17
Victoria
Exiting the limo with the Ramsey estate looming over us gave me an unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach. There were a few programed lights on outside and within the house. Now that the sun had long since set, the estate looked ominous and dark, its dim oversized eyes gazing down upon its new visitors. I had led everyone back here, so I only had myself to blame.
After leaving the Mackenzie estate, I had Gabriel take us to Mama Maud’s cottage to pick up Mina and the kids. The family was slowly evolving, beginning to blur the line of what a family really was. Was it blood? Love? Dependence? I certainly knew blood wasn’t the most important component anymore, just one of several—or many.
Mina ran to the front door, urging Codie and Anabelle to follow. Lady Ramsey instructed the kids not to venture in before the rest of us. Gabriel ran ahead to intercept the kids, demanding they step back while he unholstered his handgun.
“Let me enter first,” he said.
I hadn’t expected much to change in the almost two days since Kale and I’d left, but I appreciated his precaution—especially with a scorned Duke Mackenzie still at large.
I’d left the door unlocked, which it still was. Gabriel stormed into the house, his gun at the ready. Rooms illuminated as he moved down the hallway.
The rest of us stepped into the foyer, listening, waiting for Gabriel to give us an indication the estate was truly empty. When Lady Ramsey protested about coming back, I told her what her late husband had done. The new owners were dead, so there’d be no one else coming until the Queen or one of her regional ambassadors actually followed up. I’d speak to her before that happened. And with the Duke gone, I was confident I could convince the Queen to allow Lady Ramsey to reclaim her title.
“You’ve seen my hell,” Constance whispered into my ear. “I guess I now get to see yours.”
I gave her a sad smile. I didn’t know what I thought about her entering my past.
Gabriel marched back to the foyer a few minutes later saying he was going to check upstairs, but the first floor was good.
Lady Ramsey meandered down the hall, entered the dining room, then peeked into the den and formal sitting room, her head craning in all directions like she was seeing the rooms for the first time. I followed her into the kitchen, where her eyes immediately went to the added locks on the cabinets and drawers.
“The keys are right here,” I said, picking up the ring from the counter.
“He did this?” It almost sounded like she was asking herself, trying to convince herself that the man she married and the man he became later in life, were two vastly different people.
Constance stepped in to join us, but didn’t say anything. She was simply taking the whole house in.
Mina and Anabelle squealed from one of the other rooms, until it became a competition of who could be louder. Lady Ramsey raised her hands to her temples, massaging over the dried blood. Constance paced the length of the kitchen and cringed.
“Did you have to cook?” I asked.
Constance shook her head. “Actually, I did when I was younger,” she corrected. “Once I slit my wrists, I was banned from the kitchen. Not like that was the only place I could get a sharp object. But it made the lords of the manor feel more in control.”
“You poor dear,” Lady Ramsey said, stopping before Constance. She reached for a hand and examined first one wrist, and then the other. “Did they—”
“They weren’t worried about scars,” Constance said. “The doctors touched me up when they did all this.” She snatched her arm back and gestured to her face. “And if you touch me again, I will have to cut you.”
Lady Ramsey stepped back, her eyes widening.
“You may not be your sister-in-law, but you’re close enough.”
“It’s okay,” I said to Constance, putting an unwelcomed hand on her shoulder—which she vehemently shrugged off. “No one’s going to hurt you here.”
“Damn right they’re not.” She scowled and stalked out of the kitchen.
Tears brimmed in Lady Ramsey’s eyes. She leaned against the counter and averted her gaze like the sight of me was simply too much to bear.
“She means well, I think,” I said.
“She’s been through a lot. For the first chapter of her life, and then when she returned home.”
“Returned home makes it sound voluntary,” I said. “We were captured.”
“Yes; I realize that. And I was there… and still I did nothing to help. I wish I was stronger. My husband is gone and there is a part of me who misses him, knowing full well what he’s done.”
“Then be stronger,” I said and demanded she look at me. “Mina needs you to be strong now. Johanna will need you to be strong to get her back.”
“And you?”
“I need you to show the kindness to Constance that she never received growing up, even though she despises you. Kindness and love will win over anger and hatred eventually. So I need you to be strong in your persistence.”
She didn’t speak for a long time as she cycled through a lifetime of shame. “I’ll try,” she said meekly.
I shrugged and walked out of the kitchen. Gabriel had returned to the first floor, assuring us it was safe to go upstairs. Mina and Anabelle raced up the stairs, Mina excited to show off her room. Codie trailed them, a little irritated with now being ignored.
“Can you take me to the palace in the morning?” I asked.
“I can drop you off nearby,” he said. “If I get too close, I’ll never make it out alive.”
“Fair enough.”
“I want to stay here,” Constance said. “I don’t trust going back. If I get locked up in that room again, I’ll shatter the bathroom mirror and finish what I failed to do years ago.”
“Don’t say that,” I said. “This is a good place for you. You’ll be safe. Maybe the kids will grow on you.”
“Don’t hold your breath.” She smirked.
Lady Ramsey emerged from the kitchen, eyes red and glassy. “I’m going to check on the kids, clean up a little, then get some rest. There are enough extra bedrooms for everyone. I’ll leave you to choose for yourselves.”
“I think we can manage,” Gabriel said. “Thank you.”
Lady Ramsey didn’t say goodnight or offer me a hug, she simply trailed off like an unfinished thought, quiet and wistful.
“Is the kitchen stocked?” Gabriel asked.
“Not fully, but there’s food,” I answered. As he headed for the kitchen, I didn’t mention the locks on the drawers and cabinets, but I was sure he’d be able to figure it out.
“And then there were two,” Constance said.
“And who would have thought the two would be us?” I said with a laugh.
“Not me.” She wandered around the dining room, then roamed into the den, where she stopped before Ramsey’s oversized chair, positioned prominently near the fireplace like a throne. Then her eyes found the stuffed mountain lion on a shelf high up on the opposite wall.
What she didn’t see was the long leather bench I had been tied to so many times and where I’d been switched to tears, sometimes in front of Johanna and Mina. My aching feet tingled from the thought of the switches licking them.
“He was very proud of himself, wasn’t he?” she asked as she floated closer to the lion frozen in a forever snarl.
“Not unlike Duke Mackenzie,” I said.
Constance leaned down before the bench and reached underneath, pulling out a length of coiled rope. She presented it to me. “Was this for you?”
I nodded, again transported back to my times on the bench. Of all the memories taken from me, why couldn’t they have been those?
“Are there any matches in here?” Constance asked.
I retrieved a box of matches from the liquor cabinet and handed them to Constance. Offering me the rope, Constance sparked several matches to light the log and assortment of broken switches in the fireplace. Once they were ablaze, she took b
ack the rope and tossed it in the fire, which danced, crackled, and spat. She dropped to the floor within the warmth of the fire, tucking her legs under her, gazing directly into the flames.
“How did you do it?” she asked without looking away, her face aglow.
I knew she was talking about Ramsey. “It was a mess of accidents,” I said.
“How did you feel when he finally died?”
“Like I was going to die myself, if I’m being honest. I poisoned us both. If he had still been alive when I passed out, I would have been done for. I count myself lucky he was actually dead.”
“So he even took the pleasure of killing him from you…”
“I don’t think I would have taken pleasure in it either way.”
“That’s where we differ.” Constance’s voice was low and anguished. “I’d revel in it.”
“You say that now,” I said. She’d gone pale and nearly thrown up from the bodies littering the Mackenzie estate. I knew she wanted to believe it, but reality was often far worse than fantasy.
We both watched the rope blacken and melt to nothingness. The leftover switches soon crumbled to ash until all that was left was the primary log.
“Can I see your room?” Constance asked after a long silence of watching the flames perform before us.
Without answering, I stood and led her to the door to the cellar. My hand lingered on the doorknob. I didn’t have to ask if she was sure, but I was nervous to reveal what was down there in the dark.
Even with the lights on, the cellar didn’t get bright. There were more shadows than illumination. The piles and collections of shrouded furniture looked like a sea of white. The stairs were long and steep, and tested a person’s resolve for going down them.
My door was open. Constance waited outside as I stepped in and pulled the shoestring in the center of the room to reveal my former living quarters.
Her face was expressionless, unreadable, as she entered my room, taking in what little there was to see.
“Did anyone else stay down here?” she asked after an initial perimeter pass.
“Just me,” I said, lowering onto the edge of my bed, which groaned from my weight.
“I was in our basement as well. I’m sure they discussed our accommodations with each other.”
“That and more,” I said.
Constance shuttered. “The sick bastards. We were connected before we even knew each other.”
“We all were.”
“Yeah; but you and I more than the others.”
“Isolated together.”
Constance nodded as she examined the two boarded up windows. “Try to escape?”
“No. Kale broke one of the windows to save me from one of my… punishments. They were both boarded up the following morning.”
Then she walked by the bucket in the far corner of the room and grimaced. It wasn’t full, but wasn’t empty either.
“You weren’t even allowed a bathroom?”
“It was only for the nights when I was brought back here, not from before.”
“Don’t you want to burn this place down? I wish we would have done it to that wretched Mackenzie house before we left.”
“I could do without coming down here anymore,” I said. “But this is Lady Ramsey’s home. And Mina’s. And Johanna’s, I guess. Maybe we could just board up the entire cellar.”
“Is your bathroom also down here?”
“Yeah; a little way down.”
Constance produced a mischievous grin and revealed a few matches in her hand. “Stand up.”
“What?” I asked, but automatically stood all the same. “What are you doing?”
Constance bent down and struck the small bundle of the matches on the concrete floor, which ignited with a hiss and burst of life. She then walked the rest of the way to the bed and dropped the flaming bundle. The stained blankets caught fire, spreading quickly. And she simply stood there, mesmerized by the growing flames.
“Are you insane!” I yelled while simultaneously deciding what to do. “You’re going to burn the house down!”
I ran to the door, then back for the bucket in the corner of the room. I raced to the bathroom and wrenched on the shower, placing the bucket under the stream. Only waiting for it to halfway fill, I hauled it back to the smoking room and threw the water on the raging bed. I frantically repeated the process while Constance stood and watched it burn, a wildly inappropriate grin plastered to her face.
“There could be worse things,” Constance said after the second dumping of water, putting out the stubborn remainder of the fire.
I dropped the bucket, which clanged against the concrete. My old bed dripped and smoked, most of the sheets reduced to small rags. Holes were burned through the mattress, allowing for bony springs to poke through.
Constance picked up the bucket and left the room, returning a few minutes later with more water. She poured one last bucket full onto the mattress. “There, it’s dead.”
“Yup; you killed it,” I said, finally breaking a smile.
We didn’t need to say anything else as we trudged back upstairs. I locked the cellar door, then led Constance up to the bedrooms. The kids had all piled into Mina’s room—Annabelle curled up with Mina, both still giggling under the covers. Codie lay within the pile of purple sheets Kale had dragged in there. I kissed them goodnight, then crossed the hall to Johanna’s bedroom. The closet held spare bedsheets, and Constance helped me make the bed. I raided the drawers to find us each some pajamas. Constance was reluctant to take them, but finally did and headed for the door to find a room of her own.
“You can stay here, if you want,” I offered.
“We’re not quite there yet,” she said, turning back. Then she waved the tightly gripped pajamas like a flag. “But thank you.”
18
Byron
“Someone tried to kill me last night,” I said, pacing behind one of the leather couches of what used to be the secret library. Now it was just a secondary, two-story library.
Queen Dorothea glared at me incredulously. “Why are you just telling me this now?”
“This was the earliest I could get you alone. I didn’t want to mention anything to Tabatha. I wanted you to hear it firsthand from me.”
I regaled her with the short tale, which I was miraculously able to finish without interruption. Her expression was dark, eyes unblinking as she stared up at me from the opposite couch.
I finished with a clear and direct, “So I need to see the camera footage from my room.”
This made her finally blink and her eyebrows nearly disappear beneath her curled bangs.
“Don’t play ignorant. I know about the cameras. I had originally planned to request their removal this morning—that is, before the events of last night.”
“We’ll review the footage together,” she finally said.
“That’s fine. And once this is over, I’d like them removed.”
“Due to the present circumstance, it seems safer to keep them operational.”
“I agree.”
“I’ve checked in on my Amelia this morning. Her guards didn’t mention anything.”
I stopped pacing and gripped the back of the couch. “They claimed not to have seen anything. I didn’t give them any details, just to be on the lookout for anything peculiar.”
“I thought you’d finished all of the interrogations,” she asked.
“We have. A few people remain in the holding cells, the rest have been shipped to the closest detention center until a final decision is made whether they will stand trial or simply be executed for treason.”
“I guess that can wait for the time being—as long as they’re all secure.”
“I’ll check on the ones still here this morning; question them again to see if they can shed some light on what’s currently happening.”
“Good,” she said, getting to her feet. “Let’s get a move on. This is your top priority until this person is caught.”
“Or persons,” I added.
When we left to review the camera footage, I didn’t expect to go straight to her personal bedchamber. I think this was the first time I’d ever been in there. She went over to the laptop on a minimal desk and booted it up. The remnants of another laptop lay on the floor, the wall marred and chipped where the machine had apparently struck it. The flash drive I’d given to Victoria still stuck out from one of the side ports.
When the laptop requested a password, Queen Dorothea took a seat and speedily typed it in. I hovered over her shoulder as she brought up the camera feed. Apart from all the primary rooms and views of outside various palace doors, she had views into multiple bedrooms, including Victoria’s, Bethany’s, and mine.
“It happened around 1 a.m.,” I said and she clicked on the camera feed of my room.
She began rewinding from the live feed, gaining speed until the timestamp reached 12:30.
“I didn’t see anything,” I said.
Now I was tossing and turning in bed. The Queen fast forwarded slower, and as we reached 1 a.m., I stopped moving like I had finally fallen asleep. But I hadn’t been sleeping. I split my attention between the door and myself. Everything was still. At about 2 a.m., I finally rolled over in bed.
“That’s not right,” I said. “Go back. I was still for a long time. Let’s watch that transition—where I stop moving.”
In going back in time, we found the glitch in the feed at 12:42 a.m. I was tossing and turning and repositioning myself on the video, unable to get to sleep. Then in a span of one frame, I was in a slightly different position and unmoving—and I remained in that exact position for nearly an hour and a half. The time on the video continued like normal—but I could barely make out the display on my alarm clock, which was also frozen.
Queen Dorothea sank back in her chair and let out a groan. “This obviously isn’t just anyone in the palace. This is someone with frightening access.”
Royal Threat Page 9
