Part 2
“Martin?”
No response.
She unlocked the gate manually and waved the ambulance through.
A second vehicle followed, a private security SUV driven by Owen Price, the estate’s night supervisor. He braked near her hard enough to throw gravel.
“What happened?”
“Where were you?”
“East perimeter. One of the motion sensors—”
“Someone attacked Edwin.”
Owen’s face tightened. “Attacked him how?”
“With an injector. The camera feed was cut.”
He looked toward the gatehouse, then at the open gates. “Where’s Martin?”
“I don’t know.”
The ambulance crew was already unloading a stretcher.
Celeste stepped close enough to Owen that she could smell rain and peppermint gum. “Lock down the property. No one leaves.”
He looked past her toward the mansion. “Miss Marrow, there are forty-seven acres, twelve service exits, and a beach line.”
“Then close all of them.”
His mouth flattened. He did not point out that the ocean could not be locked. “I’ll call the county sheriff.”
Celeste turned before he could see how frightened she had become.
The paramedics brought Edwin through the side entrance rather than the grand foyer. His oxygen mask fogged with every breath. Lena walked beside the stretcher, one hand gripping the rail. Adrian spoke rapidly to the lead paramedic about the puncture wound and the embedded fragment.
“Possible sedative, paralytic, or cardiac agent,” he said. “Unknown dosage. He lost a pulse briefly. CPR was initiated immediately.”
“By whom?”
“The housekeeper,” Adrian said.
Celeste stopped near the library doors.
Lena looked at her then.
There was no accusation in her expression. That would have been easier. There was only a wary stillness, the look of someone measuring the distance to the next danger.
The paramedics lifted Edwin into the ambulance. Adrian climbed in after them.
“Which hospital?” Celeste asked.
“Saint Catherine’s,” he said. “I’ll call you.”
She nodded.
Lena began to follow.
One of the deputies arriving with the sheriff’s department stepped between her and the ambulance.
“Ma’am, we need everyone who was present to remain here.”
Lena stopped. “He may need—”
“He has a physician with him.”
The ambulance doors closed.
Through the small rear window, Edwin’s face disappeared behind a paramedic’s shoulder.
Lena stood in the rain without an umbrella. Water darkened the white collar of her uniform.
Celeste had the absurd impulse to offer her own shawl, then remembered she was not wearing one.
The ambulance pulled away.
Sheriff Daniel Rusk entered the mansion with two deputies and the expression of a man who disliked wealthy houses because they made simple crimes complicated. He was broad through the shoulders, gray at the temples, and careful about where he placed his wet shoes.
“No one touches the library,” he said. “No one cleans anything. No one resets the security system.”
Owen started to speak.
Rusk held up one hand. “Especially you.”
Owen’s jaw worked, but he nodded.
The staff gathered in the morning room in various states of dress and fear. A cook in slippers. Two gardeners called in from their cottages. The upstairs maid with sleep creases on one cheek. Celeste’s aunt Beatrice, still wearing a silk robe and enough perfume to announce herself before she entered.
“What on earth happened?” Beatrice demanded.
Celeste did not answer.
She watched Lena sit alone at the end of a settee. Her hands were folded in her lap. The right one trembled faintly.
Sheriff Rusk spoke to everyone in turn. Names. Locations. Movements. Who had keys. Who had access to medical equipment. Whether anyone had seen an unfamiliar vehicle.
When he reached Lena, he pulled a dining chair in front of her and sat.
“You found Mr. Vale?”
“Yes.”
“What time?”
“Eleven forty-three. Maybe eleven forty-four.”
“How do you know?”
“I looked at the clock in the service hall because I was late finishing the silver pantry.”
“Why did you go into the library?”
“I heard something fall.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. A book, maybe. The sound came through the wall near the linen stairs.”
“The library doors were open?”
“One was partly open.”
Celeste looked up. The doors had appeared closed when she approached them, but she had not tried the handle. They had swung inward when she pushed.
Rusk glanced at his notes. “You entered and found him where?”
“Beside the daybed. He was on the floor.”
“He wasn’t on the daybed?”
“No. I moved him.”
“By yourself?”
“I pulled him onto the carpet first. When I found the monitor in the cabinet, I put the pads on him. Then I moved him onto the daybed because the floor was wet near the windows and the wires wouldn’t reach.”
Rusk studied her. “You knew where the monitor was kept.”
“Mr. Vale showed us during emergency training last winter.”
“You know CPR?”
“My mother has a heart condition.”
A small silence followed.
Rusk turned a page. “Did you see anyone else?”
“No.”
“Did Mr. Vale say anything before he lost consciousness?”
“He was already unconscious.”
“Did you touch the area behind his ear?”
“No.”
“Did you inject him with anything?”
“No.”
Beatrice made a sound from across the room.
Celeste turned sharply. “Aunt.”
“I said nothing.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Rusk looked from one woman to the other. “Miss Marrow, I’ll speak with you separately.”
Lena’s gaze dropped to her hands.
Celeste felt the shape of her own fingers around the young woman’s arm as distinctly as if she were still holding it.
When Rusk questioned Celeste in the breakfast room, he asked her to begin with the dinner party.
“It wasn’t a party,” she said. “It was a foundation dinner.”
“How many guests?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Names?”
“My office will provide the list.”
“Did anyone remain after eleven?”
“My aunt. Adrian. Two trustees. Edwin. Staff.”
“You were in your room?”
“I was in the gallery reviewing tomorrow’s auction inventory.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“What made you go to the library?”
“The security alarm on my phone showed a door fault.”
“Which door?”
“The library garden entrance.”
Rusk wrote something down. “And when you arrived?”
May you like
She described it.
Most of it.
