She turned and grabbed my hand. “It’s not.”
Her eyes were bloodshot. Crazed. I severed contact, pulling my hand and looking away.
From the white sheet, I noticed the hand sticking out slightly. The cuff. Recognisable. I knew who it was. My gut sank.
How could he be dead?
“You did this,” she continued to cry.
It was Elliott.
How could this have happened to him?
The maid and butler were both at the bottom of the stairs now, their wide eyes glaring at me.
“She did it,” Petra cried once again, grabbing my arm and letting her manicured talons into my skin.
Felix was quick to pull Petra into his arms, taking her away from clinging into me. He cooed in her ear slightly while the butler and maid moved around me, staring over my shoulder at the body.
Moments passed before everyone was out in the foyer, distress on their faces and hands quivering below their mouths.
Daniel Daniels swished his beige trench coat around himself, tying it in place with the fabric belt. “What happened?” he asked, glancing over the body on the ground. He inhaled deeply. “He’s dead alright.”
“I—I—I—” Petra began, too choked up to form a sentence.
“I heard a scream,” I said. “I was searching for a bathroom—and—and, I found her on the floor and him.” A strong gulp ached in my throat. “And him, he was there with a sheet over him.”
Vivian hummed loudly. “Who put the sheet over him?”
Petra’s shaky hand rose from her clenched foetal position. “Her,” she said, pointing at me.
I took a second look behind myself to see the maid, she sidestepped away as I looked at her. “Me?” I asked. “I was up—” I looked across to see Vivian’s eyebrow raised.
Ezra paused by his mother and whispered something. My heart beat a mile a minute, I couldn’t focus enough to listen. We waited and watched with bated breath.
“Okay,” Vivian said with a clap of her hands. “We all need a drink. We’re all in a little shock, it seems.”
Ezra joined his wife’s side as she pushed a tissue to her bottom lashes, wiping at tears. The maid and the butler walked away as well.
I had questions, we all had questions, now wasn’t a time to drink. There was a boy laying on the ground while people looked over his blanketed body. They hadn’t even asked who it was, they didn’t know if it was a man or a woman.
“Have you seen my wife?” Yan asked, pulling up to my side.
I shook my head. I hadn’t noticed she wasn’t here. “No, sorry.” I took a mental count of all the people. Rory and Bella talked together, while Daniel stood fiddling with his watch. The professor was at my side, opposite Vivian, Ezra, and his wife, Margot.
“Think she’s still looking at Camilla,” he said.
I turned, facing him directly. “Camilla?” I asked. “But she’s fine now.”
He shrugged and chuckled. “She’s a miracle worker.”
The maid approached us moments later with a gilded plate and champagne glasses. “Take a drink,” she said softly.
I refused with a shake of my head, while Yan accepted one with a smile.
“It’s weird,” I said to him.
“Well, a little bubbly might clear our heads to find out what happened,” he revealed, pressing the glass to his lips. “It’s expensive stuff,” he said. He rolled his eyes, taking a sip.
I had no idea what correlation they had to drinking champagne and solving a death. Someone had covered him, someone knew what happened. And from the way the blood had spread only slightly in areas, it appeared to have been placed over him at a similar time to when Petra found him.
“Drink,” a thick voice said, thrusting the stem of a glass in my hand.
My grasp trembled around it, turning to see who’d given me it.
EIGHTEEN
Rory Danver’s the business mogul stood almost face-to-face with his large Cheshire cat grin. He nodded to the drink he’d forced into my hand, clinking the rims together while I stared for a moment, wondering what the cheers were for.
“Drink,” he said, tipping his head.
Pressing a hand to the base of my neck, I shook my head. “I don’t feel like drinking,” I said, my eyes crossing the body on the ground.
“You’re in shock,” he said, “just a sip.”
I watched as Felix took Petra’s hand and give her a drink. “You’re in shock,” he told her. The same phrase Rory had used on me seconds earlier. He ushered her off down the hall with him.
He repeated the phrase again to me.
“I’m not in shock,” I said, unsure of the truth myself. I’d seen many dead bodies, but this one was covered in a sheet, and the main reason for the shock would’ve been the blood. A shiver ran through my body at the sight.
“It’ll make you feel better,” he said.
I placed the glass on the table beside the gifts, noting an extra gift, but all unmoved and unopened. “Perhaps water,” I said. “If I’m going to drink anything.”
Rory raised his hand and snapped his fingers, calling the maid over. “Can you fetch me a glass of water,” he said.
I noticed how meek both the butler and the maid appeared to be in the presence of others. It was odd how they’d been so verbal earlier. Perhaps I gave a vibe which people felt they could be their true selves around. “Please, and thank you,” I said after him, wondering who’d raised him – my guess was money.
He waved a hand in the air. “Manners are for the poor,” he said. “People who need something.”
I noticed discolouration as he moved his hand again. A red patch on the sleeve of his suit jacket. “Is that—” I said, pulling at his arm without thinking. “Blood?”
“Blood?” he scoffed, drinking more champagne. “You’re out of your bloody mind,” he chuckled, lifting his forearm again, glancing at the red mark. He pressed a finger to it before licking his finger.
I winced, watching him.
“Definitely not blood,” he revealed.
Doctor Juliana Jones made an appearance, coughing to gather everyone’s attention. “What happened here?” she asked.
Finally, someone who was going to ask the proper questions and get something solved. I couldn’t do anything, not while the place was warded in a way that made me feel weak. I looked around for someone to speak up, and with Petra gone, I was the second person on the scene. I cleared my throat. “I found Petra crying at his feet, I have no idea—”
“If he’s alive?” she asked, kneeling in her dress while keeping eye contact with me. “Has anyone bothered to check to see if there’s a pulse, or are we all inept?”
A pulse. I kicked myself. I should’ve checked. It should’ve been the first thing I did. But when Daniel declared him dead and Vivian requested a round of drinks, my thoughts turned to the madness around me.
Looking around, I could see we were all a little taken aback by Juliana showing up on the scene and taking control of matters. Rory had left my side once again, taking the glass I’d placed on the table on his walk away.
“Yes,” the doctor said. “He’s dead.”
Now that a doctor had said those words, it seemed to sink in a little more.
“Poor boy,” Bella said loudly. “Tomorrow’s front page.”
Without warning, Juliana pulled the sheet away from Elliott’s body. I wasn’t ready to see. Nobody was ready.
He laid flat on his back. His eyes shut. There were no signs of blood on his clothes. Only on the sheet which Juliana had now bundled into a ball.
We waited for her verdict in silence, unmoved like watching a lion.
“I can’t pinpoint the cause of death,” she said with a slow shake of her head. “I can’t find any lacerations or lesions on his skin.”
Daniel stood by Juliana. “Perhaps I can have a look,” he said. “I am a detective, after all.”
I tipped my chin toward the ceiling and raised my eyebrows at him. A dete
ctive? I wondered. Perhaps he knows something we don’t about what happened to the young athlete.
“Be my guest,” she said, standing and dusting her hands off on her dress. She stood back with the bundled cloth in her hands. Her husband placed his hands around her waist.
Daniel made several grunts. “Hmm.” He glanced at me. “Not a single drop of blood.”
“And no bruising,” Juliana said.
“Odd.”
It was very odd. Perhaps the same thing that had happened to Camilla was happening to Elliott. Whatever it was, I wasn’t a fan of the results or the shock factor it held.
“He’d been in for a physical exam last week,” she revealed. “He’s in peak physical health and shape. Well—he was.”
Daniel stood. “I know who did this,” he said, looking around the room.
The stillness in everyone moved to look around the room, eyeing up the potential culprits.
“Well,” Daniel said, moving in a circle around Elliott’s body. “Only one person here has the keen skillset to have done such a thing—and,” he said, pointing a finger to the ceiling, “only one person to have done this without blood.”
“Who?” Vivian asked, her voice a sharp command. “Who did it?”
Bella was ready with her notepad and pen. “I’m waiting,” she said. “Give me a name.”
His finger was ready. “Only one person has been seen with Elliott this evening, closely,” he continued. He turned on the spot, his hand outstretched, pointing around the room.
Whoever did it, however they did it.
They’d pay for it.
“She did it,” he said. His finger pointing at me.
Me?
NINETEEN
I was taught pointing at people was rude, disrespectful in fact. To see a detective, come to some divine conclusion that I was the one responsible for the poor boy’s death, I was speechless at the conclusion.
My mouth was dry, preparing to question him. “What?” I said.
“You did it,” the detective said. “The only explanation is that this was a witch’s doing.”
There it was. The witch card, I was being played; a scapegoat.
I stepped back, pushed against the wall beside the table. “I was trying to find a bathroom,” I repeated. “There’s no proof it was me.”
He scoffed. “No physical evidence,” he said.
“Physical, metaphysical, whatever evidence it is you’re looking for, you won’t find a single item attached to me,” I replied, looking into all the gazing eyes.
“I can’t believe you’d do it,” Yan said, slowly shaking his head. “But you were sat beside him during the dinner, it’s highly possible.” He looked away, massaging the corners of his eyes. He moved away from his wife to take the floor, presenting himself and his ideas to the Kingsway family, like they were the judges and I was on trial.
“Please,” Vivian said. “Tell me how.”
Bella watched, like an observant viewer at a tennis match, back and forth.
“Witches have been known to go bad,” the professor said. “In search of power, in search of strength. We should tread carefully, we have no idea what she’s capable of doing.”
Perhaps it was all a great hoax. I caressed the gems across my rings. “If you’re such a great detective,” I said, pushing away from the wall to present my case. “Tell me, what do I have to gain, tell me why I did it.”
As any investigator knows, there are several motives as to why someone murders; revenge, hate, greed, jealousy, or more plainly, an ill-will, a number of reasons. I had none of those things, I was none of those people.
“Some people are just bad people,” Detective Daniels said.
Vivian looked around the room. “Do we have any witnesses?”
From out of the shadows, a figure approached the group. It carried a tray with a single tumbler glass of water.
The maid strutted through with her hand held high. “Me,” she said. “I saw.”
“Well, Anne, what did you see?” Ezra asked from behind his mother. “Did you see Evanora?”
She cleared her throat, nodding at his words. “I did see Miss Lavender.”
It wasn’t exactly a lie. I’d seen her, she’d seen me.
The butler then raised his hand. “I saw Miss Lavender, she stood over Elliott,” he said. “I didn’t think anything of it at first, but now I know she’s the cause of this.”
I scoffed back. “Liars,” I said. “That never happened.”
“Are you saying you weren’t found over Elliott’s body?” Daniel asked.
“No, they saw me. I heard Petra scream.”
Margot let out a hum. “Well, Petra seemed to think you had something to do with this as well,” she said. “That’s—” she counted the number on her fingers. “Four people accusing you. Where were you when Elliott was found?”
I paused to think, my teeth clung to the inside of my cheek. “I was upstairs, looking for a bathroom.”
“So, you weren’t in the study,” Vivian said. “Where I’d specifically left you, all of you.”
Shaking my head. I realised Elliott had been taken out by the butler, taken to speak with the Kingsway family. None of them had been inside the study either. “No, but neither were you,” I said.
Margot gasped. “My daughter was on the verge of death!”
“Yes,” Vivian said calmly. “Camilla had fainted into her dinner at the dining table, we had to be together in that time.” She pulled away from Ezra and Margot, stepping over Elliott’s body to me.
“It could’ve been anyone,” I said. The truth was, I couldn’t get a reading on anyone in this house. Everything was masked by wards. “You’ve got this house warded.”
She let out a slow clap. “That is true,” she said. “Witches have warded this house and Kingsway family for many years.”
“So? Why was I invited?” the question I’d wanted answers to since I’d received the invite. Part of me had thought it was a social acceptance, but now, I knew there was more to that. I knew to know better, to always be on guard.
Rule number one; be on guard. I’d failed myself.
Vivian grabbed my arm by the wrist, her grip like a vice. “Well, dear,” she said. “Come with me.”
“Where?” I asked, trying to plant my feet on the ground.
“Come,” she said, although I had no choice. Her pull was heavy on my wrist, and I wasn’t risking her pulling my hand off to be stubborn and stay still.
She pulled me around Elliott’s body, pausing at the corridor where a door opened inward into the study. Once we were in the study she let go.
The door slammed behind us, locking in place.
“Now we’re alone,” she said, her mouth turning up at the sides in a grimace.
“What do you want?” I asked, looking her over.
Vivian Kingsway may have seemed like a fragile old lady on the outside, but inside, there was a strength that had left a red mark on my wrist.
TWENTY
Now that the study was empty, except for Vivian and I, I took a moment to really look at the walls and the books that populated the shelves. There were many, large brown leather-bound tomes that inspired a creative fire in me.
“Sit down,” she said, nodding to a chair at the desk. “And get comfortable.”
It didn’t inspire comfort, to be told to sit.
A knock came thudding at the door as I sat in the hard chair.
“Everything okay in there?” Ezra asked, his voice muffled from the heavy wood.
“Of course,” Vivian shouted. “I’m getting myself acquainted with our guest.”
Guest? I’d gone from being accused of murder to a guest. She smiled at me. Perhaps she believed me. Perhaps this is where she told me what was really going on. I couldn’t get a vibe on anything or a sense of person on anyone here.
“Comfortable?” she asked.
Not really, the chair was hard. “Yes,” I said.
“Good.”
I turned to watch Vivian as she wandered aimlessly around the room. I tried to get a read on her, but the only vibe I got was a vibration in my back teeth. I clenched them, hoping to bite it.
She approached me with her hands behind her back. “I’m not sure what to think,” she said, shaking her head and averting eye contact. “Hands out on the desk, please,” she said.
I placed my hands flat on the desk in front of me. “Why?”
“The other way,” she said.
Palms to the ceiling. “I had nothing to do with his death,” I said. “Call the police.”
She chuckled. “Detective Daniel Daniels works for the police.”
It made sense. He was in their pocket. They didn’t want anyone else here. But a real crime had been committed, and it needed to be solved. “And you,” I said.
She ignored my comment. “We have the police here.”
Human detectives were often the bane of my life as an investigator, always thinking they knew better, but often not knowing anything about witchcraft or the supernatural beings that lived among us. Detective Daniels was different. He knew.
A sharp pinprick stabbed into the forefinger of my left hand. The swift motion from Vivian as she pulled a needle from my finger.
“Agh.” I winced, clenching my hands to my chest.
“Oh dear,” she grumbled, grabbing my hand by the wrist once again. “Let me help you,” she said, squeezing the cut at the tip of my finger with a handkerchief.
I pulled. My entire body pulled. There was little resistance or budging from Vivian. “Stop it,” I said. “You can’t use that.”
“Use it?” she laughed, collecting the tissue in a hand as she let my hand free.
“Yes,” I said. “You can’t use that.” I held my wrist, looking at the redness.
“Dear, you’re in my home,” she said. “This is my castle, and you’re a guest. I can, and I will use whatever I please.”
I stood, caressing my sore wrist. “No,” I said, reaching out/
“Sit down,” she said.
“Tell me why you did that, then I’ll happily sit down.”
Witchwood Cozy Mystery Bundle Page 13
