“Kind of like an Irish wake,” I say.

  “Along those same lines,” Xavier says. “Choosing to celebrate being alive, remembering the person, and finding joy in them moving on. The idea is that this is a good time for them and only a sad one for the people left here, so we should be happy for them.”

  “That is a nice thought,” I say. “But I still don’t think that I could handle a party like that tonight. I just want to stay here for a while and try to unwind.”

  “Then that’s what we’ll do,” Xavier says.

  We continue through the menus and settle on what we want to eat. While we wait for the delivery, I take a shower and change into lounge clothes. I don’t regret telling Celeste that I’m not interested in going to the party. There’s far too much going on, and I’m nowhere near in a party kind of mood. Right now my mind is taken up by thoughts of the burning boat in the water and the tense waiting for confirmation of what they found inside. I already know they will confirm that what the officers saw inside the boat is human remains and that it is Marcy, but the results may take some time to come in. All I can do now is wait.

  Joseph Palmer

  He always looked forward to Mardi Gras. He prepared throughout the year for the celebrations, including the party at his house that many saw as the crown jewel of the festivities. Tonight the house that was so often empty and dark was alive, filled with shimmering light and laughter that felt out of place.

  The party was going in full swing, and Joseph Palmer was doing all he could to be the kind of host the guests swarming the expansive rooms were expecting. They’d done their parts. The men wore the black and white he’d requested. It was to ensure that the bright colors and lavish sparkle of the ladies and the masks would stand out. Drinks flowed. Sumptuous food never ran out as waiters moved in and out with grace and the highly skilled and rehearsed poise that meant if asked later, many of the guests wouldn’t even know they were there at all. It was exactly the way they were supposed to be.

  Joseph Palmer did his best to be one of them. He greeted his guests and danced, a drink always in his hand. He ate the food he’d carefully picked out months ago, despite the slightly sick feeling in his stomach. Anyone at the party looking at him would think he was having the time of his life, just the way he was supposed to be. After all, this was supposed to be a celebration of the life of Scott Russo, the honored king of the Mardi Gras parade, not just a celebration of the holiday itself. What they didn’t see was the knot in his chest and the anxiety prickling along the back of his neck.

  “Joseph! These beignets are incredible, even better than last year!” Gordon James said as Joseph walked past.

  He’d taken off the bright-green mask he’d been wearing when he first got to the party. It was much easier to drink and eat when he wasn’t wearing it. Now the ribbons that had attached it around his head kept it tied to his belt buckle so it hung down by his thigh.

  “Chocolate and hazelnut,” Joseph told him. “Raspberry is coming out later.”

  “I’ll save room.”

  Joseph highly doubted that from Gordon. Instead, it was far more likely that he would just force more room and then need to take a nap in one of the house’s multiple guest bedrooms. If years of history served him, Joseph predicted he would be one of the guests who would just stay over for the night rather than risk making their way home after the party. It ended precisely at the stroke of midnight. Then it would be Ash Wednesday, and all celebrations would be over for another year.

  “Looking forward to your speech later,” Missie Coltrane said when Joseph stopped for a moment to dance with her. He always had space on his dance card for Missie on Mardi Gras. “Did you actually prepare something this year, or are you just going to wing it like you usually do?”

  “You’ll just have to wait and find out,” Joseph said.

  He kissed her cheek and continued his progress through the room. He could feel eyes on him that felt like more than just the guests. He didn’t want to show what he was feeling, didn’t want to give away the tension in his shoulders and the icy chill along his skin. They were here. He knew it. There was no way for him to keep them out, and now they were here.

  Two more guests asked him to stop and take a picture with them, and as he did, Joseph’s eyes locked on a man across the room. He wore the black slacks and white shirt that the rest of the men were wearing, but his mask stood out among the crowd. Peacock blue with sequins and peacock feathers. It was ornate and obvious—the mask of someone who wanted to be noticed. The man’s head tilted to the side just slightly, intensifying the sick feeling in Joseph’s stomach.

  He did everything he could to ignore the feeling until his phone rang. The sound nudged him to reach into his shirt pocket, pulling out a small phone that he answered while walking swiftly out of the room.

  “What do you want?”

  “You know what I want,” the voice on the other end of the line said.

  A voice with no name. Just them. Not knowing who it was made the call worse.

  “Stop this,” Joseph said.

  “You are going to listen to me carefully and do everything I say, or there will be very serious consequences. Do you understand me?” they asked. “I know you don’t want people to know the truth.”

  Joseph was afraid but not shocked by the call. It wasn’t the first one he had received.

  “Leave me alone,” Joseph said. “There’s no reason for this.”

  “Of course there is. We know what you’re doing, and you know it. You’re not going to get away with it. You’re going to do exactly what I want, or you’re going to watch everyone enjoying your party suffer. You can’t really want them to know the truth, Joseph, about why you rattle around in that house all by yourself. You don’t want them finding out.”

  “I’m going to cancel the party and send everyone home.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend that,” they said. “If the party doesn’t continue until midnight the way that it’s supposed to, every one of your guests will get picked off one by one as they leave your house. You can’t win this, Joseph. You will do as I say.”

  The voice had softened slightly, but now hardened into an angry command. Joseph had nowhere to turn. He knew that whoever this was, they were serious about what they were saying. He’d heard from them before. He knew they would make demands that he had to follow or risk everything—including his life.

  Them

  Everyone at the party was acting as though nothing was different. The revelers didn’t know Joseph Palmer only still hosted the party tonight because he’d been commanded to. It was his power and influence that brought so many people, despite the horrors of earlier in the day. That should have been enough to keep people away. What they did to Scott Russo and how they ensured that as many people as possible would see him on that float should have shut down the celebrations across the island. It should have sent home the debauchery-hungry tourists in droves.

  Joseph Palmer thought it would. He tried to cancel the party early in the day, while people were still reeling from the parade ending so abruptly and horrifically. Many of them were confused because the positions they were in along the parade route didn’t put them at the front of the audience for the big reveal.

  But they wouldn’t let him cancel it. They made it very clear that he would continue with the party just the way it was originally intended. He would make sure he would get everybody that he possibly could in there.

  Having so many guests filling his house, eating the lavish food and guzzling down the expensive drink only made Joseph more cooperative. He knew how dangerous they could be, and he didn’t want to risk something else terrible happening before Mardi Gras finally ended.

  What he didn’t realize was, it didn’t really matter.

  Celeste

  Where was Joseph?

  It was almost midnight, and Celeste hadn’t seen him in at least an hour.

  “Have you seen Joseph?” someone behind a black mask with rhinestones and silver sequins asks.

  “Not in a while,” I tell her. “Other people have been asking about him, too. I wonder where he got himself off to.”

  Every year, Joseph capped off his party with a speech ending the Mardi Gras season and ushering in Ash Wednesday. It was a highlight of the experience for everyone who attended, and they were always eagerly anticipating him taking to the microphone in the living room as midnight approached. But no one could seem to find him.

  Across the room, Celeste saw the mysterious man in a peacock mask slip out of the room. She’d seen him several times throughout the night but couldn’t identify him. Even though there were plenty of other people at the party she didn’t know, she was oddly curious about that man. Something about the way he moved through the party had caught her attention, along with his exuberant mask. She knew it was a man by the black pants and white shirt, which looked like that of every other man at the party. But other than that, she couldn’t say anything about him. Even the mask came down over his head like a hat rather than a traditional mask, concealing even the color of his hair.

  “Celeste! I’ve been waiting all night to dance with you! Come on!”

  She laughed when one of her colleagues took her hand and spun her around dramatically, then led her out to the area that had been turned into a dance floor. She kept enjoying the party, trying not to think too much about Joseph and his odd disappearance from the festivities.

  As midnight came and went without any speech from Joseph Palmer and he was still nowhere to be seen, the worry returned. He had never done this before. This party was his favorite event of the year, and he was always right in the middle of all of it. He danced and sang. He ate and drank. He was the centerpiece of this celebration. But tonight had been different. He was distracted and didn’t seem to enjoy himself nearly as much as he usually did. Now the party was over and people were milling about, trying to figure out what to do next.

  Some had arrived with the full intention of spending the night at the house and meandered their way to the rooms that had already been assigned to them. Some had already draped themselves across the couches and chairs to rest their eyes and wouldn’t be awake for several more hours. Others were fully aware of how impaired they were and that they wouldn’t be able to drive, they so started trying to arrange rides back home. Still, others broke the tradition of the party fully ending at midnight. Despite the music being turned off and the alcohol being taken back to the kitchen and storeroom, they continued dancing and eating, fully enjoying their lack of inhibition for as long as it was going to last until they couldn’t stand up anymore.

  Celeste was too worried about Joseph to either go to bed or keep up with the party. Leaving the living room, she walked through the familiar vast hallways of the house, searching for him. Finally, she found his office, a room where she knew him to spend a considerable amount of his time. The door was closed. She knocked, and there was no response. She knocked again, calling into the room.

  “Joseph? Are you in there? Everybody has been looking for you.”

  There was still no response. She tried the doorknob. Maybe he came in here during the party and ended up passing out. It wouldn’t be the first time he had overindulged during the party and ended up unconscious soon after. The door wasn’t locked, and Celeste pushed it open.

  “Joseph?” she said into the room.

  It was hot inside, and the lights were off, but there was a glow coming from the side of the room. She turned the light on and looked over at the fireplace. A fire was burning brightly. This struck her as very strange. It wasn’t cold outside, so she didn’t know why he would have gone through the effort of building a fire in his office while the party was going on in the living room. The fireplaces were usually used for atmosphere and added cozy warmth during the winter season. The Christmas party always featured fires in all the fireplaces of the rooms where guests were welcome, and overnight guests were treated to fires in their own room’s fireplaces if they wanted them.

  But she’d never seen one burning during Mardi Gras and couldn’t understand why he would want one in his office.

  She peered closer to the fireplace, then turned toward Joseph’s desk. She immediately knew something was very wrong. At first it didn’t process. She couldn’t wrap her mind around what she was seeing. Joseph was on the floor, just in front of his desk, some papers scattered around him as though he’d grabbed at the desk when he was falling and caught the papers. But that wasn’t what she couldn’t take her eyes away from.

  A scream bubbled up her throat as she stared at his red-stained white shirt and the knife sticking out at the center of his chest.

  There’s a reason I never turn my phone’s ringer off. The call that comes in after one in the morning after Mardi Gras is that exact reason.

  I’m in bed trying to sleep off the day when my phone starts ringing on the nightstand beside me. I snatch it immediately, thinking it might be Xavier, but instead, I see Celeste’s name across the screen.

  I almost ignore it. I know she’s been at Joseph Palmer’s Mardi Gras party, and it’s very likely she’s just drunk and calling to guilt me for not coming to the party even after she called to invite me for the second time. But as the phone continues to ring, something in my gut tells me I need to answer it.

  “Hello? Celeste, are you okay?” I ask.

  “No,” she says. “No, Dean, I’m not okay. I need you to get here. Please.”

  “What’s wrong?” I ask. “What happened?”

  “Joseph is dead,” she says.

  I sit up straight in the bed and reach over to turn the lamp on. Blinking at the sudden bright illumination, I try to process what she just told me.

  “What?” I ask, squeezing my eyes closed, forcing my brain to wake up. “What did you just say?”

  “Joseph is dead. Joseph Palmer. He was murdered. Can you please come here? I know it’s the middle of the night, and I’m so sorry, but I am completely panicking right now. I found him,” she says.

  “Did you call the police?” I ask.

  “Yes,” she says. “They’re already here. But I just feel better if you were here, too.”

  “I don’t know how much I can do,” I say. “But I’ll come. Just let me get dressed, and I’ll be over there as fast as I can. Is the ferry still working?”

  “It goes all night on Mardi Gras,” she says. “I don’t think they shut it down because of Scott Russo’s murder. It should still be operating.”

  “Good,” I say. “I’ll get there as fast as I can. Just hold on.”

  I get out of bed, and as quickly as I can, I throw on the first clothes I find. Xavier and my rooms are adjoining, so I go through the door between them. It’s dark except for the TV flickering against the wall. I can see Xavier is asleep in one of the beds, and I turn on the lamp next to the other bed to try gently waking him up.

  “X, I need you to wake up for a minute,” I say, jostling him a little.

  “The elephant was up to bat, Dean. It was going to be exciting because the rhino had been practicing his fastball,” Xavier mumbles.

  “You can get back to it in just a second,” I tell him. “I have to leave. Celeste just called. Joseph Palmer was murdered, and she wants me to go up to his house and find out what’s going on.”

  “Do you want me to go with you?” he says.

  “No,” I tell him. “You stay here and sleep. I have no idea if they’re even going to let me talk to anybody. There’s no point in you having to get up. I’ll call you if I’m going to be very long. Call me if you need anything.”

  “All right,” he says, already slipping back to sleep.

  “Be sure to get some peanuts and Cracker Jack.”

  “Always.”

  He’s asleep again as I’m jotting a note on the hotel notepad to remind him of where I am, in case it didn’t sink all the way through his sleep fog. I set it on the nightstand and turn the lights back off before slipping back into my room, grabbing what I need, and rushing off to the car.

  I have a feeling the ferry would be much more populated on Mardi Gras in other years, but the murder during the parade caused a mass exit of the people who had come to the island to celebrate and have fun. There are only a couple of other cars on the vessel with me as we head over to Twilight Cove. I wonder if any of the others are also headed toward Joseph Palmer’s house, perhaps to pick up loved ones or even to respond as officers.

  My question is answered as I follow the directions on my GPS after inputting the address Celeste texted me. I end up behind two of the cars. We make our way across the island, through the village, and to the side of the primary residential area. The address brings me to a massive home set up on a small hill with the sea behind it. I can see now why Celeste described Joseph Palmer and his house the way she did.

  A police line is set up in front of the house, forcing us to stop and park on the street. The people ahead of me rush up the driveway and show badges to get past the line. I get up to one of the officers guarding the property, and he immediately lifts his hand to stop me.

  “You can’t go any further,” he says.

  “My name is Dean Steele,” I tell him. “I’m a private investigator. A friend of mine is in there.”

  “Dean?”

  I look up and see Detective Peter Bronson coming toward me. His furrowed eyebrows tell me he didn’t get much sleep either, and he’s already into the investigation. I’m surprised to see him and reach out to shake his hand across the police tape.

  “Detective,” I say. “Good to see you. Have you been assigned this case too?”