Penned In - Lynn Cahoon Page 0,8
the library. Well, almost in the library. Look, it wasn’t a problem with him hitting on Hope. He appears to be dead.” Angie thought about softening the wording, but she couldn’t think of any other word that meant the same thing. Dead was dead. Maybe she was as stressed as Ian.
“He’s probably just playing a prank on someone.” Bridget smiled but then it dropped off her face. “Wait, you’re not kidding. You really think he’s dead.”
“We checked for a pulse. Where’s a phone? We need to call the authorities.” Ian sounded better, stronger. They weren’t alone in the knowledge any more.
“Pat has the phone. We only keep one phone on hand for the tour because it messes with the authenticity of the event. He’s got the key to the gate too.” Marty walked toward the door to the hallway. “We’ll just move you guys out to the courtyard and then the police can handle the investigation.”
“There was no phone.” Angie reached out for Marty’s arm as he started past her. “What if the killer also took the keys?”
“Then he has to be one of us. Only the guards knew about the phone and the keys. We keep them together with one person so that no one gets caught trying to Google something or sneak out to their car for a cigarette.” Marty paused. “The phone has GPS, we can track it.”
“Okay, let’s go to the library, then we can break off and some of us can go to wherever your GPS tracker is so we can find the phone.” Angie sighed. This was getting super complicated. They weren’t stranded in a desert, but they might as well have been.
“Sounds like a plan.” Bridget nodded at Angie. “Let’s make sure there’s nothing we can do for Pat. Close the door to the library so no one goes in, and find the GPS and then the phone.”
Angie hoped it would be that easy, but past experience told her it was going to be a long night. “Should we wake up the others and bring them down to the common room?”
“I’m sure we’re not dealing with some sort of crazy killer. Besides, we don’t even know if Pat is dead or maybe he just hit his head really hard. Everything could be back to normal by the time we get to the library.” Bridget held her arm out to move them along. “Let’s go.”
Angie stepped into the hallway first and almost tripped over a portrait easel. “Who moved this here? That wasn’t here when we came into the room. Unless we left by another door?”
Ian shined a light at the picture of Lyda Southard. “This was in the gallows room, right?”
Bridget nodded and then realized no one but Angie, just two feet away, could see her in the darkened hallway. “Yes, the painting should be there. Someone’s definitely playing tricks on us.”
“A trick that got someone dead.”
Marty moved the painting over near the wall. “I’ll handle this later. Don’t get worked up, we have a man to save. I just hope I can get the warden to see what’s going on. He’s kind of black and white in his thinking.”
“What do you think is going on?” Bridget asked Marty as he took off. They left Angie and Ian in the hallway next to Lyda’s portrait. If Marty answered her, Angie hadn’t heard it.
She turned to Ian. “This is seriously weird. Can we even start to hope this is all a big practical joke on us? That this man is still alive somewhere?”
“You always try to see the bright side, but no, I looked at Pat. That guy is dead. And someone in this locked facility killed him. We’re staying together and not letting anyone or anything break us up.” Ian took her by the arm and led her away from the moving art work.
“Sounds like a good plan.” Angie heard a noise behind them and whirled to look. Nothing stared back at her, but she still had the feeling of being watched. Maybe they had been after Pat and, now that he was gone, the killer would be done as well. She knew she was a Pollyanna, but it had served her well for most of her life.
“Marty appears to be the only one with a motive to kill Pat, right?” She asked Ian who was walking ahead of her.
“Right, but we don’t know he was killed.” Ian muttered. “He might have slipped and fallen.”
“And the phone just disappeared?” Angie shook her head.