The Heir of Thornfield Manor

by Ellie Thornton

  Alice nodded. “I figured you’d wonder about Katelyn’s case at some point, especially with Patrick taking such an interest in you.”

  Elizabeth feigned embarrassment and looked down.

  “There’s no shame in it, dear.” Alice brushed a lock of silver hair behind her ear. “He’s easy to care for. We all had our keys the night she was killed. Of course, Alice misplaced her key six months before Katelyn’s death, which she told Police Chief Shaw. She found them under the driver’s seat of her car the next day and there were no signs of forced entry, so Shaw decided not to worry about it.”

  Elizabeth stopped breathing. That was not in the case file. No mention, no side note, nothing. Maybe it really was nothing—in fact, it seemed likely it was—but he should have mentioned it. “Okay, thanks.”

  “I’m glad he has you. He’s changed since you’ve arrived. He seems happy again. You’re good for him.” Alice headed back to the table. “Which reminds me, he asked me to send you to the library as soon as you got home.”

  Elizabeth cleared her throat. She’d worried about that. It was their ritual, but she just didn’t have it in her tonight. “You know, I’m exhausted—think I’ll head straight to bed. Would you let him know?”

  Alice furrowed her brow as she sat down. “Of course. It’s been a long day after a long week, hasn’t it? Patrick’ll be disappointed, but I’ll be sure to tell him.”

  Elizabeth took the stairs two at a time, suddenly nervous that he’d catch her before she could make it to her room. Their intimate conversation this morning in their pajamas and then their heated argument at the fair were playing with her emotions. She barely knew him, and yet every time she saw him, she left with her feelings all tangled in knots. Her analytical side needed a night off.

  Once in her room with the door securely bolted behind her, Elizabeth plopped down on her bed and closed her eyes. She felt weary, as though everything that’d happened was finally catching up with her.

  Sometime later, in some distant place at the back of her mind, she heard footsteps in the hall, a light tapping at her door, and Daley’s voice calling out, “Elizabeth … are you awake? I must talk with you.”

  Her heart thudded in her chest at the mere sound of his voice. She wanted to go to him, but she rolled over and pulled the blankets over her head. Her dreams would have to suffice.

  Chapter Ten

  Elizabeth hardly slept that night, waking at the smallest of sounds. And this house was full of sounds; it was old and creaky and made noises right and left. It hadn’t helped that at the show, several of the townsfolk, upon hearing she lived in the manor, told her that Katelyn haunted the house. She wondered what Daley would think of that.

  Elizabeth grabbed a dry piece of toast for breakfast, eating it in a few bites, then headed to the library. She knocked, then stuck her head in. Daley wasn’t there, and she sighed in relief, yet felt disappointment at the same time. Walking past the sitting area, she went straight for a bookshelf and started perusing the old leather-bound books.

  A little ways down, a book with scratchy, dark brown leather binding caught her eye. There was no name on the spine. She eased it off the shelf and opened it. The paper was thin and soft to the touch.

  She gently turned another page, finding print there. “Le Comte De Monte-Cristo, Alexander Dumas. The Count of Monte Cristo.” She scanned down a little further and her eyes bulged. It was a first edition. Holy crap! She eased the cover shut, then slowly slid it back onto the shelf. She sighed once it was secure.

  “You’re still here,” Daley said from somewhere behind her.

  She took a deep breath and then turned.

  He stood across the room behind the sofa. He had two books in his hands and looked as handsome as ever. He was in his normal suit pants, dark blue today, button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, and a dark blue vest. The way he looked at her made the hairs on her arms rise. Had she missed him when she’d come in?

  She lifted her hands palms up. “Still here.”

  He grinned and nodded toward the shelf behind her. “Have you read it?”

  “No.” At least, she couldn’t remember reading it. But for some reason, it seemed like she had—like somehow she had intimate knowledge of the book. Maybe she’d read it in high school and forgot.

  “It’s a hard one to forget.” He made his way around the sofa. “People always think the movies are just like the book, but they’re quite different. Especially in this case.”

  She held his eye contact. “You’ve read it?”

  He stopped behind one of the club chairs and leaned against it. “I’ve read all of them.”

  She furrowed her brow and glanced around the room at the hundreds of books on the shelves, some of which weren’t even in English, like The Count of Monte Cristo.

  He smiled. “I read fast.”

  “You’d have to.” Every day since she’d arrived, she’d seen him reading. Still, that seemed like an awful lot.

  “You’re skeptical.”

  “It’s a lot of books.”

  With one hand, he signaled to the shelves. “Pick one. Anyone you want.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it,” he said.

  Shaking her head, she went to a shelf and perused. She found one and smiled. There couldn’t be a more appropriate book in the place. Turning, she lifted it to him. “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

  He chuckled. “Is that a commentary on my behavior?”

  She grinned this time. It absolutely was. He was so changeable. One moment smiling that megawatt smile of his, and the next grumpy and dismissive. “Take it as you will.”

  He sobered slightly. “Open it anywhere you like and give me a page number.”

  She blinked. He couldn’t be serious. She opened the book. “Page seventy-two.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment, and his pupils shot back and forth in rapid succession against his lids. “Go about halfway down,” he said, then started to quote. “‘I could have screamed aloud; I sought with tears and prayers to smother down the crowd of hideous images and sounds with which my memory swarmed against me; and still, between the petitions, the ugly face of my iniquity stared into my soul …’”

  Elizabeth lifted her gaze slowly from the page.

  Any amusement he’d had before was gone. A frown now marred his face.

  She swallowed hard as a shadow seemed to grip him from the inside out. “Do you have a photographic memory?” she asked.

  He shrugged, tilting his head from side to side. “Photographic memory is a misnomer—it’s eidetic. The idea is more or less the same. I read page by page instead of line by line, and never forget what I read.” He stared at his feet.

  She swallowed hard, feeling the change in his countenance like a slap to the face. She couldn’t help but think she’d somehow brought out the Hyde of him. She cleared her throat. “What’s your favorite book?”

  He glanced up, and his eyes gleamed with amusement once more. That was quick. “Lately, I’ve been into ghost stories.”

  A shiver shot up her spine. He had to be messing with her.

  “We need to talk,” he said. “About what happened yesterday.”

  Her gaze flitted to the door, but she straightened her spine. “Which part? The part where you nearly died in your bed, or the part where you and Finley went at it?”

  “You were with Finley for a long time yesterday.” He pushed away from the club chair and moved closer.

  “Yes,” she said.

  He stopped a foot away from her, and she felt his distance like a zap of energy between them. “And you expect me to believe there’s nothing going on between you two?”

  She rolled her eyes. “If there was something going on between us, it’d be none of your business. But for someone as smart as you, I’d think you could come up with another solution to us spending so much time together.”

  “Working?” he asked. “Is that what Finley said?”

  She raised her ha
nds palms up. Yep. No way she’d give him the satisfaction of denying it. Again.

  He took her hand then, and the suddenness and unexpectedness of it sent a tingle straight up her arm. He led her to the couch and sat down, pulling her down with him. Once seated, she expected him to release her, but he didn’t and interlaced their fingers.

  She tried to keep her breathing even. What was he doing?

  “It occurred to me last night you haven’t heard about what happened the night my wife died. Not from me,” he said.

  She swallowed. “No, but I don’t expect you to.”

  He stared at their hands. “I know. And I thank you for that. You’d be surprised how often people ask.”

  No, she wouldn’t. After her dad died, people constantly asked her about it. People, in general, had no filter. At first she’d been bothered by it, more when the insensitive questions had been aimed at her brothers. She and her brothers had decided to answer with short and clipped responses, and for a while it seemed to do the trick.

  Then she’d learned that people simply went elsewhere for their information, and that information was as skewed as the stories she’d heard yesterday about Katelyn haunting the house. In the end, she much preferred people ask her what had happened. At least that way people got the truth, albeit an abridged version of it.

  “The night Katelyn died, I was at a fund-raiser in Sacramento—they hired me to do a show for them. Katelyn was supposed to come with me, but she refused. She’d wanted me to get out of the psychic business for years. I’d all but given it up by then, but this show came up and they offered me a lot of money. A lot. I didn’t need it, but I took anyway. I didn’t want the money. I wanted the show, the adulation of the crowd.” He cleared his throat and looked up at her. “I left an hour late.”

  She squeezed his hand. “It’s not your fault.”

  “If I’d left on time,” he scoffed, “if I’d turned the show down like she’d asked, Katelyn would still be alive.”

  “Or you’d be dead too.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “I loved my wife. She made me a better man. No matter what you hear, I wanted you to know that.”

  “I didn’t doubt it,” she said.

  He leaned closer to her, lifted her hand, and wrapped it in both of his. “I need you to know everything I’ve done and everything I will do isn’t just because of my guilt. Katelyn deserves justice, but I will have my revenge.”

  Elizabeth slowly released the breath she’d been holding. “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean.” He leveled his gaze at her.

  He wanted to kill whoever killed his wife. She’d seen this a time or two in the loved ones of victims back in Sacramento. Anyone who started talking like this meant what they said. And it never ended well. If they succeeded in getting their revenge, they were arrested. She was accustomed to this mindset, so the chill that ran up her spine surprised her. “You can’t talk like that.”

  “I have to,” he said. “Because you deserve to know what you’re getting into if you stay.”

  Did he want her to leave? She felt a twist of disappointment in her gut.

  “And I want you to stay.” He ran his thumb over the back of her hand.

  “Oh,” she said in a breathless whisper.

  A small smile crossed his lips, but fell as he moved closer to her. He reached up and cupped her face, the move so intimate she sucked in a deep breath. His gaze lowered to her lips, and then he glanced up at her—waiting. When she didn’t pull back, he leaned forward slowly, until there was barely an inch between them.

  Her mind raced. She should be moving away, stopping this. His breath tickled across her lips, her eyes drooped, and … her phone rang.

  She jumped and pushed off the sofa as she pulled her phone from her pocket. It was Lee.

  He was back! It seemed like forever since he’d left the country for his grandfather’s funeral. She stood, pulling her hand from Daley’s grasp, and answered her phone. “Lee?”

  “Where are you?” her partner asked. “No one will tell me anything.”

  They didn’t know. She hadn’t told anyone. She moved away from the couch, keeping her voice low even though she knew Daley could still hear her. “I’m in a town called Thornfield. It’s about an hour-and-a-half drive from Sacramento.”

  “I get back after a month and the Feds have absconded with you,” Lee said.

  She glanced over her shoulder at Daley. He had one knee up on the sofa, one arm on the backrest. He lifted a hand to her in invitation to continue. She blinked, then quivered remembering what had almost happened between them. Or maybe it hadn’t been what she’d thought at all. She shook her head. Regardless, the last thing she wanted was to be having a conversation with him in hearing range.

  She excused herself, and as she left, Alice came in.

  “Patrick,” Alice said, “you have company.”

  * * *

  In her room, closed away from prying ears, Elizabeth told Lee about the case and what they knew. She’d summed everything up in less than ten minutes.

  “That’s not much to go on,” Lee said.

  “No kidding.”

  “I’m worried that someone got in your room while you slept.”

  She was worried about that too. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Is there anything I could do to help?” he asked.

  “Maybe. If anything in particular strikes me, you know you’ll be the first one I call.”

  “Good. The sooner this gets solved, the sooner I get my partner back.” He breathed out a long, deep breath. “They’ve assigned me to Spencer.”

  Spencer was a new detective at their precinct. He’d transferred from out of the city and had been a detective for about a year now. He was good at his job, too. But he was a big goofball who always made inappropriate jokes at the worst possible times. He also had an insatiable appetite that had him constantly chomping on anything he could get his hands on. He drove Lee crazy. It’d be funny if she weren’t a little worried about how long this case would drag out.

  “Stay out of trouble until then,” she said. “I’ll see you soon.”

  “See ya,” he said, and disconnected.

  Pressure built behind her brows, and she rubbed the crease between them to ease some pressure. She had to get this case solved—and fast. And to do that, she needed to stay focused. Daley was distraction enough. Her face heated at the thought of him. She touched her lips.

  Had he really been about to kiss her?

  Yeah, she was pretty sure. And that couldn’t happen. She was here to do a job. She had to set up boundaries—make it clear that nothing could happen between them. And she needed to do that now. It was the one situation she could control, and she would.

  She rushed back downstairs and toward the library. As she approached, she remembered Alice had said he had company as she’d fled the room. A distinct feminine tone wafted into the hall, alerting her to exactly who the guest was.

  “A party? Here?” Bridgette practically squealed. “What a great idea.”

  “I thought so, too,” Daley said. “And you’re invited, of course.”

  “Naturally.” The flirtatiousness in her tone was unmistakable.

  Elizabeth paused outside the door, wondering if she should wait until Bridgette left. Elizabeth was technically supposed to be his employee, and Bridgette was technically his friend. But then again, he had nearly kissed her before she’d taken Lee’s call.

  Right? It was simple: she’d just go in and tell him that she’d like to speak with him when he got a free moment, and leave. There was nothing wrong with that.

  She pulled the door open and froze.

  Bridgette had Daley pushed into the armrest of the couch as she leaned toward him. She had one hand resting on his leg, and held one of his hands with her other.

  Daley jumped off the sofa.

  Bridgette fell forward at the movement, then scowled at her. “Oh, you again.”

  Elizabeth narrowed her gaz
e at Daley.

  His eyes went wide, and he sounded nervous when he spoke. “Elizabeth?”

  “It’s Ms. Shea.” She spoke abruptly. She turned on her heel and marched out of the room.

  As she passed the kitchen, Alice called out to her, but she ignored it as she stormed outside. There in the driveway sat a little pearl-colored convertible with the top down. How appropriate.

  She darted to the stables and backed the four-wheeler out of the garage. She then grabbed the folding ladder and stuck it in the back trailer.

  She mounted just in time to see Daley run out the back door. They made eye contact right before she drove off down the path leading to the orchard. There were better things she could do with her time than watch him clutched in a romantic embrace with another woman.

  The bitter roiling of anger and hurt in the pit of her stomach fought its way up, refusing to be ignored. This was exactly why she’d wanted to confront him and draw a line: to prevent this whole situation. But she was too late.

  So she ran. She just needed a moment to gather her thoughts, buoy up her defenses so she could do her job. She needed to check the wall by that oak anyway, be sure that no one could climb over it using that tree.

  She could do this. She could be professional. She would, even if it meant her heart would break a little in the process.

  Chapter Eleven

  Elizabeth carefully leaned the ladder against the wall, making sure the feet were secure. When it no longer wobbled, she jogged up the rungs to the top. The branch that sat on the wall was half a foot wide. It looked a lot smaller than she remembered from when Daley had fallen out of the tree, and also a lot higher up. Sure, it was only twelve feet, but twelve feet was two feet taller than a story, and it wasn’t like she’d ever willingly jump off a roof.

  Elizabeth sat on the wall next to the branch and pushed on it, testing its strength. It didn’t budge. The only problem was it curved upwards from the wall, and its height was pushing fifteen feet or more. The world pitched, and a wave of vertigo hit.

  She closed her eyes and shook her head to clear the dizziness. When she opened her eyes, the sensation of tilting was gone, replaced with the notion this was a bad, bad idea. The thing was, from here, it still looked like it was feasible. She was sure someone could climb over this. But the only way she could know for certain was if she gave it a try.