Chapter Three
Chapter Three
“Oh my god,” Kate said, swooning against the back of the seat. She was suddenly glad her grandfather never insisted on taking her on any of his fishing trips. She liked bone and sinew where it belonged, safely on the inside, out of her eyeline.
“’Tis only a deer, ma’am,” said the driver, having recovered his sensibilities. “And a stuffed one at that. No harm done.”
“No harm done?” Kate said incredulously, cracking one eye open to survey the dead animal on the tracks. The driver was right; that wasn’t bone and sinew, as she’d thought, but dense stuffing. Still, it was somehow worse in her mind. How the hell did a stuffed deer end up on the train tracks? Who would do such an insane thing?
Jake was of the same mind. “How did a stuffed deer wander onto the tracks?”
“It must have been from the hunting lodge,” the driver said dismissively as they exited the car. “They were probably moving it and it fell off one of the recreational vehicles. Unfortunately, I will need to recover it. Miss Rebecca is very partial to her trophies. You will need to proceed to the Manor on foot at the top of the hill there.”
Tall trees surrounded the tracks, the underbrush so thick she could barely see the ground. Kate looked up at the steep climb, wondering how she was going to manage it in ballet flats, when the driver called out sharply. “Sir! Ma’am! I am afraid you will need to take the long way around, on the tracks. You cannot go into the wilds alone.”
“Why not?” Kate asked, eyeing the bushes warily.
“It’s not safe,” intoned the driver, reaching into the car and pulling out a knife the size of Kate’s forearm. He held it out to Jake. “You will want to carry this, sir. Just in case.”
“In case what ?” Kate asked, her voice climbing in direct relation to her blood pressure.
“You’ll be fine, ma’am,” said the driver smoothly, waving her along. “So long as you stick to the tracks and stay in the open.”
The sky gave an ominous rumble of thunder, cutting off further protestations from Kate and hurrying the two of them along. She stuck close to Jake on instinct. “You think somebody would have noticed a deer missing from the back of an ATV.”
“Kate,” Jake said, giving her a funny look. “That deer didn’t fall off any ATV.”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you get a look at that thing? It wasn’t just hit, it was shredded. Falling off a vehicle couldn’t have done that. Something else tore that deer apart.”
“Something else like… what?” Kate said, looking toward the trees like that something might leap out at any moment. “A person with a grudge? PETA?”
“Or something that thought it was a real deer,” Jake said with a shrug, hefting his knapsack and absently swinging the giant knife the driver had given him.
“Wait, you think an animal did that?” Kate squeaked, stopping suddenly. “We should go back to the train, wait with Jeeves.”
“We’ll be fine,” Jake said with a wave of the blade. “My buddy Freddy once fended off a Burmese crocodile with a Swiss Army Knife when the thing had my whole arm in its mouth, so this is a real upgrade. Who is Jeeves?”
“Hmmm?” Kate eyed the trees around them warily. “Oh, that’s what I named the butler guy in my head. Jeeves.”
Jake gave a little half laugh. “Of course you did.”
Kate frowned. “Wait, I remember that story. You told me that Freddy was the one with his arm stuck in the crocodile’s mouth, and you were the one who used the Swiss Army knife to rescue him!”
“Did I?” Jake continued on, looking thoughtful. “Well, either way, somebody fended off a crocodile with a knife a tenth the size of this one. That’s the important lesson.”
“I made you sound like a hero!” Kate said, hurrying after him. “That story was the back cover copy for book two!”
Jake glanced over at her, his gaze considerate as he studied her face, making all the little hairs along her body prickle to attention. “You really did a number on yourself, didn’t you? Hang on, I’ve got something for that.”
“Is it that noticeable?” Kate asked miserably as he rummaged around in his knapsack.
“Nah, just looks like you’ve been in a bar fight. Loretta would be proud. Here.” He pulled a dented metal tin from his pack, twisting it open and releasing an unctuous smell. “I know, it smells awful, but it really does the trick. Just be still.”
And then Jake Hawkins was touching her lip—not just touching, but tenderly rubbing it, pulling on it to better access the sore spot where she’d bitten into it. The salve gave her a tingly sensation wherever he applied it, or maybe that was the effect of Jake. Touching. Her lips.
“You really got into it this time, didn’t you,” Blake said, gently tending the wound on her face.
“You should see the other guy,” Loretta said dryly.
“I did,” Blake replied in the same tone. “He’s dead.”
“Not through any fault of mine,” Loretta said, steeling her resolve as Blake set to work bandaging up the wound. “He was dead before I showed up. It was the other, more alive guy who mistook me for a heavy bag and fancied himself a boxer.”
“You know I worry about you, Lor,” said Blake, so close the blues of his eyes were electric, pulling her in. “One of these days, one of these idiots is going to get lucky and catch you out. Won’t you come to Thailand with me instead?”
“You think I’d be any safer in Thailand?” Loretta asked, hardening her heart against the surge of longing and wanderlust that arose at the idea. “Murder has a way of finding me, Blake. I trip and fall no matter where I go.”
“Sure, but at least I’d be there to catch you.”
“Kate?”
Kate blinked back to reality, and it wasn’t Blake at the Key Lime anymore, but Jake standing before her on an abandoned stretch of railroad tracks. It was clear he’d been talking to her for some time, and just as clear that she hadn’t heard a word of it.
Oops. Sometimes in moments of extreme distress, Loretta had a way of just… taking over. Kate spent so much of her time imagining What Would Loretta Do? that it was like a second brain nestled inside her own.
“Sorry,” she blurted, jerking back. “I was… We should get going.”
Jake cleared his throat, turning away. “Yeah, of course.”
Kate trailed a safe distance after him, not sure what she was more afraid of—whatever had killed that deer, or the way her whole body lit up when Jake touched her. Whichever it was, she wanted to stay clear out in the open so she could see it coming and dodge before it was too late. The wind had picked up considerably, cutting down the open stretch of track viciously and blinding her as they headed in what she hoped was the direction of the house. There was at least some landscaping coming into view, long rows of square hedges abruptly replacing the tall trees. It looked almost like the back of a walled-in garden.
“Do you think that’s where we’re meant to go in?” Kate called, pitching her voice above the wind. “Doesn’t seem quite grand enough for a… What did Jeeves call it? A manor house?”
Jake shrugged, changing direction to hike up the hill toward the gate. “Only one way to find out.”
Kate hustled after him, her suitcase bopping along on the uneven terrain and flipping over from the force of the wind. By the time she met him at the gate she was more than ready to be out of the oncoming weather, but as Jake rattled the gate it didn’t budge.
“It’s locked,” he said. “We’ll have to go around.”
“Around where?” Kate asked, looking at the long stretch of building on each side. She wasn’t keen to go exploring after the unfortunate shredded deer incident. A flash of movement caught her eye from inside the garden. “I think there’s someone over there.”
Kate could just see a young woman with blond hair in an ill-fitting blue dress, her face marred by dark drips of mascara down her cheeks. She’d been crying, obviously, but she didn’t look like she was crying now. She looked pissed .
“Ah, great, we’ll just have them let us in,” Jake said, raising an arm to catch the woman’s attention. But Kate grabbed his arm, pulling him to one side of the gate and shushing him. “What are you doing?”
“She’s arguing with someone,” Kate said in a low voice, nodding at where the young woman gesticulated with sharp intensity. They couldn’t see who she was talking to, but Kate imagined the person was getting an earful. At one point the woman threw her arms wide, like she might consider tackling the other person.
“This feels an awful lot like snooping,” Jake said, though he didn’t move from where she’d pushed him against the garden wall. In fact, he seemed to lean in closer as the young woman grabbed the other person by the arm, snatching a handful of vibrant floral fabric. “On the other hand, it’s rude to interrupt.”
“Shh, I can’t hear them!” Kate said, crouching and leaning forward for a better angle. The other person—a woman, Kate assumed from the garb—snatched her arm out of the young woman’s grip, raising a hand and slapping the blond woman hard.
“Oh!” Kate and Jake exclaimed simultaneously, giving away their position.
The young woman’s gaze snapped to the gate. Kate grabbed Jake and darted back, pressing against the garden wall as her heart pounded. She wasn’t quite sure what she was so worried about—sure, she’d committed a social faux pas, but it was their fault, really, arguing out in public like that. And she and Jake had a perfectly reasonable excuse to be there. Still, it wasn’t the successful start to the weekend she’d envisioned, getting caught snooping like this.
“Do you think they saw us?” Jake asked after a moment.
“I’m going to check.” Kate leaned around him, doing her best to ignore the press of his chest against her arm as she surveyed the garden. She half expected the woman to be standing there like a video game jump scare, streaky mascara guaranteed to haunt her dreams. But the gate was clear, the garden empty beyond it.
“They’re gone,” Kate said, strangely disappointed.
“That was awkward, wasn’t it?” Jake said, checking the garden for himself. “What do you suppose they were fighting over? Seating charts? Floral arrangements? Maybe they both brought the same dress for the ceremony?”
“I don’t think that had anything to do with the wedding,” Kate said with a frown.
“Ah, I see the gears turning,” Jake said. “Go on, then, what’s your theory?”
This was another bad habit of Kate’s. She couldn’t help but observe and theorize, like everyone around them was in the middle of their own murder mystery. After spending all day inventing suspicious conversations for Loretta, even the most mundane exchanges took on a tinge of the ominous to Kate.
It used to drive Spencer crazy whenever they went out in public, the way Kate would accidentally eavesdrop and casually wonder what the people at the next table over were plotting. He said she never really fully returned to reality after spending the day in fantasy Loretta land, and she learned to keep her theories and observations to herself. But now here was Jake, openly asking her what she suspected. Like Blake, who was always game to help Loretta put the pieces of her investigation together. But Jake wasn’t Blake, and he would tire of her suspicions as surely as Spencer had.
“My theory is that this is about to open up on us,” Kate said, waving at the steely gray sky overhead. “And unless you’re scaling this gate, we’d better find another way in.”
“Fine,” Jake said, heading down the hill. But he couldn’t help a final comment, tossed casually over his shoulder. “Coward!”
“I’m not a coward!” Kate said indignantly, slip-sliding down the hill after him. “I’m just not keen on being caught out by the… the Deer Shredder!”
Now there was an idea for a Loretta killer. The Deer Shredder. He graduated from torturing animals to torturing humans, and only Loretta could stop him before she became his next victim. Although after what Kate had just seen, she couldn’t imagine harming a poor defenseless animal. Even an imaginary one. So back to square one. Again .
She could see where the house had been beautiful once, with white plaster walls and red roof tiles and turrets and gables and whatever other architectural flair enormous houses came with. New money spent better than old money, though, and the Hempstead fortune was now several generations old. Which meant the Manor showed it.
Vines overgrew nearly every surface, turning the faded gray plaster into a sentient wall of green and brown. Tiles hung at slanted angles from the roof, one crashing to the ground as Kate and Jake scurried up the front lawn toward the safety of the house. It seemed that efforts had been made in recent years to repair much of the damage, though, as scaffolding covered the back half of the house and piles of fresh siding and paint buckets peeked out from under rain tarps.
The entrance to the house was at least covered, the massive wooden double doors protected by a cupola. Kate crowded close to Jake as they tried to find any small patch of the porch that wasn’t getting bombarded by windy rain. Her hand brushed his waist, his nose brushed against her ear, and they were altogether too close for comfort. A girl might try something, and Kate had already learned that lesson two years ago.
“I’ll knock on the door,” she announced, loudly and woodenly like a community theater bit player as Jake set the knife off to the side. She stared up at the elaborately carved door as she banged her fist against it, unwilling to face Jake. Which meant she had to study a panel that she realized depicted a deer with its throat being slashed open.
“What is with the deer?” she muttered, taking a step back as the door creaked open.
“Welcome to Hempstead Manor!” said a little man in a striped suit with an artistic goatee. He spread his arms wide, looking for all the world like Gomez Addams welcoming them to his haunted mansion. “You must be our last guest for the evening, and not a moment too soon. Look at the weather out there! Come in, come in!”
He ushered them into a long, dim hallway with tile floors and darkly paneled wooden walls covered in staid portraits, chandeliers made of antlers hanging low over their heads. The lights flickered, casting long shadows across each portrait until Kate was having flashbacks to university scholarship panels full of judgy white men.
“Pretty ballsy to have a portrait gallery as your entryway,” Jake murmured to Kate.
But their greeter moved through it all like it was a luxury resort in the Bahamas. “I’m Abraham from Dreams Come True Event Planning. Our clients value discretion above all else, so while nondisclosure agreements prevent me from naming names, let’s just say I’ve fixed a tear in the bridal gown of a certain American to a certain royal and personally stocked the bar on the private plane of a certain billionaire on the way to his private island wedding.”
He continued on like he saw all this luxury and more on a daily basis. Which, considering he was coordinating a Hempstead wedding, might be the case.
“This is the entry hall, and that is Russell Hempstead,” he said, waving at an oil painting of a man with impressive muttonchops. “And his children, Ferdinand and Nikola.”
“What’s with the two empty spaces?” Jake whispered to Kate, nodding at the long stretch of wall after Nikola’s painting where two portrait-size gaps stood empty.
“Those are the dissenters,” Abraham said in a stage whisper. “The Hempstead family feud? Inspiration for a certain HBO series?”
Kate had read about the feud that had split the Hempstead family apart. Russell willed the bulk of his estate to his eldest son, Ferdinand, with a host of strings attached to how the money could be dispensed. Russell’s two youngest children—Georgi and Lydia—were so incensed by the rules (and being cut off from their fun money) that they took Ferdinand to court over the terms of the will. Only Ferdinand’s brother, Nikola, sided with him, mainly because he knew where the butter got spread. The younger siblings lost their court case, their inheritance, and, apparently, their portraits in the gallery.
“And this, of course, is our esteemed host for the weekend,” Abraham said with a little sigh, stopping in front of a massive portrait of a sharp-looking woman with a severe bob haircut and sparkling blue eyes. “Rebecca Hempstead.”
“Her portrait’s at least twice the size of the other fellas,” Jake observed, looking around the room. “Healthy ego on that one, eh?”
“Probably because that one’s net wealth is greater than the GDP of most European countries,” Kate said. Was it too much to curtsy to a portrait? Probably, but that didn’t stop her from considering it. “Ferdinand might have established the Hempstead family fortune, but it’s Rebecca who’s put them at the top of the Forbes list. They call her the Queen of Wall Street. While our parents were trying to build a decent 401(k), Rebecca was buying up stock in dying legacy companies and turning them into the hottest tickets on the market. She’s increased the Hempstead fortune tenfold. I read that the market once dipped a hundred points because she made an offhand comment about the auto industry at a fundraiser in DC.”
Jake had slowly turned to her during her observations, his eyebrows raised. “And how do you know so much about Rebecca Hempstead?”
Kate flushed. She could hardly say she’d spent most of the past six months obsessively googling the entire family, learning the ins and outs of their ongoing legal battles over the family trust, scrounging up every interview Rebecca ever did as if she could siphon off some of the woman’s success. Rebecca was polished, confident, stylish, and flamboyant—a magnetic magnate. Kate wasn’t easily impressed with wealth, especially inherited money, but Rebecca had taken her family’s respectable fortune and turned it into a never-ending gold mine by sheer force of personality. She’d also been the center of her fair share of sensational news stories; she’d spent most of her younger life in the press for one reason or another, and had eventually withdrawn entirely from the public eye. But that didn’t mean she didn’t still control every aspect of the Hempstead family fortune. She was exactly the kind of personality Kate couldn’t resist.
And of course, there was the matter of that mysterious letter.
“You forgot her greatest nickname of all,” came a loud, expansive voice from down the hall. A man sauntered in, looking very much like the owner of such a voice with his thinning hair aggressively combed into submission, his nose bulbous and pocked from too much alcohol indulgence, and a smirk that rivaled any used car salesman.
“Excuse me, Mr. Sheffield,” said Abraham, his tone strained. “I was simply conducting these new arrivals—”
“The Bitch Bull,” the man spat, swilling a glass of something dark brown before knocking it back in one massive swallow. “That’s what we used to call her. The Bitch Bull of Wall Street. And she earned it, too, oh boy, didn’t she? A real bitch she was then, and an even bigger one now. But she’ll get what’s coming to her, mark my words. This weekend, the Bitch Bull will finally be castrated.”