Sam held tight until he sat me on the chair as far away from Faith as he could find. He obviously had no real understanding of my anger. I was honestly not a threat to anyone.
He sat down opposite me as Georgie pressed the appropriate buttons for the PA to come to life. After she called everyone back to the studio, we waited. She moved back to me as Matt pulled up a chair, and I stared at Faith, questions zipping through my mind.
Sam raised his eyebrows at me, obviously thinking the same thing. Within minutes, people started to fill the room. I tapped my fingers on the table impatiently. I wanted Rachel to hurry up with the announcement so I could get back to questioning Faith.
And where the hell was Jake? I looked at the clock on the wall and noted it was now nearly ten o'clock. No wonder I was tired. It was nearly my bedtime.
The lost dog wandered across the studio floor, dripping water as it went. It came and sat at my feet. I didn't know why it picked me. I wasn't the biggest animal lover in the room. It looked up at me with big eyes, hair soaking wet, and a shoe in clenched in its jaw. I put my hand to its head to give it a pat, and it shivered. Instantly, my anger dissolved as my heart melted. It dropped the wet shoe at my feet.
Rachel walked over to me.
"Oh my god! Get that thing out of here. It's already caused enough problems for one night!"
"He's not causing any trouble now," I said, rubbing his head, as the smell of wet dog wafted up to my nostrils and stung my eyes.
He licked my hand. Now, I'd admit to liking dogs, but I couldn't admit to liking stray dog tongue touching my hand. I didn't want Rachel to see that, so I sat smiling at her, all the time telling the dog what a good boy he was.
"Get it out!" she yelled, pointing to the door.
I sighed and grabbed at its collar, checking its identity tag. The tag said his name was Baxter, but there was no phone number engraved on the back of it. Poor Baxter.
"Faith!" said Rachel, suddenly realizing Faith sat in the middle of the room. "You're alive. What a shock." Rachel turned to me and glared. "Alex, didn't your mother ever tell you not to tell lies?"
I felt my cheeks heat up as the crowd gathering in the room all looked at Faith sitting innocently, nibbling her bread roll, reminding everybody of a scared rabbit.
I wasn't sure what shocked them the most though—the fact that she was alive and well or the fact that she was eating bread. Looking at her figure, I figured carbs were never on her radar. They then all turned to me, glaring.
"I didn't lie," I said, ready to defend myself. I realized that years ago, I'd been scared of Rachel, but I guess with time we all change.
"Whatever," she said, rolling her eyes as she spoke.
I still had some questions for Faith, but the room was filling fast, and I was forced to bite my tongue and wait.
Faith picked up her plate and moved to a table opposite us. I looked around the room, wondering where Jake was and if he'd heard about Faith yet.
"Where's Jake?" I asked, spinning on my chair to Georgie.
Georgie shrugged. I added it to my mental list of questions for Faith.
As I turned back to face the front, Faith was staring at me. Suddenly, I didn't see the scared rabbit.
"Where's Jake?" I mouthed across the room.
"I have no idea," she mouthed back, tears brimming behind her lashes. I rolled my eyes.
"Is anybody else taken in by her act?" I mumbled to my group.
Sam looked at me, his thoughts unreadable. Georgie (always the sweetie) didn't respond, but it was Matt who surprised me.
"I don't believe it for a second," he said.
I'd come to realize that Matt was the quiet observer of the group. He didn't always say a lot, but he was definitely taking everything in. "She's missing her scarf, for starters."
"But we found that in the old house."
"Yes, but how did it get there? We know for a fact Alex didn't have it, so someone took it there."
"If someone took Faith to the dub room, she could have just dropped it on the way though," said Georgie quietly.
"It still doesn't explain how it got to the old house," I said, jumping on Matt's train of thought.
Matt was stopped from responding as Rachel stepped up to the microphone and addressed her audience.
"Can I have everyone's attention?" she called, very impolitely.
Chatter amongst the groups quieted. "Now, as I'm sure you're all aware, we've been having one of the worst storms to hit Westport in years. Of course, we were prepared. Our wonderful weatherman, Tony, did predict it. I also know that not all of you were planning on staying the night, but it looks like river is up, and the road is cut, so guess what? Now you are."
Our invitation had prepared us for a whole night of festivities, but I had assumed not everyone would have stayed for the duration. I looked at Arthur's group, thinking they'd all be upset not to be returning to their comfortable beds tonight, but surprisingly, they didn't seem bothered. In fact, they appeared to be cheered by the news. On closer inspection, they did seem to have consumed quite a bit of alcohol. Apparently, the older you got, the harder you could party. Who knew?
"Where are we all going to sleep?" asked Sally. She did appear to be upset by the news.
Rachel sighed. "Well, if you were prepared to stay for the entire night's events and had not made excuses to leave early, you would have been prepared, wouldn't you?"
Sally blushed.
"So, I guess you'll be sleeping on the floor."
"I wasn't making excuses," said Sally, quietly. "I really do need to get home. Mum needs me."
"Well, whoever is with her now will just have to stay. It's not like I can do anything about it, you know! It's not my damned fault the river is up. And anyway, had you listened to Tony, you would have known the river would cut us off. It always does!"
Okay, someone needed to get Rachel another drink. Her alcoholic good humor seemed to be wearing off.
Sally shrank back into her chair. Rachel straightened her shoulders and smoothed her shirt, attempting to regain control once more.
"Now," she continued—only Wes's wife, Kelly, interrupted her.
"That's Wes's shoe," she yelled. I looked at the shoe Baxter had dropped at my feet. "What's his shoe doing here?"
Matt picked up the brown leather loafer and inspected it. Not sure what he was looking for but whatever it was, he obviously couldn't find it. He passed it to Kelly.
"It's Wes's all right. Look—he wears orthotics. That's his orthotic." Her voice rose several octaves. "Why is he not wearing it?" She looked wildly around the room, her eyes stopping on me.
Like I knew the answer.
Everyone's eyes stopped on me. "I…I don't know. This isn't my dog."
"Well, whose dog is it?"
"I have no idea. I think he's just lost in the storm."
"Where did he find that shoe?"
"I'm sorry, but how would I know?"
"What happened to Wes?" asked Tiffany.
"You've probably got him stashed somewhere with everything else you've collected," sneered Rachel.
Tiffany blushed. I could only imagine Rachel was referring to the fake-thieving Tiffany was rumored to do.
"He went to call the police after we couldn't find Faith," explained Matt. "We haven't seen him since."
Kelly gave a small scream. "You don't think he went out in this storm, do you?"
The room fell silent.
"I bet he just took his shoes off so he didn't get them wet," said Sam, reassuringly.
I'm not sure how many people in the room believed that to be the truth, but I, for one, wasn't one of them.
"But Sam, why would he do that?" asked Matt.
Sam shrugged his shoulders in a how the hell would I know? I was just trying to calm Kelly down kind of way.
"Oh my God! You think something bad has happened to him!" screamed Kelly, standing.
"No, I don't. I think he's busy somewhere."
I took the shoe fr
om Kelly and had a closer look at it. Rain water dripped to the floor. "It's pretty wet," I said, looking at Georgie.
Georgie looked at me. I knew what she was thinking. Wes hadn't been seen for quite some time now. "Maybe he got locked in a room like Faith did," she suggested.
"Yes!" cried Faith. "Alex hit me and then locked me in there!" Everyone's eyes turned to me. "And now the dog gives her the shoe belonging to Wes, who's missing," she continued. Cow. "She probably did the same thing to him!"
"Don't blame me! I had nothing to do with any of it. Sam has been with me the whole night. He can vouch for me."
Sam nodded.
"Well, maybe someone needs to go and look for Wes," suggested Brent.
Should I have told him we kind of had been? No, maybe not. That would just upset Kelly even more.
"That's a good idea. Why don't you go, Brent?" said his girlfriend, Deanne.
Brent shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Okay. Sure. But someone needs to come with me. It's not safe to go out in a storm like this alone."
I was glad everyone else seemed to be taking this a lot more seriously now.
"I'll come," volunteered Matt.
"Stuart's missing also," added Dawn, quietly. "Can someone look for him too, please?"
Stuart was missing?
"And Jake," piped in Faith. "Even though I would think Alex knows where he is."
I sighed. Faith was really pushing my buttons. "I do not know where Jake is. Nor do I want to know."
Actually that bit wasn't quite true. I figured Jake had probably found a corner and was worrying about Faith, but my intuition was prickling, and I didn't like it very much.
"Jake is your husband, Faith, so please, keep your insecurities to yourself." Did I sound grown-up or what?
Faith replied by glaring at me as she gently touched the bandage on her temple, her way of reminding everyone she thought I'd hit her.
"Don't worry, ladies. We'll find them all. This storm is pretty wild, so my guess is they are all sitting it out somewhere safe," added Brent. "In fact, why don't we wait until the storm has subsided a bit before we head out with the search party? We wouldn't want to get stuck in it too, would we?"
"Take the four-wheel drive," suggested Dawn.
"Why do we need to drive?"
"It's much sturdier against the wind. You can drive around the building with the spotlights on. It'll be much safer than walking."
"Yeah, that's a good idea," added Marty. "Wes probably went down to the storage shed to check on the drink supplies. I'm sure he's sitting down there waiting for someone to pick him up. I'll get you the keys, Brent. I'm pretty sure they keep them in reception."
With that, Marty almost ran from the room. Brent stuttered a bit, obviously trying to come up with another reason not to go out in the storm. By the time four people had patted him on the back and told him how good they thought he was, he really had no other option but to follow Marty for the keys.
Sam swiveled on his seat to face me. "I've been assuming all night that Wes called the police and we were waiting for them to arrive."
I nodded. I'd assumed that too.
"But what if he didn't? What if something happened to him before he got to call them?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, my skin prickling. I didn't like what Sam was insinuating.
"I don't know." He sighed and sat back in his chair.
"I've been wondering the same thing," said Matt, picking up Sam's conversation. "If Wes called them, why didn't they arrive?"
"Maybe they tried, but the river was up, so they couldn't get through. I know Rachel has just told us about the river crossing, but it probably went up a few hours ago," I added.
"Maybe I should give them a call and see if Wes ever contacted them," said Matt, standing and pulling his phone from his pocket.
Matt walked from the room, obviously looking for a better phone signal.
I watched Rachel talking to Faith and could almost feel the animosity between them. My guess was Faith thought Jake and Rachel had some sort of relationship, and she didn't like it much. It was only as Rachel turned and smirked at me that I felt my skin prickle. I didn't know what she told Faith, but I did not need the two of them causing me any more trouble tonight than I'd already had.
It felt like an eternity, but eventually Matt returned, his expression confused.
"Well?" asked Sam.
Matt sat heavily on the nearest chair and shook his head. Water droplets flew through the air, landing on my arm.
"Well, it's really strange."
"What is? Did Wes call them?"
"I still don't know. I had some trouble with my cell phone signal, so I wandered around, trying to get a better signal. I gave up and went to use the phone in the newsroom. The line was dead. And I don't mean just a monotonous tone, I mean there was nothing. No sound, no dial tone, nothing. So I had a look around reception and found someone had removed all the cables leading from the wall sockets into the main phone exchange. Without it, no phone in the station will either receive or make an outside call."
"They hadn't just fallen out of the socket?" I asked.
"No. They're gone completely. There are no longer any cables connecting the phone system to the outside phone lines."
Now that was strange.
"So then I decided to use the two-way radio in the newsroom. This time, the handset was missing. Same in the news vans. All handsets are missing. Unless I can get a cell signal—which is dodgy at the best of times in this building—I can't contact the outside world."
"But why?" I asked, completely confused as to who and why anyone would do that.
"Well, this building is made of cement. Even the internal walls. Add to that all the cabling and insulation running through the walls, it makes cell signals hard to get through. However, usually if you step outside you can get at least one bar of reception. But not tonight. Not with the storm around. It's just dropping out too much."
"No, I understand that bit," I said, half-smiling at Matt's explanation of cell signals and why I couldn't get a very good one tonight. "I don't understand why someone has removed the handsets and cables. And this is a television station. Surely we have a spare phone cable lying around!"
"We probably do. We'll just have to find it."
"I still don't get it. Why are the handsets for the radios missing?"
"Yeah," said Matt. "I've been thinking about those too. What if whoever hit Faith panicked and didn't want the police called? Like I said before, cell signal is dodgy around here at the best of times. In a storm like we've had tonight, it almost drops out altogether. I know my phone is nearly flat because it's been searching for a signal all night."
"Yeah," said Sam. "That would make sense. If I'd done it, I would want to remove any way Wes could call them."
"Do you think the attack on Faith was pre-planned?" I asked, a lump forming in my throat.
Sam and Matt looked at one another. "I don't know. Maybe. Or maybe whoever did it just panicked because they thought they'd killed her."
"But why did they look like Alex?" asked Sam, his brow creased.
"Oh my God, do you think they tried to frame me?" I felt the panic start in my chest, but I took a deep, calming breath and waited for Sam or Matt to tell me that was ridiculous.
"Only if it was pre-planned."
Okay, that caused the palpitations to kick up a notch. "Guys, you're not helping!" I cried.
"It's okay, Alex. You just stay with me all night, and I'll keep the camera on you. That way we have proof you were with us and couldn't do anything. If it happens, of course."
All right, that made me feel slightly better. "But who hates me enough to frame me for something like that?"
"Who hates Faith enough to want to kill her?"
Georgie, who'd been sitting quietly until that point, took a deep breath. "Well, it's funny how Jake is missing now."
"And Wes."
"And Stuart."
"Do you think any of
them could have done it?"
"I don't know. I'm positive it wasn't Dad," said Georgie. "I don't know Wes well enough, and I never thought Jake would hit a woman, but he and Faith did argue before she went missing, and she was pretty upset about it. I heard her in the toilets earlier, and she was crying."
We all thought about what Georgie had just said. I thought back to the days when Jake and I were a couple. The Jake I knew would never have hit me, no matter how hard I pushed him. But that was years ago.
"Maybe Wes's disappearance is related to whatever he was doing in Bernie's office," I said, liking that idea far better.
Matt looked at me silently, his mind obviously going over the options. "Hmmm, maybe. Wes was definitely doing something in there he didn't want anyone to know about."
"Remember, we don't know that anything has happened to Wes," Georgie reminded us. "Or Jake, or Dad." I saw her swallow hard.
"I think we should look for a cable for the phone or the handsets that belong to the radios," said Sam. "No matter what, we need to call the police and at least find out if Wes called them. Even though they can't get through the river to us now, we still might know more than we do already."
"Shouldn't we be looking for Wes, Jake, and Stuart?" I added.
"Brent and Matt are on it. I trust Matt. If there are any clues out there, he'll find them. For now, I think we should concentrate our efforts on finding something that will help us contact the police."
"If we're not sure anything bad has happened to them, do we need the police?" I asked.
"Yeah, it'll be good to get their opinion on what's really going on around here tonight. After all, someone attacked Faith, and that someone was dressed like you."
I nodded in agreement. We definitely needed the police. And anyway, looking for the equipment gave us something constructive to do and was a far better option than sitting here with everyone thinking I hit Faith or me sitting here wondering who in this crowd could have wanted to frame me for doing something so horrible.
CHAPTER TEN
Matt left with Brent for a drive to once again check for any sign of Wes, Stuart, or Jake. Georgie had decided to stay with her mum, hoping to give her some comfort until Stuart reappeared, and Sam and I started our search of the station, looking for the handsets or some cabling or whatever we could find that would give us all some answers.
Invitation to Murder Page 10
