Silenced by a Spell

by Fiona Grace

  She jumped back in shock, letting out a terrified yelp as her fear ratcheted up a level, thinking she may have bumped into Eldritch. But as she stepped back, she realized she’d collided with Lucia.

  “Oof, sorry, Lacey!” Lucia exclaimed. “I didn’t see you there. Is everything okay?”

  “I’m fine, fine,” Lacey replied, her fluttering heart rate returning to normal. She quickly moved the pilfered key behind her back so it was out of sight. “I just popped in to say hi to Suzy but I’m heading off now. It’s clearly not a good time; you guys seem rushed off your feet.”

  “We are,” Lucia replied, puffing air out her cheeks. “Let’s catch up soon though, yeah?”

  She was already walking away, speaking over her shoulder as she headed off down the corridor.

  “Sure,” Lacey replied. She flashed her a thumbs-up. “Sounds good.”

  Lucia grinned, then turned and disappeared through the kitchen doors. They swung shut noisily behind her.

  Lacey let out the anxious breath she’d been holding.

  Just then, she spotted the security camera on the wall opposite the door through which Lucia had just disappeared, and glanced back over at the reception desk. There was another camera there, right up in the corner, blinking a red light and angled down at the desk. Lacey realized her little indiscretion would be discovered sooner or later. All she could do was hope that when she was found out, the ends would justify the means, and a killer would be sitting in jail where he belonged.

  She brought the key out from behind her back and glanced over at the staircase. It was a beautiful feature, made of restored, polished beech wood, with a fluffy red velvet floor runner up the center, bordered with gold metal.

  “Come on, Chester,” Lacey said, heading for them.

  Her dog let out a gruff noise and followed reluctantly.

  Lacey ascended two steps at a time, ignoring Chester’s judgy expression of disdain as he trotted up alongside her. Lacey knew that breaking into someone’s room was wrong, and she didn’t need her dog to lay the guilt on even more.

  She passed a chambermaid heading down the staircase carrying a stack of colorful hand towels, and attempted a pleasant smile. Luckily the girl just smiled in reply as she continued on past. Lacey appeared to not be rousing any suspicion.

  She reached the small landing where the door to Room 3 was. Room 4—the one where Alaric had been staying before his murder—was directly opposite. Just a small landing separated the two. It would’ve taken Eldritch a matter of seconds to cross that space.

  She knocked on the dark oak door and listened. Her prepared cover story was that if Eldritch was inside she’d announce she was room service. If he wasn’t, she’d use her key to get inside and snoop for clues.

  Her knock was met by silence. She tried again. Still nothing.

  She put the key in the lock and twisted, then held her breath, anxious over what exactly she might find on the other side—monkey skulls, pentagrams, crystal balls… more dead bodies? She forced the anxious images out of her mind, found her courage, and pressed down on the handle.

  She opened the door just enough to peep inside. No monkey skulls. No dead bodies lying on the bed. The room was perfectly neat and tidy, and everything was quiet and still.

  She looked back at Chester. “Will you stand guard?”

  He whined, sounding thoroughly displeased. Lacey could tell he was not happy with her right now. Maybe assigning him duties was a step too far?

  “Fine. You can come inside with me,” she relented.

  She headed inside the room.

  It was the first time Lacey had actually set foot inside one of the Lodge’s bedrooms since she’d helped Suzy decorate them all. It felt like a long time ago now, and she was pleasantly surprised to see just how well she’d done designing the place; the wallpaper was a gorgeous replica of the English Spitalfields’ silk design from the Regency period, in a lush green color, and was complemented perfectly by the walnut-polished floorboards and sheepskin rug. Interior design was another one of those talents Lacey no longer used, one she’d left behind with the New York City version of herself. She shook the thoughts away. Now was hardly the time.

  Eldritch had kept his things quite neat. Lacey found his suitcase in the wardrobe and began to rifle through it.

  Clothes. Lots and lots of black clothes. It seemed that was all Eldritch had brought with him, a walk-in wardrobe’s worth of black clothes. Didn’t he get bored wearing the same color every day?

  Just then, her fingers collided with something that wasn’t fabric. It felt like paper.

  She pulled it out and gasped. It was a page of the Grimoire, torn along the seam. She recognized it immediately by the thickness and greasiness of it, and the off-yellow color.

  “Eldritch did steal the grimoire,” Lacey said, turning to Chester, waving the paper in the air. “This is evidence!”

  Then she stared at the page in her hand. Her triumph began to fade. Because now that she’d confirmed Eldritch was the thief, it stood to reason that he was also the person responsible for the murder of Alaric Moon.

  “I was right,” she muttered. “Eldritch is the killer.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  Lacey stared at the torn page of the grimoire, her hands beginning to tremble. This was the proof she’d needed to corroborate her hunch that the two men had tussled over the book, leading to Alaric falling from the tower.

  She couldn’t help but feel responsible. Her auction had drawn the former friends back together. Had the competition over winning the grimoire reignited their long-standing feud? If only she’d just sold the book outright to Eldritch when he’d offered, none of this would’ve happened.

  She began to rummage through Eldritch’s closet again, sifting through his piles of black clothing in search of the rest of the book, knowing the whole thing would be stronger evidence than just a single page.

  As she worked, Chester watched her. He’d sprawled himself across the sheepskin rug and was following her movements with a very unimpressed expression.

  “Come on, Chester,” Lacey said over her shoulder. “Why aren’t you on my side on this one? I’ve just found evidence that Eldritch stole the grimoire. That he’s the killer.”

  But no sooner had the words left her lips than Lacey suddenly heard the sound of the door handle being wrenched down from outside.

  She flew to her feet and swirled from the closet just as the door swung open inward, revealing the tall, willowy, black-clad figure of Eldritch Von Raven.

  Lacey gulped. She’d been caught red-handed.

  Eldritch took a beat to survey the scene—Chester on the rug; Lacey by the closet holding his clothing; the dresser drawers hanging open—and an expression of incredulous shock overcame his features. His usually pale white skin inflamed, turning red with fury.

  “What the hell are you doing in my room?” he bellowed.

  Lacey’s heart pounded. She had nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

  She held up the clothes and heard her excuse come out of her lips in a timid, shaky voice. “Room service?”

  Her cover story seemed suddenly obviously inadequate.

  Eldritch Von Raven put his hands on his hips and regarded her with a thunderous expression.

  “Room service?” he challenged. “Do you really expect me to fall for that? I know who you are!”

  Lacey dropped the act. It was a pointless charade to keep up. Of course Eldritch remembered her.

  “Fine,” she said. “You’re right. I’m not here to make your bed. I’m here because of this.” She held the page of the grimoire aloft.

  There was an instant switch in Eldritch’s expression. He went from angry to scared. Lacey immediately knew she was onto something here. Now who was the one caught red-handed?

  Feeling emboldened, she spoke. “You stole the grimoire, didn’t you?”

  Eldritch looked furious at the accusation. “No. I stole a page of the grimoire to send to an authenticator. That’
s all.”

  Lacey gave him a look. “You really expect me to believe this is all you took from it?”

  “Believe what you want,” came his testy reply. “It’s the truth. Now will you kindly get the hell out of my room?”

  Lacey stood her ground. “Still, it doesn’t matter. This is evidence enough. It proves you had contact with the grimoire, that you had your hands on it. It proves you killed Alaric Moon.”

  Eldritch stared at her, his black eyebrows drawn down together. Then suddenly, he burst out laughing. Deep belly chuckles shook his whole body.

  “You think that’s proof I’m the killer?” he said, scoffing with disdain and nodding at the ripped page in Lacey’s hand.

  “Besides me, my staff, and Alaric, the only other person who even had the chance to steal a page was his murderer,” Lacey said.

  Eldritch’s lips twitched up into an arrogant smirk. “I stole the page from you. When the grimoire was in your store.”

  Lacey was taken aback. “W—what?” she asked, dumbfounded. “When?”

  “Before the auction,” Eldritch explained in a languorous voice like this whole thing was very boring to him. “I came in to try and buy it from you, remember?”

  “Of course I do,” Lacey replied. “But I was with you the whole time.”

  “Au contraire,” Eldritch drawled. “Your clerk had a little accident with a skeleton. Something to do with a black cat, if I recall correctly. You went to help him and left me alone with it. It was only a brief moment, but it was long enough for me to take the page.”

  Lacey was stunned. He’d stolen the page while Finnbar had been floundering helplessly underneath the skeleton? How stupid of her to forget she’d left him alone with it!

  Suddenly, Lacey started to doubt herself. Her complete confidence that Eldritch was the killer suddenly faltered. If all he was guilty of was tearing a page out of a book, then her breaking into his room was a huge, unjustifiable mistake.

  “Now we’ve cleared up that little misunderstanding,” Eldritch said, gesturing to the door behind him, “I will ask you again to kindly get the hell out of my room.”

  Lacey ground her teeth. She wasn’t about to fold that easily. Eldritch might be exuding arrogant confidence in his innocence, but so would any other murderous psychopath in the same situation. They were infamous for their ability to stay calm under pressure and smooth talk their way out of any tricky situation. Lacey had to hold her ground.

  “Where is the rest of the book?” she demanded.

  “I don’t know,” Eldritch told her firmly. “Because I am not a thief.”

  “I beg to differ,” Lacey replied. “You admitted to stealing a page from the grimoire. By definition that makes you a thief.”

  “Oh goody,” Eldritch drawled sarcastically. “We’re going to engage in a battle of semantics, are we?”

  “Yes. And you’re a vandal, too, now I think of it,” Lacey shot back. “Because you damaged a rare antique.”

  If there was one thing Lacey had learned in her short amateur sleuthing career, it was that killers hated to be insulted. Especially their intelligence. She could tell Eldritch thought very highly of himself. If she could just worm her way under his skin, perhaps he’d crack.

  Indeed, Eldritch seemed to be becoming agitated. He paced away from the door and crossed the floor, letting out a long sigh. “If I’d wanted to steal the entire grimoire, don’t you think I would have just done it when the opportunity presented itself to me in your store before the auction?”

  “No, I don’t,” Lacey countered. “Because it would have been far too obvious who took it. Besides, if you’d run out of my store without paying, you wouldn’t have gotten very far.” She cast her eyes over to Chester. “I have very good security.”

  Chester puffed up his chest with pride.

  “Who said I would’ve run?” Eldritch shot back, not missing a beat. “Who said I wouldn’t have just walked calmly out of the door not rousing the suspicion of your canine whatsoever?”

  Lacey shook her head. “You’re underestimating his intelligence. Chester knows all the tricks thieves play. Trust me when I say you wouldn’t have gotten five paces without him bringing you down.”

  Eldritch’s agitation turned suddenly to fury. “Really? You really think I’d conjure up this elaborate plan to steal the grimoire—and murder a man, no less—just to avoid getting a dog bite?” His tone was incredulous, like he’d never heard anything more preposterous in all his life. He gesticulated wildly to emphasize the point. “You think I’d kill my acquaintance and risk spending my life in jail? You are underestimating my intelligence! In fact, you are downright insulting it!”

  He sank down onto the bed and dropped his head into his hands. His jet black hair splayed across his pale arms like a waterfall of oil.

  Lacey regarded him for a moment while his words sunk in. Though she didn’t care for the manner in which he’d spoken, he had made a good point. Would he really kill a man, an acquaintance, on an isolated island, just so he could steal the grimoire from the room opposite his own? And then stick around in town long enough to be found out? Doubt suddenly took hold of her.

  But just as her faith in herself was beginning to falter, Lacey spotted a pair of Eldritch’s boots propped neatly beside the bed. It was the same pair she’d seen him wearing in the CCTV footage, big, black chunky leather. The bottoms and soles were caked in sand. Gray sand. The distinctive color of the sand on the island.

  Lacey’s heart leapt. That was it. She didn’t need the rest of the grimoire to strengthen her accusations, because the sand on Eldritch’s boots was more than enough evidence that he’d been to the island the night of Alaric’s murder.

  Her confidence bolstered, Lacey raced over to the bedroom door, now left unguarded, and clicked the lock shut.

  From where he was sitting on the bed, Eldritch’s head darted up at the sound of the lock turning.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  Lacey pulled out her cell phone. “I’m calling the police.”

  “What?” Eldritch cried. “NO!”

  He sprang up from the bed, as if to make an attempt to lunge for the phone. But in the same instant, Chester leapt into action. He bounded across the room and stopped in front of Lacey, adopting a protective stance, his teeth bared. He let out a low snarl at Eldritch.

  “I told you I have good security,” Lacey said.

  With a fearful expression on his face, Eldritch began to back away, his hands held up in a sign of submission. So much for not being concerned about a dog bite, Lacey thought. Eldritch was clearly terrified by the sight of Chester’s bared fangs.

  “Glad to see you’re on my side at last,” she muttered to her dog out of the corner of her mouth .

  Keeping her eyes on Eldritch, she pressed the phone to her ear.

  “Wilfordshire police station,” came a voice through the speaker.

  “I need the cops,” Lacey said. “Now. I know who killed Alaric Moon and I’ve got him trapped.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  From the other side of the window, Lacey heard the sound of tires crunching on gravel. She peeped through the curtain, looking down at the Lodge’s parking lot below. Several police cars were rolling in, along with a black riot-squad van.

  Lacey grimaced. So much for trying to protect the Lodge’s reputation.

  “They’re here,” she told Eldritch, turning back to the B&B room to face him. “And it looks like they brought backup, so I wouldn’t try any funny business if I were you.”

  From where he was sitting on the bed, Eldritch glared up at her. There wasn’t much he could try even if he wanted to. They were on the first floor, so jumping out the window would get him a couple of broken legs at the very least, and Chester was guarding the door. Eldritch’s only chance of escaping through the door would be if he resorted to physical violence against a dog, and Lacey knew he was smart enough to know who would win that particular fight. Besides, considering he w
as being accused of a violent murder, attacking a lovable canine wouldn’t do much to help his case.

  Lacey took another quick glance out the window. The vehicles had stopped, and officers were now jumping down from the open side door of the black riot van.

  It was a proper riot squad, she noted, wearing bulky, heavy, black uniforms, with batons in holsters at their hips. She watched them congregate in front of an officer for a briefing, before filtering off in all directions around the sides of the premises.

  Lacey realized they were covering all the exits, and presumed that was in case Eldritch attempted to flee. It all seemed rather heavy-handed to her. Yes, he was a murderer, and therefore violently unpredictable, but right now she was doing a perfectly fine job of containing him with little more than the threat of a dog bite. Why Superintendent Turner had decided to send in the riot squad was beyond her.

  Speaking of Superintendent Turner…

  Lacey peered down at the cop cars, searching for the black Merc driven by the two plainclothes detectives. But it wasn’t there. Neither Superintendent Turner nor DCI Lewis were anywhere in sight.

  They didn’t come, Lacey thought, not knowing what to make of it. It wasn’t like them to miss all the fun. At least, it wasn’t like Karl. He always made sure he was present for the more dramatic moments of his cases, like searches and arrests. She’d expected to see him for this.

  Suddenly, noises erupted from somewhere downstairs. Lacey drew back from the window with a gasp, letting the curtains fall back into place. Her heart leapt as the sounds of shouting came from somewhere downstairs, inside the B&B, along with the clattering of cutlery and shrieks of terror.

  The cops were inside.

  Lacey looked over at Eldritch, her captive, sitting on the bed with an anguished expression, his bony hands clasped together as the sound of heavy boots thudding on the staircase began. The noise grew louder and louder, closer and closer, until a sudden pounding came at the door, so loud and insistent Eldritch, Lacey, and Chester all started in unison.