CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Leah returns from vacation tomorrow. When she does, I'll have no reason to be in anyone's bedroom again. If I am to gain any information from their rooms, it will have to be today.

I'm not sure what I expect to find, if anything. Part of me thinks I'm just desperate for answers.

And that's not untrue. I have two different mysteries: Deirdre McCoy's and Lila Benson's. I've chosen to focus on Lila, but there's a good chance that Lila became a mystery because she was digging into Deirdre McCoy.

I have four different suspects: Elizabeth remains a strong contender with a grasp on reality that seems tenuous at best and a paranoid and obsessive personality. Christopher has hinted at a remarkable capacity for manipulation, and he is easily the most physically dangerous person on the estate. If Lila met a violent end, he is the one who would have the easiest time facilitating that end.

Violet seems unlikely. She is old and rapidly growing frail. Unless Lila was infirm or disabled in some way, it's not likely Violet could have overpowered her.

But she could overpower even Christopher if she had a gun. And she is the most likely subject of Lila's investigation. If she killed Deirdre McCoy, then that's proof of her capacity for violence, and while she might be succumbing to dementia now, that doesn't mean she was incoherent four years ago.

Still, I have a hard time seeing Violet as the reason the governess disappeared.

Annabelle, however, is starting to look really "good for it," as they say in detective novels. She bears a great deal of resentment and anger in general and resentment and anger toward Lila in particular. I have seen firsthand how that anger can boil over, sometimes in an instant.

Annabelle is a simmering kettle with a lid clamped tightly over her. From time to time, some steam escapes through a pressure valve, but what happens when the steam forms faster than the valve can release it? What happens when someone closes the valve?

I don't think Annabelle would plot to murder Lila. She's not a cold-blooded killer. I do, however, believe that in a fit of anger, she could very well explode and do something without thinking.

And today, I hope to find evidence of that. Or evidence that exonerates her.

Or hey, maybe I'll get lucky and find an in-depth chronology of every single event as it happened and not need to investigate anything else.

I chuckle at that as I rifle through Annabelle's drawers. I don't feel wonderful about this, but I need answers, and this could be my last chance to find one. In my first mystery while working with the Ashford family in New York, I come across the answer to the case by digging through a box in my employer's closet and finding evidence that she covered up the cause of her husband's death. I'm hoping for similarly damning proof here.

But I've gone through every corner I can think of and found nothing. Annebelle's closet contains only shoes and clothing. Her bathroom contains nothing more secretive than the items normally found in a young woman's restroom. Her drawers contain clothing and jewelry, but the only letters I find stashed are love letters from middle school addressed to a boy named Jimmy.

So much for my hypothesis about her and Sylvia.

That's not the mystery I want solved though. I need to know what happened to Lila Benson.

It doesn't appear that I'll learn it from Annabelle's room though. I sigh and prepare to admit defeat when I try one final location.

I chuckle as I get down on my hands and knees and look under Annabelle's bed. It would serve me right if she were to return home now and catch me like this. A fifty-one-year-old woman with her bottom in the air, staring under her bed like a child checking for monsters. Part of me almost hopes I'm caught so I can receive the scolding I deserve and come to my senses.

But as fate would have it, I find the smoking gun I'm looking for. There's a letter taped to the underside of Annabelle's mattress. I carefully remove it, and when I see Lila's handwriting, I nearly shout for joy.

When I read Lila's handwriting, the joy is replaced with shock.

She knows I know now. She's caught me snooping. She didn't say anything, but I know she caught me. Now she watches me, and her eyes are so cold.

I didn't believe Clara about Deirdre McCoy. It sounded too much like a soap opera for me to give it credence, but now I believe it. Those eyes are colder than ice and darker than night.

I think I'll take my leave of this place soon. I can only hope that when I leave it's of my own free will and to a destination of my choosing.

I read the letter twice more just to convince myself that what I've read is real and not something I've simply imagined. When I am convinces that there are no figments in this letter, I replace it, carefully matching the edges of the tape to the dust-formed outlines that indicate their original placement. I have no idea if Annabelle ever looks under here, but in my experience, Violet isn't the only one in this family with eyes as cold as ice and as dark as night.

I leave Annabelle's room and head straight to my own. Then, because it's barely midday, and I don't want to be seen as a hermit and raise suspicion, I head downstairs and make myself tea, then drink it on the porch.

I still have chores to complete, and it would be better for me to complete them before the family returns from their various jobs, but I need to finish my tea first. What I've discovered rattles me more than I care to admit.

It doesn't seem real. It's absurd to think that a woman in her seventies with dementia could somehow be a vicious killer.

At the same time, though, she can't have had dementia fifty-two years ago when Deirdre McCoy went missing. She likely didn't have dementia four years ago when Lila Benson went missing, or if she did, it would be far less advanced than it is now.

But it is advanced now, right? Surely I'm in no danger from her. She is watched by her family most of the day, and I'm sure that if there are any guns in the house, they're locked away where she can't get to them.

I need to calm my nerves. My mind is running away with itself. I sip my tea and take deep, steady breaths.

This is nothing I haven't dealt with before. In fact, objectively speaking, this is far less dangerous than what I've dealt with before. I've faced a disgruntled ex-wife who did have access to a gun and a scorned lover who would rather have her rivals killed than share the man she wanted. Compared to Cecilia Ashford and Eliza Carlton, Violet is nothing. A senile old woman who might once have been a murderer but who is now a shadow of her former self in every way.

I'll be all right. It's not myself I have to worry about. This is not a fight for safety but a fight for justice. Perhaps Violet won't fully understand if she is punished for her sins, but the ghosts of Deirdre McCoy and Lila Benson will rest more easily knowing that their killer didn't go gently into that good night.

I finish my tea and head inside to complete my chores. My nerves are far steadier now, and I'm able to finish my tasks calmly.

Upstairs rests a woman who is likely a murderer. I only need indisputable evidence of her crimes, and I can ease the pull inside me and perhaps release the tension that drives me inexorably to madness.

Or, at the very least, I can prepare myself to answer the voice of my own sister's blood.