Born to Bite (32 page)

“What’s that?” Armand said, and Eshe nearly jumped out of her skin with surprise. Whirling, she found he’d entered before closing the door and was now stripped down to just his soot stains.

She let her gaze slide lazily over all that revealed skin and then arched an eyebrow and asked, “Trying to jump the line?”

“It would conserve water if we showered together,” he pointed out with a grin, and when she merely stared at him, added, “I could scrub your back for you.”

Eshe set down the T-shirt, whipped off his borrowed shirt, and stepped over the lip of the tub and under the spray. When he immediately followed, she warned, “You’re only touching my back. I am so not waking up tangled with you in the bottom of this tub with Bricker and Anders pounding at the door.”

“Party pooper,” he teased, picking up the soap.

Armand behaved himself and was done and out before her. Eshe took a little more time, washing and rinsing her hair before following to find him already dried and dressed. He kissed her as she stepped out of the shower, and then moved to the door, saying, “I’ll go see if there’s any coffee on.”

Eshe nodded and quickly dried and dressed herself, surprised to find that the clothes fit all right. The jeans were a little tight, but a pretty good fit considering they were borrowed. She’d expected Anders and Bricker to be waiting impatiently, but there was no one waiting in the hall when she opened the bathroom door.

Shrugging, she headed downstairs and found Anders and Bricker there. “Where are Armand and Cedrick?” she asked as she moved to the coffeepot to pour herself a cup.

“Cedrick left right after getting some clothes for all of us. He had to go check on one of the other farms or something,” Anders said with a shrug.

Bricker then added, “And Armand went over to John’s. He called just as Armand came downstairs and asked if he’d come help him with a new cow that seems to be ailing.”

“And he went?” she asked with a frown.

Bricker shrugged. “John and Agnes were in Europe when Althea died. It should be safe enough. I offered to go with him, but he said he wanted to talk to John about his drinking and it would be better if he was alone.”

“Right,” Eshe muttered, thinking that was probably true. Noting the way Bricker was suddenly digging in his pocket, she watched curiously as he pulled out a set of keys and set them on the counter beside Anders.

“The keys to the SUV,” he explained, and then moving toward the door, he said, “I’m going for my shower.”

“You won the coin toss for who gets to shower first, huh?” Eshe asked lightly, bringing him to a halt.

“Nah. Cedrick’s housekeeper is taking me into town to do some shopping after, so Anders said I could go first. I’m picking up clothes and whatever personal stuff everyone wants. You can come too, or just write your clothing size and what you want on that sheet of paper on the table and we’ll pick up what we can.”

Eshe glanced toward the sheet of paper as he continued out of the room, noting the items already listed beside Anders’s and Armand’s names. It was written in the same hand; Bricker’s, she’d guess. She sat down with her coffee, picked up the pen, and scrawled her clothing sizes and a couple of items, and then glanced around wondering if there was anything to eat.

“The housekeeper, Jean is her name by the way, said there were some scones under that plate cover thing there,” Anders told her as she stood up. “She said there was butter on the table, I’m guessing in that glass cow.”

Eshe glanced back to the table, smiling faintly when she saw the cow butter dish.

“So what’s our next move going to be?” Anders asked as she found a plate in the cupboard and lifted the cover off the plate on the counter to retrieve a scone.

“I’m going to call Mary Harcourt in Montreal,” Eshe said quietly, and turned from the counter in time to see him nod. She was glad he didn’t protest, but hadn’t expected him to. Anders wasn’t all that sentimental, and things had gone far enough that the possibility of upsetting Mary on her anniversary didn’t seem that important. Besides, she’d approach the subject as carefully as she could. Eshe wouldn’t intentionally upset the woman.

Anders settled at the table across from her and kept her company while he waited for the shower to be free. Eshe had finished, gotten herself a second coffee, and dialed the hotel where the Harcourts were staying in Montreal when Bricker came bounding down the stairs to announce the shower was free and grab the paper off the table. He gave her a nod and wave when he noted her on the phone, then turned and hurried back out of the room.

Anders followed, no doubt headed for the shower, and Eshe turned and glanced out the window as she heard Bricker talking to someone. She spotted the tall redhead walking with him toward a van and smiled faintly to herself, suspecting by the way the young woman was laughing that she was soon to be one of his conquests, but her smile faded as the phone was picked up on the other end of the line.

Getting her mind back on business, Eshe asked for the Harcourts’ room and then waited, half expecting she wouldn’t get any answer or that she’d be put through to a voice mail system. It was after five, but still early for their kind, and they were likely to be sleeping, which meant they’d probably have asked for their calls to be redirected. It was something of a surprise when the phone was picked up on the second ring by a female.

“Mary Harcourt?” she asked uncertainly.

“Yes. Who’s this?” the woman said cheerfully.

“This is Eshe d’Aureus. I’m…”

“You’re Armand’s life mate.” The woman laughed when she hesitated about how to introduce herself. “I passed you on the way out the night you came and talked to William. He told me all about it. Did that fellow Justin tell you I’ve invited you all to Sunday dinner?”

“Yes, thank you,” Eshe murmured, beginning to feel bad about having to make this call. But knowing it was necessary, she opened her mouth to ask the first question and then changed it to “Is William there?”

“Yes, but I’m afraid he’s in the shower. We have an early reservation for a dinner. We’re going to a play afterward. Is it important?”

“Actually, no, that’s all right. Don’t disturb him,” she said quickly. She’d only asked that to be sure the woman was alone and would speak freely to her. “Mary, I really wanted to ask you a couple things.”

“I see.” Some of the good cheer left her voice, replaced with uncertainty.

Eshe hesitated, debating what to ask first, but finally decided to try to stay away from asking her about the night Althea died if she could. Hoping that talking about Annie would be less upsetting, she asked, “Did you ever meet Annie?”

“Nicholas’s Annie?” Mary asked, sounding uncertain.

“Yes. We understand she was asking questions about Armand’s wives before she died, and wondered if she’d approached you?” There was a long pause, long enough that Eshe was sure the answer was yes and the woman was debating telling the truth, so she murmured, “It’s important.”

A long sigh slid along the phone line. “Yes, I did meet her. It was accidental really. I was taking something over to Armand for my William and she was there knocking on the door. She introduced herself when I walked up to the porch and explained she was looking to meet her new father-in-law, and I told her he was probably back at the barn or out in the field.”

Eshe frowned at this news. Armand had said he’d never met her. “Did she go looking for him?”

“No,” Mary murmured, and then hesitated before admitting, “We got talking and then she suddenly rushed to her car, got in, and roared off.”

Eshe stiffened, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling. She just knew this was the puzzle piece that would make everything else make sense. “What did you say just before she rushed off, Mary?”

“I…I don’t recall,” she mumbled.

“It’s important, Mary,” she said firmly. When a stubborn silence reigned from the other end of the line, Eshe tsked with irritation and pulled out the big guns. “I’m a Council enforcer, Mary. I’m here on Council business, and whatever you told Annie pertains to that.”

“I don’t see how,” Mary said, sounding more annoyed than impressed, but then a long sigh sounded down the phone and she said, “Annie was asking a lot of questions about Althea and Armand’s other wives. But at the end, the conversation circled back to Althea and how she really disliked Agnes and John. Althea thought they were a pair of leeches taking advantage of Armand’s good nature when their sister died. She thought they should have moved out centuries earlier, and her first order of business after they married was to convince Agnes and John to move out. She succeeded and they went to Europe, but she was always afraid they’d come back and pop up like a pair of bad pennies. Althea was becoming obsessed with the idea, to the point that the night we rode into Toronto, she actually thought she saw Agnes and was positive they’d returned and were going to spoil everything she’d managed to achieve.”

“Althea saw Agnes?” Eshe asked sharply.

“No, of course she didn’t,” Mary said firmly. “Agnes and John were in Europe. Everyone knew that. I’m sure she just imagined it or saw someone who looked like her, but it managed to upset Althea enough that she said she couldn’t sleep and was going to go for a walk before bed.”

“Why didn’t William tell me about this?” Eshe asked with a frown.

“Oh, William doesn’t know. Althea didn’t say anything until I went to collect Thomas from her room. Thomas preferred her to give him his bath, so after we checked in, she took him to her room to bathe him while William and I settled in our rooms, and then I went to collect him. When I arrived, Thomas was sitting in a tub of cold water while Althea paced the room like a caged tiger and kept glancing out the window raving about having seen Agnes as we rode in. I tried to tell her she was mistaken and reminded her that Agnes and John were in Europe, but she wouldn’t listen. She never did once she got something in her head,” Mary added with exasperation, and it made Eshe think of Althea’s being positive that Armand was her life mate because she couldn’t read him, and not believing anyone when they tried to tell her she couldn’t read him because he was older than she was. It seemed obvious her mother had thought this was another similar case of Althea believing what she wanted to.

“Althea was a bit high-strung,” Mary admitted reluctantly, and then rushed on, “It was always best to humor her when she got like that, so I let her have a good rant about it all, and then agreed with some relief that she should go for a walk before bed. Then I took Thomas to our room…Of course I’ve regretted that ever since. William didn’t know this, but I know Althea sometimes bit drunken mortals. She said it was only when she was having trouble sleeping, but…” There was another unhappy sigh. “Ever since the fire, I’ve suspected she did so that night too and then went back to her room, and knocked over the lantern as she passed out on her bed.”

“Thank you, Mary,” Eshe said gently when she fell silent. “You’ve helped a great deal.”

“How?” Mary asked almost plaintively. “Why was Annie so excited about this? And what are you investigating?”

Eshe hesitated, but then shook her head and said, “How about I tell you that at Sunday dinner? I might have more news for you then.”

“All right,” Mary agreed reluctantly.

“Have a lovely anniversary,” Eshe said sincerely, and hung up to immediately begin pacing Cedrick’s small kitchen.

While Mary was sure Althea had imagined seeing Agnes, Eshe didn’t immediately take the same view. If she
had
seen Agnes, then it meant Agnes and John had returned from Europe earlier than everyone believed, or they’d never left…which eliminated their alibi and meant they’d been around for every death. They’d been at the castle when Susanna died, as well as in Toronto the night Althea died, and there had never been any question that they lived in the area when Rosamund and Annie died. And they were certainly here now, able to have caused the fire at the shed, and then the house burning. It was that being-in-Europe business that had taken them off the suspect list, but if Althea really had seen them, then it put them right back on it. Actually, it made them the only suspects, she acknowledged, and then stopped pacing as she realized that Armand was presently out there at John and Agnes’s alone.

Eshe turned slowly and peered out the window, staring at the lowering sun. It wasn’t nightfall yet. From what she knew about the pair they were never up and about this early and should have been tucked up in their soundproofed basement. She’d assumed John had a day manager as Armand did, and yet he was up today and Armand was out there helping with a sick cow. She hadn’t seen any cows at the Maunsell farm.

Cursing, Eshe snatched up the SUV keys Bricker had set on the counter and hurried out of the house.

“I’m surprised you’re starting into livestock,” Armand commented as he got out of the pickup and walked to meet John in front of his van. His gaze slid over the farm John had led him to. It was quite a distance from the farm where John and Agnes presently lived, and it would have been less of a drive for Armand had John just told Armand to meet him there and given Armand the address. Instead, John had waited for Armand at the main farm and then led him there in his van.

Armand pursed his lips as he peered over the building, another modern ranch house with outbuildings. There were several barns, and he wondered which one held the ailing cow.

“I thought it was time to diversify,” John muttered, heading for the house rather than the barns. “I just want to check on something before we go see the cow. Come take a look around.”

Armand nodded and followed him to the house, waiting as John unlocked the door and then preceding him inside when John gestured him to.

“I need to check the size and kind of the breakers here. Some of the lights don’t work. I think the breakers are burned out and need to know what kind I need to buy,” John murmured, following him up the hall as Armand walked along peering into empty rooms. “The basement door is your next on the right.”

Armand opened the door and flipped the switch, relieved when a light turned on. He didn’t fancy trying to navigate an unknown set of stairs and a basement in pitch dark. Immortals had excellent night vision, but they needed at least a little light to work with and the basement had looked like a great black hole when he’d opened the door.