as dusty as Fletcher, upon first glance, assumed it would have been. Velvet and leather furniture ringed a zebra-hide rug—head still attached. The kind of place that in Nebraska would be strictly off-limits to women and children duringMonday Night Football.
Nestled in a quiet corner of the second floor, the lounge was blessedly vacant when they arrived, although the scent of tobacco and vetiver lingered.
“Cuban or Churchill?” Waylon asked, flicking a lighter between his fingers.
“Neither.” Fletcher’s head was already crammed inside one of the cabinets, scouring for anything that could keep them alive. Growingup on the farm wasn’t enough to qualify her as the Girl Scouts type. And even if it had, there probably wasn’t a badge for Not Getting Eaten by Lions.
“Panatela?”
“No, Waylon. I don’t smoke.” Fletcher cast a sidelong glance at the blond helplessly shuffling through the humidor. “Keep the lighter, though.”
“Suit yourself.” Waylon rolled a cigar between his fingertips, the flame curling its paper. He pocketed the lighter, which meant he was capable of following basic instructions. Good.
Fletcher tried to ignore the way he tucked the cigar between his lips, puffed once, and exhaled a perfect circle. Like a mob boss. Or Foghorn Leghorn. Perfect. Nothing sexy about Foghorn Leghorn.
“Will you start packing?” she asked, her nerves frayed like consigned denim. “I want to get out of here before someone else shows up.”
“Of course.”
“As in, of course you don’t want to meet an untimely demise at the hand of someone making three times your annual salary so you’ll quit messing around?”
Waylon’s shadow blocked the light, and Fletcher reared out of the cabinet, clutching a pair of canteens close to her chest. Smoke sifted off his cigar, too close to the wick of an antique oil lamp for comfort.
“As in, of course Fletcher Spence already has a plan,” he said.
“It’s not a cardinal sin to be prepared,” she huffed.
His eyebrow shifted upward. Antagonizing. “You prepared for this?”
“No, I justamprepared. Like how you justarethe human embodiment of a migraine.” Rolling her eyes, she thought she caught a glimpse of her frontal lobe on the way back. “But yes, I have a plan.”
Half her motivation for coming to the cigar lounge was thehand-drawn map of the island that hung framed above the fireplace. The faint initials in the corner looked like they might have belonged to Waylon’s great-grandfather Egbert Cartwright himself. Scenery and structures had been etched in careful charcoal—structures that now legally belonged to Waylon.
At the northeastern corner sat the estate. Then there was the staff quarters, deep in the jungle dark. At the opposite edge, another building guarded the marina and its pen-scratched docks. Salvation in a scribbled line.
“These docks,” she said as casually as she could. “You don’t think the staff would have taken the boats there, do you?”
Waylon didn’t budge from behind the growing stack of safari regalia—flare guns, ammo boxes, pith helmets. “Boat, singular.”
Not ideal, but at least it wasn’t:Boat, zero.
“And it’s still there?”
That earned her a measured glance. Hesitant, if a touch suspicious. “Should be. Why?”
“That’s our golden ticket.” She offered a quiet note of consideration. A hum that said this was definitely her first time thinking it. “We get to the docks, grab the boat key, and we’ll sail away. No need to wait for the rescue crew to arrive.”
Easy, right?
Waylon’s rogue eyebrow did that thing again, and Fletcher’s heart trampolined around her chest—against her will, she might add. All he said was, “Sure.”
“What do you meansure? It’s a great idea.”
“No, yeah. A great idea that everyone else is also having right this second. It’ll be a massacre down there.”
It was Fletcher’s turn to scrunch her face up. “It’s a massacrehere. At least at the marina it’s a massacre with an escape route. I’d ratherbe there than be a sitting duck for the next five days while the rest of the team goes on a murder spree.”
