Chapter 20
I can’t believe you’re making me do this.”
Miles knocked on the front door of the Hawthorne mansion—this was his first time back since he’d found out Gabriel had vanished—and gave Charlee an incredulous look. “You insisted on coming in. You threatened to run me over if I left you behind.”
She glared up at the ivy-covered building as if daring it to mess with her. “Felicity’s our top suspect. I can’t let you venture into her murder mansion without backup.” Her gaze flitted to Miles. “Are you going to tell him?”
“Yeah.”
The door swung open with a low creak to reveal a perplexed Gabriel. “I didn’t realize you were bringing your cousin.”
“Do you not understand that other people can hear you, or do you just not care?” Charlee slipped past Gabriel, bumping his shoulder.
“She’s here to help,” Miles told him apologetically, following her.
It was quiet inside, a solemn, heavy silence you’d usually only find in churches or graveyards. Miles double-checked that all his shields were firmly in place.
Charlee stopped dead in the middle of the foyer, wet white sneakers squeaking on the marble.
Her gaze jumped around the room, from the gold-accented table holding a painted vase of white roses, to the massive gleaming staircase curving up to the second floor.
When she saw the chandelier hanging overhead, a tangle of black iron vines forming a sphere and dripping with teardrop-shaped gems, she scowled so thunderously that Gabriel shifted uneasily.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“What would I be kidding about?”
“Seriously? Look around. You don’t think this is a bit much?”
“Hey,” Miles interjected. “He didn’t judge our house.” If she thought this was over the top, she should see the ballroom. The chandelier there was twice the size.
“Yeah, because ours is normal.” She shivered and rubbed at her arms, dragging her striped sweater sleeves down. “I don’t like being here. It feels gross.”
Gabriel looked offended. “I assure you, we have several maids who—”
“Not that kind of gross,” Miles hurried to explain. “Bad aura gross.” He turned back to Charlee. “You get used to it.” That wasn’t completely true, but the itchy sticky feeling did fade into the background.
She didn’t look convinced.
Gabriel cleared his throat. “Should we begin our search? I thought we should start with the house before venturing out on the property—having an entrance here would make more sense for convenience, though I don’t know how Bram or I wouldn’t have stumbled upon it.
Either way, a double check of the ground floor and basement won’t hurt. ”
Anxiety squirmed behind Miles’s ribs. “Actually, can we wait a second? I have something to talk to you about first.”
Taking her cue to give them space, Charlee walked away to examine the dark landscape paintings in a nearby hallway.
“What’s wrong?” Gabriel asked, his shoulders creeping up beneath his white button-up. Miles could make out the shadowed curve of his collarbone through the thin fabric.
“I’m not really sure how to say this, so I’m going to rip the Band-Aid off and spit it out, okay? I’ve been going over all our clues from Jocelyn about your death and I think your mom might be the killer.”
Gabriel’s expression didn’t change, frozen in an unreadable mask. He didn’t say anything, the beat of silence stretching too long.
“I know that’s a first-class dick thing to say, and I’m sorry,” Miles continued in one jumbled exhale.
“I’m sure you don’t want to even consider it, because it…
well, it’s super sucky, but she fits. Now I’m here, and she’s gone, and I know we’re supposed to be tunnel hunting, but this might be our only chance to snoop.
Charlee and I talked about it on the drive over—if you take us to your mom’s room, she can do her thing, see what she picks up. ”
In an ideal world, he’d have the proof to back up his suspicions before revealing them, but to get that proof, he needed Gabriel in the loop. There was no way around it.
“You want your psychometrist cousin to go through my mother’s private things,” Gabriel said haltingly, “to find out if she’s going to kill me? Because you think that she’s not only the murderer, but that she’s been planning my death to the extent that Charlee will be able to sense it?”
Miles wanted to slink away and hide. “I didn’t say that last part. It’s a long shot, I have no idea if Charlee would even pick up anything, but I think it would be stupid not to check. What if we could find out for sure?”
They were too close to the tomb, to Jocelyn and her premonition.
Miles needed to know who to protect Gabriel from.
He’d gotten so wrapped up in freeing Jocelyn and breaking the curse, he’d almost forgotten that the most important thing was saving Gabriel’s life.
It didn’t matter when they got down into that tomb, or learned how to undo the curse, if Gabriel was still going to die there.
He’d been failing in his quest without even realizing.
“Fine,” Gabriel stated abruptly. His expression hadn’t changed, hiding any hint of how he was feeling. He whirled around and strode over to the staircase. “I’ll take you to her room.”
Miles felt like scum on the bottom of a shoe. Maybe it’d been selfish of him to put this weight on Gabriel simply because he was too weak to keep a secret.
Charlee appeared beside him. “He didn’t take it well?”
“What’d you expect?”
First, he’d rejected his mom’s attempt to make peace earlier, and now he was hurting Gabriel. If he was making the right choices, why did they feel so terrible?
They trailed up the stairs after Gabriel, footsteps echoing through the cavernous foyer. At the top, Edmund was lounging in the same stuffed chair as the first time Miles had met him, scrolling through his phone. Miles wondered if he needed specialized touchscreen gloves.
“Good evening,” he greeted Miles cheerfully, not remotely surprised to see him. “I’d ask what sort of mischief the two of you have planned, but Gabriel’s already warned me to keep my questions to myself.”
“Uh, sorry. And thanks for not ratting us out.”
“Don’t worry about it. Just make sure you’re gone before Mother dearest gets home tonight. She’s been in a real mood lately. I’m not sure you’d escape a confrontation alive.”
He was joking, but a chill still ran down Miles’s spine.
Charlee stepped forward to peer around the landing. Edmund perked up, his green eyes alight with curiosity. “Gabriel, you didn’t tell me you made another friend.”
It was impossible to tell if Charlee or Gabriel scoffed the loudest. “This is my cousin, Charlee,” he explained. She gave Edmund a dismissive once over and a stiff nod. “She’s… helping out for the day.”
“She gets to be in on the adventure, but I don’t? I’m hurt.” He threw her a charming smile. “I don’t suppose you want to clue me in?”
Charlee didn’t even blink. “Don’t waste your time. One Hawthorne is already more than I can tolerate.”
He barked a laugh and settled back in his chair. “Fair enough. You know where to find me if you change your mind.”
Charlee didn’t give him a backward glance as Gabriel led them to the left. Miles hadn’t been to this part of the house yet, but it was nearly identical to the hallway outside Gabriel’s bedroom.
“My mother’s office is there”—Gabriel gestured to a closed door with a tilt of his chin, then to the door at the end of the hall—“and her bedroom is there.”
The choice was clearly up to them. Charlee shrugged. “Bedroom first?”
As expected, Felicity’s room was immaculate to the point of cold, unwelcoming in its lack of comfort or personality.
Her bed was neatly made, the indigo comforter’s edges crisp enough to slice, two pillows positioned perfectly against a black velvet headboard.
Her bedside table held a sleek silver lamp, a folded pair of glasses, and one of those disc phone chargers.
At the end of the bed was a cushioned bench, a plush knit throw folded pristinely on it.
Twin charcoal armchairs were positioned on either side of a narrow black table, a single empty teacup resting on a marble coaster.
In the corner of the room, to Miles’s surprise, a cello leaned against the wall.
It wasn’t covered in a sheen of dust or draped in cobwebs, but he could sense it hadn’t been touched for a while.
It looked like a prop, a piece to help fill out the room.
The space was missing more than a soul—there was no sign of Gabriel’s dad anywhere. The second bedside table was empty aside from a matching lamp, there was only one coaster on the table, and when Charlee cracked open a door to reveal a walk-in closet, there was no sign of men’s clothing.
Gabriel stood with his hands shoved in his pockets as Charlee poked around.
“I can wait in the hall with you,” Miles offered.
He shook his head, stubborn even when he was fuming.
“Hey.” Miles shuffled closer. “I really am sorry. This… doesn’t feel right, but I don’t know what else to do.
” He raked a hand through his hair, wishing he had better words.
“I don’t want you to be pissed with me, but I get it.
I just… I don’t want to go into the tunnel with us not talking this through. What can I do to fix this?”
It was selfish, horribly selfish, but if anything went wrong and Miles’s last interaction with Gabriel had been hurting him, he couldn’t handle it. The thought made his chest feel like it was splintering apart.
A muscle in Gabriel’s jaw ticked. “I’m not angry with you. I know my mother, and I understand why you suspect her. It would be… illogical not to.”
Miles wanted to be relieved, but Gabriel’s face still looked like that.
Still, it meant the world that Gabriel was talking to him.
“Then are you upset because it might be her?” He realized how stupid the question was as soon as it was out of his mouth.
“I mean, it might not be murder murder. Accidents happen all the time—”