The Mysterious Point of Deceit

by Beth Byers

  The fiends hadn’t loosened the lightbulbs up here, but the pitiful light only showcased how little care had been put into this part of the house. One of the bare bulbs had been smashed and the glass was scattered across the floor. Severine’s gaze narrowed and she said, “Anubis, bleibe.”

  Severine threw open the first door and found a metal bed frame on its side, a dresser with the drawers open, and no sign of inhabitation. She shut that door and opened another one. This room wasn’t quite so disassembled, but there was nothing to indicate it was being used.

  She paused at the next doorway. There was a noise inside the room, and Severine nearly fled. She wasn’t ready to face off again, and her growing worry for Grayson Thorne was pressing in her mind, but she decided to pause longer and listen more carefully.

  She turned the flashlight back onto Anubis and his tail flopped against the floor. She repeated, “Bleibe, darling.”

  Then Severine opened the door to the room and found a woman sleeping heavily on a small metal bed. Her arm was flung out and her mouth was open. With each breath, she hauled air in as though it were going to be her last. The rattling noise was nothing other than a horrendous snore.

  “Ma’am?” Severine called.

  There wasn’t even a small reaction. The woman hauled in a big deep breath, and Severine swore that the next breath was even more raging than the first, as though in the face of audience, the woman took it up another notch.

  Her breath rattled that time and she snuffled painfully.

  “Ma’am?” Severine asked, approaching with careful steps. “Ma’am?”

  Severine shone the flashlight on the woman in front of her and noticed a glass next to the bed. She took hold of the woman’s shoulder and shook her hard. The woman snuffled and snorted more, but she didn’t wake.

  Severine crossed to the light and turned it on and found that, again, whoever was behind this mess hadn’t bothered with the servant’s light. The more Severine thought about it, the more she could imagine whoever had rushed past her had heard her on the stairs. In the moments before Severine had pushed opened the door, had that person reached up and broken the light?

  If so, there might be more to see. Severine examined her surroundings, which amounted to only making a small circle in the small room. Two serving dresses and aprons hung on hooks on the wall along with two dresses for off days. A small dresser held underthings and stockings, while a shallow bowl on top of the dresser held a solitary cross on a chain and a simple ring.

  The woman had two pairs of shoes and one pair of slippers lined neatly against the wall and a simple coat on a hook behind the door. A Bible was situated on the table next to where she slept, along with a small pitcher of water, a water glass, and a bottle of syrup.

  Severine examined the bottle and wondered just what she was seeing and if this…whatever it was…was the reason for the woman to be sleeping so heavily. Severine opened the jar and sniffed deeply before gasping and jerking it away from her nose. Whatever it was, it was powerful, and it seemed to be based off of alcohol and molasses. Severine wouldn’t be surprised if this were the type of thing you bought in a dark alley from a snake oil salesman.

  She tried another sniff, coughed, and set it back on the table. She left the woman sleeping and made her way back to Anubis. She told him to stay again and checked the next room, finding a red bullhorn, a tin pan, a wooden hammer, several nails, a length of chain, and an easy chair. Severine scowled and then noticed the small table on the other side of the cushioned chair and found three mugs, one with marks of red lipstick, and two others.

  Two others! They were all still warm. Severine spun and rushed to the door at the end of the hall, her flashlight in her hand. This time, she put her gun in her hand. She made a quick search of the rest of the floor, aiming the gun when she opened each door, and found nothing more.

  She raced down the steps, past Mrs. Grantley’s room, ignoring the woman’s call as she made another quick search, then out the front of the house where the door had been left wide open. Severine found Grayson sitting on the steps with his handkerchief to his mouth and the truncheon at his side.

  Severine cleared her throat at the same time Anubis reached him, and the dog stuck his nose into Grayson’s ear. Grayson reached up and took hold of Anubis as reflexively as Severine would have. She slowly made her way down the stairs, and said, “Are you all right?”

  Chapter 14

  “I’ll be fine,” he replied. “Is Mrs. Grantley all right?”

  “Terrified and alone. Probably cursing me for leaving her.” Severine took a seat next to him and glanced his way. “The fellow got away?”

  “There was another one. I decided not to follow. I believe, however, Mr. Brand did.”

  Severine nodded. “A woman was involved. I found coffee cups. One had lipstick. I think I ran into the woman since she fled rather than face off with me.”

  “The servant perhaps?”

  Severine shook her head. “The servant has been drugged.”

  Grayson cursed low and then asked angrily, “What is it with New Orleans and slipping something into someone’s drink? It’s ridiculous. How many times have you been drugged? At least twice? Oliver and I have both experienced it. Brand?”

  Severine shook her head. She had no idea if Mr. Brand had been drugged before as well. It was as if whoever had started the madness with the little something in someone else’s drink had made it acceptable for anyone to do the same.

  Severine watched as Grayson dabbed at his lip. She was surprised by a desire to take the handkerchief from him and care for him herself. Instead, she rose from the step and said, “I’ll tell Mrs. Grantley that her servant is drugged and see if she wants to go…I don’t know…find a hotel.”

  “She can’t stay with you?” Grayson’s mischievous smile tugged right at Severine’s heart, and she told herself it was the excitement. She added that things between them were not anything other than allies working to separate ends with separate purposes.

  “Despite being heavily influenced by nuns for the last half-dozen years, I find my generosity only reaches so far.” Severine paused long enough to touch his shoulder and ask, “Are you going to be all right for a few minutes?”

  He nodded, and Severine went back inside to find poor Mrs. Grantley curled in on herself on the steps. She sat two steps down from the top and had wrapped herself in a thick fur coat. Mrs. Grantley’s shoulders were slumped in and her eyes weren’t so much afraid as they were just—damaged.

  “It wasn’t your husband,” Severine told her.

  “I never really thought it was.”

  Severine didn’t argue, and she didn’t have an opinion. But she had to admit that the woman had brought up the idea of her dead husband so often that she must have—at the least—desperately wanted to.

  “You need to leave here,” Severine told her. “I’ll get your things.”

  “I’m not leaving,” Mrs. Grantley said fiercely. “I won’t be driven out of my home.”

  Severine paused after only one step up and considered. Finally she said, “I can’t make you stay gone, but I won’t let you stay here alone tonight, and I am not staying with you.”

  Mrs. Grantley’s gaze narrowed with a harsh hatred, and Severine didn’t blame her in the least. No woman wanted to be forced from her home by people she barely liked.

  “This isn’t safe,” Severine told her. “Someone is tormenting you.”

  “I’m not dead yet,” Mrs. Grantley hissed.

  “The yet is my concern,” Severine said. “I’ll get you some things to wear.”

  “I don’t want to go,” Mrs. Grantley told Severine. “I want to lay in my own bed where I birthed my children and where my husband died.”

  Severine shuddered, barely hiding her reaction from Mrs. Grantley. Severine paused long enough to consider and then tried gently, “Are you really going to give up now?”

  “Give up?” The accusation in Mrs. Grantley’s tone was harsh.
<
br />   “Give up,” Severine said firmly. “Curl up into a ball in your bed and wait until death comes for you.”

  “That’s not what staying does.”

  “It is if you just stay here alone and weak. Go to a hotel, get some rest for a few days, have a massage. Recover your sense of life and then we will face it again.”

  “We will?” Mrs. Grantley slowly pushed to her feet, and Severine wondered if she’d have to catch her. The widow swayed and then let Severine lead the way down the hall. Severine found a suitcase in the top of Mrs. Grantley’s closet and packed for the woman.

  “No! Don’t fold it like that. Where is Janice?”

  “Is Janice your servant?” Severine asked as she continued to place the same nightgown into the suitcase without adjusting it.

  “Yes. Call her. She can do this better than you will.”

  “She’s been given something that is making her sleep,” Severine replied. “I’m sure she’d have come to your aid otherwise.”

  Severine pulled the first three dresses out of the closet that she found and glanced over to see the look of disgust on Mrs. Grantley’s face.

  “She’s probably intoxicated. You’d think it would be harder to get gin for these poor types, but she’s either nipping at my bottles or drinking the stuff that’ll make you blind.”

  “Or,” Severine suggested, “the health syrup she has next to her bed has been tampered with.”

  Mrs. Grantley didn’t seem to be appeased, and Severine ignored her to cross to the bathroom and find her brush and mirror along with soaps and lotions. She packed the cosmetics and then crossed to Mrs. Grantley, who had thrown out the contents of the suitcase and had slowly started to roll her silk stockings.

  “You had three invaders,” Severine told the woman, shoving the clothes back in with even less care. “Mr. Thorne has been attacked, your servant was drugged. If they went for reinforcements, we’re at a disadvantage. We’re leaving. Now. Put on shoes.”

  “I can’t leave like this.”

  “Your coat covers everything. Add stockings and shoes. You’ll be fine.” Severine’s tone made it clear that Mrs. Grantley would be removed from the premises without further argument. Mrs. Grantley disappeared into her bathroom and when she returned, Severine saw the woman had added a dress. As long as she came without further argument, Severine didn’t care. She wrote a quick note for the servant since poor Janice wasn’t the primary target and would most likely sleep for hours.

  Severine carried the suitcase down the stairs with her free hand on Mrs. Grantley’s arm to prevent her from stopping. When they reached the front door, Mrs. Grantley was crying as she locked it. Severine calmly handed over her handkerchief and then stopped by Mr. Thorne. He pushed himself to his feet, and Severine saw a look of pain on his face as he moved.

  She placed the suitcase on the ground and said, “I’ll get the car.”

  “I can do it,” he said, but she shot him an impatient look and went on her own for the auto hidden in the trees, though Anubis followed after. She struggled to get the car out of the ground that had softened some with dew, but a moment later she stopped in front of Mrs. Grantley’s house. She opened the door for Mr. Thorne, and he joined Anubis in the back.

  Mrs. Grantley stared at Severine, apparently shocked that Severine had seen to the injured man first. Rather than make a comment, Severine walked round the car, opened the door for the old woman, and waited until Mrs. Grantley had pulled her feet into the vehicle before shutting the door again. She stashed the suitcase in the trunk and drove them back into the city proper.

  Despite Mr. Thorne’s silent pain, Severine rid them of Mrs. Grantley at a hotel before asking him, “Did you want to call a doctor or go to their office?”

  With his eyes closed, Grayson said, “It’s cracked ribs. I’ve had them before.”

  Severine lifted a brow and then aimed the car towards their houses. Since he lived with Mr. Oliver and Mr. Brand across the street from her, she’d get him settled, hand him a few aspirin and call the doctor for him.

  She drove through the streets of the city slowly, exhausted by the evening. She would have slipped easily into sleep if not for the worry over Mr. Thorne, Lisette, and Mr. Brand. Where were they? Were they safe?

  To keep from worrying, she considered what she’d learned about her father in the months since her brother had turned on her. Lukas DuNoir had known something was wrong, something dangerous. He’d moved his family to the country, made singular arrangements for Severine through his apparently only trusted friend, and then only weeks after he’d made those arrangements, he had died.

  Had Mr. Brand been Father’s only trusted friend, though? Or was he just the one chosen? Father had two brothers, why not one of them? That had been the plan, Severine knew, before she’d learned about the final will. She’d found those earlier dated wills. Severine would have been raised by Florette’s parents.

  Severine shuddered at the idea. She’d never have been loved and taught by her nuns. Instead she’d have been shuttled between girls’ schools and her aunt and uncle’s home, always the lesser child. The unwanted extra even as an heiress.

  Maybe Father had realized what it would have been like for her. Maybe it hadn’t been lack of trust that had engineered the change. But no, Severine thought. No, of course not. Any reasonable person would look to trusted family first to take care of their child.

  She took in a deep breath as she parked the car before Mr. Brand’s house. Thankfully, she saw that Mr. Brand had returned as well, and she ran up the steps to see if anyone would answer. There wasn’t one, so she darted across the street, Anubis at her heels.

  She knocked on her own door and called out, “It’s me.”

  The sound of locks turning filled the next seconds and a moment later, she faced Mr. Brand with Lisette and Mr. Oliver just behind. She didn’t miss the gun in Mr. Oliver’s hand or Lisette’s hands on Persephone’s and Kali’s collars.

  To their worried looks, Severine said, “Mr. Thorne thinks he has cracked ribs. I think we should call a doctor. He’s still in the car.”

  Mr. Brand blinked, taking in the news with that one movement. “Are you all right?”

  He tugged her inside and she nodded. “Maybe a little bruised.”

  Mr. Oliver moved past her, jogging across the street.

  “You should help them,” Severine told Mr. Brand, but seeing the need on his face to ensure she was unharmed, she added, “I’m fine. I promise. Nothing is necessary more than a hot bath and some time to think. Also, Mr. Thorne might need something to help with the pain and at least to have his ribs bound.”

  Lisette said, “Go. I’ll take care of her.”

  “Lock the door behind me,” Mr. Brand ordered.

  Mr. Brand disappeared a moment later and the two friends eyed each other. Finally, Lisette said, “We gave chase, but they lost us. They knew the roads well. We didn’t. In fact, it took a bit of time to even find our way back here. When you weren’t here yet, I barely kept Mr. Brand from going back for you.”

  Severine started to nod, but a harsh yawn overtook her. She had to shake it off before she could focus again, and her exhaustion was evident in her voice. “There were three of them.”

  “We only saw two,” Lisette said. “And there were only two in the car we followed.”

  “Then we left one behind with the drugged servant,” Severine said. She closed her eyes. “Should we ask the police officers to go check on her?”

  “If they drugged her,” Lisette suggested, “they probably meant her no harm. She, at least, isn’t really involved in this.”

  “We hope,” Severine said, knowing she was too tired to return to that house. She’d have to trust that the married couple at the end of the driveway would look after Janice if anything worse occurred.

  “Did you learn anything other than the number of people involved?” Lisette asked.

  “Well, clearly the haunting is fake. We’d have known that even if I hadn’t
found their little headquarters.”

  “Where was it?”

  “In an unused servant’s bedroom. I doubt anyone has been in those unused ones for years.”

  Lisette frowned and then her head tilted. “How did you know there were three if one was at the car?”

  “I found three coffee cups. Maybe there’s more than three. But there’s at least three. And one is a woman.” At Lisette’s silent question, Severine added, “Lipstick on the cup.”

  “They were making themselves at home there, weren’t they?” Lisette muttered.

  “That house is big enough and has so few full-time servants, someone could probably live on the premises and those who are supposed to be there would never know.”

  “Oh,” Lisette shuddered. “Can you imagine?”

  Chapter 15

  Severine woke feeling as though someone had wrung her out. She was certainly not used to spending all night out, let alone tossing and turning as she worried about Mr. Thorne and Janice. When Severine finally slipped into sleep, she slept so hard and then, woke in pain from the bruises she gained throwing herself around the house that previous night.

  She staggered to her bathroom and considered the tub for a long moment. When she examined herself, she found quite a large bruise on her hip and bicep from when she’d avoided the truncheon, and then matching bruises on the opposite hip and her thigh from the time she avoided the person outside of Janice’s room.

  Severine wrapped herself in her kimono and went down the back stairs of her house with the dogs following behind. She let them into the garden and turned to face Chantae. Lisette’s mother looked Severine up and down and then said, “Coffee.”

  It wasn’t a question, and Severine took it happily, closing her eyes as she sipped it.

  “The doctor confirmed Mr. Thorne has cracked ribs,” Chantae told her. “I brought the boys breakfast earlier, but they were all still sleeping.”

  Severine’s voice was hoarse and cracked as she said, “Thank you.” She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. “What time is it?”