Page 44 of Safari Murder Party
“Not once has anyone ever come to HR with a complaint against you. Don’t you think that’s a little weird?”
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
Desperate, Fletcher jiggled the nearest door handle, the knob of the gazelle room.Damn it.Sheila must have used her one functioning brain cell to remember to lock it.
“You show up from the middle of nowhere, with all this small-town charm like you were plucked out of a fucking Hallmark movie, and Dyer wasobsessedwith you.”
“But not in, like, a creepy way,” Fletcher clarified. The hallway was running out. Soon, Molly would have her out in the open foyer. Nothing to hide behind, nothing to protect herself with.
“You’re always early. You stay late. You’ve never even taken a sick day,” Molly said. All the machete swashbuckling kept Fletcher from ruminating too hard. “Three years, and not a single cold?”
“This feels like a super weird thing to be mad about.”
Molly snarled.Snarled.
Okay, plan B.
Peeling through her memory, Fletcher fought for every last scrap of information she knew about Molly Bradhampton: at thirty-four, she wasn’t that much older than Fletcher. Single but wrote a Substack about her dating escapades. Fletcher could picture her catching an Uber outside the office doors, touching up her lip gloss in her front-facing camera. One time, Fletcher had glanced a Manhattan PlazaRacquet Club card on her desk and a Lululemon duffel at her feet. That explained her killer backswing.
She was so wrapped up in her thoughts, she didn’t notice Molly’s machete winding up until the bladethwacked against Fletcher’s ridiculous pith helmet. Her eyes shot wide open, but Molly’s narrowed with determination.
At this range, she couldn’t fight her off. She needed to appeal to Molly’s most primal sense. Gossip.
Before Molly could strike again, Fletcher asked, “What do people say about Waylon?”
“Don’tget me started on Waylon,” Molly said, but unlike Fletcher predicted, the machete arm didn’t relax by her side, placated. If anything, the rumor mill only riled her up. “He was bad enough when he worked under Dyer, but he’s been a nightmare since the whole Eliza fiasco. But you know that. You were there.”
She…definitely wasn’t. But Fletcher didn’t have the bandwidth to unpack that. Right now, her body was too focused on not getting stabbed through the spleen. Molly’s advances were getting harder and harder to defend. Every step brought a new frenzy.
“But do I miss the way he used to storm around the office in a testosterone tornado?” Molly fake retched for dramatic effect. “No. He deserved to get kicked out of the company as far as I’m concerned.Andhe knocked over Ferdinand.”
“Ferdinand?”
“My ficus!”
“How dare he?” A woman’s ficus was precious.
Molly’s focus shifted. “Why? Are you…interested in him?”
Fletcher flinched backward, closer and closer to the foyer, where sunlight glinted off the ormolu chandelier, shooting little rainbows from the parquet floor to the catwalk balcony between wings.Jacquard curtains draped around the windows, woven with threads of gold, and beyond that waited the flat expanse of wilderness.
Fletcher made a fast break for it, and the foyer opened around her. Something wavered in the corner of her eye, but when she pivoted, no one was there. Just the taxidermied lion with its polished white teeth and hollow eyes, overseeing everything?
There wasn’t much to work with: a baby grand piano; a side table with neatly arranged vases of cut flowers and stacked coffee table books; a leather settee. But this was the estate’s main artery—if she could shake Molly off her tracks, she could lose her in the halls.
“We’re not finished here!” Molly shouted behind her.
Pounding footsteps grew louder. Everythudagainst the hardwoods ticked Fletcher’s pulse up a notch.Oh, god.With a jolt, Fletcher lunged toward the curtains, burying herself in their pleats.
Buttery smooth fabric enveloped her. Sweat dripped down her neck, equal parts from blind fear and the sunlight beating against the window and cooking her alive. Carefully, Fletcher slipped her feet out of her pumps, blisters already forming on her heels. With the points of her shoes sticking out beyond the veil, Fletcher shimmied behind the curtains to the other side of the foyer.
This time, Molly acted exactly as Fletcher expected. In the seam between drapes, Fletcher watched the People team lead circle, searching for any trace of Fletcher. Sniffing the air for a hint of her vanilla perfume, even. When her eyes locked on Fletcher’s empty heels, Molly grinned.
Without waiting, without thinking, Molly hacked at the fabric. “You think you’re going to run away with Waylon and live happily ever after?” she raved, even though Fletcher never said anything even remotely like that.
Eventually, the machete ripped clean through the curtain.
Only then did Molly realize her mark was missing.
