Page 96 of Safari Murder Party
Waylon didn’t move.
Was hebreathing? Oh, god. Fletcher couldn’t tell.
And if he wasn’t breathing, what did that mean? He wasdead? A wave of nausea brought her to her knees. She crawled toward Waylon, shifting his bleeding head into her lap. At the base of his neck, his pulse…existed. There was too much panic in her body to decide if it was a normal, healthy pulse or a tiny, fragile pulse.
The point was: He had one.
He also, most definitely, had a concussion. A minor inconvenience, given he hadn’t died.
The editor in chief clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Stop groveling. I told you this business was cutthroat. You said you had what it takes.”
Fletcher fought to find her words. Whatever manipulative, Machiavellian pieces built Jackie Caldera, Fletcher knew with sudden clarity she was not made of the same stuff. “And what is that, exactly?”
Jackieclick-click-clicked her chipped nails along the driver’s grip. “Ambition. Drive. Tenacity.”
Gumption, she heard Dyer’s echo say.
Those? Fletcher had. In spades.
But she knew better now. It wasn’tjustabout being ambitious or driven or tenacious. Unspoken qualifiers attached to those values. Adjectives that tricked unsuspecting victims who simply wanted to succeed into selling their souls to corporations: ruthless ambition, merciless drive, and selfish tenacity. A willingness to put yourself before others. To push down your colleagues if it meant climbing higher faster.
Fletcher had let other people define her for so long. Kent, Dyer, and now Jackie. Look where that got her. She had acted as cold and calculated as the rest of them. Only looking out for herself in the end.
Now her brain veered straight into survival mode, like she had walked into the boardroom during a quarterly exec meeting. Jackie had said this was kill or be killed.
Fletcher really,reallydidn’t want to be killed.
Luckily, if Fletcher’s lasting legacy was going to be anything, it was that she always had a plan, a backup plan, and a backup to the backup plan.
So she sucked a breath into the deepest corners of her lungs, steeling the tender parts of her heart, and prayed Jackie believed her when she said, “I do. Have what it takes.”
If Jackie’s eyebrows hadn’t been Botoxed within an inch of their life, one would have quirked up in disbelief.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” said Fletcher.
Here, with Waylon’s head in her lap, his eyes shut and forehead bleeding and his mouth still turned into a frustrated frown. Here, on this ridiculous private island, where greed gave her colleagues brain worms and convinced them to commit a little first-degree murder.
Jackie’s lips pulled into a flat line, unimpressed and unconvinced. “What about the key?”
“It’s in a lockbox at the marina.”
“Fine. Hurry up,” Jackie urged. “You’ve got a promotion to earn.”
A promotion. As if Fletcher cared about that anymore. Right now, all she cared about was making it back to Manhattan—preferably not in a body bag.
“We can’t leave Waylon.” Then, to appease Jackie, who was already frowning with clear intent to do precisely that, she added: “The lockbox might be biometric or something. Dyer left the island to him, remember?”
Irritation worked through Jackie’s shoulders. “If I’d known that, I would have used the putter.”
Fletcher hefted one of Waylon’s arms around her back, and Jackie grabbed the other side. Together, theyWeekend at Bernie’s-ed Waylon’s limp body into the passenger seat of the Jeep.
While Jackie went around to the driver’s side, a palm slamming on the hood for dramatic effect, Fletcher pressed her forehead against Waylon’s.Please wake up and don’t hate me. Or wake up anddohate me. I’d deserve that. Whatever you do, wake up.
Before Jackie could drive off without her, Fletcher flung herself over the back tire and into the back seat next to the club bag.
They sped across the driving range, the air tinged with sea spray and freshly cut grass. Jackie didn’t bother swerving out of the way of the tennis court, and the net wrapped around the front bumper as she barreled toward the clubhouse with its gaping windows and oceanfront view.
Blessedly, Jackie cut the engine before crashing through the double doors, but only barely.
