The Bachelor Murder Mystery Part 2

This is a retelling of “The Bachelor” except instead of being eliminated, the women are mysteriously murdered

The footballer carried the dancer’s body back into the house. Racked with guilt, he showed her more tenderness in death than he ever had during life. The nurse, dripping and wrapped in a towel, sat as far from the body as possible. She was an ER nurse. She had seen dead bodies before, even seen the light leave someone’s eyes while she called their name and urged them to hold on. But her patients came to her broken; her heart was prepared for their death. Never had she experienced the death of someone she had known while whole. If she closed her eyes, she could still hear the dancer counting the steps of the samba by the pool. The clicking of her heels. Her delicate laugh when footballer tread on her toes.

The model, the influencer, and the pageant queen stood behind the footballer as he knelt next to the dancer’s body. “I didn’t realize she would be so upset about the rose,” the footballer choked out. “I just hoped she would go home. Not… not this….”

The influencer put a small hand on the footballer’s back and he instantly felt calmer. “It’s not your fault,” the influencer said, “We had no idea what she was dealing with.” The pageant queen nodded in agreement.

The model clutched the dead petals of her rose in her hand, remembering the dancer’s final words to her. Don’t think I’ve given up, the dancer taunted. Tomorrow’s another day and there could not be a more beautiful place to fall in love. Fighting words, the model thought, not the words of a woman preparing to drown herself. But just as she was about to open her mouth to protest, she felt her hand go very cold. Her dead rose petals had turned to ice and the ice crept up her arm and took root deep in her heart. Suddenly, the model felt very afraid. She thought about the disarray that was the dancer’s side of the room, the grotesque scream on the dancer’s face when she was found, the ominous black petals in her hand. The killer could be watching them right now.

“She was acting strangely last night before bed,” the model lied, “I think she had something going on back at home.” The footballer’s mansion was remote, the model would wait until the police arrived before she made any moves. But the police never arrived. Turns out, rich people don’t have normal law enforcement. The help of the house whisked the dancer’s body away and that was the last of it. The model resolved to believe that the dancer had indeed taken her own life. After all, what else could she do? Run all the way to the city screaming bloody murder?

The nurse was resolved to run all the way to the city screaming bloody murder. She couldn’t believe that the footballer and the rest of the women were galavanting around the footballer’s vineyard. Her roommate, the pageant queen, tried to cheer her up. “There’s nothing we could’ve done,” the pageant queen said, “We barely even knew her. What’s done is done. People die everyday.”

“I know people die everyday,” said the nurse, “I see them die. But not like this.”

The pageant queen shrugged, “Then leave and investigate. I’m staying. I came here to fall in love and that’s what I intend to do.”

“There could not be a more beautiful place to fall in love,” The nurse agreed, as she looked at the rows upon rows of deep purple grapes. She plucked a plump grape off its vine and popped it into her mouth. It was heavy, sweet, and rotten.

Elsewhere in the vineyard, the model, the influencer, and the footballer were sipping wine amongst the vines, looking out at the other mansions that dotted the hills. The footballer felt the guilt of the dancer’s death slip away. He had barely known her anyways, had had no desire to know her better. Sitting with the influencer and the model, talking about their favorite wines, the footballer forgot the dancer had even existed.

That night, the women tottered into the mansion’s formal dining room in stilettos and cocktail dresses. The footballer was dressed in a dark navy suit that was the exact same shade as the night sky and the women swooned that he was the brightest star in all the heavens.

One by one, the footballer took the women aside to talk by a cozy fire. While the pageant queen was teaching the footballer how to wave properly, the nurse, the model, and the influencer were sitting on couches by the pool. The nurse looked towards the pool and thought about what the pageant queen had told her earlier that day in the vineyard. Falling in love. That was why the nurse had come here, it’s what she was supposed to focus on. Finding love with the footballer. But she felt like she was now looking for something else.

“Don’t you think it’s suspicious,” the nurse said. The model and the influencer stopped examining their manicures to look at her, “The pool is barely 5 feet deep. How could she have drowned?”

Annoyance flashed on the faces of the model and the influencer. The nurse was being so macabre, a cocktail party was no place to talk about death.

“I think you should focus on your relationship with the footballer rather than someone who’s not even here anymore,” said the influencer. The model nodded in agreement with the influencer, the dead rose petals in the pocket of her cocktail dress, protecting her with fear.

“How could you be so cold-hearted?” said the nurse. The influencer looked at the model. The model understood it was her turn to speak.

“Why are you so obsessed with this?” said the model, “I was the last one to see her alive. She was my roommate. I would know best and I think she drowned herself.”

“Well I was the one who found her!” screamed the nurse as she stormed off in the direction of the footballer. The model breathed a sigh of relief and downed her cocktail.

The pageant queen, holding a brand-new red rose, saw the nurse walking towards her. She was about to open her mouth to greet her roommate when she saw the disturbed look in the nurse’s eyes. Instead, she let the nurse stalk past her and hoped whatever was bothering her didn’t make it back to their room that night.

The footballer leaned back in his couch, content. He had a rose for each woman that night to cap off what turned out to be a very pleasant day despite its disturbing beginning. He felt his heart give a feeble flutter each time he thought of the remaining women and he was hopeful that the flutter would become a earth-shaking thump. But the only thumping he heard was the click-clack of the nurse’s stiletto’s as she approached him quickly.

“I need to tell you something,” she said, not even waiting for him to say hi which annoyed the footballer. He offered her a seat anyways.

“What is it?”

“I don’t think the dancer drowned herself,” said the nurse, “I think she was murdered.”

The footballer was a simple man and he liked the simple explanation for the dancer’s death. The nurse had made it complicated and for that, for a brief moment, he hated her. He hated her and wished it had been her floating in the pool that morning. But just as soon as the thought entered his mind, it was gone. “Why do you think she was murdered?” he asked.

The nurse was saying something, but the footballer wasn’t playing attention. He was thinking about what an inconvenience it would be if the dancer had been murdered. They’d have to catch the murderer, and it would probably be inappropriate for him to keep dating the other women while they were under investigation. The footballer shook his head. Once again, he could feel his prospects of love slipping away so he cut the nurse off and said, “So do you want to leave?”

The nurse looked taken aback. She thought for a while but finally said, “No. I want to stay and keep exploring a relationship with you.”

“Then I think you should focus more on us,” said the footballer as he walked away with all three roses. The nurse looked at his retreating figure in stunned silence.

The footballer was in a considerably better mood having pulled the model aside and given her a rose. Now he was walking along the patio with the influencer, another red rose nestled in her delicate hands, but the heated conversation he had had with the nurse still clung to him.

“What’s wrong?” asked the influencer. The footballer smiled on the inside. She already knew him so well.

“Oh it’s nothing,” said the footballer, “The nurse just had some concerns about the dancer.”

“I know she’s traumatized, I am too, but I’m not here to play detective. I’m here to develop a relationship with you,” said the influencer, beaming at him coquettishly from behind her rose. The footballer couldn’t help himself. He knew he wasn’t supposed to pick favorites. Not this early, not yet. But the way the influencer’s eyes looked at him, so brilliantly green next to the scarlet of the rose (his rose!), he felt like her eyes were pinning him in place. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t breathe, and he wished to remain that way forever. So deep were his feelings that as he leaned in for a kiss, he felt the entire world shake and he lost his balance.

As he lay on the ground, the footballer wished he was buried in it instead, so mortified that he had been so overwhelmed by his feelings as to fall over. But the ground kept shaking and he realized that the influencer wasn’t actually rocking his world. The world itself was shaking. It was an earthquake. The influencer was gone and he prayed that she had run away to somewhere safe.

The model had gone to the bathroom, leaving her rose on a side table in the hallway. The shaking started just as she was exiting the bathroom and she crouched in the doorframe, praying that the footballer’s mansion had been built to code. Everything was indeed intact once the shaking ended, not even the football trophies the footballer kept precariously balanced on the water tank of his toilet had fallen over. Standing up, the model unwrinkled her dress and went to retrieve her rose.

But on the side table in the hallway, there was no longer the brilliant scarlet rose she had left there moments ago. Just like the previous one, the model’s rose had turned black and dead and putrid. But the model did not scream this time. Instead, she waited in horror for the louder scream that she knew would come.

The pageant queen ran back to her room after the earthquake. Her friends had told her that this part of the country was earthquake-prone but she had never expected the shaking to be like this. She felt like her legs had turned to jelly. She was going to lie down a bit to collect her wits. When she entered the room she shared with the nurse, she noticed that the nurse’s half of the room was completely wrecked, like the earthquake had knocked every possible thing out of its place. Most dramatically, the big wooden wardrobe on the nurse’s side had fallen over. On the way to her bed, the pageant queen noticed something wedged under the wardrobe. The nurse’s suitcase perhaps?

As the pageant queen crept closer to investigate, she realized that it wasn’t the nurse’s suitcase underneath the wardrobe, but the nurse herself. The nurse’s hands stuck out from under the wardrobe, as if she were trying to claw her way out. Her head was bent at an impossible angle and a red bloom was already spreading out from under the wardrobe. The pageant queen screamed. Elsewhere in the house, the model tucked her dead rose into her pocket and ran towards the direction of the scream as if she had not been expecting it.

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