Chapter 40
The bell’s chime echoed through the grounds.
Chief Waxler had just released ten more guests, leaving behind what Octavius counted were ten other suspects—fifteen if you counted himself and his siblings.
They were all now back to being sequestered in the drawing room.
The Manor staff had managed to board up the doors there too and clean up the glass, which Octavius did feel really bad about, especially since he had little to no recollection of the horse incident.
He didn’t even remember going to the stables.
It was like he blacked out and his brain went on autopilot.
The last thing he remembered was Fola shouting at him after he’d thrown up all over her.
She was probably off in her room now getting changed, he wasn’t sure.
Chief Waxler had been the one to help Octavius back down here, while Henry immediately went to grab a glass of water and several bottles of medicine.
Octavius didn’t bother taking the medicine though because he didn’t feel unwell or hazy anymore.
In fact he felt awake for the first time that day.
It was like puking up his guts had a similar effect to a bucket of ice being thrown over his head.
Now he was just in the corner counting his sins and biding his time before the inevitable happened. He could not wait for this day to be over and done with.
He watched Waxler walk to the middle of the drawing room and survey the scene with a stern expression.
“Hello, all. I’ll be keeping this very brief,” Waxler began, his arms folded, his tone sharp.
He was clearly troubled by something. He looked almost as troubled as his audience.
“My team is upstairs and nearly done reviewing transcripts. I can now tell you that we are close and intend on making an arrest within the hour,” he finished, with a final strained glance over to where Octavius was standing, leaning against the wall.
There was something about the way Chief Waxler looked at him … like he was disappointed in him or something, and it made Octavius want to hide.
And so, at his first opportunity, he did just that.
The other officers were thankfully no longer positioned all over the place, the majority of them upstairs planning their arrest for his father’s killer.
Only one other officer remained down here with Waxler.
This meant there were fewer eyes on them.
There was less concern about losing suspects now; after all, it was much easier to cage and trap a handful of mice than a whole nest of them.
When Waxler and his officer had their backs turned to him, Octavius slunk into the foyer, maneuvered himself past the blockade of furniture, and made his way quietly to the end of the dark hallway before creeping into the Manor’s library, making sure to open and close the doors as quietly as he could.
When he entered, the lights were off, and he thought it would be safest to keep them that way.
There was some illumination from the large windows as remnants of moonlight filtered into the library.
But that wasn’t the only source of light.
Somewhere in the room, one of the standing lights was on.
He tracked his eyes over to the source, where he could see the faintly lit outline of tall bookshelves looming over the room in the dark, along with two shadowy figures next to the shelves, having a whispered conversation.
He froze for a moment, scared that he might be found. But then he lowered his guard when he realized he recognized who the voices belonged to.
“… I mean, she is suspicious, but that doesn’t mean anything,” the unmistakable sound of Romeo’s voice came from around the corner.
“I’d say her being suspicious definitely means something,” Fola’s voice followed in a hushed tone. “I know we’re grasping at straws here at this point, but I think it’s her. It has to be her.”
Romeo seemed to sigh heavily. “I don’t know …”
Octavius moved closer, following the line of their shadowy figures as Fola continued arguing her case. He finally saw the back of her head and the pale, unsettled face of Romeo.
“I know you’re not a fan of it. I’m not either, but we have no other choice,” she continued.
“Shouldn’t we consider—” Romeo began, but he was cut off by the singsong voice of his brother.
“O Romeo … Romeo! Wherefore art thou, Romeo,” Octavius sang in a low voice, popping his head around the corner and startling them both.
They were huddled under the warm glow of a standing lamp that looked like a spotlight that had caught them in a conspiratorial position.
“Hi,” he whispered with a small wave and a smile, which they did not return.
“What the hell are you doing in here, Tavi?” Fola said in a tone that told him she did not want him here.
“I was hiding,” he replied with a shrug.
“Right …,” Fola said, narrowing her gaze as she looked down at him.
“So … what were you guys doing in here?” Octavius asked.
They stared at him, unblinking.
“Hey, I answered your question, why aren’t you answering mine?”
“Nothing, we were doing nothing,” Fola replied.
Romeo gave Octavius a pained look, before quickly turning away to face Fola again.
Octavius raised an eyebrow. “I heard you say someone was suspicious … Did you figure out how to get your inheritance back from Perdita, or did you crack some other Dad-related code or something?” he asked.
“No … yes … it’s complicated,” Romeo said, shifting uncomfortably.
“And you’re not going to tell me what this complication is?”
The pair exchanged another weirdly conspiratorial look.
“Come on! I can be trusted, I swear … In fact, I pinkie swear.” He held up his pinkie finger just to prove it.
Neither of them said anything for a moment; Fola just looked at him with a frown, clearly annoyed by his presence. Suddenly her facial expression morphed into interest.
She turned back to Romeo. “He could help us, actually. We need access to the files I was telling you about …” She looked again at Octavius, who was very lost as he often was when his sister was in plotting mode.
“Tavi, do you still have that desktop PC that Dad got you a few years ago? Or did the police take it?”
Octavius narrowed his eyes suspiciously at her.
Fola had made fun of that PC more times than he could count, treating it as if it were some ancient artifact and going as far as to call it a dinosaur box when it was really quite a nice model.
His other siblings had been given laptops, but he apparently couldn’t be trusted with too many moveable devices.
He’d been given the computer to write and research music, but instead he had mostly used it to play the Sims in his room whenever their father wasn’t looking.
“Yes, it’s in my closet, why?”
“Because I need to look some things up, and they still have all of our devices,” she answered.
“Why are you being mysterious … Are you going to tell me what these things are?” Octavius replied.
“Yes. But first, can I use it?” Fola asked, her arms folded. “It’s the least you can do after throwing up all over one of my favorite pairs of boots.”
Octavius was planning to let her use it anyway, but his reason wasn’t just remorse. It was because of the expression on her face.
His sister’s face was figuratively bleeding.
Her wounds that she usually spent so much time and care concealing were laid bare.
With their father no longer there to monitor their every move, Fola’s mask had lost its stronghold.
It had been clear all day that his sister was barely hanging on by a thread; he didn’t want to tip her over the edge.
So he nodded. “You can use it.”
The three of them were able to sneak up to Octavius’s bedroom through a longer passageway in the east wing, as it was too risky to use the west wing staircase in the foyer.
Once inside, Octavius immediately noticed that his race car rug had been removed, but that the smell of sick still lingered uncomfortably in the air.
He thought about grabbing some air freshener from his en suite bathroom but decided against it once he saw how agitated Fola was.
She was even biting her fingernails, a habit she’d abandoned as a child.
She was also glaring at him. It was clear that time was of the essence.
Any moment now the cops would be putting someone in handcuffs.
Octavius tried to ignore his own jittery limbs as he quickly dragged the old computer out from its hiding place.
He set it down on his desk, plugged it in, and waited for it to reboot, dusting off the years that clung to the exterior of the screen like a blanket.
The rebooting process didn’t take as long as he thought it would.
Fola, who was seated at his desk and seemed very antsy—watching the door as if Waxler would suddenly materialize—said, “Thank God,” when the page with the login popped up.
“Password?” she asked, looking up at Octavius.
“ ‘Tchaikovsky’s left tit.’ All lowercase,” he answered. Romeo snorted loudly in amusement—the complete opposite from Fola, who was not amused at all and had a single eyebrow raised in a judgmental expression.
“What? Thirteen-year-old me thought it was very edgy. And honestly, seventeen-year-old me still thinks so too,” Octavius said.
Fola ignored him, as she often did when the things he was saying had no use to her and her overly analytical brain.
He squinted, watching her rejoin the Wi-Fi and scroll through her emails.
“Are you sending an email?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No, I’m just checking it. I’ve been paging a guy all day and he told me he sent an email with attachments—which I obviously couldn’t open on the pager.”
A pager? Who even had a pager anymore? His type A professional workaholic sister, that’s who.
“What details? Are you guys going to tell me anything at all?”
“Are you going to sober up tonight?”
“Sure,” Octavius said.
Romeo and Fola shared that look again.