Regencyland- The Bristle Park Murders

by Ellie Thornton

  Shea pulled her chin back. What on earth could Mrs. Rafferty possibly want to talk to her about? She tugged on her braid and looked down at her mud splattered dress. Hopefully she wasn’t going to yell at her about her appearance.

  She lowered her voice. “Meet me in the library after you talk to Cross.”

  Lee nodded.

  “Miss Shea.” Mrs. Rafferty signaled for her to follow, then turned her back and headed for the office.

  Shea felt like she was being called in to talk to the principal, but she straightened her spine and followed.

  Mrs. Rafferty pointed to the chair across from the desk as she made her way round and took a seat. “Please, have a seat.”

  Shea sat.

  Mrs. Rafferty’s gaze went to the phone, and she grabbed a piece of paper, placing it over the receiver. “I’m sorry to bring you in this room with all these modern contraptions.” A silver tray had been placed in the middle of the table with a pitcher of water and two crystal glasses.

  Shea felt a little pang for the woman. She really did love this world. “It’s perfectly fine.”

  Mrs. Rafferty poured two glasses and passed one to Shea.

  “Thank you.” The coolness of the glass felt good on Shea’s hands.

  “We’re now a week into your stay, so I thought I might check in and see how you’re enjoying yourself?” She interlinked her hands and set them on her desk.

  She wanted to complain, wanted to tell the woman how sordid this place was, how perverse the men, but after watching her cover the phone with a lace hankie, Shea found she couldn’t do it. There were clearly some people who could come to a place like this and enjoy it. Smith and even Cross, until she and Lee had ruined it for her, had enjoyed this place and unlike her, a week in they weren’t standing in the middle of fields screaming about how fake everything was.

  This place just wasn’t the place for her.

  “I have no complaints.”

  Mrs. Rafferty fidgeted. “You see, we don’t normally have as many… issues arise as we’ve had this session and I—”

  “Why don’t you just come right out and tell me what your concern is?” Shea said.

  Mrs. Rafferty sat back as though stunned, then composed herself and nodded. “Quite right, it is the expedient way of doing things, I suppose, if not entirely proper.”

  Proper? Pressure started to build behind her brows.

  “Last night, after retiring for the evening, my husband told me that there had been a fight between his nephew and Mr. Hamilton and I just spoke with Daley who called my attention to a few things.”

  “Oh, all right. I’m not sure why you feel a need to tell me?”

  “From my husband and Mr. Daley I have found that the cause of the fight was due to some untoward behavior to Miss Gray by Hamilton.”

  “Wait, Hamilton?” Shea slid forward in her chair.

  “Yes. Apparently, he and Miss Gray had a fight when Daley came upon them.”

  “Daley and Gray weren’t,” she paused, letting the reality sink in, “they weren’t going at it?”

  Mrs. Rafferty sniffed. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about. All I can say is that it’s as I have told you.”

  “But he’s scripted for her,” Shea said. Did this mean he’d been telling the truth about sending Gray away when she’d come to his room the other night?

  “Yes, well, I’m glad you brought that up because it leads to my second concern.” The older woman made her spine impossibly straighter. “Miss Gray is no longer paired with Daley.”

  Her heart thudded. “Why?”

  Mrs. Rafferty’s expression hardened, and she stared down her nose at Shea. “I’ve been recently made aware that my husband’s nephew has made you an offer.”

  Huh? “An offer?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you mean.” Shea took a sip of her water.

  The woman paused, as though not sure how to continue, then plowed on. “Of marriage.”

  And the water came spluttering out all over the desk. She wiped her mouth. “What are you talking about?”

  Mrs. Rafferty threw her hands up. “Oh fine, he’s asked you out.”

  “You paired me with Hamilton, so why would you think that?”

  “And if he acted in a way that you might find offensive, it wouldn’t be crazy to believe you might move on to the next eligible bachelor,” Mrs. Rafferty said.

  Shea laughed. “Eligible bachelor. These men are actors. They’re paid to keep the women here happy. Right? So why on earth would you care if I did ditch Hamilton for Daley?”

  “We have the scripts for a reason—”

  Shea stood and slammed her glass down on the desk. “Is that reason to make me go completely insane? Because if it is, it’s working. Let me make this clear, I have not actively pursued any of the ‘eligible bachelors’ here and nor would I. The mere idea repulses me. Just how many women have these men romanced, huh? How many have they kissed?”

  “Did he ask you out or not?”

  “Why do you care?”

  Mrs. Rafferty stood and sniffled. “Because Miss Gray left this morning.” She opened a drawer and removed a note. “She left this note saying that she no longer felt needed and so must take her leave.”

  Shea pulled her chin back. “She left?”

  Mrs. Rafferty reached the note across the desk. “Feel free to read it, if you’d like.”

  Shea took the note and read it. She remembered the woman’s handwriting from the letter she’d seen on Mrs. Rafferty’s desk the day Hamilton had bandaged her finger, and while this handwriting was large and messy, it didn’t look right. It looked like it’d been forged. Shea by no means considered herself a expert in handwriting, but she’d done enough fraud cases to recognize some of the signs of a forgery. This was too stiff and precise. She’d be willing to bet Mrs. Gray hadn’t written it.

  “Whatever will I do with Mr. Daley now?” Mrs. Rafferty mumbled.

  She held out the letter. “How did she leave? It doesn’t say.”

  “I only just found the note half an hour ago, so I’m not sure, but I assume she took a carriage.”

  Shea rushed round the side of the desk. “Is there a back road out of here?”

  Mrs. Rafferty took a step back. “No, only the road we brought you in on. Why?”

  “Did anyone see her leave?”

  “I’m sure. Probably the doorman.”

  Shea turned to leave. Mrs. Rafferty caught her arm. “Wait. Just tell me, do you and Mr. Daley have an understanding or not?”

  “No, we don’t.” She clenched her jaw.

  Mrs. Rafferty sighed. “I think it best that you stay as far away from him for the rest of your stay.”

  He likes you. She ripped her arm from Mrs. Rafferty’s grasp. “I don’t think who I stay away from or close to is any of your business at this point. Excuse me.”

  Coming out of the office, she slowed when she saw Mr. Daley leaning against the wall opposite the office, with his hands in his pockets. He pulled away and moved toward her. “Miss Shea.”

  She swallowed and looked toward the door where the doorman stood playing with his wig.

  She felt his gaze as though it were boring holes into her. “What did my aunt want?”

  “I… I can’t talk,” she said and bolted down the hall.

  Behind her, Mrs. Rafferty called out, “Patrick, get in here. Now!”

  Ignoring the lump forming in her throat, she stopped in front of the doorman. He bowed low. He’d been here a little over an hour ago when she’d come down; maybe he’d been here even longer than that.

  “Did Miss Gray leave? Did you see her?”

  He furrowed his brow. “No ma’am.”

  “Who drives the carriage?”

  “That’d be Ralph, ma’am.”

  “Have you seen him this morning?”

  “I had breakfast with him at six-thirty.”

  She stepped back.

&nbs
p; Gray hadn’t left. Something had happened to her last night when Shea had heard the crash.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  When Shea went to the library, she found Lee already there.

  His arms were folded. “She wouldn’t talk to me.”

  She waved her hands. “Mrs. Rafferty just told me that Miss Gray left this morning.

  His arms dropped to his sides. “There’s a back road?”

  She shook her head. “Mrs. Rafferty said the bridge is the only way.”

  “How did she leave, then?”

  “I don’t think she did. Last night while we were playing and I was the murderer I heard a crash from upstairs. I went to investigate, but there was no one there. I know it was Gray that went up there though.”

  “How?”

  “I was in a little hidden alcove under the stairs, and I heard two sets of footsteps going upstairs. Gray laughed, and I couldn’t mistake that laugh for anyone else. When I got upstairs the vase of flowers across the hall from my room was lying in the middle of the hall, and the window by Cross’s room was open.”

  “You think someone threw her out the window?”

  She shook her head. “All I know is that last night she went upstairs, she hasn’t been seen since, and she supposedly left this note.” She handed the note to him.

  While he read it, she tried to piece this all together. Gray had been with Hamilton, her red lipstick on his collar had been proof positive of that. But she hadn’t seen Hamilton upstairs, maybe he’d ducked into one of the bedrooms, but if he’d been fighting against a struggling woman, or carting a body, she doubted he could have gone far before she’d gotten to him. Maybe he could have gone into Daley’s room, but that’s…

  Daley’s room.

  Daley was up there. There’d been no one in the hall when she’d ran up the stairs, she’d checked, and he hadn’t been on the stairs, so where had he come from, unless he was already up there. What if he’d ducked into the stairwell like she had the night she’d seen Hamilton, and then when she was focused on the open window and fallen vase, he’d gone behind her and pretended he was coming up the stairs?

  What if Daley and Hamilton had been in league the whole time? Working in tandem? Hamilton made the other missing woman break into Cross’s room, Daley had sent Cross into the woods where she’d nearly been shot, probably by one of the bodyguards Cross had hired. Daley had said he’d pegged her right away. And hadn’t Lee said that Daley had gone to take a nap at the same time that her phone had gone missing? Yes. They’d both played her, and like the sucker she was, she’d bought it.

  Her stomach twisted. Mr. Daley was the bad guy. “You should know that Miss Gray isn’t the first person to go missing.”

  Lee’s jaw dropped. “Who else?”

  “Mary, remember I told you about her and that she’d left?”

  “Yes, left, not disappeared.”

  “I talked to two of Shea’s security guards and they swore they never saw her leave. I assumed they’d fallen asleep on duty, but now I’m not so sure. If we’re right and two people are already kidnapped or worse, dead, then we have to assume an immediate threat on Cross’s life. Whether she likes it or not, we have to stick to her like glue.”

  “Right,” Lee said, moving toward the door.

  And then a high-pitched, desperate, and terrified wail pierced the air.

  The entire house, guests, actors, and servants came running when they heard the scream. They called out to Shea and Lee as they raced past, “what was that?” and “what’s happening?” and “who screamed?” but they didn’t stop until they reached the ballroom. Inside, Cross stood with her back in a corner, she was hunkered down and sobbing, and between her and them stood Daley.

  “Savannah,” he said, hand extended, “no one’s going to hurt you.”

  “Get away from me!” Cross backed farther up and knocked into the umbrella holder that held the swords making them clink around and the change at the bottom jangle. “They’re dead. They’re both dead!”

  “Who’s dead?” Daley asked.

  Cross turned her head toward the wall and closed her eyes. “Can’t you smell them?”

  Mr. and Mrs. Rafferty came into the room, followed by Bayliss, Asher and Smith, and several servants.

  “What’s going on in here?” Mrs. Rafferty demanded.

  “Stay back,” Shea ordered, then took a step forward and spoke in as calm a voice as she could muster. “Daley.”

  He peered over his shoulder. “Don’t come closer, Shea.”

  Lee moved next to her. “Can you smell that?” he whispered.

  Shea sniffed, and sure enough, the faint hint of rotten meat became evident. “A corpse?”

  Lee nodded toward the tapestry on the far wall, next to Cross. The tapestry that hid a secret room. The same room Cross had hidden in the night before with Lee. The reason she would’ve gone to the room now to hide. They made eye contact, an unspoken agreement passing between them. Their ability to communicate plans wordlessly was ultimately what made them so successful.

  Lee moved slowly around the outer perimeter of the ballroom and toward the secret room, and Shea took another step toward Daley.

  “Daley, back away from Cross.” She put her hand on her gun hip without thinking then sucked in an irritated breath. When she got out of here, she was never taking her gun off again. Not even in the shower!

  Daley glowered at her over his shoulder. “Don’t you ever do as you’re told?”

  “I’m a detective with the Sacramento P.D. and so is Lee,” she said.

  Behind her, she heard several feminine gasps.

  In front of her, Cross dropped to the floor and wrapped her arms around her knees.

  He gave an exacerbated sigh. “I’m well aware of that fact. I told you this morning that I know you, and I meant it. Now unless you want Savannah to become catatonic, you’ll let me handle this.”

  In her peripheral vision, Lee ducked behind the curtain.

  Shea shook her head. “So you can get close enough to kill her?”

  He faced her almost full on, brows practically up to his hairline. “What are you talking about?”

  “I know it was you and Hamilton who broke into Cross’s room and mine; I know you intentionally sent Cross into the woods where the sniper could shoot her, and—

  “I’ve got two bodies in here!” Lee called out. “Miss Gray and another girl a few days dead, looks like.”

  She shook her head. “And I know you and Hamilton killed Mary and Miss Gray.”

  Miss Cross started hyperventilating. Daley glanced over his shoulder at her before returning his livid glare back to Shea.

  Lee came out from behind the tapestry. “Where’s Hamilton?”

  Shea looked for him amongst the witnesses, but he was nowhere.

  “He left about fifteen minutes ago,” Miss Smith pointed over her shoulder.

  Asher peered out the door. “I can go find him.”

  “No, no,” Shea said, “just stay where you are.” The last thing she needed was someone else to get killed.

  “He won’t get far, not with the bridges down.” Lee gazed at Cross.

  “What is going on here?” Mrs. Rafferty demanded.

  When Shea turned back, Daley was kneeling by Cross. He’d helped her get her head between her knees; his hand rested on her neck.

  “Breathe, Miss Cross. In… one two. Out… one two. In… one two. Out… one two,” Daley said in a rhythmic tone.

  She followed his instructions, and her breathing started to calm. It didn’t surprise Shea that he was helping her. If Cross died, he wouldn’t know what happened to the flash drive.

  Shea moved closer, so did Lee.

  “I’m okay now.” Cross took a few more hiccupping breaths. She grabbed Daley’s wrist, and he moved his hand from her neck.

  “Any constriction in your chest?” Daley asked.

  “No, no,” Cross shook her head. “I’m fine. The bodies, they just startled me. The smell w
as strong. It’s so strong.” Her complexion turned gray.

  “We need to get you out of this room, away from the smell,” Daley said.

  “Yes, yes,” Cross pleaded. “Out. Away.”

  Daley jumped to his feet and pulled her up. He wrapped an arm around her waist to support her and took a step toward the door. Shea blocked his path, and Lee moved in closer.

  “You’re not going anywhere with her,” Shea said.

  Behind her, the rapid slide of metal over metal sent a chill through her veins. “You took the words right out of my mouth,” Bayliss said.

  Smith screamed, and Asher pushed her behind him.

  “He’s got a gun,” Mr. Rafferty warned.

  Shea faced him. Bayliss held a 9mm Glock and was waving it at everyone as they rushed to get away from the door. Shea held her ground.

  “Get back, back into the room,” he ordered.

  They all backed up until they were behind Shea.

  Lee moved to stand next to her, but Bayliss pointed the gun at him. “Stay there. Don’t move.”

  “What are you doing, Bayliss?” Shea glanced around for something she could use as a distraction, some way she could get the gun from him.

  “I’m not going to jail. Not for them.” He nodded toward the secret room. He cocked the gun and aimed it at Shea’s head. “Daley, bring Miss Cross forward, or I’ll kill your girlfriend.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “It was you?” Shea asked. “This whole time?”

  He shook his head. “I was dragged into it.”

  Shea’s stomach dropped. “Who killed those women?”

  Bayliss smiled.

  Daley’s voice came from behind her. “You killed them.”

  “Shut up!” Bayliss pointed his gun behind her.

  There were gasps from the crowd behind her.

  “I’m not letting you leave her with her,” Shea said. “You’ll have to kill me first.”

  He aimed at her again. “Don’t think I’ll hesitate.”

  Lee inched closer. “Can you get two shots off fast enough to take us both down? Because the second that gun goes off, I’ll be on top of you.”