Four

After the awkward gathering around the body, they fled to the dining room, and Frannie managed to bring out a pot of coffee and some day-old pastries. She didn't want to be in the kitchen alone with the body; Glyn stayed with her.

Cormac stood against the wall in a corner. The others kept their distance, which was normally how he liked it. But they all kept looking at him. Murdered body in the house, convicted felon standing right there. He had to figure out how to handle this.

Amelia?

She'd gone quiet. Very quiet, so that not even her presence lingered at the back of his mind, where he could almost always find her. His heart rate spiked, and sweat broke out on the back of his neck. Last summer, she'd been captured by a magician. He'd gone a few days without her constant presence and discovered that he needed her. If she vanished again, if the séance had somehow hurt her... Amelia... Amelia!

I'm here.

He tried not to let his relief show. He wouldn't be able to explain it, so he crossed his arms and kept his expression cold.

This has happened to me before.

It was how she had died, before. She'd been discovered kneeling next to the body of a young woman who'd been viciously murdered by a demon. Amelia had only been trying to learn what happened, but the authorities found her, surrounded by her arcane tools, and jumped to the most sensational conclusion. Amelia had been hanged for it. Her spirit lived on; the trauma remained.

We're going to be fine.

How?

He didn't know.

The cell connection was still down, but the house had a land line. In the foyer, Beck finally got through to the police and was explaining the situation in a jumble. Her half of the conversation was maddening. "What do you mean... well yes, I know there's a blizzard... yes... are you sure? But what are we supposed to do? Okay... okay, fine." By her tone, things were clearly not fine.

The police were not coming, at least not right away. Cormac was partly relieved. He didn't want to talk to the police right now.

Beck came back in, looking despondent. "Snow's supposed to taper off this afternoon, but they're not going to get anyone out here until tomorrow morning."

June let out a sob. There were other general gasps of consternation.

"Am I going to have to cook with that in my kitchen?" Frannie exclaimed.

"That is my husband." June glared at her.

"No, of course not," Beck said quickly. "The sheriff says we can move him and clean up. Just... we need to take pictures if we can."

"Right," Glyn said. "Best take care of it, then. Ms. Mirelli, if we could trouble you for the use of your camera? And Mr. Bennett, you and I could do the heavy lifting, as it were."

"You trust me?" Cormac said pointedly. "The convicted murderer?"

"Convicted manslaughterer, you said." The author's smile had acid in it. "I'll keep an eye on you."

Manslaughterer? That's not even a word.

Lora ran back to her room to retrieve her camera. They were all still in their night clothes, flannel pajamas and robes. Except for Glyn, who had somehow managed to dress in trousers and a clean shirt before appearing, even amidst all the excitement.

Cormac excused himself to go get dressed, and half expected Glyn to complain, but he didn't.

We've got to figure out what happened, Cormac.

Yes, before everyone here decided on some story starring himself.

They returned to the kitchen door, now dressed in their usual. Glyn reached for the camera, but Lora pulled it close. "I'll do it myself if that's all right."

"Sure you're up for it?" Glyn asked.

She scowled. "Don't be patronizing."

The body lay right where they left it, of course, still jarring, sprawled on the prep table like an ill-prepared slab of meat. And there was Cormac's appetite gone. Staring with obvious fascination, Lora started taking pictures, moving around the body, finding different angles, looking down, kneeling and looking up.

"Watch the blood," Cormac told her. Gasping, she stepped back from the dark, sticky pool.

"I hope you're not planning on posting any of those on your Insta-whatsit," Glyn said.

"Of course not," she said.

"I'm sure you wouldn't kill someone just to get a flashy online story about it," he added.

"What?"

Cormac glared. "You just going to go around accusing everybody?"

He shrugged, clearly unapologetic. "Just thinking of possible motives. Before last night, none of us knew Monty except for June and Beck. Why would anyone want to kill him? Turns out I can think of all kinds of reasons."

"So what's yours?" Cormac asked.

Lora looked back and forth between them, waiting. Glyn put his hand thoughtfully on his chin. "Maybe I'm a professional hit man, and Monty got on the wrong side of some bad people."

That's just fanciful, Amelia said with a huff.

Fanciful was all they had right now. "Sounds like one of your books."

"Oh, you've read me? I'm flattered."

Cormac nodded at the body. "We should probably turn him over."

A door in the kitchen led to a detached carriage house turned garage, where Beck told him he could find a tarp—and where they could move the body until the coroner could get here. The path there was sheltered and had only a foot of snow instead of four-foot drifts. The stretch was pristine when Cormac went out into it. No one had come into the house this way. He cleared a path by stomping it flat, and found the tarp in the garage, along with two pairs of gardening gloves, stiff with cold but clean. When Cormac offered Glyn the second pair, the man nodded with approval.

"It's almost as if you've done this sort of thing before," Glyn observed.

"Will you stop."

Monty Connor was a big man and there wasn't a lot of room to maneuver. They laid the tarp on the counter, and only then started to shift him, to roll him onto it. The counter was also covered in blood; the entire front of the man's shirt was soaked and growing sour.

"Oh, my God," Lora murmured, continuing to snap pictures, which was annoying, but better too many than not enough.

Glyn's expression never changed. He seemed unbothered by the gruesome job. Then again, Cormac's expression never changed either. He really had moved blood-soaked bodies before; he was starting to wonder about Glyn.

"Hm, I thought the knife might still be under him, but I'm not seeing anything," Glyn said.

"Then where is it?"

"If it were me, I would have gotten rid of it," Glyn said.

"Dump it in a snowdrift outside, let fresh snow cover it up, and no one would find it till spring," Cormac added.

"Indeed." Glyn nodded appreciatively.

"You guys are freaking me out." Lora took pictures of the bloody table, the ponderous body.

They worked the body onto the tarp. Monty Connor lay splayed out, eyes half-lidded, glassy.

"And... there we are. See that?" With the tip of his gloved finger Glyn drew apart a tear in Monty's shirt, a clean slice an inch or so long right below the man's heart. Underneath the fabric, a similar tear in his undershirt, once white but now a vivid red. And under that, the wound. A gap in the skin, blood clotted around the edges. "A clean stab, a good sharp knife. Went straight in and out, up under the ribs. He'd have tipped right over. Lora, make sure you get some pictures."

"You see this sort of thing a lot?" Cormac couldn't help but ask.

Glyn grinned. "We're just going to keep asking each other that sort of question, aren't we?"

Lora dutifully took photos but her face was looking a little drained and clammy. "It doesn't even seem real," she said. "I got my start in true-crime podcasting. But this is nothing like the pictures. It's so much more... sticky."

Cormac said, "Maybe you should go sit down."

"Yeah. Just... I want to find out how this happened."

"We will," Glyn said, with confidence.

Lora fled to the next room.

"All right," Glyn said. "Count of three, we lower him to the floor?"

Cormac nodded and took up two corners of the tarp. Glyn took the other two, and they lifted. Cormac winced and nearly dropped his side, but managed to pause with most of the body's weight still on the counter.

"Everything all right?"

"Hurt my shoulder last summer. Still isn't quite right." No need to give Glyn even more to think about by telling him it was a gunshot that had hurt him.

"Should I ask someone else?"

"No, I'm fine." He just needed reminding that this was going to hurt. Setting his grip more firmly, he nodded.

They got Monty to the floor, opened the door, and managed to maneuver their load through the kitchen, outside and to the garage. The wind had stopped; a few thin flakes were still falling from a uniformly gray sky. Glyn squinted into the storm with something like resignation.

A pickup truck was parked in the garage, and they lifted Monty into its bed, to keep it off the ground and away from vermin. They wrapped him up tight in the tarp, making sure all the corners were tucked in, all parts covered.

"It's cold enough out here to store a body, at least," Glyn said. He stepped back, taking one last look over the wrapped corpse. Folded his hands as if saying a prayer.

As they walked back to the house, Cormac felt the need to say, "I didn't do it."

"Everyone in the house is going to say that," Glyn said. "Someone will be lying."

"What about you?"

"Me?" Glyn glanced at him over his shoulder. Grinned. "Of course I didn't do it. Why would I lie?"