by K E O'Connor
“Do you want to stay?” I patted the seat next to me.
“Yes, I’d like that, if you’ll have me.” Abigail joined me in the carriage.
“I’m sure I can work out some hours for you,” I said. “I’ll speak to Beth and see what we can do.” I also wanted to make sure Abigail really had done a good job. Beth would give me an honest report about her work. I hadn’t heard any complaints, and the queues at the candyfloss stall hadn’t been a problem, so it seemed like she was a good member of staff.
“Thanks. I appreciate you taking a chance on me,” Abigail said. “How about you? Do you think the first day went well?”
“The visitors seemed happy,” I said.
“You don’t look too happy,” Abigail said. “Is the zombie park not doing it for you?”
I shrugged. “I’m wondering if the theme park isn’t the place for me. It might be time for a change. There are other beautiful parts of the country I’ve yet to explore. You can only stay in one place for so long before it gets too comfortable.”
“You’re thinking about leaving Zee Town?” Abigail asked. “I thought you loved it here.”
“I used to. I still do, but with the theme park’s arrival and no longer running the local tourist attractions, it doesn’t seem to fit me.” I looked at my clasped hands. “Ignore me. I’m just being silly. The day’s stress has gotten to me. After a bath and an early night, I’ll feel more like my old self.”
“I hope so. You’re good at what you do.” Abigail looked around the ghoul train. “Do you fancy a last go before we leave for the night?”
“I’m not sure I want to. Not after the last time.” A shudder ran through me as I recalled the last spooky ride we took.
“You mean because of Edward?” Abigail said. “That’s resolved now, isn’t it? Isn’t Danny going to confess?”
Danny and his confession to the murder. That was another issue I didn’t know how to tackle. “He’s not sure what he’s doing.”
Her forehead wrinkled. “I thought he’d decided to hold his hands up?”
I tilted my head. “How do you know Danny’s going to confess to the murder?”
Abigail hopped out of the carriage and walked to the panel that controlled the ride. “Didn’t you tell me what he’s planning to do?”
“I don’t think so.” I tried to recall all the conversations I’d had that day. Maybe I had mentioned it to Abigail. “Did Nick tell you about Danny?”
“Hold on a second.” Abigail leaned forward and bit her lip. “I’ve got to remember how to get this started.”
I shifted in my seat. “How do you know how to start this ride?”
“Danny showed me,” Abigail said, her gaze on the control panel. “Here we go.”
Power surged run through the ride and the carriage juddered.
Abigail ran toward me and hopped in just as it started. As she did so, a chain around her neck fell out. A silver ring had been looped through it.
The ring looked familiar. I’d seen it somewhere else. “Did your boyfriend give you that as a gift?”
Abigail clutched the ring, hiding it from sight as she tucked it under her pink polo shirt. “I don’t remember where I got it.”
I glanced at her as the ghoul train doors opened. We entered the ride and darkness closed in around us. I felt the same darkness grabbed at my racing heart as my brain shuffled the pieces into place. “Danny wears rings like that.”
“It’s just a cheap silver ring,” Abigail said. “There’s nothing special about it.”
“Why are you wearing it if it means nothing to you?” I ducked as a cobweb hit my head.
“I didn’t want to get it sticky with candyfloss,” Abigail said. “It’s better to put it on a chain than risk losing it or getting it dirty. Or worse, dropping it in the candyfloss machine and a customer choking on it.”
I nodded slowly. “Did Danny give it to you?”
Abigail shrieked as a phantom leaped out of a dark corner. Its long fingers grasped at us. “It might have been a gift from a man.”
An icy sensation ran down my spine, and it wasn’t because I’d just been whacked in the side of the head by a giant bat with fangs. “You’re Danny’s girlfriend.”
She was quiet for a few seconds. “It’s not official. We’ve seen each other a few times. He’s a sweet boy, but I wanted to keep things quiet until I made up my mind about him.”
“He’s your toy boy!” I said. “There must be almost ten years between you.”
“I’m not that old!” Abigail smacked my arm. “But you’re right. He’s younger than me by a couple of years. Not that it matters.”
“Did he ask you out?” There was definitely more than a couple of years between them, but I guess there was nothing wrong with that.
“He did. I told Danny we weren’t getting serious, but he’s an intense young man when you get to know him,” Abigail said.
“And he gave you the ring on that chain?” I persisted.
She sighed. “He did. He wants to take things further and make us official.” Abigail patted the slight bulge underneath her polo shirt. “I didn’t want to break his heart by turning him down. He’s such a sweetie.”
The carriage jolted around a corner. I gripped the safety bar in front of me. “Why don’t you want people to know you’re an item?”
“Because he’s poor,” Abigail said. “I can’t handle having a boyfriend with no money.”
“You’re ashamed of Danny because he doesn’t own a mansion and yacht?”
“In a way.” Abigail twisted a strand of blonde hair around one finger.
I stared at Abigail through the gloom, barely noticing the witch cackling over our heads. “Is he covering for you?”
Her eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
I swallowed my panic. “Are you involved in Edward’s death?”
“Cassie! How can you think that? We’re friends.”
“Danny told me he’s covering for the woman he loves. That woman’s you, isn’t it?”
“He has told me he loves me. I have that effect on a lot of men.”
My eyes narrowed. “Do you love him? Will you wait for Danny if he serves time for a murder he didn’t commit?”
“Oh, Cassie. This is all rather messy,” Abigail said with a sigh. “Danny did kill Edward. He asked me not to tell anybody. I’ve been feeling so guilty about it. Now you’ve found out, I can’t hide it. I don’t want to. I care for Danny, but what he did was wrong.”
“You saw Danny kill Edward?” I was almost too shocked to speak. Had I gotten things turned around? Was Abigail really covering for Danny?
She nodded. “They got into a fight. Danny lost his temper.”
That was hard to believe. I’d never seen Danny argue with anyone. “What were they fighting about?” A blast of cold air shot out and chilled the skin on the back of my neck.
“I don’t remember,” Abigail said. “But I saw what happened.”
“Why didn’t you tell Nick?”
“Danny begged me to keep quiet. I’m scared of him. He can be so intense.”
“You’re scared of Danny?” This story sounded less likely by the second. A moment ago, Abigail had said he was a sweetie.
She turned to me. “You must believe me! Danny will make a full confession. He can’t live with the guilt. I’m glad he’s confessing. I can’t keep his secret any longer.”
“I can’t see Danny doing anything like that,” I said. “He likes zombies. He’d never hurt one.”
“Well, he did,” Abigail said with a sniff. “When he confesses, I’ll back him up and tell the police what I saw.”
I shifted away from Abigail, my heart racing. I didn’t believe her. She was lying to cover her own back.
I was sitting next to Edward’s killer.
Chapter 23
“How did you know Danny was about to confess to Edward’s murder?” I asked Abigail. “He only told me yesterday that he was thinking of doing that.”
<
br /> “You must have told me,” Abigail said. “Or Nick did. Anyway, it’s not important how I know.”
“It is important,” I said. “I told Danny not to confess, to wait and see if Nick would formally charge him. Danny was anxious. He wanted to get it over with. He told me he was protecting somebody.”
Abigail looked at me through the intense gloom. “He told you all that? Danny’s usually good at keeping secrets.”
I might have elaborated a little on the detail, but Abigail didn’t need to know that. “Danny doesn’t deserve to go to prison for something he didn’t do.”
“I’m telling you, he did it,” Abigail said. “I saw him! Right here, on this ghoul train.”
“Why did they argue?”
She smoothed her hands over her pants. “Danny was showing me around the park, when this zombie came out of nowhere.”
“Edward?”
“Yes. At first, Danny was kind and tried to get him to leave us alone. The zombie kept following and hassling us. I got anxious and Danny got angry. He can be so protective.”
“What happened next?”
“I couldn’t stop him. Before I knew it, Danny had hit the zombie, and he was dead.”
“Why was Edward hassling you?”
“It’s nothing new. He always used to follow me around,” Abigail said. “Wherever I went, it didn’t take long before he found me. It got kind of creepy. He told me I reminded him of his dead wife.”
“You killed Edward because he creeped you out?”
“It wasn’t me! Danny decided to put an end to it and stop me from worrying. He always wants to keep me safe. He’s a lovely young man.”
“Was Edward trying to harm you?”
“No, just creeping me out by stalking me.” Abigail shuddered. “If he was human, I’d have had a restraining order put on him. These zombies don’t understand when they’re being annoying. I wanted peace and quiet, not to be stared at by him.”
I took a deep breath. “Abigail, I think you killed Edward.”
“I did not!” Her blue eyes narrowed. “You’ve got no proof I did anything wrong, and Nick will soon have his confession from Danny.”
“I understand if Edward was hassling you and making you nervous. You lashed out, thinking you needed to defend yourself,” I said.
“You don’t understand,” Abigail said. “You have that strange affinity with the zombies. They aren’t like that around me. Edward made me feel unsafe.”
“And you had to protect yourself,” I said. “Did you hit him by mistake and injure him?”
“No! It was Danny,” Abigail said. “How many times do I need to tell you?”
“If you tell Nick what happened, he’ll go easy on you,” I said. “If Edward cornered you, and you hit out in self-defense, you might not even go to prison.” I wasn’t certain why I was trying to give Abigail an out. She’d killed Edward. He was a kind, gentle zombie, who never hassled anybody. But I wanted Abigail to confess that she’d killed Edward. I needed her confession to prove that Danny was innocent.
“Any jury will be kind to me.” She fluffed up her hair. “No one will believe I’m a killer.”
I frowned. Her good looks wouldn’t get her out of this mess. “Why don’t we see Nick together? You can tell him what you’ve told me. You can help Danny and close this case.”
“And go to prison,” Abigail said. “That’s not happening. I don’t think even I can pull off an orange jumpsuit.”
I was pretty sure orange jumpsuits weren’t issued in British prisons, but now wasn’t the time to mention it. “What’s to say Danny won’t break under pressure and admit it was you?”
“He’d never do that to me,” Abigail said. “He loves me.”
“Were you using him?” I asked. “Were you only with him because you wanted somebody to get rid of Edward for you?”
“I do care about Danny,” Abigail said, ignoring my question. “But as you pointed out, he’s younger than me. And there’s also the money issue. I can’t live the life of a poor girl in love. I’ve become too used to the finer things in life.”
I looked at Abigail’s shoes. They had red soles on the ridiculously high designer heels. A swirl of sadness ran through me. I considered Abigail a new friend. It didn’t feel good to know she was involved in Edward’s murder.
She’d seemed like a decent person. I’d been taken in by her innocent, ditzy facade.
My gaze remained on her shoes, or more accurately, the spike on those high heels. They’d make a puncture wound like the killing blow on the back of Edward’s head.
Abigail shrieked and jumped in her seat as three ghosts rushed over our heads. Her shriek dissolved into a laugh. “Maybe one of those was Edward’s ghost?”
I looked at her and saw a maniacal glint in her eyes. “Let’s get off this ride. We can talk some more. You don’t want to see Danny go to prison.”
“I don’t want to see me go to prison. That’s the most important thing,” Abigail said. “Danny will be fine. He’ll only serve a few years and then get out. You can’t get long for killing something that’s only half-alive.”
I grimaced. “That still counts as murder. If Danny takes the blame for this, his life is over. He’ll struggle to find a job or get anywhere to live. No one will trust Danny around the zombies either, so he won’t be able to come back to Zee Town. He’d have to start again in a strange place on his own. I guess you’re not planning on waiting for him.”
“Of course not. And my life will also be ruined if I make a confession,” Abigail said. “Danny’s happy to do this. He said he wants to protect me, no matter what. He knows I didn’t kill Edward out of spite.”
There it was, the confession I’d been waiting for. “I can’t let you do this.”
“You can’t stop me,” Abigail said. “Besides, you’re too late. Danny will have confessed by now. The police won’t be looking for anybody else after he does. Things will go back to normal.”
“Nick’s not convinced Danny did it,” I said. “He won’t stop until he’s found the real murderer.”
“Once Danny confesses, Nick will stop looking.” Abigail grabbed my arm and pinched me. “Unless you say anything. Which you’re not going to, are you, Cassie? After all, we are friends. We look out for each other.”
The cold look in Abigail’s eyes made me shrink into my seat. “Not if you tell him first.”
Abigail grabbed both of my hands, her pastel-pink painted nails digging into the flesh. “You can’t tell him.”
“You’re guilty of murder.”
“Of a zombie! A stupid, brain dead zombie,” Abigail said. “Most people would have done the same thing.”
“You’re framing an innocent man.”
“He wants to do this for me,” Abigail said.
“That doesn’t make it right. It doesn’t wipe away the fact that you killed Edward.”
She huffed out a breath. “There’s a way around this. There has to be.”
“There is. Make a confession. Do the right thing.”
“I can leave town,” Abigail said. “Disappear and not be any more trouble to you. If you don’t sat anything, I’ll simply vanish.”
“Danny will still go to prison.” I winced under her tight grip and tried to wriggle my fingers out of her grasp.
“He’ll get over it. And I know you’d welcome him back to Zee Town,” Abigail said. “You know, I wondered if you might secretly have a soft spot for him.”
“I do! Danny’s like a younger brother to me,” I said.
“I guess so. You seem to have your hands full with Archer and Nick,” Abigail said with a dramatic sigh. “Archer wasn’t interested when I asked him out on a date. It’s a shame. He could have been useful.”
“What does Archer have to do with this?”
“If Danny revealed what had really happened, Archer would help me get rid of him.”
I blinked in shock. Was she serious? “You’d have Danny killed?”
“It’s
the sort of thing Archer does,” Abigail said. “Getting rid of inconveniences. I was sure he wouldn’t mind helping me out. When I suggested we get together, he dismissed me. I blame you for that.”
“I’ll happily take the blame if it means Danny isn’t killed.” I shook my head in disbelief at Abigail. Under the blonde hair and pouting lips there hid a monster.
It was time to get away from this particular monster. I yanked my hands out of Abigail’s tight grip, feeling a stinging sensation where her nails had dug in.
I grabbed the side of the moving ghoul train carriage and jumped into the gloom, landing face first in a venomous spider’s nest.
Rolling away, I shook fake spiders out of my hair, shuddering as the webbing clung to my skin in sticky strands.
Abigail shrieked, and I heard a thump as she also left the ghoul train and hit the ground.
I crouched, squinting into the gloom, trying to catch sight of her, but there was too much smoke to see clearly.
I backed away into the workings of the ride. There was an emergency exit at the back. I needed to reach that and get away. Then I could call Nick and tell him what I’d discovered.
I screamed as a hand ran along my back and I spun around, expecting to find Abigail behind me.
Hanging from the ceiling was a demented looking witch, her mouth open and her pointed teeth ready to bite.
I pushed away the puppet with an angry sigh. I’d just given away my location.
“I know you’re in here,” Abigail called from somewhere in front of me. “Come out. I’m sorry. I got carried away. I didn’t mean any of that. Of course, I wouldn’t use Archer to kill Danny. That was just me being silly. I’ve read too many scary books since joining the book club, it’s given me dark thoughts. I always said we try a romance.”
Holding my breath, I backed away from the sound of her voice.
“And, you were right. I did attack Edward. It was in self-defense,” Abigail said. “I’ll tell Nick and make sure Danny’s set free. He won’t go to prison. We’re all innocent here.”
