Nine

With a pair of tweezers from his shaving kit and a paperclip from the stash of odds and ends Amelia had him carry around in his pockets, he picked the lock at the bedroom door in less than a minute. Slowly, carefully, he eased it open, muting the sound of creaking hinges as much as he could. He half expected Glyn to be waiting outside, standing guard. But the hall was dark, the other doorways closed.

He gathered a few materials from Amelia's kit: white votive candles, a bit of chalk. More scrying, but not the imprecise business of trying to talk to spirits this time. This involved the material plane entirely. They just needed half an hour without interruption. By this time he knew which stairs creaked, which floorboards would squeal at his weight, and successfully avoided them. Good, old-fashioned sneaking. It was a relief to be doing something.

He hesitated on the last flight of stairs. The lights were off, just as Beck had left them. Outside, visible through the window in the front door, faint moonlight turned the snow-covered landscape silver. All was still, perfectly quiet. So why was the hair on the back of his neck standing up?

Stepping softly, he reached the bottom of the stairs, listening hard, muscles tensing. He wanted the lights on. Flush out whatever shadow was waiting for him.

Something struck toward him from a hiding place to the side of the stairs. Cormac ducked back just in time, as Glyn drew back the staff he was holding—broomstick, or walking stick maybe—and thrust again, and again Cormac dodged. This time, he took hold of Glyn's arm. The man easily twisted out of his grip, finessing some martial arts move to slip away.

Cormac's injured shoulder ached—he didn't want to get into a knock-down drag-out with this guy. He'd lose. He pointed and said, "You locked my door—"

Glyn drew back. "I thought you locked my door." Cormac was breathing hard; Glyn wasn't. He lowered his weapon, what turned out to be a carved wood walking stick, and straightened out of his fighting stance. "You were locked in too?"

"Yeah, I picked it open."

"So did I."

"Then who—"

Glyn raised an eyebrow. "Whoever murdered Monty, trying to keep us out of the way."

Enough of this. Time for some answers. Cormac went to the coat tree and grabbed his coat off the top. "Which one is yours?"

Glyn found his coat, a sensible waterproof overcoat, under the layers. "Planning on a walk?"

"Just to the garage. Something I've been wanting to do." You all right with an audience? he asked the back of his mind.

Looking forward to it. He imagined her rubbing her hands together with anticipation.

Glyn followed without a word. He kept the walking stick, Cormac noticed.

They'd tamped down a clear way to the carriage house by now. At night, it had become slick. They crossed it carefully.

The outbuilding was freezing. Thank goodness. Monty's body must have been frozen solid by this time. Cormac worked quickly; moving kept him warm.

He gave Glyn a flashlight to hold until he got the candles lit. He cleared a space on the concrete floor and made a circle of buttery light.

After putting on gloves, he drew out the bundle containing the knife from the back of the truck and unwrapped it.

"What're you doing?" Glyn asked.

"Just watch. And be quiet."

Setting the knife aside, he drew a chalk circle on the floor, with symbols at the cardinal points for insight. For revelation. Amelia told him what to do; usually he'd let her take over but he needed to stay in his body. To stay fast, alert.

He put the candles at the cardinal points, then added more symbols, one for each person in the house, even himself, no exceptions.

"Are you summoning demons—"

Cormac held up a hand, palm out—stop. Surprisingly, Glyn shut up, standing back against the wall and watching skeptically.

Cormac tied black twine around the knife's center of balance, leaving it suspended, parallel to the ground. An arrow, with the ability to turn in any direction. Tied off the other end to a broom handle jammed into the truck bed, so his own microscopic movements on the string wouldn't impact the direction. Finally, he burned a pinch of sage to clear the air. The sharp, herbal scent of it changed the space. Took him just a little bit out of reality. The candlelight settled and spread.

Amelia told him what to say, a series of phrases in other languages. Repetition, asking for truth, to banish mystery, to summon insight. The garage was so quiet he could hear the wicks of the candles burning, a spark popping now and then. The fragile stillness stretched out. Glyn was holding his breath.

Monty Connor is not any more cooperative in death than he was in life.

Cormac hummed softy, "‘Oh bury me not on the lone prairie, where the coyotes howl and the wind blows free...'"

That is a dreadful song.

The knife... shivered. The string twisted. The point of the blade drifted, drifted... settled. At the glyph Amelia used to represent Glyn Farrow.

Cormac glanced at the man, inquiring.

"What does that mean?" Glyn said softly.

"Each of these symbols stands for someone in the house. That one's yours," Cormac replied.

"But I didn't—"

"That just means you were the last person before me to handle the knife. Let's see if we can find who held it before you."

Repeat the words.

He did, asking for the knife's truth, for the secrets it conveyed. Then, just in case it helped, he murmured the next line of the song. The knife turned, turned again. A shiver, as if a breath of air pushed it. Maybe a draft in the garage was nudging it along.

The next glyph it rested on was June Connor's.

"Whose symbol is that?" Glyn hissed.

"Shh."

He repeated the incantation a third time and added, "‘In a narrow grave, just six by three, they buried him there on the lone prairie.'" The knife did not move again.

Cormac sat back on his heels, trying to imagine the picture the scrying had given him. He couldn't quite do it.

"You look positively gobsmacked."

"It's pointing at June Connor," Cormac said.

"Well." Strangely, Glyn didn't seem surprised.

Cormac cut the string and let the knife fall, ringing against the concrete. He wrapped it back in the towel. Another round of burning sage, a few closing words to banish the magic, and he pinched out the candle flames. The flashlight seemed particularly dim after. The knife went back in the truck and he scuffed out the chalk marks with his boot. He felt unsettled, looking over his shoulder. A queasy anxiety wouldn't fade. He wanted to get back in where it was warm. Sit with Amelia in their meadow and figure out what to do next.

"You think she really could have done it?" Cormac asked.

"In hindsight, it might even make the most sense."

"How—"

"Let's get back inside."

The stillness from the garage carried to outside. The wind had stopped. Starlight blazed overhead. A blue, crystalline glow touched the post-blizzard world. Time seemed to slow to an imperceptible pace.

This wasn't just the winter night. Not just the frozen air. Something was... off.

Wait a moment.

Cormac put his hand out to stop Glyn, and they both stared ahead.

A figure stumbled down the steps from the kitchen door as if shoved out. It turned back to the house, shouted—and made no sound at all. A young man, maybe eighteen, with short brown hair and a thin mustache. He wore boots, rough trousers, and a flannel shirt. No coat, no hat, no gloves. Not dressed for the weather, which was already getting to him. He hugged himself, slapped his arms as if trying to beat warmth into them. Looked up at the sky with a wincing expression of consternation. Trudged away from the house a few halting steps, as if he knew he wouldn't get very far—

And then he stumbled down the steps as if he'd been shoved out the kitchen door. Shouted silently. Turned from the house with uncertain steps. Looked at the sky as if he was looking at his doom. It had been a winter night when Tobias Wright died. Maybe as freezing cold as this one. If he'd been kicked out of the house, if he'd been left outside with the temperature dropping like this...

The scene played out a third time.

"Oh, my God," Glyn murmured. It might have been the first thing that had shocked him all weekend.

Tobias Wright wasn't shot. He froze to death. Murdered but not murdered. Oh, that poor young man.

In his—and Amelia's—experience, ghosts weren't spirits so much as they were memories. Imprints. This was the moment that doomed Tobias. What happened after... his brother might have invented the story about the shootout. He could have shot the body after the fact. In that version, he was defending himself. A player in an Old West tragedy. Not the instigator of an act of terrible cruelty.

Cormac, love. You're freezing. We should go inside.

He hadn't noticed if the chill he felt came from the cold night air, or the terrible scene playing out before him. Didn't really matter.

Just then, the figure's movement changed. Instead of turning away he stopped—and looked at Cormac and Glyn. His exasperated frown deepened into grief. As if he had consciousness and remembered what had happened. As if he sought understanding. Sympathy.

Cormac started to say something—he wasn't sure what. I'm sorry, maybe. Or, How can I help? But in the next breath the figure vanished.

Cormac touched Glyn's shoulder and urged him toward the door. They both skirted the path the ghost had taken. The snow there showed no footprints, no disturbances.

Back in the kitchen, the heated air hit him like a wall, and he shivered. They both did.

"I think I'll go start a fire," Glyn said, propping the stick by the door and nodding toward the parlor.

"I'll be there in a sec." He took off his gloves and went to the sink to wash his hands, which also gave him a moment to think.

"The scrying," he murmured. "You think it worked?"

I do. With the body and murder weapon right there—and that song. I've never seen so much power go into that spell. I think even Glyn's presence helped. He wants so badly to learn what happened.

"But why would she do it?"

I'm not sure any amount of scrying could answer that.

Voices carried from the parlor, just as Cormac stepped into the dining room. He froze and listened.

"What are you burning there, Mrs. Connor?" That was Glyn, asking a smooth, innocuous question, as if he simply happened to be passing through in the middle of the night for no particular reason.

June Connor answered quickly. Rushed, stressed. "Nothing. It's nothing."

Cormac carefully, quietly, edged up to the doorway, to get a look into the room without being seen.

June stood at the fireplace, caught mid-gesture, holding a piece of paper toward the robust fire burning in the fireplace. She held more pages in her other hand. She had apparently been feeding them one by one to the flames.

"That's the document from Monty's coat, isn't it? The one that Mr. Bennett conveniently discovered for you, and you subsequently took."

And just like that, the gaps between a number of puzzle pieces closed, shapes locking into place. Those papers—when the others had come down the stairs and saw him standing there... June had noticed. June had known he'd found something. She'd retrieved the papers later, setting Cormac up for that moment of frustration.

In considering Monty's death and who might have inflicted it, they'd failed to ask the simplest question. Who in the house had the clearest motive to murder Monty? Maybe the person who knew him best.

Moving quickly, Glyn pulled the pages from June's hand. Futilely, with a cut-off sob, she grabbed after him, but he'd paced out of reach. June remained by the fire, hands now covering her face. Glyn tilted them toward the dim firelight to better study them.

"Divorce documents," he said thoughtfully. "And they were not initiated by you. I think I understand, now. Monty wanted a divorce. This might have been a complete surprise to you, but... I think not. Then Monty discovered his plot of land was worth a whole lot of money in mineral rights. He wasn't going to invoke those rights until the divorce was finalized, entirely cutting you off from that wealth. If he died first, however, and if you successfully framed someone else for his murder... you'd inherit everything. How am I doing?"

He remained focused on the documents, no doubt studying every detail, which meant he wasn't watching June. But Cormac saw her lower her hands, an expression of profound loathing twisting her ordinarily gentle features. Her gaze fell on the wrought-iron vintage fireplace tool stand just half a pace away from her. She didn't have to move to reach down and take hold of the poker, weighted with ornate Victorian flourishes. Without a sound, she removed it from the stand. All she'd need to do was swing hard, and she'd smash Glyn's face in. It would only take a second.

In three calm strides Cormac was across the room, at June's side, wrenching the upraised poker out of her hand. She cried out briefly—then folded. Sank to the floor and shook, crying silently.

Glyn blew out a breath. He had seen the blow coming, and he might even have been able to do something about it. But maybe not this cleanly.

"Thank you, Mr. Bennett," he breathed.

"You're welcome. You think she locked the doors, too? Keep us from snooping around?"

"No, I wonder now if that was Beck wanting to be sure we stayed put. She ought to know us better than that, don't you think?" Glyn studied him with more intensity than ever. Even more than when he thought Cormac had murdered Monty. "Mr. Bennett. I might be a little bit in love with you." He did not seem to be joking.

That flush Cormac felt—flattered and pleased about it—came from Amelia. Cormac. That might be an avenue worth pursuing. I don't have a body but he does—

No. Just... no. He looked away to hide Amelia's blush.

Glyn flashed a lopsided grin, as if he could guess what Cormac was thinking. But he would never have any idea what Amelia was thinking.