“You see, our bed and breakfasts are so different that they wouldn’t be competitors, but I want them both. I want them all. I love owning mine so much, and we’ve been so successful, I’ve been driven to expand.
“Plus of course there’s the lifestyle we love. It’s expensive. We need more money, so I have this idea of building a network of bed and breakfasts in the area. I want to do different themes for each one. I want to cater to different types of guests, making this region a wonderful place for tourists. I’ve already done so much work to bring people in. It’s time I profited more off it.”
Clara couldn’t believe it. Brittany was willing to kill her friend just so she could have her property. What did that mean for them? It wasn’t difficult to see where this was going. If she was willing to kill her friend for a profit, she’d have no problem doing the same to Clara and Ezra. They had to buy themselves time. They had to figure out a way to get out of this.
“You were working together though,” Clara pointed out. Ezra let her take the lead. She was always much better at talking to people than he was. “You could’ve bought other properties. You didn’t need to have this one. You didn’t need to kill your friend.”
“Maybe,” Brittany shrugged as she looked at her gun. Her smile turned into a frown and she looked genuinely sad for a moment. “But Lyla wasn’t helping me anymore anyway. I’m not sure that she was a friend anymore in the end.”
She looked back at Clara with a gaze full of anger and hurt. “I’m sure you read all about it in that stupid diary,” she continued. “Lyla thought I was scamming her or something, simply because she couldn’t keep track of her own finances. The idea I’d do something like that was ludicrous though. I didn’t need her money. I have my own.”
Clara wasn’t sure she believed that, based on how defensive Brittany was. She suspected that was a motivator behind why Brittany killed them, either to avoid getting caught doing something illegal or because her pride was wounded. Maybe a mixture of both influences. She supposed it didn’t matter at that moment. Brittany needed to see an ally. Their lives depended on it.
“That’s awful,” Clara said. “I can’t imagine how hurtful it’d be to be accused of something like that by a friend. Lyla did write about it, but it sounded like she was lying. I didn’t doubt your trustworthiness for a second, that’s why I still wanted you to come over. I’d love to work with you on future projects.”
“It’s a little late for that,” Brittany scoffed.
“It doesn’t have to be,” Clara insisted. “We’ve all been under a lot of stress lately, I totally understand. You could let us go and we could forget all about this. We can go back to how things were, and we can work together to bring more people in. The plans we have are solid. I can already tell they’re going to be successful. It’ll allow you to expand as much as you want to. There are plenty of other gorgeous properties in the area.
“If you’d rather us be out of the way, that’s okay too. We value our lives far more than this property. You can have it.”
“Oh, we will have it,” Sam assured her, with that cocky confidence that never seemed to leave his voice. “But who really trusts what a captive says? It’s easier to kill you and then buy it. You’ve done such a fantastic job with the renovations already. We wouldn’t even have to put much work in before it’d be ready for opening night.
“Sure, we’d have to wait a little while after your deaths to open, showing the proper respect of course. But this newer generation loves spooky stuff far more than those before them. We plan to capitalize on your deaths. We’ll sell the idea of a haunted bed and breakfast in a remote area surrounded by wilderness.
“It won’t appeal to everyone, of course. It will draw in a certain demographic though, and the bed and breakfast we already own will draw in the other side of the population. We’ll keep expanding until everyone has a place they’d love to stay, so we can profit off all tourists. It’s going to be great.” He shrugged. “Too bad you won’t be here to see it.”
Terror gripped Ezra and Clara tighter than ever before. They knew by looking at his face that they weren’t leaving here without a fight. A fight they weren’t sure they could win.
52
Nathaniel was still angry over the confrontation with Ezra, but it wasn’t just Ezra. He was angry at all the kids in school who bullied him once they found out what his grandfather did. He was angry at the adults later in life who noted how his life could’ve been so much better if things were different, a constant reminder whenever he’d forget. He was angry at the people who avoided him after Olivia and Kyle’s deaths, people who suspected his father had something to do with it. He was angry at all the people who attended his father’s funeral and acted like they hadn’t gossiped about him being a murderer all this time.
Still, after a couple of weeks of cooldown time, Nathaniel was less angry than he once was. He understood Ezra’s concerns to some extent. It was kind of odd that Nathaniel wanted to work at the bed and breakfast, but he wanted to work there. The bed and breakfast felt like home, and he looked up to Ezra. He thought he could learn a lot from him, and he kind of still wanted to work there. He kind of wished he had been a little calmer and approached the conversation
