Authors: Lynsay Sands
His voice broke and he turned his head away briefly.
Eshe swallowed and withdrew from his thoughts. She’d been reading his mind as he’d spoken, verifying for herself that he was telling the truth. He was, and his guilt and loss were painful to experience with him.
It was Bricker who asked, “So you don’t really know if Susanna was in there? No one actually saw her enter the stables or—?”
“No,” John interrupted, his voice harsh with a combination of grief and what sounded like anger. “No one saw, but it was her. We realized that when Agnes came running out of the castle crying that she couldn’t find Susanna anywhere. She wasn’t with the baby, or in her room.” He sighed and shook his head. “Of course, I didn’t want to believe she could have been in there. I wanted to believe it was someone else, but the next night she was still nowhere to be found. The fire had gone out by then and the embers had cooled, so I got several men together and we sifted through the ashes.” His expression was bleak as he told them, “I found her wedding ring and the amulet Armand had given her before leaving for court as well as a couple of burned and stained patches of the gown she’d been wearing to see Marguerite and Jean Claude off. That was it, though. I gather the nanos make us burn so hot that it was amazing that those bits of cloth had survived and that the metal hadn’t melted.”
They were all silent for a moment, and then John added, “I was the one who had to tell Armand when he returned home from court a week later.” He shook his head sadly. “The man was happy as hell to be home and couldn’t wait to see Susanna. You’d have thought they’d been apart a decade instead of just two weeks. He rode into the bailey at speed, bounded off his mount, and raced up the stairs, laughing and yelling for Susanna. When I tried to stop him at the top of the steps, he laughed and said, ‘Where’s your sister? I got her a gift while at court,’ and tried to move around me until I finally just blurted, ‘She’s dead.’”
John shook his head. “I loved my sister, and her passing was painful as hell for me, but sometimes I think it would have been kinder just to have staked Armand in the heart. I’ve never before or since seen a man so stricken.”
Eshe swallowed away the lump suddenly in her throat. She’d slipped into his thoughts again as he’d recalled Armand’s return and seen first Armand’s laughter as he’d returned home to his life mate, and then the way he’d paled and swayed as he learned his life mate was dead. It had been difficult to witness even secondhand through an old memory. Clearing her throat, she said quietly, “Thank you. I’m sorry we made you relive such sad memories. I only have one more question.”
He nodded, his expression expectant.
“You said Marguerite and Jean Claude were there earlier in the evening but had left, and I know Armand and Cedrick were at court…Were there any other immortals that you know of who were at the castle besides you and your sister when the fire started?”
John seemed startled by the question, but took a moment before answering. However, then he shook his head. “No. Just me and Agnes.” He tilted his head curiously. “Why?”
Eshe let her breath out on a sigh. She’d been hoping for someone they could investigate, someone Armand hadn’t thought or maybe even known of. Someone who had dropped by unexpectedly or…well, just anything. But life was never that simple, was it?
Shaking her head, she stood up. “It doesn’t matter. Thank you for taking the time to talk with us. We should go now.”
They were all silent as he walked them to the door. Bricker murmured a thank-you as they slipped outside, but didn’t speak again until they were in the SUV. Then he glanced at her and pointed out, “You didn’t ask him about Althea or Rosamund’s death.”
Eshe stiffened in her seat, her seat belt drawn halfway across her body as she realized he was right. She’d found the tale of Susanna’s death and Armand’s pain so upsetting, she hadn’t thought to ask about anything else. Biting her lip, she glanced toward the house and frowned. The door was closed now, John nowhere in sight. “Well, he wouldn’t know anything useful about Althea. He and Agnes were in Europe. And from what Armand and Harcourt have told us, he wasn’t at the house around the time of Rosamund’s death either.”
“True,” Bricker agreed slowly. “But still, maybe we should at least ask.”
Eshe hesitated, but then sighed and let her seat belt slide back into its holder. “You’re right. Let’s go.”
They both got out of the SUV and walked back to the house. This time Eshe rang the doorbell. She then stood, silently cursing herself for not asking questions about the other women as they waited. And waited.
“He’s not answering,” Bricker pointed out. “He didn’t slip out to the barns or something while we were walking to the SUV, did he?”
“No. We would have seen him,” Eshe said with certainty and rang the doorbell again. She was about to ring it for a third time when the sound of a vehicle engine made her glance toward the driveway. A white four-by-four with tinted windows was slowing as it pulled in beside their SUV. Eshe and Bricker watched curiously as it came to a halt and the driver’s side door opened. The man who got out was plain-faced and built like a bull, with a wide chest, muscular arms, and a thick neck. A thatch of pale brown hair was cut short on his head.
Eshe shrugged when Bricker glanced at her, and simply waited as the man approached the door where they were waiting.
He paused on the sidewalk in front of the stoop they were on, tall enough he managed to loom over her and Bricker despite being on lower ground, and eyed them both for a moment before turning his attention to Eshe. “You look to me to be Eshe d’Aureus.”
Eshe’s eyes widened slightly, but she accepted the hand he held out and nodded before asking, “And you are?”
“Cedrick Hanford,” he introduced himself.
“Cedrick?” Bricker asked with surprise. “Armand and Anders were heading over to talk to you when we left the house.”
“They would have missed me then. I’ve been running errands,” he said and arched one querying eyebrow. “And who are you?”
“Justin Bricker,” he said, offering his own hand in greeting. “I’m…er…a friend of Eshe’s and now Armand’s,” he muttered finally.
Cedrick nodded and accepted his hand in a shake, then glanced past them to the door. “Not getting an answer?”
“No,” Eshe admitted, frowning at the door herself. “We know John’s home. We were talking to him a few minutes ago and then started to leave, but remembered something we forgot to ask him and came back, but now he’s not answering.”
Cedrick grunted, not seeming surprised. “He probably went down into that basement of his. If so, you’re out of luck. The damned thing is soundproof. It’s where they sleep and he had it built so they wouldn’t hear the doorbell, phones, or anything down there. You could blow up your SUV out here and he wouldn’t hear it if that’s where he is.”
“Surely he wouldn’t go to bed this early?” Bricker said with a frown.
“Probably not,” Cedrick agreed. “But he’s got an office down there too with a computer that, I gather, has every computer game worth owning on it. He’s down there most nights gaming until well past dawn. The best way to get ahold of him is to leave a message on the answering machine. He’ll call back…eventually,” he added with dry irritation.
“Well, I guess that’s it for talking to him tonight,” Bricker muttered.
Eshe nodded, and then stepped back out of the way as Cedrick murmured, “Excuse me,” and squeezed between them on the stoop to get to the mailbox. As she watched curiously, he slid a CD from his back pocket and dropped it in the mailbox, then let the lid drop with a clang.
Turning back, he saw their expressions and explained, “An accounting program to help him with the books.”
“I thought John owned this place, not Armand,” Bricker said with surprise, speaking what she was thinking.
“He does, but Armand frets about the boy and asked me to help him out if I could. So I do a few things here and there. This program is so he can do his own accounting. Means he’ll pester me less,” he added dryly, moving between them again to step off the stoop.
“I’m getting the distinct impression you don’t like John,” Eshe murmured, stepping off the stoop to follow him when he started back toward his truck.
She saw his big shoulders shrug. “John’s all right. He’s just…well…John,” he said wryly, stopping at his truck. He turned back to raise an eyebrow at them. “You say Armand was looking to talk to me?”
“Yes. He’s probably been to your place and left by now,” she added with a frown.
“Are you headed back to the farm?” he asked.
Eshe glanced back to the silent and still house behind them. They really needed to question John some more, but it looked like that wouldn’t happen right now. They’d have to go home, get his number, and call to leave a message on his answering machine. A big pain in the ass, but it looked like there was nothing else to do. Sighing, she turned back to Cedrick. “Yes. We’re heading back to the farm.”
“Then I’ll follow you and talk to Armand there,”
Cedrick decided, and got into his truck.
“Do you have your phone with you, Bricker?” Eshe asked as they hurried to their own vehicle.
“Yeah. Where’s yours?” he asked with surprise.
“A pile of melted plastic in the shed,” she said dryly.
“Oh. Right.” He started reaching into his pocket.
“Give it to me in the truck,” she suggested as she moved away to approach the passenger side of the vehicle.
They both got in and did up their seat belts, then Bricker handed her his phone and started the engine. “Who are you calling?”
“Armand,” she answered absently as she punched in his cell phone number. “I just want to be sure he and Anders did head home when they found Cedrick wasn’t there and aren’t sitting out at the farm he runs waiting for him.”
“So his phone survived the fire?” Bricker asked, starting the engine.
Eshe cursed and hit the end call button and started to dial Anders’s phone number instead as Bricker started up the drive and Cedrick followed.
“Armand’s on his way back,” Eshe told Cedrick as
she stepped out of the SUV to find him already out of his pickup and there to hold the door for her. They’d been bouncing around so much on the gravel lanes on the way back that she’d punched in Anders’s number wrong twice before finally getting it right and getting ahold of the men.
As she’d feared, they were sitting in Armand’s pickup waiting for Cedrick to return. She’d explained that they’d run into him at the Maunsell farm and were bringing him back to Armand’s farm to speak with him. Armand had said they’d head right over.
Eshe had barely finished talking to him and ended the call before Bricker was pulling into the driveway at Armand’s farm. By her guess, they were fifteen or twenty minutes away. She murmured a thank-you as Cedrick closed the door for her, and then started toward the porch.
“Would you like something to drink while we wait? Coffee, tea…blood?” Eshe added the last with a wry twist of her lips. Saying the first two had made her feel like Little Suzy Homemaker, but offering the blood had made her feel better. Besides, no one had ever mentioned if the man was mated or not. If not, he probably didn’t drink anything but blood.
“Blood,” Cedrick murmured as he followed her up the porch steps. He then added, “I’m unmated still…and beginning to think I’ll never find my life mate.”
The last was said on a weary note that made Eshe frown slightly. It was hard being alone, she knew. Life started to just blend together into one seamless skein of never-ending nights. And John Maunsell was alone too, reduced to a game junkie who sat alone in a soundproofed and windowless room night after night playing endless video games. After they resolved all this, it seemed to her she and Armand should throw a big party and invite a ton of females, mortal and immortal alike, to introduce to the two men. They both seemed nice enough to her and deserved life mates. Of course, she’d only had one short conversation with John, and from the few brief sentences she’d exchanged with Cedrick, it seemed he didn’t think much of John.
“What did you mean by John is John?” she asked curiously as they entered the kitchen and she moved to the refrigerator to retrieve three bags of blood.
“Maybe I should move that up to Armand’s room before we forget,” Bricker muttered as he took the bag she offered him. “Mrs. Ramsey will be here tomorrow.”
Eshe nodded absently, her questioning gaze on Cedrick as she offered him a bag.
“Thank you.” He accepted the blood, but didn’t pop it to his teeth right away, instead considering her question. Finally he sighed and said bluntly, “John was a drunken idiot as a mortal.”
Eshe’s eyes widened at this news. He’d mentioned he’d liked to drink as a mortal, but she hadn’t taken that to mean he was a drunk. Of course, he wasn’t likely to tell her that. She glanced to Bricker to see that he appeared just as surprised. He also stopped pulling bags of blood from the refrigerator, plopped the two he’d already removed back inside, closed the door, and straightened to listen.
Eshe glanced back to Cedrick, and then carried her bag of blood with her to the table and sat down as she asked, “What drove him to drink?”
“Nothing,” Cedrick said dryly as he and Bricker joined her at the table. “He was just a second son with no responsibilities, no prospects, and a like for drink.”
“Oh,” Eshe murmured, turning her bag absently in her hand.
“He was also betrothed to the daughter of a neighboring baron,” Cedrick said on a sigh. “The girl could have done better, but she and John were crazy about each other and her original betrothed had died when she was a child, so the father agreed to their marriage. The wedding date was about three months away when John came to the castle to find out why Agnes was no longer at the convent. And then of course he went on the night hunt where he broke his neck.”
Cedrick’s mouth tightened. “He was sober when we started out, but had a wineskin full of whiskey in his saddlebag. I caught him drinking a time or two and suggested it wasn’t wise to drink on a hunt. He just laughed and said it was to keep him warm.” Cedrick blew his breath out with disgust. “I guarantee you the idiot was past drunk when he took the tumble from his mount and broke his fool neck.”