Born to Bite (26 page)

Armand eyed the container and shrugged. “No, but it looked good.”

That just made Bricker laugh again. “Oh man. I’m going to have to give you two some shopping lessons before I go.”

Shaking his head, he turned back to the cupboard, saying, “Sit down. We’re going to talk while I make us something to eat.”

“Good,” Armand murmured, moving around the table to rejoin Eshe. “I’m hungry.”

“Did Cedrick leave?” Anders asked as Armand settled in the chair next to Eshe.

“Yes. I didn’t think he could be of any more help,” Armand murmured, draping his arm around Eshe and drawing her against his side.

Anders nodded and then glanced to Bricker. “So, Armand’s here…Tell us what you picked up at the Maunsells that Eshe didn’t.”

“Right,” he murmured, grabbing lunchmeat, cheese, and various greens from the refrigerator. He set them on the counter and went back for an onion and tomato as he said, “Well, he told us pretty much what Armand said, but with a little more detail.”

“Yes, but it wasn’t really enough to figure out if her death was murder or accidental,” Eshe said, watching him pull plates from the cupboard and begin slicing the tomatoes and onions.

“I disagree,” Bricker said, and then pointed out, “He said the men apparently hadn’t noticed the stable fire until it was well under way because they were watching outside the wall as was their job. And that they didn’t realize Susanna was in there until Agnes came out upset that she couldn’t find Susanna.”

“Yeah,” Eshe murmured, her mouth starting to water as she watched him build several sandwiches stacked high with lettuce, onion, tomato, cucumber, meat, and cheese.

He stopped what he was doing and turned to peer at where they sat at the table. “The first thing I did when I found you and Armand out beside the remains of the burned shed was call Lucian. I knew I’d need help; drugs and blood and—” Bricker shrugged, “Hell, just someone to help watch your backs while you healed.” He let that sink in and then asked, “Don’t you think if Susanna had gone into the bailey and seen that the stables were on fire, she would have yelled at the men on the wall to get help?” he asked pointedly. “There had to be more than one horse in there. She couldn’t have thought she was going to rescue them all alone.”

He shook his head and turned back to his sandwich making. “I think if the stables were on fire before she went in, she would have been shrieking at the top of her lungs for help and the men would have known before she ever went in.”

“You’re right, she would have,” Armand said quietly.

“Which means she didn’t run into a burning stable and have a beam or something else collapse on top of her and trap her as everyone assumed,” Eshe said, following that reasoning.

“All the others have been decapitated,” Anders pointed out. “Only Althea and Annie were burned like her. Rosamund wasn’t but was decapitated.”

“Yeah.” Bricker frowned as he put the last slice of bread on each sandwich and then began to cut them into halves. “I thought of that, but she was apparently shrieking from inside the stables when the men finally noticed and ran toward it. She couldn’t have been decapitated.”

“She could have,” Eshe murmured, drawing three pairs of doubting eyes her way. She took a minute to think it through and then said. “She was the first kill. The killer might not have been very confident yet. He might not have fully decapitated her, but just sliced her throat open or even halfway through. A wound like that would have incapacitated her, prevented her escaping, probably even knocked her unconscious for several minutes, long enough for the stables to be set on fire and be fully engorged in flames before she regained consciousness and could scream.”

“But if her throat was sliced, she wouldn’t have been able to scream,” Bricker pointed out.

“Not right away,” Eshe agreed. “But the nanos’ first reaction would be to repair the damage to such a wound.”

“Enough for her to scream?” Bricker said doubtfully, but then murmured, “It would make sense, though. I mean, you’re right, killers often use the same method, so I’d be willing to believe that there had been an attempted decapitation. I mean it would fit. All the others were decapitated and then involved in fire except for Rosamund.”

Eshe nodded, and then glanced to Armand to see his troubled expression. Thinking he doubted her theory, she said, “Or she may have sustained another wound, something that would prevent her being able to escape, but not to scream.”

“Either way, it seems likely Susanna was murdered too,” Armand murmured.

“Bricker brings up a good point,” Anders said quietly. “All the rest involved fire except for Rosamund.”

“There would have been no way to explain a fire with Rosamund’s death,” Eshe pointed out. “William said she was decapitated when the wagon she was driving overturned. Wagons didn’t have engines to catch on fire.”

“I don’t know about wagons, but we had a Brougham carriage when I was a kid and it had a carriage lantern,” Bricker said. “If the wagon had one, it could have easily started a fire when the wagon overturned. At least that’s what everyone would have thought if the wagon had burned.”

Eshe glanced to Armand. “Did your wagon have a lantern?”

“Actually, it did,” he said quietly. “And there were signs that there had been a bit of a fire, but it was raining that night and it apparently couldn’t catch hold and stay lit.”

“Even with the fuel from the lantern?” Eshe asked with surprise. It had rained the night the shed had burned too, but that hadn’t slowed it down much. Although Lucian had told her that he’d gone out to examine the shed and could smell gas in the grass by the fire and suspected it had been used as an accelerant to start the fire and make it grow fast and furious.

“Knowing Rosamund, she probably didn’t refill the lantern before setting out that night. She was always forgetting,” he added with fond exasperation. Armand shrugged. “There may not have been enough fuel in it to be of much help.”

“So if it weren’t for the rain, Rosamund would have burned up too,” Anders said quietly and raised an eyebrow in Armand’s direction. “Are any of your acquaintances what you would call firebugs? They like fire, use it to get rid of trash or such?”

Armand frowned but shook his head. “Not that I know of.”

“It was worth a try,” Anders said with a shrug.

“How exactly was Rosamund beheaded in the crash?” Eshe asked with a frown.

“The rails on the wagon were wood with metal top slats. It looked as if she’d been thrown from the wagon as it overturned, and then the metal slat had come down directly on her neck with the weight of the wagon behind it,” he answered wearily. “It was a clean cut that a sword could have made, but the metal slat could have made it too.”

They were all silent for a moment, and then Anders murmured, “So basically all we’ve learned is that all four women were probably murdered, which we suspected to begin with…and we’ve questioned everyone.”

Eshe started to nod, but then stopped and shook her head instead. “We haven’t questioned the women.”

Armand glanced at her with surprise. “You’re not suggesting Mary killed her own daughter?”

“No, of course not,” she said at once to ease his upset, but then frowned as she realized just what she was saying and added, “Although there’s no reason she might not have. I mean if William is a suspect, so is Mary. And the same is true of John and Agnes. A woman can kill just as well as a man.”

“Mary was the one in the house talking to Rosamund before she supposedly rode off and had her supposed accident,” Bricker pointed out.

“Mary would not have hurt a hair on Althea’s head,” Armand said firmly. “Dear God, she spoiled that girl rotten. In fact, she’s the one to blame for Althea’s willfulness. William at least made an effort to try to rein the girl in, but Mary was always hampering him.” He shook his head. “She is not behind these deaths.”

“All right, I’ll take your word on it,” Eshe said soothingly. “But we still haven’t questioned either of the women, and one or both of them might know something that none of the men do. We have to question them.”

Armand scowled, but then sighed and nodded reluctantly. “All right. But I want to be there when they’re questioned.”

“It would be faster if we—”

“I want to be there,” he repeated firmly.

Eshe stared at him silently, instinct telling her it would probably be better if she spoke to the women alone. A woman would tell another woman things she’d never say in a man’s presence. Then too, if Althea was having affairs as Armand believed, her mother might not want to speak of such things in front of him. Or anyone for that matter. Sighing, she caught his gaze with her own. “Don’t you trust me?”

Armand blinked in surprise. “Of course, but—”

“Then let me talk to them,” Eshe interrupted firmly, and when he opened his mouth, probably to protest, she added quickly, “You can be at the house with me. But I want you to keep William and John busy and let me talk to the women alone. They might say more without men there.”

Armand let his breath out slowly and nodded. “All right.”

Fourteen

Eshe stretched sleepily and turned on her side,
freezing when she spotted the tuft of hair sticking out from under the bundle of blankets beside her. A slow smile curved her lips. Already knowing that neither of the women was available last night, they’d merely called the Maunsell house and then the Harcourts and left messages asking each of the women to call and make arrangements to meet with them. They had then sat around chatting and waiting for phone calls that hadn’t come.

Finally, at around three A.M., Armand had feigned a yawn and said that since they probably weren’t going to be able to meet with the women until the next night at that point, he thought he might retire and rest. He was sure he was still recovering from their adventure in the shed and worn out after everything that had happened. He was retiring early and felt Eshe should as well.

She had agreed with such alacrity it had left Bricker and Anders chuckling as Armand had led her from the room. Eshe hadn’t much cared if they were amused. Her mind had been on being alone with Armand, safely in the house where they had backup and were unlikely to be attacked.

The door had barely closed behind them before they were in each other’s arms and dancing blindly toward the bed in a sideways scuttle that had probably made them look like a huge, misshapen, multicolored crab. They had slept, though…eventually, and no doubt long before the men had come up to bed. She supposed that was probably why she was awake now while the sun was still trying to peek around the blackout curtains…Which meant they had time before they had to get up and set about their day talking to the women, Eshe thought, smiling as she took in Armand’s position.

He’d cocooned himself in the blankets with just a handful of hair strands poking out of the small opening at the top. His face and his body, all the way down to his feet, were hidden and enwrapped in the fluffy comforter…leaving none for her. It was fortunate she didn’t like heavy blankets and preferred to just draw a sheet over herself, she supposed.

Shaking her head slightly, Eshe reached for the blankets, intending to unwrap the gorgeous man who had given her such pleasure that night, but paused when she opened her mouth to speak and a croak of sound came out. Dang, she was as dry as the desert and in some serious need of hydration…and food, Eshe acknowledged as her stomach made the most atrocious sound. Really, now that it had enjoyed the experience of having food in it again, her tummy appeared to have become demanding…and the rest of her was demanding blood, she realized on a sigh as she became aware of the cramping taking place in her body.

Retracting the hand that had been reaching for Armand, Eshe slid from the bed. She started toward the bathroom, tripped over the shirt Armand had been wearing earlier, and paused to pick it up before continuing on her way.

Five minutes later she came out of the bathroom dressed in only Armand’s shirt, her hair finger-brushed and her mouth minty fresh, to slip silently from the room and make her way downstairs.

The house was dead quiet; no vacuum cleaners roaring away, no clank of dishes being washed, and Eshe glanced around curiously, wondering where Mrs. Ramsey was. This was Wednesday, after all, and the woman usually worked Wednesdays. Surely Lucian hadn’t put it in her head not to come in all week?

Eshe frowned at the possibility. She was rather hoping the woman would make her something to eat. Although she supposed she could make herself a sandwich or something. She’d watched Bricker do that the day before and was pretty sure she could replicate the actions he’d taken to prepare it.

Eshe was trying to recall all the items Bricker had put on the very delicious sandwiches the day before when she stepped into the kitchen and spotted Mrs. Ramsey’s round figure standing at the counter facing the coffeepot. It was definitely a happy sight for her.

“Good morning, Mrs. Ramsey,” Eshe said cheerfully as she crossed the kitchen to her side. “How are you this morning?”

The last word had barely left Eshe’s mouth when Mrs. Ramsey suddenly whirled from the counter, a carving knife flashing toward Eshe’s throat. The sight was so unexpected, and frankly just so improbable, that she almost didn’t get out of the way in time, but at the last moment her reflexes kicked in and Eshe leaped backward, feeling the breeze of the passing knife as it barely missed the tender skin of her throat.

“Okay. Not in a good mood today,” Eshe muttered, backing away and noting that Mrs. Ramsey’s face was as blank as a sheet of empty paper. Not in control of herself, then, she deduced. Realizing the woman was under control of someone else, Eshe instinctively started to glance around, but caught movement out of the corner of her eye and shot her gaze back to Mrs. Ramsey just in time to avoid another lunge by the grandmotherly woman.

“Whoa. You really don’t want to do that,” Eshe said, continuing to move away from her now. She then rolled her eyes at her own words. Mrs. Ramsey probably didn’t want to do it, but couldn’t prevent whoever was controlling her from making her do it. And that was going to make her have to hurt the woman to defend herself.