Chapter Fifteen
Chapter
Fifteen
“What? Why would you say that?” he asks, doing a double take. “Has she said as much to you?”
She hasn’t, of course, but it’s a theory I’ve been turning over in my head since I spoke with her in my bedroom last night. She reacted oddly when I suggested that her death had been an accident, as if it was news to her.
“Not in those exact words, no, but think about it. We’ve both seen that scene in the ballroom where she falls. I can’t help but think there’s something she’s trying to make us notice. Something we’re just not getting yet.”
He’s probably just too dazzled by her long legs and leotard-clad curves to see what’s staring him in the face.
I don’t like the idea one bit, but I realize I’m going to have to return to the ballroom and watch the performance again, to look more closely for anything amiss in the run-up to Britannia’s fall.
It was such a shock the first time around that I missed pretty much everything apart from the fact she was spectacular and then she was dead.
“When I saw it, right before she died, she looked at me and said, ‘It always ends like this.’ ”
He nods slowly. “She said something similar to me.”
“Have you spoken to Dino or her husband?”
Leo twitches. “The only conversation her husband is interested in having with me is about how I should back off from his wife, which is pretty fucking rich given the state of their marriage.”
“Meaning?” I frown. His conversations with Britannia must have been pretty intimate for him to say something like that.
An evasive look erases the crease from Leo’s brow. “Nothing, really. I just get the impression that she must have been deeply unhappy to turn to Dino in the first place.”
“Has she said anything about their affair to you?”
Leo develops a sudden interest in the ceiling for a few moments before he answers me.
“Do I ask you to share details of private conversations you’ve had with Gunn?”
I’m losing my temper with his constant comparisons between Fletch and Britannia.
“Like that’s anywhere near the same thing! How can we work on this case together if you keep secrets? And given that you think I’m having some great affair with Fletch, which, for the record, I’m not, does that mean that you’re having some kind of great affair with Britannia?”
It’s worrying that he doesn’t instantly jump in and shoot me down. I watch him, the way he closes his eyes and breathes a few steadying times before he speaks.
“I think we both know that there can be no love affair for Britannia and me.”
I’d been about to tell him of my discovery of the engraved cross and the buried key in the garden, but his words make me have second thoughts.
“I never mentioned love, Leo.” But he did, and that’s most telling of all.
We sit in the quiet confines of the tiny, peaceful chapel and I soften, because I can see that, however bizarre the idea would be to pretty much everyone else who cannot see ghosts, Leo is in way over his head with Britannia Lovell.
“Maybe it’d be best if you pulled yourself off the case,” I say quietly, trying to offer him a way out. “Invent a reason. Family emergency. No one else needs to be any the wiser.”
He starts to laugh under his breath, but I don’t think he’s even remotely amused.
“Yeah, that would suit you, wouldn’t it, Melody? I do all the heavy lifting and you swoop in and resolve it at the last minute. I never had you pegged as a glory hunter.”
Says the man who left me in a heartbeat when the bright, glorious lights of TV land beckoned.
“That’s not fair and you know it, Leo. I’m trying to help.”
“To help yourself, more like. I’m not going anywhere.” He gets to his feet. “Not while she needs me here.”
My shoulders slump at his last words and I sigh as he flounces out of the chapel. I don’t even try to stop him because he’s not listening to me at all. He’s not going to listen, because this is actually much worse than I initially thought.
Leo has gone and fallen in love with Britannia Lovell.
“What a total and utter knobchops,” Marina says when I relay my observation to her quietly a little later.
We’re catching five minutes’ respite at the wicker table and chairs set out on the castle’s rolling back lawn with a quick cup of coffee and Marina’s cupcakes.
Artie has nipped down to check on Lestat, which is most likely code for going to gaze longingly at Hells Bells for a few blissful minutes.
“Trust Leo to enjoy having his ego massaged to the point where he’s as useful to us as an amoeba. A dead amoeba at that.”
“I do feel a tiny bit sorry for him,” I say. “It’s unusual to see him lose control like this. Don’t mention it to Fletch; he’ll have a field day with it.”
Marina’s face tells me that she doesn’t share my sympathy even one jot.
“Top-drawer twattery, that’s what it is. I don’t know why we’re even surprised. He’s proven himself a prize twat often enough now for us to expect it from him.”
She’s talking about how he treated me, of course. Even if I’ve let go of 90 percent of my stabby instinct where Leo is concerned, she’s probably only down to about 50 percent; 55 percent on an exceptionally good day. Her ability to hold a grudge is all part of her charm.
“Right, so, to business,” I say, glancing up at the tower in the top corner of the castle. “We need to get up there to the tower and check if this actually is the key, and I need to go back to the ballroom and watch Britannia’s final performance again.”
“Are you sure? Because the last time ended quite badly for both of you. She died and you cried.”
I nod. “I’ll try not to cry this time, but it’s a fact that she’s still going to die. I need to watch carefully and see if there’s anything to indicate her death was anything other than a hideous accident.”
“Do you think that’s what’s holding them all here?”
I shrug. “Potentially.”
“Can’t you ask them outright?”
“Well I could, but asking a woman if one of her lovers offed her is likely to cause offense, and offended ghosts are unhelpful ones.”
“Okay,” Marina says slowly, thinking it through. “And you can’t ask her husband because…?”
“He has a lion.”
“Fair point. And you can’t ask Dino the Dynamo because…?”
“Well, for one, he’s like the scarlet sodding pimpernel to pin down. I’ve only seen him a couple of times, briefly, and he’s always been highly emotional at the time.”
“And for two?”
“I saw his reaction when Britannia died. He goes to pieces.”
Marina picks the buttercream off her cupcake while she thinks. “Guilt?”
“Could be.” How can Marina still have hardly dented her cupcake when I’ve eaten two and licked the wrappers? She knows I’m considering a third because she closes the lid and moves them out of my reach.
“You can’t be in a sugar coma if you’re gonna watch someone die a grisly death and then get it on with Hack Attack.”
I frown. So much of that sentence disturbs me.
“One.” I hold up one finger, the middle one, naturally.
I’m never one to knowingly miss an opportunity to flip the bird.
“It’d take more than three piddly cupcakes to put me in a sugar coma.
Two…” I pause to hold up a second finger and use the opportunity to flash her the Vs.
This is fun. She rolls her eyes but gestures for me to go on with a flick of her hand.
“Two, I’m not going to watch a horror movie here, so a little more gravitas if you please about the grisly death bit.
And three…” I pause again, stuck for how to be offensive with three fingers.
I settle on adding the middle finger of my other hand into the mix, which is surprisingly satisfying.
Try it now, you’ll see what I mean. Marina inclines her head in gracious acknowledgment of my double-swearing skills, and I know it’s something she’ll use herself in the future.
“Three,” I say. “Hack Attack? Really?”
“Humor me. It was a last-minute thing. He’s a hack and he’s desperate to attack your love taco with his donkey dong.”
“So many wrong things in one sentence,” I murmur. “You really need to work on inside thoughts.”
She looks at me knowingly. “Men don’t get to be that arrogant unless they’re supremely confident in the trouser department.”
“Leo’s more arrogant than Fletch, if you want to play that game,” I say, purely to wind her up.
“Fine. Leo Dark’s the exception to the rule because he wears a cape and probably has his own set of heated rollers.”
I can’t help but laugh, because Leo is more precious about his hair than most women. There’s every chance he does own some kind of curl-enhancing product for added bounce before doing his piece on camera. Lip balm with a hint of gloss too, I shouldn’t wonder.
Belatedly, I pick her up on her other terminology. “And love taco? Really, Marina?”
Her dark eyes glitter with laughter. “Would you prefer the correct anatomical terms?”
I shudder at the memory of our human biology teacher trying to say the words vagina and penis to our class of rowdy twelve-year-olds.
“I think I’d prefer it if we didn’t talk about genitals at all,” I say, trying to stealthily pull the cupcake box toward me on the glass tabletop.
She catches me in the act and holds on to the other side, just as Fletch saunters through the French doors and tucks his cellphone into his shirt pocket.
“I’ll talk about genitals with you if you like,” he says silky smooth, and Marina finds her first opportunity to try out my newly patented double-handed swear. She looks at me and grins approvingly.
“That feels good,” she murmurs, standing up. “I’m going to go and save Artie from getting sore eyes from all that mooning over Hells. Meet you in the ballroom in ten?”
I nod, full of dread at the thought of watching Britannia plummet to her death from the trapeze again.
Marina waltzes back into the castle, pausing to sniff Fletch as she passes him.
He raises his eyebrows at her but she offers him nothing in the way of either feedback or explanation, and he shakes his head faintly as if he’s learned better than to ask.
Unhooking his shades from the neck of his shirt, he slides them over his eyes as he takes the seat Marina vacated.
He steeples his hands on the table in front of him. “I’ve been called back into work.”
“What? Why? When?” The questions tumble from my mouth unchecked because he’s caught me by surprise.
He glances at his watch. “Now.”
“Oh.” By rights I should be thrilled, yet my overriding feeling is disappointment. I honestly don’t know what to say, so I say nothing.
“Will you be all right here on your own tonight?” he asks softly.
I laugh breezily, as if it’s a ridiculous question. “What girl wouldn’t love a castle all to herself?”
Fletch looks up at the imposing, iron-gray back wall of the castle. “It’s a big place. Sure you won’t get scared of things that go bump in the night?”
“Bumping is pretty much guaranteed around here tonight,” I say, and then wonder if that came out wrong. Did I just tell him that sex was a sure thing? I wish I could see his eyes, but his mirrored shades show me only my own sun-frazzled hair and pink cheeks.
“Then I’m even sorrier to miss out.” He pushes his chair back and stands up. “I’ll call you.” And, just like that, he’s gone.
I sit alone in the warm sunshine for a few minutes and try to make sense of how I’m feeling.
Workwise, I’m concerned but not yet at DEFCON 1 levels, especially now that I hopefully have the turret key in my back pocket.
I’m burning to try it out, but something in me didn’t want to go up there with Fletch in tow.
It already feels like invading Britannia’s private space, which is ridiculous given that she’s dead and that’s precisely what I’m being paid to do.
The time frame is now terrifyingly short, but I instinctively feel as if we’re moving toward a breakthrough in time for the ball on Saturday.
It’s not work that’s got my stomach churning like I’m making butter in there.
It’s Fletcher goddamn Gunn. He’s pulled the rug out from under me.
I’ve become accustomed to him making moves and me rebuffing him, and I guess I’m guilty of feeling that if at any point I change my mind, then he’ll be there ready and willing.
I go all dry mouthed at the thought; if Fletch was a superhero, sex would so be his superpower.
Imagine that. What would his superhero name be, I wonder?
It’s no good. I need to get back inside and do some work.
And I will, right after I eat another one of these to-die-for cupcakes Marina carelessly forgot to confiscate. Sugar coma my backside.