Chapter 13 #2
I couldn’t see anything without touching it.
Dorothy kept far too immaculate a house to have any dust that would be disturbed.
I didn’t want to look suspicious so with my heart hammering in my chest, I decided that the amateur detective side of me wasn't as important as the decent human side of me. I squatted down on Hyacinth’s other side and squeezed her forearm through her blazer sleeve.
“You’re going to be fine, Hyacinth,” I told her. “You’re tougher than this. I know you are.”
We hadn’t been the best of friends in school but I didn’t wish her harm, that was for sure.
Vivienne appeared in the doorway, tears running down her cheeks.
“I was waiting outside of the powder room to use it and no one was coming out. I knocked and got no answer so I turned the knob. It opened, so I assumed someone closed the door when they exited. And then I saw her… what on earth happened?”
Other faces crowded the doorway behind Vivienne before the man who had been speaking ordered everyone back.
“Give them room!” he ordered.
We could hear the sirens approaching.
Hyacinth was breathing, but it was shallow. I pressed my fingers to her wrist, feeling for a pulse. It was there, thready and fast, which made me sigh in relief. “She’s breathing.”
But there really was a tremendous amount of blood. I was afraid to move her or fish around for the injury. That was outside of my expertise and I didn’t want to destroy evidence or further injure her in any way.
I gave her arm a final squeeze and stood up to retreat from the bathroom. “We should all go back to the living room,” I said, pushing my way out into the hallway. “The EMTs need to get through.”
A head wound like that wasn’t that serious, was it? I glanced back at the volume of blood and my stomach did another flip.
Maggie followed me out and we retreated back to our corner, crossing our arms over our chests, as Dorothy led the paramedics to Hyacinth.
Taylor had gone the color of old parchment, backed against the bar he'd been standing at all night. Reginald hadn't moved from the fireplace at all, just stood there with his glass still half raised.
“Some celebration of life,” a woman muttered as she strode past me.
When she glanced over at me, she gasped.
“What?” I asked, startled.
Was there someone behind me? I turned and looked but I was nearly up against the wall.
She looked like she’d seen a ghost.
“There’s blood on you,” Maggie murmured. “And on me. We should probably leave.”
A glance down showed I had a smear of blood on my upper arm, which instantly made me feel like I was going to faint. I closed my eyes and willed myself to calm down.
Maggie didn’t appear to have blood on her but I realized that was only because her dress was black. Her sleeve had a wet stain that was a dead giveaway.
Dead giveaway. I mentally groaned at myself.
I wished I could have gotten a better look at the candlesticks.
“I've known that girl since she was in pigtails,” a woman said. “Poor thing. Tragic life.”
“And now tragic death,” her companion said.
“She’s dead?” I blurted out, horrified.
They both looked at me, startled. “Of course Evelyn is dead. Why else would we be here, dear?”
My shoulders fell in relief. “I thought you were talking about Hyacinth!”
“Right. Hyacinth. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
“She didn’t really look fine,” Maggie protested.
They shrugged and went for the appetizers.
“Tough crowd,” Maggie muttered.
Hyacinth rolled past us on a gurney. Her eyes fluttered and found mine for one brief second as they wheeled her past. Her lips moved.
There was no sound behind it, and I couldn't tell if she was trying to say something or if it was just the body doing what bodies did when they'd been that close to not doing anything at all anymore.
“She’s going to make it,” I said. I wasn’t entirely sure of it. But I was saying the thing I needed to be true out loud, in the hope that saying it would help make it so.
“How do you fall that hard in a powder room?” Maggie bit her bottom lip and rubbed her chin.
“She had to be alone in there, right?” I thought about how she’d left the living room with the older man.
“I mean…I would assume so? Unless old dad was in there with you.”
I held my hand up. “Please don’t say it like that.” I scanned the room. The man was accepting Hyacinth’s purse from Dorothy on his way out. “Who is that?” I asked, tapping the arm of a man standing next to us. I pointed to him.
“That’s Robert McClintock.”
That was Hyacinth’s ex-husband?
I was a little stunned.
But then I wasn't sure why I was stunned. He exuded charm and confidence and apparently was loaded. It seemed on brand for Hyacinth.
“Then Hyacinth must be in good hands,” I said weakly. “I’m sure he’ll take care of her.”
The man looked like he couldn’t care less if Hyacinth was cared for or not. “Wonder how his adult kids will feel about that.”
I blinked. “Oh. I see.”
On that note, I decided that I was seeing attempted homicide where there was none and went to say goodbye to Dorothy and some of the other Society members. Maggie had managed to make her way out the front door after the stretcher.
Three of my four guests were a stone’s throw from yet another incident and honestly, I couldn’t even remember who had been in the room and who hadn’t.
The fourth had been home with a fake migraine and a cup of chamomile tea, which meant that for the first time all weekend, I had one person I could cross off a list instead of adding to it.
Which was why it shocked me to no end when we got back to Midnight House and Allison was bent over a ouija board in the parlor, candles all around her.