Chapter 39

Thirty-Nine

THE CULPRIT

The body careened off Persephone, and with a deafening crash, fell to the floor and flew apart on impact.

Jumping back, I screamed again.

My heart in my throat, Lady Jane and I clutching each other, I stared in shock, and it took a long moment for me to realize it was a mannequin dressed in a black flapper dress. The platinum wig on her head having flown off on landing, was resting several feet away.

I heard running steps, a commotion upstairs, a man’s grunt, and I turned to Jane and ordered, “Stay here, I’m getting Ian.”

I was halfway around the first flight when the lights came on, blinding me.

I then heard a man shout, “Stay right there!”

I looked up, my eyes adjusting to the light, and saw Sam leaning over the balustrade on the first floor, pointing at me.

When I stood still, he took off running.

Not away.

Up the stairs.

There were more noises on the top floor.

A struggle.

I started when someone touched me, looked and saw Lady Jane had joined me.

She took my hand.

I held it tight.

And then, at the landing at the top of the steps, I saw Ian in jeans and one of his long-sleeved T-shirts, and Daniel, wearing the same, shoving a man I’d never seen in my life toward the stairs.

They wound their way down, keeping him moving by pushing him, and Stevenson came out of the hall on the second floor.

Down farther, and more people emerged from the shadows. Richard. Christine. Bonnie. Jack. Rebecca, Harriett. And Laura.

“What on earth?” Lady Jane breathed.

“Go. To the Diamond Room,” Ian ordered us.

I didn’t quibble. Neither did Lady Jane.

We took off down the steps, and turning lights on along the way, we dashed to the Diamond Room.

Soon after, they all came in, sans Daniel, and Ian shoved the man to sitting on a couch.

He seemed to make a movement to get up, but stopped when Ian snarled, “Give me a reason.”

He sat back.

“We’ll wait until Daniel fetches Portia,” Ian announced. “I believe everyone in this house deserves your explanation.”

The man opened his mouth.

But when he did, Ian lost control, lunged at him and growled a ferocious, “Shut it!”

The man shut his mouth.

And boy, my guy was definitely hot when he got pissed. So much so, I had no idea what was going on, and I still didn’t miss it.

It seemed an interminable wait, but finally, Portia, wearing one of Daniel’s sweaters over her short nightie and some slippers, came in, her gaze darting around and landing on the man.

Ian started it immediately.

“As we’re all gathered here, in Dorothy’s favorite room, let’s begin. You saw the light on in the Sherry Room, and since we were all leaving tomorrow, you decided tonight’s the night, hmm?”

“I don’t have to answer your questions,” the man sniped.

“You don’t have to, but you’re going to,” Ian said in his dangerous voice.

The man swallowed.

But he didn’t say anything.

“Allow me to start,” Ian said expansively. “You bribed one of our cleaning girls to pay attention to things, like what I drank, and what Portia drank. Something she couldn’t see herself, but she could ask the others. This she did. Also to fetch things you couldn’t get your hands on because the staff corridors didn’t lead to them, and you couldn’t risk being seen in the main house. Like David’s pen. By the way, she’s being arrested right now. It’s frowned on by the police when someone is drugged without their knowledge.”

I gasped, even though I knew this, I just didn’t know who did it.

Portia and Lady Jane gasped with me.

And again, the man’s throat convulsed with his swallow.

This meant Ian’s deductions were correct.

“She also let you in,” Ian continued, “Giving you access to the corridors, and probably keeping a lookout, or placing the items herself in rooms that have no access, like the Smoking Room and the Jacaranda Room.”

He stared at Ian and kept his silence.

More proof, in my estimation, what Ian was saying was true.

“It wasn’t meant to be Daphne you drugged. It was meant to be Portia. And me. Why me?”

“You’re bloody perceptive,” the man spat.

Indeed he was, for he was proving that right now.

“Ah,” Ian replied. “So you wanted me fuzzy so I wouldn’t notice your shit.”

“It didn’t bloody work,” he muttered. “I told her to put more in. With your size, you’d metabolize it too easily. She didn’t like doing it in the first place. She refused to do it again.”

“That might serve her well now,” Ian drawled. “As for the psilocybin?”

The man glanced at Portia.

I moved protectively toward my sister just as Daniel circled her with both arms, his glower on the man outright vicious.

I turned again to the man on the couch to catch him looking back to Ian. “She was the one who was supposed to leave here and tell others the story. You bloody lot keep your secrets. You would never do it.”

“And Dorothy haunting the manor would sell more books, wouldn’t it, Mr. Clifton?” Ian surmised.

I gasped again.

So did Portia.

Lady Jane obviously knew him, so she did not.

“You watched Dad enter the code when he let you in all those times to do your research,” Ian said. “The combination to the safe, when he took you to the Brandy Room. So when you maneuvered your way back in, you could get what you wanted. Your mouse in the house told you about Portia and Daniel, how Portia was coming to visit. And you hatched your plan.”

The man slumped into the couch, crossing his arms like an angry child, and said, “You’ve figured it all out. So I don’t have to say anything.”

“Yes. My investigators are thorough with bank records and ferreting out royalty statements and tracking prescriptions. It seems I’m not the only one who thinks your book is absolute rot.”

The man’s face flushed with anger.

“Dorothy was loved by her family, she takes care of you all to this day in a manner, does she not?” Ian asked.

The man looked away.

She did.

“The dedications in your book, both of them were sarcastic. Your private joke. You didn’t think Dorothy had talent. You scorned her because you thought she slept her way to the top. And your parents didn’t support you. They thought you were the piece of shit you are and disinherited you. So you used the only thing you had, and it was still Dorothy’s, to make money off her very dead back. Going so far as to take her things from your family’s archives, should you need to use those too. Like her shoes from that night. Her dress. One way or another, you were going to use all you had of Dorothy to line your pockets, and you did.”

Boy, Ian’s investigators didn’t mess around.

And microdoses of Valium did nothing to affect Ian’s perception.

Not at all.

“Now, let me tell you why you’re here right now,” Ian offered. “Stevenson has been losing sleep to keep an eye on the staff entrance, which has an entry close to it that leads to the corridors. We could have set up a camera, but Stevenson wouldn’t hear of it. This house means something to him, as do the people in it. You didn’t just violate the Alcotts with your devilries, Mr. Clifton, you violated our whole family.”

Ian swung out an arm to encompass everyone in the room.

And yes, that right there was when my fall was complete, and I knew I was in love with him.

I looked to Stevenson who was standing, back straight, staring down his nose at Steve Clifton.

“Nevertheless, he didn’t need to. My investigator was following you and saw you approaching the house. She phoned me. But Stevenson saw you come in,” Ian went on, “and he roused the staff to creep around and find you. I’d already roused Dad and Daniel. Daniel and I were the ones who first saw you. Daniel used the corridors to round to the other side. And I watched you myself carry that mannequin to the landing. Then I watched you lie in wait. This was a big play. Were we taking too long to be terrified, Mr. Clifton? Or, at the end of our week together, was this your grand finale?”

“The girl told me what was happening. That the sister was having tricks played on her,” he mumbled sullenly.

“So you thought you could ride those coattails,” Ian surmised.

Clifton lost it but phrased it in an attempt to find the moral high ground.

“You lot think you can get away with bloody murder!” he yelled.

I looked to Lady Jane.

She glanced at me with an expression of lips zipped.

Not that I would say anything, but I didn’t say anything.

“First, that was a hundred years ago. Everyone who was there is dead,” Ian retorted. “More importantly, second, you don’t care who killed Dorothy. You might be covetous of what we have and wanted to fuck with our heads because we have it, and you’re a shit writer, apparently a shit son, and definitely a shit individual. But that’s an aside. Mostly, you needed renewed interest in your dead aunt so it would sell books because you’re broke, and your millionaire family doesn’t give a flying fuck.”

Clifton said nothing.

Thus, again, Ian hit the nail on the head.

“You weren’t expecting to be caught. Just toss the mannequin, terrify Portia, or members of staff who found the things you left for them to find, or whoever would tell the story, covering as many bases as possible, and make a clean getaway, reaping your reward. You were there when Daniel and I tackled you, and now we’re all here,” Ian concluded. “Have I missed anything?”

“Go fuck yourself,” Clifton sneered.

“No. Though I’ll rather enjoy watching what becomes of you doing it to yourself,” Ian returned.

On that stellar comeback, no one said anything for a long time.

Then, the police sirens could be heard coming from outside.

“This house and the one before it have been protecting our family for a thousand years,” Ian said quietly. “Did you honestly think it would fall down on that job to the likes of you?”

“I’ll be wanting to call my solicitor,” Clifton replied.

“Good luck with that,” Ian said, before he informed him, “None of this is good, but it also isn’t that bad. But what you did when you shoved Daphne and she fell down the stairs will be considered assault.”

Clifton blanched.

Casually, Ian turned, nodded to his father, and then Richard moved, herding the women out.