I flipped through the pages, but there was no more writing. Here the journal ended.
I stood and paced. It was all there—the search for the ghost, the blocking of the windows, the use of the instruments—just as I had surmised. But I still had more questions than I had answers.
What had he seen? Who was Elizabeth? What had he been searching for? What needed to be stopped?
A knock came. I jumped, tried to calm myself. I opened the front door to find Drew. Behind him, night was falling from purplish darkness into black.
He’d changed out of his suit, and now he wore trousers and a wool sweater of dark brown. He was hatless, his hair tousled, and the air around him sparked with purpose. The sight of him brought back memories of earlier, and it was only as I came out of my confused jumble that I saw he carried an overnight bag.
“What are you doing?” I said.
He brushed past me into the parlor, his face set with intent. “I had a few things to do and a few telephone calls to make. But I’m finished, and it’s all set.”
“And what, exactly, are you talking about?”
He set down the bag. “Why, I’m staying here tonight, of course. With you.”
I searched his face for a sign he was joking. I found none. Panic bloomed irrationally in my chest. “You can’t. You’re staying at your hotel.”
“I’ve checked out of my hotel.”
“You’ve what?”
He took a step toward me. “You didn’t think I’d leave you alone, did you, after you were attacked last night?” He quirked an eyebrow. “I don’t think the innkeeper liked me much, anyway. Don’t worry; I’ve parked my motor away up the laneway and around the curve, so no one can impugn your honor. I’ve got to go back to London tomorrow. Scotland Yard has called me back, and I’ve got a few things to follow up on my own. But tonight . . .” His eyes gleamed. “Tonight I’ll do some ghost hunting.”
Standing in the shabby parlor, changed out of his formal clothes, he looked like a rough seaman, a dockworker. A pilot. There seemed to be no room for him. He was staying here alone. With me.
“You can’t—” I tried. “That is . . . where you will be . . . you aren’t—”
He paced toward the library. “Do I take it from the hash you’re making that you’re worried about where I’m going to sleep?” he said over his shoulder.
I flushed. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Um. I’m planning to sleep in Toby’s room, if it makes you feel any better.” He caught sight of the instruments laid out on the desk, the open cases by the library door. “You’ve unpacked the equipment, I see.”
“Yes.”
“Good, I’ll try some of it out. I’d like to see this thing for myself. And what is that?”
I followed his gaze to the spot before the fireplace. “Not what, who. That is Sultana, the cat.”
“It needs a bath.”
“If you’ve a wish for death, you can try to give her one.”
Sultana raised her head and gave him a narrow-eyed look, which he returned with suspicion. “I think I’ll keep my distance.”
He picked up one of the torches from the desk and turned it on and off, testing it. He was toying with me. I stepped toward him, took it from his hand, and put it down again. “You can’t stay the night,” I said, panicked, thinking of my reputation, of Somerville, of my parents. “I’m not—”
“That kind of girl?” He watched me flush with embarrassment, and his expression hardened. This close, I could see the dusk of stubble on his chin. “I assure you,” he said in a tone that was suddenly soft and dangerous, “I take this very seriously indeed. Something or someone was here last night, threatening you. I have no plans to lay a hand on you, but I have a case to solve. I’m going to do this, Jillian.”
I was starting to get the impression that Drew Merriken was a far cry from the indolent child of privilege he’d once been. Something had changed him—the war, for one; the accidental discovery of a calling at Scotland Yard, for another. He was a man driven, who did not stop until he got what he wanted.
And as for me, what was I? An alien in this place, a unicorn. Far from home. Why was I so worried about my reputation when my uncle’s murder was at issue?
I stood back. “Very well, then. Would you like something to eat?”
• • •
In the kitchen, Drew took one of the wooden chairs and watched me as I got food from the pantry. “You’ve stocked up,” he said.
“Edward Bruton brought supplies.” I’d been gone from the house since dawn, and I’d found the food left by the kitchen door; he must have been by while I was out.
“Ah, yes, the donkey-cart man. I’ve been looking for him. Seems I should be searching in your pantry.”
I began to slice some bread. “He’s only come by twice.”
“And you’ve only been here two days.”
“What are you getting at?”
He didn’t answer. I arranged the slices of bread and some cheese on a plate and set it before him. He tilted his chair back and regarded me, standing there in my printed dress of white and dark green, still holding the knife in my hand. His gaze grew very still.
“It’s the eyes, I think,” he said finally. “And the hair—the curls. They’re quite deadly. And beyond that, the legs.”
I went instantly hot, my breasts and my stomach and my thighs. I couldn’t move. I just let it wash through me, shock and a fierce sort of joy. Our gazes locked, and I knew he could see desire in my eyes. I let him see it. I had only ever known boys in my life, and suddenly all I wanted was to pull up the hem of his sweater and slide my hands under it. He knew it.
“So you’ve categorized me at last,” I managed to say.
His eyes never left mine. “Not at all. You’re different.”
“Am I?”
“Completely.”
I could hardly breathe. “I thought you didn’t plan to lay a hand on me.”
“I don’t, damn it to hell. I don’t.”
“You don’t like connections.”
“No. Especially with inexperienced girls. Which, I admit, is why you present a problem.”
I lifted my chin, stung. “Perhaps I’m not as innocent as you think.”
He smiled a little, though it wasn’t unkind. “With me, you’re innocent. Believe me.”
I flushed even harder and sat at the table, trying to hide my weakened knees. I took a piece of bread and cheese, busying my hands. “I’ll ignore your boorish remarks for now. What do you mean about going to London?”
He tilted his chair forward again and took a piece for himself. “I’ve been called back. The Yard doesn’t think there’s enough here to open a murder investigation.”
“What?” I stared at him. “I thought you were here to investigate.”
“No, I was here to assess whether Toby Leigh’s death was suspicious. I happen to think it is. My superiors happen to disagree with me.”
“How can they?”
He tore into the bread. “Jillian, all I have are two cigarettes and a hunch. Rothewell is hardly a center of crime. Your uncle was a loner. The coroner’s report contradicts me.”
“And that’s all?” I cried. “After all you told me about knowing something was wrong? You’re just going to walk away?”
“Ah, well,” he said, his voice tired, “I’ve told you, you mustn’t question the police. We always know what we’re doing.”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means I’m going to London, just as they tell me to. But I have a partner, a man named Easterbrook. I think he might see things my way. I have a few ideas, and there are loose ends I want to look into if I can.”
I had gone cold, listening to him. “You didn’t tell me you had a theory. You didn’t tell me.”
“I don’t. Just a hunch or two.”
>
“You have to tell me,” I said, not believing him. “Please.”
“Jillian.” He leaned over the table toward me. In his face I could see sympathy, but also the usual steely determination. “I’m the police here, not you. You have to trust me.”
“Trust you? And what do I do while you’re gone?” I asked. “Wait for whoever it is to come after me next?”
“Just do what you came to do,” he said. “Pack your uncle’s things. Keep your eyes open. Use common sense and that big brain of yours. Don’t trust anyone. Don’t take risks. And wait for me to come back.”
“That’s a tall order,” I breathed.
“I know.”
I opened my mouth to say something else, but suddenly it was gone from my mind. The hair prickled on the back of my neck. And something, loud and hollow, thumped in the library.
Fourteen
Our eyes met only briefly before Drew was out of his chair, moving quietly down the hall toward the library. I followed, keeping behind him.
In the library, nothing moved. The fire still flickered in the fireplace, and the lamps I had lit cast their own yellowed light. I glanced uneasily toward the window, but it didn’t look like the curtains had been disturbed.
Drew pivoted, his gaze traveling the room. “What was it? Do you see anything?”
“No.” It had been a distinct sound. A thump like a book being dropped or a drawer slammed closed.
“Maybe it was the cat,” he said, but Sultana lay just where we’d left her, licking her matted fur with unconcern. Whatever it was, it hadn’t frightened her.
I looked at the desk, and froze. “Look,” I managed.
The needle of the galvanoscope had moved all the way to the upper end of its scale; as we watched, it lowered slowly, as if whatever had set it off were receding. Next to it, the thermometer had gone down.
Drew bent close to the galvanoscope and watched it. He put his hand on the desk next to the thermometer. “It’s cold.”
But my eyes were on the notebook. I had left Toby’s journal on the edge of the desk, open to the last page. The book had been rotated ninety degrees, and now it was closed, facedown on the desk. This, then, was the sound we had heard, the thump of the journal closing. I reached out and touched the book with my fingertips. It was cold as ice.
“Oh,” I said.
A dim sort of electricity was going through me, as if I were on the edge of a lightning storm: the charge that the galvanoscope was picking up. My heart thumped slow and hard in my chest. It was a curious feeling, frightening, yet strangely alive. Drew reached around from behind me and touched the journal himself, and we froze there for a long moment, his body behind mine, his arm coming ’round me, his breath in my ear.
His hand was large and wide next to mine, the knuckles strong. I could see his forearm flex under the sleeve of his sweater.
With slow deliberation he lifted his other hand and touched it to the back of my neck, under the ends of my hair. His warm fingers slid up the line of my spine, as if tracing something he’d looked at closely again and again. He was feeling the same electricity I was, I thought, the same breathless charge, and it made him reckless. I couldn’t speak as pleasure moved through my whole body at that single touch.
I turned in place. He didn’t move. We were face-to-face now, my body against his. His hand was still on the back of my neck. I looked up at him. His eyes were dark and wild.
“Oh, hell,” he said, and kissed me.
I had been waiting for it. He kissed me deeply, unapologetically, attempting to be considerate, though his touch was rough. I leaned into him, lost my balance, put my hands on his chest; it burned under my fingers through the wool. I slid my hands down, exploring, as I pressed further into him, up on my toes. His hand on my jaw guided me gently, and he opened my mouth.
Something urgent and hot flushed through me as he ran his tongue expertly along the inside of my upper lip. This was Drew, then, when he gave up his precious control; this was the man underneath the careful exterior. Passionate, insistent. I was utterly out of my depth, and I didn’t care. All I wanted was to taste him.
His hand left my jaw and moved down my back, as his other arm came around my waist, pressing me hard into him. I put my arms around his neck and pulled him closer. He obliged; he had me pushed into the desk now, his body covering mine, and he aligned me flush to him and kissed me more deeply with his tongue.
I let him do it. I more than let him—I kissed him back, inexpert perhaps, but greedy and eager to learn. I realized now that part of me had wanted to kiss him since the first time I saw him. And now I reveled in it, his stubbled skin rough against me, his arms holding me up. I made some sort of sound deep in my throat and he broke the kiss, leaving me raw and wanting.
“My God.” He was hoarse.
“Do that again,” I said, mindless.
He leaned close to me again, and again his hand came up and brushed my cheek, his thumb along my lower lip. He brushed his lips against me, a feather touch, and every part of me burned.
“Drew,” I said.
He dropped his hands from me and braced himself on the edge of the desk, his hands on either side of my body. He closed his eyes briefly, his arms humming with tension, and I saw his control begin to fall back into place. “We need to stop this. Now.”
I had forgotten about the cold book, the cold desk. I had forgotten everything but the smell of him, spicy and woolly and a little like bergamot. “I don’t see—”
“Sssh.”
His eyes had opened again, and he turned his head, distracted. Suddenly he wore the expression I was beginning to recognize, the one of a dog on the hunt.
“Do you hear something?” he asked.
We listened, his arms still braced on the desk around me.
Upstairs, something moved.
He straightened, and we separated. The thing upstairs thumped again, a furtive sound. He pushed me behind him.
“What is it?” I hissed.
Before he could answer, the thump came from the top of the stairs. Standing in the library, we had no view of the staircase; we stood in the only light in the house, for as night had fallen, I’d lit lamps only in the library, and the rest of the house was dark.
Drew turned to the desk to grab one of the torches from the ghost-hunting kit; that was when we both noticed that the torches were gone. And at the same time, the sound from the stairs came again, distinctly metallic.
It was too quick to calculate, but somehow I knew. Drew grabbed one of the oil lamps and, motioning me behind him again, walked toward the stairs. “Come out,” he said in a voice clear and even. “Police. Come out.”
Something was rolling down the stairs now. I followed him and looked past him and saw none other than one of the missing torches, rolling down step by step in the dim lamplight. It came to the bottom of the stairs and rested.
Drew stooped and picked it up. We glanced at each other. He handed me the oil lamp, then moved the switch and turned on the beam of light.
With a cold breath of air, the lamp blew out.
Drew moved the torch; for a moment, as my eyes adjusted, I saw only glimpses of the floor, the wall, the steps in the circle of the beam. The light moved up the staircase, showing the worn runner, the cracked baseboards, the dust in the creases and seams. The beam came to the top of the steps and landed on thin air, motes of dust spinning in nothingness.
“Stay here,” said Drew, and before I could stop him he moved up the steps.
I felt beside me for a hallway table and put down the dark lamp. My eyes began to adjust, and there was low, yellow light coming from the fireplace, which was still lit in the library. I could see gray, humped shapes, the square of the doorway, a glow on the floor of the hall. With a stab of panic I realized that, even with my adjusted sight, I wouldn’t know until it was too late if somethin
g—if anything—came toward me. I followed Drew’s dark shape up the stairs.
Drew turned as he heard my steps, and spoke over his shoulder. “I told you to stay there.”
“I’m coming.”
I couldn’t see his face in the dark, but I imagined his jaw clenched. But perhaps he realized that I was no safer at the bottom of the stairs, for he turned away again without a word.
Upstairs, the beam of Drew’s torch was the only beacon. I followed it, tentative, as we reached the landing.
“Is anyone here?” Drew’s voice never quavered. “If you’re here, you must come out. I’m the police.”
The words fell into the answering silence like stones.
Rooms opened off the cramped hall: my little bedroom to the right, Toby’s to the left. Farther down was the linen cupboard, the lavatory, and a spare room I had opened only briefly before closing the door on its dusty emptiness. As Drew turned the light on this last door, I could see it was ajar.
“Were you in here?” he asked me.
“No,” I said, cold with dread.
“All right. Stay here.”
He went through the door. I hugged myself; I was suddenly freezing. The cold came down my back, as if I were backed into an icebox. Icy, bone-chilling cold.
I knew I should turn.
I didn’t want to. But somehow, slowly, I did. Perhaps it was the soft sound I heard that made me do it, one I recognized well: the padding sound of a cat’s paws.
I turned. The cold crept over my face now, down my neck, over the tops of my arms. My blood roared in my ears.
There was only dark hallway behind me. But on the landing, where I had just come up, Sultana sat in the gloom. She was sitting on the floor, her tail curled over her feet, her head up, her ears perked. She wasn’t looking at me, but at the empty space at the head of the hallway, her big eyes staring intently into the darkness. She cocked her head and moved her ears, as if following something. Her gaze moved; her focus stayed intent, fascinated.
Where she looked I saw nothing but darkness, a floor and the corner of two empty walls. Utter blackness.
I stood a long moment, not daring to breathe.
An Inquiry Into Love and Death Page 11