Beneath the Skin (8 page)

Gerald, show this man to the door please.”

Allerton lifted his hand, but it was enough to cause the young Advisor, Gerald, to sit back down looking rather relieved. I would have been relieved too. By the expression on Murphy’s face, it would have been hell trying to kick his ass out the door.

“Elise Benoit tells me you are very good with herbs, Constance.” Celine Ducharme

leaned forward in her antique chair, her brown eyes alight with suspicion. Her thin face looked sucked in, as if she perpetually tasted a fresh slice of lemon under her tongue. “You were the star pupil in the herbal lecture yesterday, weren’t you?”

I looked at the crushed plastic water bottle in my hands and wished I could go to the bathroom. In about ten minutes, I would have a very embarrassing accident.

“I like to crush up the herbs and ingredients and measure them into capsules and liquids.

It’s soothing. It clears my mind,” I said.

“Aha,” declared Celine Ducharme, as if I had confessed to something unspeakable.

“What did you make yesterday in the herbal lecture?” Murphy asked me. When he talked to me, his voice was almost gentle, the sarcasm gone, but his jaw was still exquisitely tight.

I had to think about it, because mostly all I could concentrate on was not peeing myself.

“We made a remedy for stomach aches and one for headaches.” I was rather proud of

myself for being able to recall that under the circumstances.

“No poisons? You didn’t make any poisons?” Now Murphy sounded sarcastic, but he

talked mostly to Councilor Ducharme.

“No poisons.” I shrugged.

“You’d better lock her up, Councilor. She’s guilty of making a home remedy for stomach aches and headaches. Pure evil. We can’t let that sort of knowledge roam free.”

“Be quiet,” snapped Celine Ducharme. “If one is good at one part of herbalism, why

wouldn’t one be good at another? Like poison?”

“Is that what the grandmothers are teaching nowadays? How to poison people? Not my

grandmother. Not any grandmother that I ever knew.”

“They know poisons. They have to know certain ones. Taken in small doses they cause things to happen that may be necessary sometimes.” The Councilor’s words were vague but we all got the meaning.

“Constance, did you try to give Rudi a home abortion this afternoon? Was he pregnant and not Alpha in his pack?” Murphy enquired, straight faced. One of the Advisors, the English one--Gerald--let out a snort of laughter and quickly apologized under the searing glare of Celine Ducharme.

“If I don’t get to the bathroom in about two seconds, I’m going to piss myself,” I said, because I didn’t care anymore and it was the truth.

This time the French Advisor was the one to laugh. Even Murphy’s tight jaw unclenched a little to allow a tiny smile.

“Angelique, escort her.” Councilor Ducharme rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Don’t let her try anything.”

“I’m not going to escape out the bathroom window if that’s what you’re afraid of. I won’t even try to give myself a home abortion in the hopes of killing myself by accident. I just have to pee.” I rose to my feet with alacrity and hoped the damn bathroom wasn’t a football field away.

I exited to the sound of smothered laughter.

I don’t think anything in my life even came close to feeling as good as taking that particular piss did. Not sex, not a massage, not a run in the forest. Nothing.

The Advisor, Angelique Roget, waited by the door for me. She was petite and pretty, very French, with long, blond hair she’d pulled back into a silver barrette. She had her notebook in hand and pretended to study it as I came out into the hall, marveling at the relief.

“Did you love him?” She looked up from her notebook. We stared at each other. The

wind outside blew around the eaves of the chateau and a tree limb scraped at a window across from us. The shadow of it crossed us momentarily, rendering us faceless.

When I could see her eyes again, I said, “We were going to be bond mates. We were

going to bond at the ceremony later this week.” I confessed it as if it were a crime.

“Why would you kill him?” She flipped her notebook shut. “Sometimes I detest my job.”

Celine Ducharme was, to put it bluntly, pissed off when we returned. Murphy smirked and Allerton just sat there with legs crossed at the ankle, hands steepled in front of his face, concealing his expression.

The tox screen results had arrived. They were inconclusive.

“Inconclusive does not mean he was not poisoned!” Councilor Ducharme spat, her straw-like hair whipping around her face as she stalked around the fireplace. Flames crackled in the grate and I smelled the scent of burning birch wood. It was such a light green smell. Like spring.

“What the hell does that mean? They didn’t find anything, Councilor, because there was nothing to find.” Murphy stopped smirking, and clenched his fists, his eyes dangerously dark.

“It just means they didn’t look for the right things!”

“What?” Murphy’s jaw dropped. “The grandmothers didn’t know what the hell to look

for? Bullshit. I’m calling bullshit.”

“You better stop swearing at me,
monsieur
! I don’t know who you think you are, but I grow very tired of your constant interference in this interrogation!” Celine Ducharme stabbed a stick-thin scarlet-tipped finger at him and, if she could have, she would have ripped his eyeballs out with her fingernails.

“This whole interrogation is a farce. This woman was going to have sex with Rudi

Grunwald, she wasn’t plotting murder! I have no idea why you insist on believing this wasn’t some sort of tragic accident. Maybe he had some medical condition we don’t know about, or maybe an allergic reaction to something!”

“Why wouldn’t that show on the tests if it were an allergic reaction? Something would be in his bloodstream!”

“A medical condition then. A heart attack.”

“He was thirty-two years old. You are delirious,
monsieur
!”

“There’s going to be an autopsy, right? Not just a goddamned inconclusive tox screen I hope!”

“Of course there will be an autopsy. It’s already going on!” Celine Ducharme snarled.

I saw it in my treacherous mind then. Rudi lying dead and pale on a table, knives slicing into his body so measurements and samples could be taken before he was sewed back up when they were through. And he’d never laugh anymore, or shift into a big silver-gray wolf and run through the forest with his pack mates ever again.

Something must have showed on my face, because they all looked at me then and the

room fell silent.

“She was going to bond with him,” Angelique declared with a suddenness that startled all of us. “Councilor Ducharme, Constance was going to bond with him at the ceremony on Friday.

Why should she murder him? She had nothing to gain and everything to lose.”

Allerton’s eyes crinkled as he smiled behind his fingers. I had to wonder how long

Angelique would keep her job. Maybe she didn’t care. She detested it, anyway. Sometimes.

Murphy stared at me. I guess he hadn’t known Rudi and I were going to bond.

“Is that what she told you?” Celine Ducharme stalked to the door, ripped it open and a moment later Lucy stood on the carpet in front of us, her eyes red rimmed, her nails bitten short.

“Yes, it’s true,” she confirmed when the question was put to her. “Rudi told me last night on the bus after we dropped Stanzie off at her hotel. She was going to bond with us. He was so happy. We all were.” Her voice dropped and she looked at me. I could tell she wanted to ask me if I’d killed her bond mate. I shook my head no, even though she didn’t ask and her breathing seemed to come a little easier. She gave me a small, very sad smile. She believed me.

“He was not Alpha in your pack. Did he clear this with
Monsieur
Bergen? Your Alpha?”

Celine wouldn’t let it go. She was incensed for some reason at the thought I might have bonded with Rudi.

“Rudi was acting Alpha here at the Great Gathering, because Willem stayed home with Greta and their newborn twins. Rudi was free to take another bond mate. We want more triads in our pack, anyway, Councilor. It would not have been an issue.”

“Not even if Willem knew her history? Knew that she’d killed her own former bond

mates? He wants that sort of filth in his pack, Lucy?”

Lucy gasped. So did most of the room. I didn’t. I just looked down. I wondered what had happened to my plastic water bottle. Now my hands didn’t have anything to do.

“Excuse me, Councilor, but Constance was cleared of all culpability in that regrettable accident. In fact, if you might recall, I am the one who actually investigated the event, and if anyone in this room can state her guilt or innocence in the matter, it would be me, wouldn’t you say?” Allerton lowered his hands to reveal his face. His expression was impatient and angry.

“We’ve all had accidents in our lives. Does that make us all filth? Are you so blameless?”

Ducharme bristled. She almost growled and, except for the fact she was such a bitch and I could not imagine any man voluntarily getting near her for sex, I would have bet she wanted to shift and rip Allerton’s throat out.

“She was driving the car, Jason.”

“The car was examined after the accident, Celine. There was nothing wrong with it.”

“By someone of the Pack?” Ducharme demanded.

“Yes, by one of the grandfathers of the Riverglow pack, in fact. Who knew and loved all three of them.”

I saw Grandfather Tobias in my mind then. I remembered driving the Mustang to his little house in Manchester so he could see it. When Grey gave me the car for my birthday, he had asked me where I wanted to drive first and it was to Grandfather Tobias. He knew cars. He was a mechanic.

“That doesn’t prove anything. Maybe she didn’t tamper with the car, maybe she drove off the embankment on purpose.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” raged Murphy. “What for? And remember, she was in the car too.

Unless you’re saying it was a murder suicide pact, why the hell would she do something like that? You’re grasping at straws!”

“I don’t like the way this woman is always involved in tragedy!” Celine Ducharme

narrowed her already small brown eyes and glared at us all. “Once perhaps. Twice strains the credulity, and I, for one, do not want to wait for the third time to prove me right.”

“Why do you hate her? What has she done to you? Did you have a thing with Rudi

Grunwald maybe?”

The sound of Ducharme’s palm slapping Murphy’s face was loud and shocking, but he

only smirked.

“You have lipstick on your cheek,” she spat at him. I inwardly smiled to myself, because I thought she was incensed she did not get a rise. “All night you’ve had lipstick on your cheek.”

“You don’t say?” He continued to smirk and walked to an ornate gilt mirror hung by the door. He peered into it and regarded both the bright red palm print on one cheek and the lipstick smear on the other. “I’m really getting to the ladies today. Must be the Irish in me.”

Angelique giggled.

The English Advisor’s stomach growled and he looked horrified.

“We’re all starving, it’s not just you,” Murphy commiserated. He looked at the

grandfather clock in the corner and it obligingly struck ten o’clock.

If Rudi hadn’t died, the Great Hunt would be in full swing now. As it was, everyone had gone back to Paris if they had hotels, or retreated to their rooms in the chateau if they didn’t.

“This isn’t over. We shall reconvene tomorrow when we have the autopsy results,”

Councilor Ducharme decided, her mouth curved in a petulant scowl.

I wasn’t allowed to go back to Paris. I was assigned a tiny room that was obviously meant for a servant. I could barely turn around in it, and I think that was the point.

I wasn’t locked in but only because the bathroom was down the hall. There was nowhere to run. Not to mention I didn’t have any reason to run, because I hadn’t done anything.

They gave me a tray of food but I couldn’t eat it. I kept thinking of Rudi and how except for the fact he was dead and being dissected somewhere below in the chateau, we would be shifted into wolves at that moment and running together and wrestling, maybe noses to the ground in pursuit of some small prey. My stomach churned.

I put the tray on the floor in the hall by my door and went to the tiny bed. It was stuffed under the eaves of a slanted ceiling, one side shoved into the wall, and I had to be careful when I lay down, or I would have given myself a concussion. I only hoped I didn’t have a nightmare and jerked upright in the middle of the night, or I was going to have one hell of a serious headache.

Opposite the bed was a window, and I left the blind and curtains open so I could see the moonlight. A tall tree cast a ghostly shadow and the leaves rustled in the November wind. It was a lonely sound. A cold sound.

I didn’t know if I could fall asleep, if my mind would give me such mercy, but I did finally. If I dreamed, I don’t remember.

stations. I thought about the crepes, but in the end I took a cup of coffee and a croissant and sat at a table near the windows so I could look out at the fountains. To say I was in a bad mood was putting it mildly.

It was a gorgeous day--sunny and bright. It seemed an affront to Rudi’s memory. It

should at the very least have been overcast.

Instead I squinted against the painful glare of the sun on the water and tried to drink my coffee black, because there was no cream on the table and I didn’t feel like walking around trying to find some. There was sugar. Thank the gods for the small things at least.

A shadow mercifully blocked the exuberant sunshine and I watched Liam Murphy pull

out the chair opposite me. He had a plate piled high with what appeared to be a dozen scrambled eggs plus country ham, maybe a whole pig’s worth, and toast. Six slices.

“Didn’t eat dinner last night.” He shrugged as I eyed his plate. He offered it to me when he noticed my croissant. I had crumbled pieces of it onto the china plate, but one bite had been all I could stomach. Maybe if there’d been some goddamn cream for the coffee I could have choked down more.