Pretty Killer - eBook

John glanced at the elaborate red envelopes set in front of each guest. Smooth finish, thick folded stock with padding laid over the top, a gold clasp that looked like a coat of arms, robust gold thread looped around a button to close it. Nobody touched their envelopes. From seat to seat, each guest was regarding the beautiful object atop their plate with something like fear, as if the envelopes had teeth.

John looked up at the waiter. His creeping feeling from several days earlier had returned. He was back in his office, blinds pulled and lights low, listening to Mason tell his story. He hadn’t wanted either of them to come tonight. But irrational fears were rarely worth heeding. John’s wariness that day had been strong. But his curiosity — and that damnable unsolved question that dogged him for years — had been so much stronger. 

“What the hell is happening here?”

“Sir?” 

“Is this the Bayshore alumni dinner?” John looked around the table, now projecting his voice to the other guests. “Are you all here for the Bayshore dinner?” 

Murmurs. 

Summer tugged on his sleeve. “John.” 

He ignored her and looked back at the waiter. The man was a caricature: smooth white face, slicked-back hair, a little Errol Flynn mustache. He didn’t have a towel draped over his forearm, but that was the only thing missing. 

“We were invited to an alumni dinner. I think we might be in the wrong place.”

“I assure you, Mr. Merritt, you are in the appropriate place.” 

“Where is the board? Where’s the old woman my wife won’t stop complaining about? The one whose wealth can’t buy her a decent facelift? Is that who this last chair is for?”

“John!”

John stared. Now others were whispering and a pall of oddity descended in the small, elegant room. He’d known something wasn’t right since the day he’d met Mason Pace — or in truth, depending on the framing, a lot longer than that. 

The hairs on his arm were standing. He wanted to lash out, but it wasn’t anger or frustration that drove him. It was fear, and the knowledge that he should have known better. 

“We’ll be serving momentarily, sir.” And then the waiter was gone, leaving a dozen diners around the table alone.

John clamped his mouth shut. He felt his chest rising and falling in oversized waves. His heart hammered against his ribcage, desperate for escape. He looked around the table, seeing only eyes and those big red envelopes. Everyone was staring at him. 

Calm down. 

But what had Donovan said? What were the envelopes for?

Summer took his hand. Patronizing more than supportive. She wasn’t nervous. This was business as usual to everyone else. John was the crazy one. 

The doors are locked. 

“Are you okay?” 

It was Imogen, the tiny woman who’d taken such delight in his fake career.

Relax. You don’t even know what this is yet.

Summer squeezed his hand. He looked over, then reminded himself to settle. He had to be here for her, and that meant being here, not in his head. He was tumbling down that old rabbit hole, but what had set him off? Donovan talking about secrets. Because once exposed, secrets became confessions. It was hard to remember that most people didn’t see life through the skewed lens that John had ground for himself. 

“I’m fine,” he said. 

“You seem anxious. Are you anxious?”

“He said he’s fine.” Simon had pushed up his sleeves. John could see the cables in his forearms because the man couldn’t stop making fists. 

“I have something that might help to calm you down,” Imogen said to John, glancing sideways at Simon. 

“You’re kidding,” said Melissa. “Still with the pills?”