by Raven Snow
“Well, it was kind of rude for you to just fall asleep on the sofa.” Rowen felt obligated to speak in her friend’s defense. She was going to see him later today. That she be able to look him in the eye seemed important. “Especially after you’re the one who said he could stay instead of going home when I had to leave.”
Eric rolled his eyes and stabbed his pancakes with his fork. “Maybe I’m just a boring old normal person, but I would have watched television. I wouldn’t have started going through someone’s personal things.”
“They were just old work papers.”
“Doubly shady.”
“You seemed like you were hitting it off!” she exclaimed, throwing her hands up and nearly hurling her own fork in the direction of the sink.
“We were,” he assured her. “I can hit it off with someone and still be kind of creeped out by them in the same evening.”
Rowen sighed, and the two ate the rest of their breakfast in silence. It was unfair to demand he feel differently about something, and she knew it. This whole thing was just so frustrating. Eric and Flint getting along had been a bright spot she had hoped would last.
“What are you doing today?” he asked, taking his plate from the bar to the kitchen.
“Checking out some of the evidence with Flint.”
Eric’s expression darkened. “How is he going to help more than your cousins?”
“If you haven’t noticed, our modest powers of deduction have been dwindling.” She hated to admit that out loud. “It’ll be nice to have a fresh set of eyes on this.”
Eric snorted. “Your modest powers were usually plain old deduction. Is there some reason why I can’t come along and help? I don’t know if you forgot, but I am sort of a personal investigator. I was kind of getting into coming out and solving these crimes with you.”
That one hit hard. He had a point. It was cruel of Rowen to involve Flint when she hadn’t even asked her own husband if he wanted to come with her. “Do you want to come help?”
Eric winced, like he had expected to annoy her more than he had made a point. “I actually have a lot to get done today.”
She gave him a light slap on the arm on her way to the sink.
“But, hey, if you want to come give me a hand later on, I could use the help. I’m being thorough on this one…”
“You could always just ask Flint to come help you. You fall asleep, he does the work. It works out great!” As if on cue, there was a knock at the door. Rowen hurried to the door, not bothering to bicker with Eric any further.
Behind the front door, Flint was dressed in casual clothes. It was the first time that Rowen had seen him in anything other than a suit in a long time. His jeans fit him well and his blue t-shirt clung in all the right places to his lanky, muscular frame. “Am I too early?” he asked, discretely sniffing the air. “Smells good in here.”
“You’re just on time,” Rowen assured him.
Eric must have stepped into the room behind her because she heard him say, “Hey, man.”
The smile on Flint’s face broadened. “Hey. What’s up? You coming with us today?”
Eric shook his head. “I would if I could. I’ve got way too much work to take off today.”
“Well maybe we can help you with that after we finish with this.”
“Seriously?” Rowen smirked at her friend.
“You gotta stay optimistic.”
“If you finish up, let me know.” Eric stepped toward the door. “Good luck, you guys. Stay safe.”
“You too.” Rowen stepped out the front door with Flint in tow. They had decided to take his car and were already in it when he turned in his seat, wearing the most bemused of expressions.
“What?” she asked as they backed onto the street.
“That was a pretty cold goodbye, wasn’t it?” he asked. “You didn’t even kiss him before you left. It was like he was moving in for one and everything.”
Rowen felt her own eyes grow wide. “Seriously? Oh, my gosh. I didn’t. That’s the second time this week. Oh, my gosh. I’m a horrible wife.”
He laughed. “I wouldn’t go that far, but you two do seem to be a little cold with each other…Not that that’s any of my business.”
Rowen had hoped that it wouldn’t show. She had hoped they looked like the cute and caring couple she liked to think they always looked like. “It’s a long story.”
“We have a long drive to where we’re going,” he pointed out.
“Fine. It started over muffins and omelets…Do you think we should go back so I can give him a kiss?”
“I think it’s way too late now. I’m driving.” Flint shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. Everyone has their fights. You said yours was about muffins?”
“More or less.”
Flint laughed. “Yeah, I think you guys will be fine.”
Maybe Rowen was just being paranoid, but she felt like this was one of the bigger tiffs they’d had. It wasn’t like it was all about omelets and muffins. Even if the muffins had been a rather big part of it.
The first stop was Seraphina’s house. They hadn’t actually gotten permission to be there, but Flint assured her it would be fine. “It’s all closed up. The police left, but I still have a key. It feels fortuitous. I have good vibes about giving the place a good look around.”
Rowen had decided to follow his lead. She wasn’t so sure about sneaking illegally through a dead woman’s house, but it wasn’t like she hadn’t done more questionable things in the past. So she let Flint park around back and walked with him to the wine cellar. “We can get through this way,” he told her, opening it up. The wood bent and groaned like it might break, but the lock on it was just for show, and it opened.
“Did the police know about this entrance?” asked Rowen, following him down into the dim light of narrow, bottle-laden hallways.
“Of course.” Flint threw a look back at her like she had lost her mind. “We told them everything we knew. Not that we were allowed to use this entrance or any of the others. Seraphina was that kind of romantic that liked having all the secret passages to herself.” He continued upstairs, into the kitchen. It was an especially large kitchen with alternating white and eggshell colored floors. The opulence of it was more than a little disorienting.
She knew that Mr. Hawthorne had once lived in this place, but she got the impression that he hadn’t gotten to choose the decorating. Or maybe he had. What did she know? They both seemed like grandiose people. “Where should we go now?”
“I spent most of my time down here with the other lawyers,” Flint explained. “So I vote we go upstairs.”
Rowen wasn’t going to argue with him there, though she had a good idea of specifically where he wanted to go and found that more than a little creepy. “The bedroom seems a little private.”
“It also seems like the most likely place to find a clue.” Flint wasn’t wrong. The bedroom was usually a very personal space. If they were going to find something, chances were it was in there.
The bedroom was amazing. The ceiling was high, and from its highest point, there hung a chandelier. Beyond that there was a canopied four-post bed and a plethora of furniture that looked like it had been cut and carved to match the dimensions of the room exactly. “Wow,” breathed Rowen. “This place…this place is really something.”
“It’s how the other half lives,” said Flint, shamelessly pulling open the top drawer on the nightstand.
Rowen rolled her eyes. “You’re on the other half.”
“I was,” Flint corrected. “And then I was again. Money wasn’t so tight once I was a lawyer. I’ll give you that. Don’t act like you’re all hard up for cash, though. You don’t look like you’re that poorly off yourself.”
“I can’t complain.” Things were a little tight right now, but Rowen did consider herself lucky in the finances department. “Close that,” she snapped when she glimpsed some of the personal items in Seraphina’s nightstand.
“Yes, ma’am.” F
lint closed the drawer. He was wearing a frown, his arms crossed as he looked from the nightstand to the bed. “Call me crazy, but it seems like a safe bet that my old boss was still very much sexually active.”
“Seems like a given.” Rowen could feel some of the vibes this room was giving off. “I don’t feel anyone else here, though. Do you?”
Flint looked around. He closed his eyes, drawing the energy of the room toward himself to get a better impression of it. “I don’t feel anyone specific. I don’t feel any ill-intent in here. Whoever had a grudge, they weren’t here.”
“But you’re thinking it was a spurned lover.” That seemed to be everyone’s best guess.
“Probably someone she had a history with. The only person I sense any animosity from in here is Mr. Hawthorne, and that was a long time ago.”
“He was sort of in the middle of a heart attack when it happened.”
Flint just shook his head like he knew better. “Unless that was a cover.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t act like you haven’t thought about it. The timing was a little too perfect, wasn’t it? Darren Hawthorne has all that money. He wants to keep what his wife will be taking from him. He still loves her on some level—not in a healthy way but in the sense that he wants her to himself. He doesn’t need her back out there marrying whoever she pleases. He uses some of the money he has now to bribe and hire the right people.”
“You think he ordered a hit on her?”
“I think he paid someone to kill her.” Flint went around to the window and looked out of it. “It’s not all that uncommon. I know you don’t like to think that sort of thing about the people you know, but…Well, people can surprise you. You know that. You experienced it with your own grandmother. No offense.”
“None taken.” Rowen considered what he was saying. She had considered it before, but it hadn’t been a working theory yet. “What about my Aunt Lydia?”
“What about her?”
“I trust her, and she really thinks highly of Darren, too. She wouldn’t expect this sort of thing from him.”
“I don’t think she expected Grammy was a murderer either. Sometimes even the most perceptive of us can have blinders on.”
“Hey, it’s not like Grammy didn’t have cause.”
“Oh, I believe it. I don’t blame her for what she did at all. Your grandmother did what she did to protect the family. No one will disagree with that. Even the Stonewells give her respect.”
“I’m sure she would appreciate that.” She gave him something of a half-smile. They both knew that Grammy was no fan of Stonewells. If anything, it was her hate that had rubbed off on the rest of the family.
Flint swore. A hand flew over his mouth as he looked back to Rowen.
“What?” Rowen hadn’t meant to offend him. She’d just been kidding around. Well, not kidding exactly. It wasn’t like he didn’t know her Grammy disliked them.
“Not that.” Flint stepped away from the window. He stood to one side of it, letting Rowen guess at what had gone wrong. “There might be someone here.”
“Might be?” Rowen hissed, already lowering her voice. “Have they seen your car?”
“Maybe,” Flint conceded.
“Hey, someone’s already here,” said a voice from down below. “Who drives this thing? It’s nice.”
“Is it the police?” Rowen hated the idea of explaining this to Ben. If it was him, she’d have to try getting Flint to take the fall for her. She would walk home if she had to. She had bothered Ben with favors too much in the past. He was always covering for Greensmith mistakes. It was a perk of him dating Rose, even though it really shouldn’t have been.
“No. It’s just a bunch of people I don’t recognize.”
Rowen scanned the room for a hiding place. “We need to get out of here.”
“We can’t exactly march down there and get into my car without a convincing story of why we’re here.”
Rowen had been thinking more along the lines of hiding in a passage for now, but that sounded promising. “You’re a lawyer. Do you think you could just…I don’t know.”
“Lie to them?” Flint finished for her, eyebrow raised. “Yeah, uh, I don’t think there’s anything I can say that won’t look suspicious.”
“Tell them you used to work for Seraphina and you left something here!”
“I’m not sure that’s going to fly. She was murdered, in case you’ve forgotten. There isn’t anything I can say that won’t sound suspicious.”
“Fair enough.” Rowen only saw one option left to them. “We need to hide somewhere and listen in long enough to see if we can figure out who they are.”
“I feel like you’re just making this shadier.” Still, Flint moved to the dresser across the room and tugged at it. Sure enough, there was a passage behind it.
Rowen hurried toward the passage before hesitating. “How did you know this was here? I didn’t think you were ever in her bedroom.”
Flint rolled his eyes and motioned for her to hurry up. “I didn’t, but I obviously had to check out all these secret doors of hers, right? That’s not a crime.”
“I don’t know about that. Maybe it’s a little one.”
“Just hurry up.”
Rowen followed that bit of advice. She could hear a door opening downstairs. People were coming inside, and meanwhile, she and Flint were moving even deeper into the house itself. The space was a bit cramped for Flint, but Rowen got along fine. They couldn’t stand shoulder to shoulder, but it was easy enough to move. The lights must have been on a sensor as dim lanterns flickered on every fifteen steps or so.
“She really was dramatic,” Rowen grumbled, but it wasn’t a slight at her home. Deep down she knew it was jealousy. It was odd to be jealous of a dead person. “Where are you going?”
“I think we can look down over the sitting room. I think that’s where they’re going.”
“Shouldn’t we go downstairs?”
“Less likely to be seen downstairs.”
The idea of being found here made Rowen’s heart beat a little faster. “It’s not super obvious we’re in here, is it?”
“It’s not obvious,” Flint assured her. “But the more I think about it, the more I think this might be a reading of her will. That could be her family down there, and her family would know what she was like. They might know about the passages.”
“Her family?” Rowen listened carefully. She recognized it all at once. She heard the bickering, the shrill and inappropriate laughter of kids, parents’ awkward attempts to shush them. This had the definite sound of a family either dealing with grief or feeling obligated to keep up appearances that they were sad. “The lawyer isn’t anyone who would recognize your car, is it?”
“I don’t think so. Besides, I don’t really deal with that kind of law.” Flint turned his back as best he could and pressed a finger over his lips. They were now positioned above the sitting area.
People were scattered about on the fine furniture. There were quite a few of them and a few looked similar. Seraphina struck Rowen as the sort of woman who had multiple marriages. She wondered if she and Hawthorne had ever had a son. Hawthorne himself certainly wasn’t here now, which was probably for the best.
“She adopted,” Flint explained.
“Were they close?”
“As close as someone can be to Seraphina, I guess. She had all their pictures hanging up and could tell you what they were up to. She mostly adopted older kids, I think.”
“She never struck me as the motherly type.”
“I think she liked being some kind of matronly role model for teenagers.” Flint shrugged. “She just sort of gave them a place to stay, got them though school if that’s what they wanted. You know. That sort of thing.”
“Aww.” A screaming child snapped Rowen out of her admiration. She jumped, making everyone down below glance up. She held her breath and waited for them to turn back to the conversation at hand. A lawyer had ent
ered the room.
“Is everyone here?” The voice was familiar and continued as if not even waiting for an answer. “Anyone not here will be contacted after the official reading.”
“Is that Cox?” Rowen recognized the large frame and weary voice. It was. It was one of the lawyers that Flint had been working with. “What’s he doing here?”
“Reading the will, obviously.” Flint spoke softly, like he really wanted to hear what was being said.
“Did you know about this?”
He waved a hand at her like those were enough questions for now, and that they could talk later. “We should get out of here,” he told her instead.
Rowen was surprised to hear that now that they were in position. “Shouldn’t we stay and listen? What if we learn something from the will reading?”
“Like what?” The sight of Cox here seemed to have cut down on Flint’s confidence by at least half. “Look, I don’t know if he’s seen my car yet, but if he does, he’s going to have questions.”
That did make sense. “I thought you had a good feeling about coming here today?”
“What do I know? Maybe your guardian troubles have rubbed off on me.” He continued on ahead.
Flint was annoyed, Rowen realized. He had expected all of this to go a certain way and now he was unnerved that it hadn’t. Still, he had a point. They really should get out of here while they could. She wasn’t sure which outcome would be worse—Cox seeing them and growing suspicious or the family of Seraphina calling the cops on them for trespassing. Either way, she would have to look Ben in the eye and tell him why they had done this. Not a good day for anyone. Rose might literally kill her.
They were both down the narrow staircase behind the walls when a door opened. At least Rowen thought it was a door. It sounded like one. Maybe it was around the next corner. Flint took a step backward and onto Rowen’s feet. She swore but steadied herself with her other foot so that she didn’t tumble right over, Flint in tow.
“Hello?” called a small voice. “Is anyone there?”
It was a child. Oh, no. If one kid knew about these secret passages, all the kids would know. This place might be crawling with them as soon as the reading was finished. They really did need to move. Rowen couldn’t get caught here. She shoved Flint forward a tiny bit. Flint became dead weight leaning against her, glaring back in her direction like he didn’t appreciate what she was trying to do.
