They weren’t careful then as they raced up the stairs.
At the door to Emil Roth’s suite, they suddenly paused. “Whatever he’s doing, we have to interrupt him. We’re trying to keep him alive,” Sloan said.
Logan nodded and banged on the door. Emil Roth, dressed in a silk robe, opened the door. Seeing them, he groaned. “You all again.”
“Mr. Roth, someone was sneaking toward your door in the middle of the night. I believe they meant to cause you some harm,” Sloan told them.
“It was me,” said a squeaky, apologetic voice. Scully Adair, clad in an oversized shirt, her hair still in disarray, walked slowly out of the bedroom. She gave them a little wave. “Sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Jane shook her head—trying to dispel unwanted images that rose before her mind’s eye. “You don’t need to apologize. You’re both adults.”
“But, Scully, it wasn’t you,” Sloan said. “It was someone wearing black, evidently sneaking around, who was headed toward Emil’s door. We chased them, and whoever it was disappeared right outside the front door.”
“Why would anyone want to hurt me? To most of the world, I’m worthless,” Emil said dryly.
“You’re not worthless!” Scully said passionately.
“You seem to be a fine enough young man, sincerely,” Jane told him.
“But, beyond that, you are worth a fortune,” Kelsey reminded him.
Emil Roth shook his head. “If I die, the only living heir—or heiress—is Denise Avery. But she doesn’t just get everything. There are all kinds of trusts. The castle will be left to posterity. It will go to the village and be run by a trust and a group of directors.”
“But she’d still make out all right,” Logan said.
Emil waved a hand in the air. “She’d get a few million.”
“Oh, Emil!” Jane said. “People have died for far less than a few million.”
“But—Denise,” Emil said.
Jane turned to Sloan. “Where was she when you all went running after the figure into the night?”
“We woke up Mr. Green and Mrs. Avery,” Logan said.
“But both took their time answering their doors,” Sloan said.
“Which, of course, is more than possible when you’re sound asleep,” Kelsey said.
“This can’t be—real,” Emil said.
“We didn’t imagine the figure we chased away,” Sloan said flatly.
“So what do I do?” Emil asked.
“You sit tight,” Logan said firmly. “We’re waiting on some answers from our home office, and the M.E.’s report. We’ll have that info in the morning. For tonight, sit tight. One of us will stay in the hall through the next few hours. When the sun comes up, you’ll be with one of us through the day until we get to the bottom of this.”
“Really?” Scully asked. “I mean, the police said that it was an accident when the reverend fell. And someone was running around the halls? It could have been the ghost.”
“It wasn’t a ghost,” Sloan said flatly. “It was flesh and blood that tried to get to you tonight, Emil. Dressed in black, sneaking around. And a man died here less than twenty-four hours ago. Let’s be smart about this.”
Emil nodded. “Yes. Thank you.”
“Let’s do what we can with the rest of the night,” Logan said. “I’ll take the hall first.” He glanced at his watch. “Each of us takes an hour and a half. That gives everyone a few hours of sleep before morning. Kelsey, you relieve me. Sloan and Jane, you’ll be up last.”
“I meant to go home,” Scully murmured.
“You can’t now,” Kelsey said flatly.
“But I’ll be in the same clothing and Mrs. Avery—”
“I do own the place,” Emil said again.
“You’re a little shorter than Kelsey, but about the same size,” Sloan said. “We’ll get you some clothing. For tonight, sit tight.”
They left Emil Roth and Scully Adair and adjourned to the hall.
“You know, we’re forgetting people,” Jane pointed out. “Chef lives over the old stables. I’m not sure where that is. And Phoebe Martin is up in the attic.”
“The stables are down the hill and to the right of the gatehouse,” Sloan said. “And the attic, you walked Phoebe up there tonight, right?”
“Doesn’t mean she stayed there,” Jane pointed out.
“But what would Phoebe or Chef have to gain from hurting Emil Roth?” Kelsey asked.
“The only one to benefit would be Denise Avery,” Sloan said.
“But she was there, down at the gatehouse, when you banged on her door, right?” Jane asked.
“Oh, yes, spitting fire, warning us that she had the right to throw us out,” Logan said.
“Let’s get through the night,” Sloan said. “And hope we get something to go on in the morning.”
Logan turned to Kelsey. “Get some sleep. I’ll wake you in a bit. And you two,” he said to Jane and Sloan. “Go on in and—whatever. You have three hours.”
Sloan slipped his hand to the base of Jane’s spine and urged her toward their door. They entered and he waited for the click. He cupped her head between his hands and kissed her tenderly, the feel of his fingers feathering against the softness of her flesh an arousing touch. He had a talent for the right move at the right time. He could walk into a room and cast his head in one direction and she would just see that he was there and want him. He could be a joker. He could walk naked from a shower and tease and play and tell her that the offer was evident.
But, right now, he wasn’t sure what was on her mind. He could always make her long for him.
“She’s been here.”
“What?” he asked her.
And she told him about waking up to the feel of something on her cheek, of Elizabeth being there and looking at her worriedly. She told him about John McCawley waiting in the church, forever watching the windows for his love.
“Why can’t he come in the house?” Sloan asked her.
“Maybe he was never really invited inside—invited to be a part of the family,” Jane suggested.
“Did you ask him about any of this?” Sloan asked.
“I didn’t really have time. You screamed for me and he disappeared.”
“We’ll talk about this with the others tomorrow,” he said. “And until then—” He paused, his fingers tracing a pattern down her cheek, his eyes focused on hers. “Until then, we’ll get some sleep.”
She smiled. “When this is over, let’s go to an island. A resort. Maybe one of those all-inclusive ones. One where we have our own little hut on the beach.”
“No ghosts,” he said.
“No ghosts.”
“Or Mrs. Avery.”
“You think she’s guilty?”
“She has the only motive,” Sloan said. “Can you think of another?”
At the moment, she couldn’t.
She kissed his lips with a promise for the future.
“Go to sleep,” he told her. “I can’t sleep anyway, right now. I’ll take both our turns watching the hall. I’ll be back in once it’s full light. Logan will be up by then.”
She headed into the bedroom, exhausted. She knew Sloan. He’d be pacing in the foyer area of their room for a while, thinking.
But she fell quickly asleep.
She awoke.
And felt Sloan’s warmth beside her. She loved that she lay with him at night and woke with him in the morning. She even loved that they could disagree, even argue, that life with him was comfortable—and yet, she could see him, breathe his scent, watch him walk from the shower and want him as if they’d never made love before.
She rolled over to tell him that she loved him.
But never spoke the words.
A shrill scream pierced the castle’s quiet.
Chapter 7
“I guess that Mrs. Avery wasn’t responsible,” Sloan said.
The scene was a repetition of the previous morning. Only now, it was Denise Avery who lay at
the foot of the stairs, her neck broken.
Sloan looked at Logan, who’d been on guard duty. “What happened?”
“She was never on the second level to descend to the first,” Logan said, looking at them.
This time, it had been Scully Adair—dressed in one of Kelsey’s tailored work suits—who’d made the discovery when she walked down the stairs. Her scream had alerted the castle. Now, everyone was there, including Mr. Green.
Chef and Harry and Devon rushed in from the hall to the kitchen. Phoebe Martin had come running from the Great Hall and the two day maids, Sonia Anderson and Lila Adkins, hurried from the office. It was chaos, everyone asking each other if they’d seen Mrs. Avery.
“Whoa!” Sloan shouted. “Stop. All of you!”
They went silent.
Phoebe stared at Sloan with fear. Scully Adair seemed to be in shock. Harry and Devon just looked sick.
Chef shook his head. “I knew I should have taken that job out at the really haunted hotel in Colorado.”
Mr. Green just stood there, hat in hand, shaking his head. “Sorrowful end. The reverend? He was a good man. Mrs. Avery? Not so much. Still, a sorrowful end.”
“We’re going to have to call the police,” Jane said.
“Already dialing,” Logan told them.
“Let’s leave her as she lies for the M.E.,” Sloan said. “We’ll head into the Great Hall and wait for the police.”
They obeyed like sheep. Chef, Harry, and Devon drifted to one side of the table—team kitchen. Phoebe Martin, Sonia, and Lila to the other side. Emil Roth—appearing to be in total shock—walked to his place at the end.
Scully looked at the room uncertainly. At last, she walked to the wall and sank down against it and seemed to curl into herself.
“Did anyone see her this morning?” Logan asked.
“I did,” Mr. Green volunteered. “I saw her walking up to the castle from the guard house.”
“Did you speak with her?”
“No,” he said. Then, he added, “I only speak with her when I have to.”
“We saw her—the three of us,” Chef told them.
“Yeah,” Harry said. “She came in telling us that if we were all going to get so chummy with the guests, Chef needed to plan cheaper meals.”
“Nice,” Scully muttered.
“Did you see her?” Jane asked the maids.
The three of them shook their heads.
“Not until she was there. At the foot of the stairs. But, I knew. The minute I heard Scully screaming, I knew,” Phoebe said. She stared at Jane. “It’s the ghost. She’s angry. Elizabeth is angry. You tried to get married here when she couldn’t. I think she’s trying to kill you!”
Sloan cleared his throat. “I really don’t think that Jane and the reverend and Mrs. Avery resemble one another in any way. Nor do I think that a ghost is killing people.”
“So she just tripped?” Harry asked hopefully.
“Personally, I don’t think so,” Jane said matter-of-factly.
“But the reverend just fell yesterday!” Harry protested.
“And she fell today,” Kelsey said.
“So, if she didn’t just fall—” Harry began.
“Someone pushed her,” Devon finished.
“And who would want to kill that old battle-ax?” Chef demanded sarcastically.
The police didn’t knock, they burst right in. Detective Forester immediately looked at the FBI agents. “Four of you are still here—and another person is dead? What now?”
Everyone began to speak at once again.
Sloan assumed that Detective Forester was decent at his job. But he probably didn’t deal with situations like this often. And Detective Flick, at his heels, merely followed the path that his boss took.
“Hey!” Sloan shouted. “Tone it down. Let the detective get his questions out in an orderly fashion.”
They all went silent like errant school children.
“The ghost did it!” Phoebe said again. “The ghost did not want people getting married here. Maybe Elizabeth Roth didn’t even want to hurt the reverend. He was just there and she had to stop the wedding. And so, to stop killing other people, she had to kill Mrs. Avery, who kept letting people try to get married here.”
Forester stared at her as if she’d completely lost her mind.
“Who saw what happened?” Forester demanded.
“No one saw anything,” Sloan said. “My co-workers and I were on the second floor. Scully Adair came down the stairs and found her.”
“No one else was around?” Forester demanded of Scully.
Scully shook her head.
“Where were the rest of you?” Forester asked.
Mr. Green told him he’d never entered the house. Chef and cook said that they’d been in the kitchen, but that she had been in to see them just moments earlier.
“We had just gotten here,” Lila said.
“We rode in together,” Sonia said.
“I was still up in my room,” Phoebe said.
“So she just fell?” Forester said, bewildered. “Someone has to know something.” He spun on Mr. Green. “Who can vouch for you?”
Green just looked shocked. “I’m always outside.”
“And you?” he demanded of Phoebe.
She stared back at him in horror. “Miss Everett walked me to my room last night. Damn you! Why will no one listen to me? The ghost did it.”
“I want this place shut down to the public immediately,” Forester told Emil Roth. “And no one leaves.”
He made the announcement as if that were the answer to the dilemma.
“I don’t really have anywhere else to go,” Mr. Green muttered.
They heard activity at the door. The medical examiner had arrived. Forester told the group to stay in the Great Hall. Sloan ignored the order, getting a nod from Logan, and followed out on the heels of the detective.
The medical examiner shook his head as he stared at the corpse. “I’ll get her temperature for time of death—”
“We know the damned time of death,” Forester snapped. “Can’t you tell if she was pushed or not?”
“When I have time for an autopsy,” the man snapped back.
“Doctor,” Sloan asked. “Did you discover anything yesterday that might have caused the reverend to fall? I heard he had a bad heart.”
The medical examiner looked at him and nodded. “He was a walking time bomb. There was damage to his heart. Whether that caused his fall or not, I don’t know. But he didn’t suffer a heart attack before he came crashing down the stairs. And Mrs. Avery, I think she was in decent health. She certainly appeared to be.”
Sloan said, “But she didn’t fall from the top of the stairs. We were out in the hallway on that landing and we didn’t see her.” He actually hadn’t been on the landing himself. Logan had been there. But, to Sloan’s knowledge, Logan never missed anything.
“She fell from midway up?” Forester asked.
“She had to have. She was never on the second floor landing,” Sloan said.
“It’s a broken neck for sure,” the medical examiner said. “If you want to know more, I’ll be able to tell you in a few hours. She’ll be an immediate priority at the morgue.”
Forester thanked him. The medical examiner looked at Sloan and nodded. He had the feeling that he’d be getting any information just as quickly as Forester.
“What do you have to say?” Forester asked, looking at Sloan.
“I don’t know what is happening any more than you do,” Sloan said. “But three people breaking their necks on a stairway in a matter of years—two of them within two days? I don’t see that as accidents, nor as coincidences. Something is going on here.”
“You are saying that these people have been murdered?” Forester asked.
“I’d say it’s likely.”
“And what do you say we do to find out what is happening?”
Sloan was surprised. Forester’s anger was all bluster. He w
as bewildered. There were no knives involved, no guns, no gang wars, and no obvious motive for killing. A husband hadn’t gotten too angry with a wife. A mistress hadn’t suddenly turned on a man who’d promised to leave his wife and marry her.
And yet, people were dead.
“Detective, we’ve been researching everyone here. We expect some reports this morning. But, questioning the people here could prove helpful.”
Forester nodded. “I’ll do it. Whatever you find out, you’ll tell me, right?”
“Of course. This is your jurisdiction. We just happen to be here. We’re happy to help. But I need to get together with my team.”
Forester nodded and seemed better equipped to take control. “I’ll see the employees one by one in the Great Hall. You and your team may return to your rooms. I’ll send the cooks and the maids to the kitchen and start with Mrs. Avery’s assistant.”
Forester walked ahead of Sloan to return to the Great Hall. When they were there, he announced his intentions. “Chef, you and your helpers stay together. Miss Martin, Miss Anderson, Miss Adkins, you will stay together, too. You’re welcome to wait your turn in the kitchen. Mr. Roth, we’ll have to speak with you, but you’re welcome to return to your room until Detective Flick comes to bring you down. Please understand, no one is being accused of anything but we must ascertain what happened here. Therefore, I need to speak with all of you, one by one. Mr. Green, you may return to your apartment. Just be ready to speak to us when we call you.”
For a moment, everyone was dead still. Then, Chef rose. “Coffee sounds damned good. And breakfast. Detectives? Should I plan for you, too?”
Sloan was surprised when Forester looked at him—as if for approval.
“Chef, it’s kind of you to look out for everyone,” Sloan said.
He motioned to Logan, Kelsey, and Jane. As the others shuffled out, except for Scully Adair, who looked like a caged mouse, he and the Krewe members made their way to the stairs and up to the bridal suite.
“It wasn’t Mrs. Avery after all,” Logan said dryly, stating the obvious.
“Whatever motive could there be?” Kelsey asked.
“Motives for murder,” Jane mused. “Greed? That seems to be out. Revenge? Who would have a motive for revenge against the reverend and Mrs. Avery?”