Page 92 of Safari Murder Party
I never quite liked being told what to do. We have that in common.
This trip is a necessary loophole. A way to reinstate your legitimacy as my heir without stirring suspicion before it’s too late. Unfortunately, there’s a traitor among you, a bad seed poisoning the crop. I could not allow them to fall into power. There is no rescue crew coming. While the others argue among themselves, leave. Find Tiffany and call for everyone else’s rescue once you’ve finished the paperwork. My legacy has always belonged to you.
Sincerely,
Dyer Cartwright
Shadows bled into the edges of Fletcher’s vision. Beneath her feet, the ground shifted. She was suddenly too hot and too cold at once. Her palms sweated, but goose bumps trailed down her arms.
“This is…”
“A worthless excuse for an apology,” Waylon seethed. “Unbelievable. When he invited me on this trip, I thought things between us actually stood a chance at getting better. But he—he stranded us here, as good as dead. And this is how he justified it to himself?A bad seed?”
Knots tangled in Fletcher’s stomach. Unfortunately, she had a hunch she knew exactly who the bad seed was. Jackie’s wild eyes flashed through her mind. The editor in chief had never once been shy about her distaste for Waylon or her unquenchable ambition.
Fletcher tried to think back to the tarmac, tried to remember exactly what was said and in precisely what order. Dyer had appeared out of a jet-black SUV, his silver hair slicked back, curls gathering atthe base of his neck, looking in her memory less like her demanding boss and more like a comic book supervillain. She recalled the way his cane rapped against the airstrip, the way he chatted with the C-suite. Their first tour of the manor. His retirement speech.
And always at his side:Jackie.
She’d looped her arm through Dyer’s as they approached the plane with sunglasses jammed up the bridge of her nose despite the bleak November clouds. She’d patted Dyer’s hand as he spoke fondly of his late wife. After the will reading, Jackie had been the first to suggest hunting one another for sport.
All of it carefully orchestrated. None of it a coincidence.
Fear and frustration that matched how Fletcher felt splashed across Waylon’s face. The color returned to his cheeks, splotched and red-hot. He crumpled the letter in his fist. “Why didn’t I read this earlier?”
“You didn’t know. You couldn’t have known.” Fletcher tucked her arms around Waylon’s middle, hearing the rapid patter of his heart. “I mean, Waylon, this is…Are you sure? Maybe we’re missing something.”
“We aren’t. This is exactly the kind of psychotic bullshit my dad loved.”
“Okay…There’s no rescue crew coming,” Fletcher parroted as the truth sank in. Dyer brought them here, stranded them, and orchestrated a cockfight, well aware that Jackie was out for blood. The promise of rescue had been a distraction at best. At worst, the last nail in the coffin. “Oh my god, Waylon. We have to get to the marina before someone else does.”
Any foolhardy dream of waiting out the worst in their tree house bubble was dashed. If they stayed here, they’d die. Starvation, dehydration, any of the other terrible -ations. Not a matter of how, but when.
To live, they had to escape. There was only one way off the island, and Fletcher had unknowingly led Jackie directly to it. Jackie, who had manipulated her colleagues into participating in a killing spree. She would stop at nothing to secure the inheritance.
“The marina. Of course.” Waylon pinched his eyes closed. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. Tiffany.”
Fletcher dug through the scrambled eggs formerly known as her brain. Whatexactlyhad Dyer said in his farewell video? The memory was fuzzy with adrenaline, darkened with panic.
To my son, Waylon Cartwright, I leave Lydell Island, its animal inhabitants, as well as all of its structures and assets. It’s what your mother would have wanted, and you know I’ve never trusted anyone more than Tiffany to protect what I love most.
At dinner, Dyer had given a speech about how he and his wife loved coming to Lydell—enough that he’d buried her here somewhere.
“Are we…becoming gravediggers?”
“No, my mother was cremated, and we spread her ashes in the sea. But that’s it. The sea.Tiffany. My dad’s boat. He named it after her. God, he even said as much in the video, but I just didn’t know I needed to be a fucking detective.” Waylon disappeared, calling over his shoulder, “Start packing.”
Any satisfaction Fletcher might have gleaned from correctly assuming Dyer wasn’t unhinged enough to abandon his son on this island without a getaway plan washed away with a swell of petrifying awareness. They needed to get to the marina ASAP.
Their things had somehow exploded around the tree house, and Fletcher quickly consolidated their semidry backpacks into one: a freshly filled canteen, an array of mildly expired granola bars they’d found in the cabinet, the scraps of a map, and her capybara room key.
Before cramming her phone into the backpack’s inner pocket,she fired off a string of new texts to Ford. Just in case she never made it off the island, at least there would be written proof that she’d had the best sex of her life. And, oh yeah, her boss was a maniac.
Waylon met her back in the studio, cradling the safe. He thumbed a few numbers into the lock. Aclick, and it opened. “My parents’ anniversary.”
She expected his hand to unfurl, revealing a slim metal key against his palm. That didn’t happen. Instead, his fingers opened up to a brilliant heirloom diamond—an Asscher cut with too many carats for Fletcher to count on one hand. His mother’s, no doubt.
“It’s beautiful.” Staring at the ring was like looking in a kaleidoscope. Mesmerized, Fletcher muttered, “But I don’t understand.”
