Kill Joy (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #0.5) — Chapter no 10

“Lauren, stop screaming” came Connor’s panicked voice somewhere off to the right.

Pip’s eyes readjusted, making themselves at home in the darkness. She wasn’t entirely sightless; the three candles in front gave off a weak pool of flickering orange light, and Pip could just about separate the rough outlines of her friends from the other shadows.

A new faceless silhouette joined them, hanging in the doorway, its head overgrown and distorted.

“What did you guys do?” the shadow asked in Jamie’s voice.

“We didn’t do anything,” Connor replied.

“Ah, fuck, must be a power cut,” he said, shifting on his feet, a ripple in the dark.

“Not a power cut,” Pip said, her own voice feeling strange to her, cutting through the unnatural silence. “Look, out there.” She pointed to the window, forgetting she was just an indistinct shape in the darkness. “You can see the lights from your neighbor’s windows; they still have power. Must be a blown fuse.”

“Ah,” Jamie said. “Did you plug anything in?”

“No.” Connor’s voice again. “We were just sitting here. Alexa was on.”

“It’s fine—we just need to reset the fuse box.” Pip fumbled, getting to her feet. “Do you know where it is? Is it outside?”

“No, it’s in the basement, I think,” Jamie said. “I don’t know. I never go down there.”

“Because it’s creepy AF,” Connor added unhelpfully.

“Have you ever reset a fuse box before?” she asked. The silence from the Reynolds brothers was answer enough. No one else stepped up either. “Fine,” she sighed. “I’ll do it.”

If Pip’s dad were here, he’d be vigorously shaking his head right now; fuse boxes were one of his very first Life Lessons. Granted, Pip probably hadn’t needed to be taught that at age nine, but a “life lesson was for life” as he always said. Don’t even get him started about checking the oil in the car.

“Won’t you need a flashlight or something?” Connor asked.

“Oh, Connor,” Lauren said, almost invisible across the table, “you should unlock our phones so we can use the flashlights on them.”

“Yeah, fine,” Connor said over the rasping sound of him getting up from his chair. “It’s not very 1924, but fine.” Muffled footsteps and then a new sound: his hands scrabbling around the radiator, the metal clanging much louder than it should. “Crap,” he hissed. “I can’t find the key. I know I left it here somewhere.”

“For fuck’s sake, Connor!” Lauren again. “I need my phone.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Pip said, defusing the situation. She leaned across the table and picked up one of the candlesticks, the flame dancing in her breath. “This is fine; I can see enough. You can find the key once the lights are back on.” She used the shaky firelight to

navigate around Jamie in the doorway.

“Do you need help?” he asked her.

“No, no, that’s OK.” She knew he was anxious about finishing the game before they all had to go, but this was really a job for one person. Pip found that—most of the time—other people only slowed

you down. That was why she despised group projects. “I’ll just be a second. No worries.”

She’d never been down to the Reynoldses’ basement before, but there was only one door it could be. One that was unlabeled and played no part in the make-believe Remy Manor. The door under the stairs. She lowered the candle to find the knob and grabbed it, the metal cold, stinging her skin.

“I think it’s in the back left-hand corner,” the Jamie outline told her.

“Got it,” she said, pulling the door open.

It creaked. Of course it frickin’ creaked, the sound echoing in the dark hall, riding along her nerves. Get it together, Pip. It’s just an old, hardly used door.

Before her was an opening, so impossibly dark that her eyes brought it to life and the shadows breached the threshold, creeping out to take her, make her one of them. Kept at bay only by the small flame she held up. There must be a staircase here, she knew that, feeling the top stair out with her shoe before she stepped down it.

Losing her feet to the darkness.

The air was colder and staler down here, and it only seemed to grow darker with every step, her candle losing the battle.

The fourth step down creaked. Of course.

Pip’s heart spiked at the sound, though her head told her she was being ridiculous. All the murder talk must have put her on edge.

On the sixth step something brushed against her bare arm.

Something delicate that prickled at her skin, like the gentle brush of fingers. She swiped at it. A cobweb. It clung on, holding on to her hand, catching her. Pip wiped it on her dress and moved on.

She shifted her foot, ready for another step, but it wasn’t there.

Just more ground. She’d reached the bottom, in the basement now, a shiver passing up the back of her neck. She turned to check that the way back still existed: the lighter shape of the hall door was still

up there. She swore to god if someone thought it would be funny to lock her down here, there might actually be a murder tonight.

A rustle behind her.

Pip turned, the flame overstretching to keep up with her.

She couldn’t see anything, except…Yes, she could. Over there in the corner, it was the fuse box, just a few feet away. She traced her steps over to it, lifting the candle to light it up. All the switches had flipped down, including the main red one on the end.

Her fingers stalled in the air. There was a whisper in the darkness. To her right. Had she really heard something? She couldn’t be sure, the sound of her heart too loud in her ears.

Pip held the candle high to light as much of the underground

room as she could.

That was when she saw the man.

Standing in the other corner, the dark shape of his head tilted like he was watching her, curiously.

“Wh-who’s there?” Pip said, her voice shaking.

He didn’t answer. The wind did instead, whistling in through hidden cracks somewhere above her.

Pip’s fingers shook, the fire juddering with them, and the man

moved. Coming toward her.

“No!”

She spun back to the fuse box. She needed the lights, needed them now. She had only a few seconds before… She focused, grip tight on the candle, her breath quickening, in and out and…Oh no. The darkness was complete, caving in on her, wrapping her up. She’d blown out the candle. Oh shit, oh fuck, oh no.

Blindly, she fumbled at the fuse box, flicking unseen switches with her thumb. Up, up, up, up. Her fingers found the wider shape of the main switch and she pushed it.

The lights came on and the shadow man was gone.

Gone, because he was actually just a haphazard pile of cardboard boxes with a sheet thrown over them. It was only Pip down here, although it took a few seconds for her heart to trust her.

She heard cheering and whooping upstairs from the others.

“Well done, Pip!” Jamie’s voice called. “Come on back up!”

She might just take a few deep breaths first, wait for the fear to drain from her face. What had gotten into her? It was just a basement, disorganized and dusty. But hold on, why could she see it at all? Why had the light been on down here anyway? That was weird.

Back to the staircase, all of its shadows filled in now. One hand holding the spent candle, the other on the banister, she walked up, avoiding the rest of the cobwebs. And then something she didn’t expect to see, staring her in the face. An envelope tucked between two of the staircase posts at the creaky fourth step. An envelope with A SECRET CLUE, JUST FOR YOU written on it.

Wait a second—what?

Pip picked it up, checking it was real.

TM It was. The words Kill Joy Gamesformed a faint border

around its edge.

She exhaled and her breath changed in her throat, became a

shaky laugh.

Sneaky Jamie Reynolds.

None of this had been real. None of the last few minutes.

It was all part of the game: the blackout, Jamie pretending he didn’t know what to do with a fuse box. A fuse probably hadn’t even blown; Jamie must have been down here, flipping the switches off himself while they were all waiting, unknowing, in the dining room.

The whole thing was made up to get someone down here on their own. And that person had earned themselves their own bonus clue.

It was hers.

Pip grinned, tearing into it, running her eyes across the page.

Congratulations! This secret final clue is yours and yours alone; you do not have to share it with the group if you choose not to.

Over the last few months a doctor has been regularly visiting Remy Manor. No one knew about this at the time, not the family or the staff. The prognosis wasn’t good. Reginald Remy had cancer of the lungs. He was not expected to live much longer; he certainly wouldn’t make it to his seventy-fifth birthday.

A couple of weeks ago the doctor was paid a large sum of money to keep quiet about Reginald’s

condition.

Do what you will with this information.

The world halted around Pip, dust hanging motionless in the air around her head, the secret crumpling in her hands. Reginald Remy had been dying, and he knew it. But he hadn’t wanted anyone else to know. This changed everything. The whole case. This was it, the new angle she’d needed. The story that had been hiding there all along, stirring that feeling in her gut. It all came together, the suspects reshuffling before her eyes and— Jamie called for her again.

“Coming,” she said, reaching the top of the stairs, sliding the paper under the shoulder of her dress, tucking it into her bra strap.

She walked into the dining room, the others waiting for her. As she took her seat, releasing the candlestick, she caught Jamie’s eye and the small secret smile in his pursed lips. She returned a discreet nod.

“OK,” Jamie said, stepping back into the role of Inspector Howard Whey. “Now it really is time for the truth. And time for you to all make your final guesses. Who is the murderer? Please turn to the last page in your booklets.”

WELL DONE, CELIA BOURNE.

You have survived this night of murder,

mystery, and mayhem.

It’s time to answer the ultimate question: Who murdered Reginald Remy?

Please write your answer in the spaces below.

The killer is:__________________________

Their motive is:__________________________

Page 7