Safari Murder Party

by Rachel Moore

Genres: General Fiction; Black Humor; Romance; Action & Adventure Romance; Thrillers; Suspense; Humorous Fiction

Synopsis

In this darkly funny, slightly unhinged, heart-pounding thriller, two office rivals must team up to escape wild animals and even wilder coworkers on a corporate retreat gone wrong.

Fletcher Spence is dying for a promotion. And her colleagues are more than happy to oblige.

After three years working seventy-hour weeks as assistant to the most terrifying CEO in the magazine world, Fletcher finally finagled a spot on Cartwright Media’s annual corporate retreat—a famously luxurious week on the Cartwrights’ private island, where promotions are handed out like party favors. And her plan to snag her dream job as a travel magazine photographer was going great...until her boss’s dramatic death reveals his last will and testament: Whoever survives the week will inherit the company.

So now she’s stuck on her billionaire boss’s safari park island, surrounded by wild animals and on the run from coworkers who’ve swapped coffee cups for machetes and briefcases for hunting rifles.

To Fletcher’s dismay, her only ally might be her boss’s insufferably gorgeous son, Waylon Cartwright. Despite their hostile history, Fletcher is at least 80 percent sure he won’t try to kill her this week. Plus, his experience on the island might come in handy while they fend off lions and tigers and...marketing executives? Oh my.

While Fletcher battles her own ambitions and her unexpected attraction to Waylon, her power-hungry, bloodthirsty colleagues will do anything to stop them from escaping with their lives. Everyone knows the media industry is cutthroat, but in this safari party, it’s never been more true.

Release date: May 19, 2026

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 352

Sample

1

Three weeks earlier

Fletcher could be dead, and she'd still see the safari when she closed her eyes.

The mock-up November issue of Cartwright Media's Jet-Setter magazine splayed across the workshop table in front of her, right next to a paper take-out box spilling with lo mein, and her phone, where some fraction of her consciousness watched her boss's little blue dot travel up Fifth Avenue. The rest of her attention was glued to the glossy photograph.

For the last half hour, she'd stared at the magazine. Something was off.

She stabbed her fork into the noodles, swirling them mindlessly until the bite was so big she had to unhinge her jaw to chew. "It's missing something."

"Add sriracha," Ford said from the other side of his desktop.

From here all she could see was a thin stripe of her coworker's bleached-blond hair, but she knew he was scrubbing through test shots from last week's luggage shoot in Bali, featuring a pair of mated toucans and what was being dubbed "the perfect weekender bag."

"Not Szechuan's," she said. "Page twenty-three."

If she'd been behind the camera, she would've framed the shot differently, angled the model forty-five degrees clockwise, and called out for more emotion. The centerfold spread-a spotlight on Southern Hemisphere wildlife experiences-should've popped. Instead, it was lopsided and top-heavy, guiding readers' eyes away from the page instead of toward it.

Pacing across the office, Fletcher swatted the magazine onto Ford's desk and pointed at the bald composition. The page was literally missing something. "Shouldn't there be something else in this third to balance it out?"

"By 'it,' do you mean the naked man holding a strategically placed tote bag next to a lion?"

"I'm serious," Fletcher said.

"That doesn't mean anything," Ford said. "You're Fletcher Spence. You're always serious."

Truthfully, she didn't want to hear his boss chew him out for not catching the framing error. But also she wouldn't say no if the editor in chief walked through the Design Lab doors and offered Fletcher a spot on her staff. (Her bank account could really use the promotion, too.)

"He looks displaced, off-center"-Fletcher's eyebrows raised when she grazed the lines cleaved against his hip bones. What came next disappeared off the bottom of the page-"delicious."

Ford flicked her hand away where it lingered. "Have you forgotten your farm-fresh boyfriend so quickly?"

Fletcher couldn't possibly roll her eyes far enough into her head. When work best friends became real-life best friends, there was always an uncomfortable overlap in professionalism. Even more so when the best friend in question was Ford Jepson, who had never once conceptualized personal privacy. They were purely platonic-Ford exclusively dated men with Guy Fieri goatees or people of any gender who could bench-press his body weight, and being that Fletcher was neither, her long-distance love life was frankly none of his concern.

She settled on saying, "Kent and I are fine."

"When's the last time you saw him?" Ford asked. "Phone sex can only sustain someone for so long."

She didn't bother informing him that she wasn't having phone sex at all because Kent said it made him feel vulnerable, which made Fletcher feel like a jar of homemade kombucha that needed a release. But when you've been with someone as long as Fletcher had been with Kent, that was totally normal, right?

Satisfied there wasn't any juicy gossip to squeeze out of her, Ford's eyebrows cinched as he reverted his focus to the photo and picked at his thumbnail. A terrible habit. Fletcher stopped destroying her nails cold turkey in high school when college applications and internship interviews came front and center. She needed to be pristine, right down to the cuticle.

Just like the November issue if Ford wanted to keep his job.

"You know I'm right," she said, looping her purse over her shoulder and chucking the dregs of her lo mein into the garbage. "Jackie will thank you."

"Will I?" A voice, bright as the midday sun, chimed behind her. "Spending lunch on my floor again, Fletcher?"

Jackie Caldera was known for three things: becoming Jet-Setter's youngest editor in chief three years ago at a ripe thirty-nine; once beating the CEO's son at a company outing to Topgolf; and wearing a bold red swatch of Chanel lipstick every day without fail. This afternoon, it was smeared under her bottom lip, the aftermath of a lunch meeting with the C-suite at the new Nordic-Japanese fusion bistro in Hell's Kitchen.

Even slightly smudged, she was still the HBIC. Jackie commanded every room she walked into-especially the Art and Design Lab on the forty-third floor of Cartwright Media's Fifth Avenue office.

"On my way out," Fletcher said, her voice sliding easily back into its corporate-girl cadence as she propped the door open with her hip. "Don't worry about the centerfold bleed on page thirty. Ford's on it." She answered Ford's petrified look with a mouthed You're welcome. Stepping into the hall, she scooped her phone out of her purse at the exact moment it started ringing, crooning, "Good afternoon, Mr. Cartwright. How was your lunch?"

On the other end of the phone call, her boss's crackling tenor was cut off by sirens. Which meant he was outside the building. It'd give her plenty of time to get back upstairs into position. "You know I love Japanese whiskey, Miss Spence. Remind me what's on my calendar this afternoon?"

Fletcher jammed the elevator button for the penthouse. There was a whoosh on the other end of the line as Dyer must have stepped into the front lobby. Right on schedule.

"I canceled your afternoon appointment with Dr. Hawks like you asked, so all that's left is for you to finalize the guest list for the Lydell trip, and I'll send out invitations before the end of the day."

"It's on my desk," Dyer said.

"Fabulous." Fletcher prayed he didn't hear the hopeful way her words tipped upward.

She shimmied through the elevator doors the second they pried open. Walls of unstreaked glass showcased the Upper East Side sprawl, glittering windows teetering upon two-hundred-year-old streets. She didn't need to glance at her reflection to know how she looked: Her white polyester blouse was tucked into a T.J. Maxx pencil skirt, a pair of secondhand black heels clicked with every step, and her strawberry blonde hair was slicked into a low ponytail that draped over her shoulder. Absolutely no frizz. No wrinkles.

Weaving around a couple leather armchairs carefully positioned beneath a crystal chandelier, she headed for the frosted-glass door at the far end of the floor-Dyer's office. "Also, Jackie had a late-morning meeting with Melv Lexington, something about an ownership dispute, but it might be worth a debrief if you're up for it. It's her third meeting with Legal this month. Not sure where the holdup is."

Dyer hummed. "Send him up to me after my one o'clock. I need him to look over some paperwork before the trip."

"You don't have a one o'clock-" Fletcher was saying as she swung open the door.

Some things Fletcher had grown to expect to see when stepping into Dyer's office.

A display of the world's finest liquors, some with six-figure price tags.

A glass case housing a hand-carved ivory cane and the vintage Remington poaching weapon, both inherited from his grandfather: the publishing mogul who created the eponymous Cartwright Media in 1924 to catalog his world travels.

The first issue of Jet-Setter, framed in three-ply glass. Dusty and yellow, edges curled and ink faded. A snapshot of a hammock between two palms stamped with the same swirly retro lettering still used today.

But in all the years she'd been by Dyer's side, Fletcher had never walked into Dyer's office expecting to see him.

A coil of dread wormed its way into her stomach, but she pretended it didn't exist the same way she pretended to orgasm from penetration alone: quietly suffering. She plastered a forced smile on as fast as she could, but the man in the wingback chair definitely noticed her stunned expression.

There was no mistaking him. Wild blond curls, two inches over six feet tall with shoulders broad as the Hudson, and wrapped in a worn leather jacket. Waylon Cartwright sat at his father's desk with his fingers perched beneath his chin. The last person on planet Earth who was supposed to be here.

Waylon grinned, a wide flash of white teeth, and waved like he owned the place. He didn't, Fletcher was inclined to remind him. Not yet.

She pointed at his chest and sliced her hand across her throat. Message clear: Get out.

He crossed his arms flat against his worn white shirt and shrugged. His message was unfortunately also clear: My dad signs your measly paycheck, so I'll do whatever I want, whenever I want, in whoever's office I want.

Fletcher scowled, trying to ignore the metal taste in her mouth she got whenever he was around, as he kicked his feet onto Dyer's desk. God, she hated him.

"Miss Spence?" Dyer was saying on the other end of the phone line, and Fletcher snapped back to their conversation.

"Yes," she said quickly. "Yes, of course. I'll make sure Melv comes up."

"Good," Dyer said before brusquely hanging up. That usually meant he was exactly thirty-six seconds from the elevator door opening, which meant Fletcher had exactly thirty-six seconds to figure out what the hell was going on.

Fletcher never forgot a meeting.

And certainly not a meeting with Dyer's only son. Waylon hadn't stepped foot in the Cartwright Media offices in three years. She'd had the misfortune of meeting him only once before, but it was not a meeting easily forgotten-or forgiven.

She hated him. And he hated her right back.

"Fletcher Spence. Don't you ever get tired of cleaning up my dad's messes?" Waylon asked, one foot wagging back and forth. That desk cost more than Fletcher's whole apartment building-he had better not leave scuff marks on it.

"No," Fletcher said through gritted teeth, even if she really meant yes.

Yes, she wished she were downstairs, poring over upcoming editions of Jet-Setter.

Yes, she took this job only because being Dyer's executive assistant was as close as she could get to working for her dream magazine without a dazzling photography portfolio.

And yes, if she was going to bust her ass at work every day, it would be way, way better if she got to do it on photo shoots in far-off locations.

Not that she'd be saying that out loud to Waylon.

A mischievous gleam flared in his eye, like he knew exactly which buttons to press and had every intention of pressing them. "You know, you really ought to be at your desk to welcome guests when Dyer has an appointment."

Fletcher fought to keep her practiced composure. She'd rather get a colonoscopy wide-awake than admit he'd surprised her. "I don't come into your work and tell you how to pour lukewarm beer for kids with fake IDs, so feel free to keep your opinions to yourself."

If the tabloids were to be believed, Waylon spent the last three years slinging shots at some Brooklyn dive bar, role-playing middle class to spite his father. Mostly, Fletcher tried to forget he existed.

She spotted a pink sticky note underneath his boot-the Lydell guest list. When she tugged the pressboard folder the Post-it was attached to, it didn't budge, and neither did Waylon's paperweight of a foot. Three years, and he was still the jerkiest jerk to ever exist.

"Aren't you a pleasure to have in class," Waylon said-a statement instead of a question. He flipped a pen in the air and caught it. Settling in for the long haul. "You have a terrible bluff, by the way."

"Is that so?"

His blue eyes were asking for trouble. Everywhere they lingered, Fletcher turned hot. "It is so."

Her eyebrow raised in disbelief. Because despite him being an annoying wrinkle in her afternoon, she was objectively very, very good at her job. Exhibit A: Dyer was going to walk through the door in three, two, one . . .

"Did you find the approved guest list?" That voice could belong to only one person.

Her boss emitted the same chaotic neutral energy as Colonel Mustard. His sleek silver hair had been combed back so curls lined the base of his neck. Today, he wore a pressed navy suit paired with loafers Fletcher paid someone-using Dyer's pocketbook-to shine. Age curved his spine, but Dyer stood nearly eye to eye with Waylon once the younger kicked himself upright to shake his father's hand. The movement was stiff, unnatural.

As soon as Waylon moved, Fletcher snatched the guest list off the desk. Only barely did she refrain from waving it in Waylon's face like a checkered victory flag.

"Yes, sir. Got it right here," she answered Dyer's question.

The Lydell trip was the biggest Cartwright event of the year: a weeklong off-site on one of Dyer's private islands, a crescent-shaped sliver of land off the coast of Madagascar, where Dyer packed up the company's top performers to make deals and dole out promotions.

Fletcher had orchestrated everything perfectly. A perfectly scheduled itinerary, perfectly folded white cloth napkins in the shape of delicate swans, and a perfectly curated guest list that would include Fletcher's name squeezed in at the bottom. Her ticket to a new position at the company after three years.

Three years of seventy-hour weeks. Of counting emails instead of sheep and waking to nightmares of missed meetings. Of working twice as hard for half the recognition. She'd lost count of how many lunches she'd spent proofing upcoming issues over subpar takeout or how many Saturday mornings she'd filed expense reports in an empty office.

Fletcher deserved a spot. She'd earned it.

Maybe she should have waited before peeking, but she'd done so much waiting already. Skimming through the paperwork, she searched for her name among the candidates.

Then, she searched again.

A third time.

The list was only fourteen people long, so she would have seen her name. Should have seen her name. But there was no sign of Fletcher Spence.

She didn't make the cut.

"Sir, I-" But Fletcher's voice cracked, so she swallowed the words like the Zoloft she'd started taking since she accepted this position.

Even if it offered her negligibly more than a living wage, being Dyer's assistant had been her tether to New York City, the reason she'd managed not to be dragged back to Nebraska by only-daughter guilt and Kent's peer pressure. It was her foot in the door, a necessary stepping stone to her dream job.