Some chuckling amongst the crowd. Both Erin and Taylor were at Leah’s side, whilst Bryonie remained in the fringes.
“I asked you all here though because there’s something else I want to celebrate. As most of you know, I’ve been working on getting a certified diploma in journalism, and a whole bunch of other qualifications. I’m still only halfway there, so don’t be raising your glasses yet.”
More half-hearted chuckles.
Leah seemed a bit embarrassed.
“Oh my God, I just … I have no words for this. Dad, come out here.”
Leah’s father shifted his way through the crowd.
Erin and Taylor backed off a bit as he stood next to his daughter.
“This is my father, as I’m sure you’ll all know. It’s not often I want to go bragging about my parents – sorry Mom –”
“Get on with it Leah, don’t be shy!” Leah’s Mom encouraged.
“Anyway,” Leah said, “Thanks to my Dad … and some of the connections he’s made … I’m going to be traveling interstate next year, to work in an official role with Channel 37 Press!”
Applause erupted amongst the family and friends.
Bryonie stood up, clapping and cheering wildly.
“I still have to finish my studies this year, and next still work on them next year after hours – but this is the real thing. This is a career. And it’s all thanks to my Dad!”
Leah and her father embraced.
Leah’s mother and a few others soon joined the hugging party as well.
As Bryonie made her way over however, she saw one of the group wasn’t enthusiastic about things as the rest were. They weren’t clapping or cheering. They weren’t even smiling.
Taylor dropped her wine on the grass and stormed off towards the back gate.
Bryonie watched her leave with concern.
“Bryonie, thanks so much for your support,” Leah was saying, latching onto her. “It means so much to have you as a friend.”
“Totally,” Bryonie said. “Congratulations.”
Then Leah was moving onto others.
Bryonie decided to follow Taylor.
CHAPTER TWO
Bryonie didn’t put it together immediately. What had actually happened. Why they were in this position now. All she could see was that Leah was yelling at her. Pushing her violently. Like the bully she used to be.
“What did you do, Bryonie?” Leah shouted. “What did you fucking DO?”
“Nothing!” Bryonie shrieked falling over in the sand.
“Do you want me to hurt you?” Leah said grabbing Bryonie’s wrist. “I’ll make you feel pain!”
“Don’t! Stop!”
Leah ground her teeth together as she pulled Bryonie’s wrist back.
Bryonie screamed.
“AAAEEIIII! Let go!”
“Not until you admit it! Admit what you did!”
“I don’t – I don’t – I don’t –”
Leah released her, causing Bryonie to fall back further. Bryonie clutched her wrist, shivering in agony.
“Fucking talk,” Leah said, kicking her in the stomach.
Tears fell from Bryonie’s eyes.
Leah grabbed her arms and forced her face up.
“Please, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bryonie stammered.
“Cut the shit,” Leah said. “It’s all around. Everyone knows. You and my Dad. How could you?”
“I didn’t.”
Leah grabbed a chunk of Bryonie’s hair. “After all I did for you. You do this to me? My family?”
She pulled Bryonie’s hair.
Bryonie squealed.
“What the hell is wrong with you? Nothing – nothing even happened to you when you were younger!”
“What?”
“You weren’t hurt! No one raped you!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please, Leah.”
Leah’s teeth were clenched together. Bryonie could see she bitten down on the inside of her mouth. Blood was running from her lips.
“I’m sorry,” Leah said. “Sorry I hurt you. I’m not mad. Just … I’m okay. Just tell me what you did.”
“I didn’t do anything, please!”
“Bryonie, I’m not mad. Just admit it.”
“Admit what?”
Leah’s face twisted.
Twisted and turned.
Bryonie had never seen her like this.
“What do you think I did?” Bryonie asked.
“They say you fucked my Dad.”
“That’s bullshit. We’re best friends. Why – why would I do that? When would I?”
“When you’re staying over. After I fall asleep.”
“And I am supposed to have … walked into his room … and –”
“I don’t know the details.”
“Then why are you accusing me? How has this supposedly come out?”
Leah flinched a little. “Someone overheard my Dad talking about it at work.”
“What is this Chinese Whispers? I mean … Telephone.”
Leah got off her. She slumped to her knees.
Bryonie sat up. “I would never do that. I swear. It’s … it’s insane.”
Leah glared at her. “I’ll kill you. I mean it, Bryonie.”
“Please,” Bryonie said, sitting up further. “I would never do that. You have to believe me.”
Leah blinked a little. “I have to think about this.”
“Leah. Come on.”
“I said – I’ll think on it,” Leah said standing up. “I have to figure out who is lying.”
Bryonie stood up with her. “Who told you about this?”
Leah backed away. Turned around. Started heading towards the ship.
“Leah – who was it?”
The wind rushed past both of them.
Bryonie folded her arms, the tears dampening her cheeks.
“It was Taylor, okay?” Leah called back.
“Taylor?” Bryonie exclaimed. “Taylor hates my guts.”
“But we’re all still friends, right? We’re all still friends…”
Bryonie watched Leah go.
She cast her gaze out to the top half of the ship, trying to make out the shapes and shadows. The figures lurking within.
Taylor.
Bryonie remembered following Taylor out of Leah’s party.
CHAPTER THREE
They’d gotten a lift here that day. Taylor’s car wasn’t present. Bryonie looked across from Leah’s front garden, to the footpath on the opposite side of the road. Taylor was already quite a distance away.
Bryonie glanced back at the party a moment, wondering if she should go back. Someone shouted out something to the effect of, “Lunch is served!”
Bryonie could smell the hamburgers and they smelled delicious.
“Shit Taylor,” Bryonie groaned.
She hurried herself forward, rushing down Leah’s driveway and across the road. She jogged up the footpath, panting heavily.
Shit Taylor was right.
Bryonie didn’t need another reminder of her lack of fitness. She got enough of that from her BF.
“Taylor, wait up,” Bryonie called.
Taylor didn’t wait.
Bryonie struggled on until she finally caught her.
“Please. Stop.”
Taylor glanced at her sideways. “You have any smokes?”
Bryonie actually did. Her boyfriend Andrew asked her to hold his.
She gave Taylor a cigarette and lit it for her.
“Thanks,” Taylor said.
“Why are you all the way out here?” Bryonie asked. “You’re not going home are you?”
“Yeah, I’m just looking for a bus stop. You know the area?”
“Taylor, what the fuck? Why are you going? You didn’t even say goodbye.”
Puffing on her smoke, Taylor looked Bryonie up and down. “You want to know do you?”
“Yes.”
“So you can go blabbing to every
one?”
“No, no, no,” Bryonie said. “I’m like, trying to be your friend.”
Taylor nodded. “What do you make of today then? This little get-together.”
Bryonie shrugged. “It’s Leah’s birthday.”
“Yeah, that’s what I came for. The celebratory gloating, I’ll take a pass, thanks.”
“What? Gloating?”
“All that shit about her Dad buying her journalism career. She knows that’s what I wanted. She knows that’s what Penelope and Laura and Rhiannon were working their asses off for –”
“Oh, you can’t be serious,” Bryonie gushed. “You’re – you’re jealous?”
“You don’t have any ambition, so you don’t understand. Do you have any idea what it’ll take for me to get to where she’ll be? Fuck. Three more years of shitty classes and not fucking up once. Acing a hundred tests. Saying all the right things. I’ll probably still have to blow five guys just to get an interview. But Leah doesn’t have to worry about all that. You know, cause Daddy.”
“This is totally not cool, Taylor,” Bryonie said. “I’m really disappointed in you.”
“Because I’m not happy for her?” Taylor mused. “Fuck her happiness. And I wouldn’t even have that much of a problem with it at all. But she had to rub it in our faces. Little fucking princess on her birthday. No one can touch her. Well. We’ll see about that.”
Bryonie must have asked Taylor what she intended to do, but Taylor would have blown her off. Given an unclear answer. Bryonie never thought Taylor would follow through with any kind of revenge. She was actually able to talk Bryonie into coming back to the party a short time after that. Once she’d calmed down. Gotten her head around the whole thing. Considered that the universe wasn’t all just about her.
Or maybe that wasn’t it.
Maybe there was something else going on in Taylor’s head that Bryonie couldn’t see.
Soon enough, Bryonie was here on the sand, after a fight with her best friend. Being accused of having sex with Leah’s Dad, a rumor that had come out from Taylor.
Why would Taylor say that?
What was she trying to do?
Bryonie had always said Taylor hated her guts.
But it was only now that she was beginning to realize what that meant.
CHAPTER FOUR
Melissa’s body was floating in the pool. It slowly drifted out to the centre, dark rich blood bleeding into the water around it. At some point, it began to sink.
Taylor watched on from where she was.
Still standing.
“Taylor,” Darien’s voice purred softly beside her. “Taylor put down the gun.”
Taylor turned to him. “Get the bartender.”
“What – what – what are you –”
“Get. Him. Now.”
Darien started backing away from her. He hurried off to the bar area outside Taylor’s peripherals.
Her gaze was back in the water. The blood was making it change color. Little by little it continued to spread.
Like a disease.
“No one talks shit about me,” Taylor whispered. “No one.”
Taylor’s eyes darted to the side.
Darien was taking too long.
She walked over, stride after stride, to the middle of their commotion.
“We gotta call the cops,” the bartender was saying in Darien’s grip. “Someone’s going to jail for this.”
“You just gotta forget about this bud,” Darien hissed. “It was like you were never here.”
“No, no, Mr. Van Wieran will want to –”
“Bring him over here,” Taylor demanded.
“Look he’s not going to say anything,” Darien said trying to assure her. “We’ve had situations like this before –”
“Fucking get him over here now.”
With some reluctance, Darien pulled the bartender away from the wall and pushed him out into the open space between Taylor and the pool.
“I’ll give you plenty of time,” the bartender said. “If you want to get a move on out of here, I think it would be –”
Taylor opened fire on him.
The bullet went straight through his chest.
He fell to his knees, coughing up blood.
“Taylor – you fucking psycho!” Darien shouted. “Stop fucking shooting people!”
He tried getting the gun off her, but Taylor had enough time to resist.
She put the gun to the bartender’s head and executed him in the same fashion as Melissa.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” Darien yelled.
Taylor pointed the gun at him. “You want to die too?”
The horror in Darien’s face faded. “No.”
“Help me get him over.”
The bartender had only half fallen in.
Darien looked at Taylor uneasily as he got to his knees and shifted the bartender’s body off the ledge.
The splash hit them both.
“Am I next?” Darien asked.
“No,” Taylor replied. “I need you to take the fall for this if anyone finds out.”
Darien stood up properly. “I have a feeling someone’s going to find out. Eventually.”
“You want the gun now? It’s yours.”
Taylor tossed it over to him.
Darien caught it.
He held it in his hands a moment, before dropping it into the pool.
“Oh, they’ll never look there,” Taylor said sarcastically.
“Right.”
“Okay, so we … We have to cover this thing up. Or – make sure no one else comes out here.”
“Huh?”
“We don’t want anyone finding out about this, do we?”
“I’m sure you have a plan, I’m just not following it,” Darien said.
“Alright,” Taylor said. “Look…”
She walked over to where Darien was.
“We’re in this thing now. So we have to figure a way to get out of it. Do you think you can get this ship up and running? I mean going out to sea.”
“Why?”
“If we get out far enough, we’ll just dump the bodies in the ocean. If you drain the pool or something after, then it will be like this never happened. And we can get on with our lives.”
“I have a solution, Taylor.”
“Yeah. Let’s hear it.”
“How about you don’t go all psycho bitch on us and start murdering people? You ever think of that?”
“Oh, you think I’m a psycho?”
“Well – what do you call it?”
“That FBI bitch had to go. She was freakin’ blackmailing me. I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for her.”
“But you killed her.”
“So?”
Darien grabbed her shoulders.
“But you killed her,” he repeated.
“No, you’re not hearing me,” Taylor said. “You killed her.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Sharp cold winds saw to it that Bryonie left the beach a short time after her fight with Leah. She’d returned quickly to the first floor where Leah and her had stored their belongings away in the one room. Bryonie could see the door was open before she got there. Leah was inside, on the phone with someone. Bryonie remained in the hallway, her back pressed up against the wall, unsure what to do. No doubt Leah would soon be on her way out of here. What a shitty way to end things. Just when she’d been able to get her mind round Finn again. Just when she’d begun to feel a little normal. Everything had gone completely fucked.
Bryonie slumped gradually. Eventually she was sitting. What was being said by Leah inside the room, was breaking her apart. She still didn’t trust her. She still believed it was probably Bryonie who had done this terrible thing. She was asking Daphne for a lift. If she could come get her. If she didn’t mind.
Bryonie tried to keep it together. She knew she hadn’t done anything wrong. She could convince Leah. There was an argument she could make. Leah would see it in her eyes. Bryon
ie wasn’t the bad guy. They were friends after all. They knew who they were.
Bryonie swallowed.
This was deeper.
Deeper than convincing Leah she didn’t sleep with her Dad. Deeper than convincing her that Taylor was a jealous liar.
Something had come between them. The cracks had begun to show.
They could now see, who they truly were.
Leah was moving towards the doorway.
Bryonie stood up, her body still feeling the marks her friend had left on her.
“Listening in, were you?” Leah questioned in an accusatory tone.
“I was just waiting for you to finish.”
“Well, I’m finished. It’s all yours.”
Leah went to move past.
Bryonie blocked her.
“I didn’t do this,” Bryonie said.
“I heard you before.”
“If you don’t believe me, it almost doesn’t matter that I’m telling the truth, does it?”
Leah’s face strained. “Look. What do you want from me? You got your little party here? Right? I got Taylor and Erin to join you. I got you in with Finn. Things will work out great for you. If you don’t fuck up.”
“I appreciate all you’ve done.”
“Okay.”
“But I’m still not satisfied. This is Taylor’s doing. This shit between us. It’s all her. I don’t know how much you know, but maybe you do know it. Whether Taylor just hates me. Or she hates the both of us.”
Leah looked down at the floor. “You know I know Taylor’s full of shit. But I don’t really care. This is ruined for me now. And I’m going. You’re free to come with.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“Your welcome.”
Leah brushed by her.
Bryonie walked alongside.
“Can I go find Finn? Tell him I’m going. Maybe he’ll come with us.”
“Do you know whereabouts he is?”
“No.”
“Well, maybe you and Finn should find your own transport.”
Bryonie stopped where she was.
Leah kept on walking.
“Leah. Please.”
Leah didn’t turn around.
Cruisin' With Sharks (Paranormal Mysteries #1) Page 9
