Murder in Mystery Manor Read online

  But beyond that, Giles’s first and second set of instructions from X had also carried with them the return of that sinking feeling in his stomach. The one that he’d had to suppress in the taxi on the way there. The one that had told him he’d made the biggest mistake of his life by accepting this job.

  The first correspondence from X had come via mail, again on estate letterhead. The message was simple, direct, and to the point:

  Dear Giles,

  Ten guests will be arriving in seven days. Please prepare the estate accordingly for their arrival. I’ve included a short dossier for each guest, as well as which room I have designated for him or her. Also enclosed is a menu for the week of their stay. You will receive further instructions the day before their arrival.

  Best wishes,

  X

  The dossiers were short, listing only very basic information for each guest, such as job, age, and hometown. They would all be staying in estate suites with attached bathrooms located on the third and fourth floors of the mansion. Giles didn’t think much about the first message and simply acted accordingly, ensuring that the house staff cleaned and prepared the suites, as well as placing food orders to accommodate the menu set by X.

  But the second set of instructions, the ones that had come the day before the guests were scheduled to arrive, had completely unnerved Giles. In truth, it had done quite a bit more than merely unnerve him. It was actually the precise moment in which Giles knew for certain that he was doomed.

  Dear Giles,

  Our ten guests arrive tomorrow. I do hope that you’ve prepared the estate as such. My guests believe that they’ve won a sweepstakes contest that they entered online several weeks ago. They will arrive under the pretenses of having won a “Live Like a Billionaire for a Week” getaway vacation package. What they don’t know is that I have something much more fun in store for them.

  They will all be playing a game. A game with the highest of stakes. You and the other staff will be the administrators, the curators or referees, of this game. You and your staff must adhere to my every instruction. It is imperative. The staff has been given an applicable variation of this same message. Any attempt to deviate from my instructions, or escape estate grounds, or warn the guests, will result in your immediate death, as well as the deaths of your closest loved ones.

  Unfortunately, Mr. Giles, this is no joke. As much as it may seem like a hoax, I assure you that I am deadly serious. Escape is impossible. The gates surrounding the estate grounds have all been electrified with a current exceeding 60,000 volts, more than enough to kill a person instantly.

  You will also find enclosed instructions for the guests upon their arrival. Please wait until all ten have arrived before relaying the welcome message. Additionally, you will find an envelope containing the instructions for the game itself. You are to read this to them once the game begins. You will know the correct time to do this when it arrives. Opening the envelope early will not bode well for you, Giles, so I advise you to not entertain such thoughts.

  But fear not, dear sir, for if you do your job well and follow my instructions, you will not be harmed. In fact, if you perform your duties well enough, you may even get a bonus out of this!

  Regards,

  X

  Giles’s first instinct after reading this message had been to laugh. But once he started entertaining the thought that it might actually be real, his second impulse had been to run. To gather his things and head for the exit. He looked around the foyer, where he’d opened and read the letter.

  An antique, brass-plated African Blackwood telephone sat on an imported, handcrafted Carpathian elm table by the front door. There were still the landlines, Giles realized. He’d used this very phone just a week ago to call in the food order for the guests’ stay. He took two quick steps toward the phone and picked up the receiver.

  No dial tone. Nothing but silence.

  Of course, he should have known better. X had obviously cut the telephone service. This whole thing had clearly been carefully planned, so why would X make such a simple oversight as to leave the phone lines intact? The entire estate was now completely cut off from the outside world.

  Just then, Patricia, one of the senior maids on staff, rushed past Giles, her copy of the letter clutched in her hand. Tears streaked down her face as she burst out the mansion’s front doors. Giles didn’t react at first. He almost couldn’t. He was still in shock himself.

  But then he saw Patricia running down the gravel driveway. He knew she was headed for the front gate. And he knew right then that this was no joke and that he had to stop her.

  He rushed out the door and ran after her.

  “Patricia, my dear!” he called out. “Please, don’t!”

  But she didn’t listen. She just kept running. Giles followed her, gaining ground, but not fast enough. She arrived at the iron front gates and reached out toward the manual release lever.

  “No!” Giles yelled, but he was too late. Although she likely wouldn’t have listened to him either way.

  As soon as her hand made contact with the iron gate, there was a crack of electricity. An arc of blue light fired around her arm, and sparks flared out on all sides, almost as if the gate was spitting them out of some unseen mouth.

  Patricia flew through the air back toward Giles, covering the fifteen feet between them with remarkable speed. He sidestepped her flight path and she landed on the gravel with a lifeless thud that he would never forget.

  He didn’t need to be a coroner to see right away that she was dead. Her vacant stare and the smell of burning flesh, something Giles had never smelled before, and certainly never wanted to smell again, told him as much. Her copy of X’s letter was still clutched tightly in her lifeless, steaming hand.

  That had been almost exactly twenty-four hours before the first guest’s limousine graced the driveway. Patricia’s body had since been cleared away and disposed of by the estate maintenance super a short time later. It had been a most effective warning to the rest of the staff, including Giles: this was indeed deadly serious. Their only chance for survival was to play along and do as they were instructed. So that’s what they collectively decided to do. Giles had called a meeting in the foyer a short time later. If they were going to do this, they all needed to be on board and be committed to X’s vision. It was clearly their only way out alive.

  As for the guests, Giles could only imagine what sorts of horrors X had in store for them.

  And now here they were, arriving right on schedule. The first limousine stopped and the driver hurried around to the side facing the mansion. He opened the back passenger door and a tan, lean leg as long and sleek as the Willis Tower emerged. A red high heel stabbed at the gravel beneath the car with a kind of definitive purpose that Giles would have been drawn to if he wasn’t currently busy working for an apparent psychopath.

  The limo driver shifted uncomfortably next to the open door, likely wondering how long was too long to stand there and stare at the leg.

  Then the passenger’s hand emerged. The driver grabbed it and helped her out of the car, before moving around to the trunk for her luggage.

  The woman wore a small but somehow still classy red dress. It was not the sort of outfit Giles would have assumed made for comfortable travel. He recognized her from the dossier.

  Sophia Evans, 34, unemployed, the housewife of a renowned plastic surgeon. Giles wondered what had been appealing enough to enter a contest to live like a billionaire for a week when she was surely already a millionaire herself, even if only through marriage. But, as Giles well knew, there was no limit to the very human desire for more. He spent his career catering to the needs of people for whom the word “enough” simply did not exist.

  In person, Mrs. Evans was tall, trim, and sculpted in a way that can only be paid for. Her face was striking, more gorgeous at first glance than it was in reality, but still thoroughly seductive nonetheless. She had an air of expectancy about her, as if she’d been doted on by everyo
ne her whole life in both big and small moments alike, and had no regrets or misgivings about that.

  “Welcome, Mrs. Evans,” Giles said. “Allow me.”

  He grabbed her two suitcases as the limo pulled away. He handed them to one of the estate’s porters currently on staff.

  “Take these to Mrs. Evans’s room, please,” Giles said.

  The porter nodded and hurried inside the house, struggling with the weight of two full-sized Louis Vuitton suitcases packed to capacity.

  “Please wait here, Mrs. Evans, while the other guests arrive,” Giles said. “I will have Gabrielle out shortly with some refreshments.”

  The guests arrived one after the other in matching black limousines. Giles recognized each of them from their dossiers.

  Emily Moreland, 23, college student pursuing a dual major in business and marketing. She was cute, if not pretty. She had muted, shoulder-length blond hair and wore jeans and a green bird-print blouse. She was quick to smile, quicker to laugh, and wasted no time in making easy conversation with the other guests once they began arriving.

  Thomas Gatling, 32, electrical engineer. He was tall and thin with an already receding hairline and glasses with frames that he likely hadn’t updated in a decade or more. He wore a short-sleeved white dress shirt, no tie, tucked into faded tan pants with black dress shoes. He seemed shy and completely unable to strike up a conversation on his own, only talking when asked a direct question. And even then, there was a subtle, but awkward, flailing to his responses.

  Frank Ponder, 66, retired deputy sheriff. He wasn’t particularly tall, but he was solid, almost imposing. He had the look of a man who had spent his entire life working hard and found it difficult to relax for even an hour, let alone a full day or week. Even still, he seemed personable enough, despite the fact that Giles did not see him smile once as they waited for the rest of the guests.

  Parker Sharpe, 28, former NCAA Division I starting quarterback, now a financial analyst. He clearly still worked out as if he played organized football and didn’t attempt to hide it. He wore tailored gray wool pants and a light blue dress shirt that hugged him in all the right places. He had an easy smile with dimples that were impossible to miss. It was no surprise that he always had someone to talk to from the moment he arrived. Even Giles would admit that he had an almost magnetic quality about him.

  Bryce Kellerman, 20, college dropout, currently unemployed and living with his parents. He wore tight jeans with a pouf of red boxers sticking out from the absurdly low waistline in the back. His green T-shirt bore an artistic print of a panda on the front. Even underneath a black-and-white baseball hat with a nearly straight brim, his relief was clearly evident when he spotted Emily, someone else near his own age. He gravitated toward her almost immediately.

  David Cho, 51, patent attorney. He dressed like you might expect for an attorney. He wore a gray suit and blue shirt with no tie and black loafers. He seemed particularly excited to be there and wasted no time bypassing the trays of champagne flutes, instead ordering a martini. He was already working on finishing his second by the time the tenth guest arrived.

  Jacqueline Bossart, 68, retired nurse, mother of five, and grandmother of nine more. She wore a navy-blue sundress and a straw hat with a matching blue ribbon. Jacqueline appeared to be the sort of woman who got the most out of life, wasting no time lighting a cigarette upon stepping out of the limousine. She had a vibrant energy, even at 68, and her face almost told a story in itself, having so much character along with a whole lifetime of pain and joy tucked behind her eyes. Not that she had any problems spinning lengthy and loud stories verbally, that is. Her thunderous, raspy laugh could be heard accentuating conversations all across the front steps and probably even all the way out near the middle of West Lake.

  Darrel Gleason, 38, high school science teacher and head junior varsity football coach. Darrel looked like a typical coach. He arrived wearing USC athletic mesh shorts and a matching cardinal USC T-shirt. He was a big man with the build of a former high school athlete who had since consumed about 1,260 beers too many. His gut heaved, and he perspired as if it were 98 degrees instead of a more pleasant 76. But he also seemed oddly jovial, in a brutish sort of way that Giles commonly associated with most American sports.

  The last guest to arrive was Guadalupe Ferrara, 39, account executive at a household name cosmetics retailer. She stepped out of the limo in a formal, practiced way. As if she were going to work, rather than starting a weeklong vacation package she’d won in a contest. She was even dressed for work in an expensive gray suit with her hair pulled back into a professional, no-frills bun. She was the only guest who refused a drink when offered, and as soon as the porter had taken her bags inside, she faced Giles as if she were anxious to get down to discussing a business deal of some sort.

  Once the last limousine had pulled away, Giles cleared his throat. All the guests, aside from Guadalupe, were now in several small groups engaged in excited conversation with one another. He once again brushed the card in his pocket, but again resisted taking it out to read the message he’d already memorized. As odd and terrifying as this experience had become, he was still a professional and intended to do his job as such.

  “Welcome, guests!” Giles said, not shouting, but projecting his voice in a trained way that quickly silenced the ten visitors. “As you know, you’ve all won the Live Like a Billionaire for a Week Sweepstakes. Congratulations. What you don’t know is that you’re also here to play a game.”

  This news was met with murmurs from the ten guests. Most seemed intrigued, and a few even excited. Only Guadalupe, who remained expressionless, and Frank, the now-scowling retired sheriff, seemed less than thrilled with this revelation.

  “The very nature of this game,” Giles continued, “some of you will like, and others most certainly will not. The rules and object of this game will become apparent in due time. But for now, please, let us show you to your rooms so that you may get unpacked and familiarized with the mansion itself. You have four hours to explore the grounds, relax, and enjoy the surroundings.

  “As some of you may have noticed, your cellular devices will not work here. This is in accordance to the prize package waivers you all signed before you came. Our host wants to simulate a true vacation getaway experience, and as such there is also no Internet or landline telephone service available to you. Fear not, the staff does have access to landlines in the event of an emergency, and your families were all given the number to reach us here should they have an emergency of some sort, yes?”

  He paused for questions, but there were none. All of this information had been laid out to them before they accepted the prize package, so none of this should have been a surprise to the guests.

  “Good,” Giles continued. “Well then, dinner will be served this evening at seven P.M. sharp in the formal dining room, which is located just off the main foyer. Don’t be late, and dress appropriately for a celebratory dinner. After all, you’ve won tickets to the most exciting week of your lives!”

  As Giles finished his welcome speech, what he didn’t and couldn’t have known that afternoon was that his employer, X, had heard the whole thing. Not only had X heard the speech, but X had been there in person, present among the ten guests, listening along with the rest of them. Because not only had ten guests arrived at the Westlake Estate that afternoon, but its owner and host was one of those ten.

  And X had big plans for the week ahead. Big and exciting plans indeed. Plans that involved life and death, dismemberments and decapitations, explosions, and all other sorts of fun and games.

  Fun and games that would begin that very same night.

  CHAPTER 4

  THE MANSION

  For the next several hours, the ten guests explored the mansion. Almost tentatively, at first. Quietly. But as more drinks were delivered by the waitstaff, and they grew accustomed to the idea that this was, indeed, their new home for the next week, they grew louder, more excited, and almost probing in their e
xploration of the Westlake Estate mansion.

  As the guests moved throughout the manor, they found room after endless room of lavish style and grandeur. It was the sort of lifestyle that most people only dreamed of.

  The main foyer at the front entrance was a grand sight in itself. Upon entering the mansion’s double doors, the guests first saw the massive dual staircases flanking an authentic, ancient Greek statue. The stairs spiraled up on each side to a second floor hallway, which overlooked the foyer behind polished marble banisters.

  In the various mansion rooms, guests found ornately framed original artwork, rugs more expensive than most cars, and custom-built mahogany furniture. Some rooms had more modern amenities and styling, but most were fashioned in a more classical way with many early European influences.

  Several of the guests found their way out to the lush gardens and then to the adjacent patio. Sophia took off her heels and sat at the pool’s edge, allowing her long legs to glide back and forth in the clear water as she sipped on another flute of Cristal. David, the middle-aged lawyer, flanked her on one side, standing over her nervously. He attempted to seem more interested in her husband and two kids (both pregnancies via surrogate, of course), rather than in her long legs and tight dress.

  “Yeah, definitely, my kids love soccer, too,” he said lamely as his gaze faltered.

  Sophia didn’t say anything back. She just let him soak up the view. It was hard to blame him, after all. She interacted with men of his type all the time. Bored at home, bored with their wives, bored at work. She excited them, and she loved it.