Chapter 41
Forty-One
Jade rushed through the maze-like hallways of Castle Venemer, following Theo’s lead back to Devereaux’s office. If news of Alanna’s death hadn’t already made it to her, someone needed to deliver it at once.
“I knew something wasn’t right. I knew it.” Jade’s legs had to take an extra step for each of Theo’s long strides to keep up with them. “Something wasn’t adding up with Marchand. And now he’s another innocent man added to the death toll.”
“Nothing has proven Marchand was innocent,” Theo pointed out, throwing his head over his shoulder for a moment.
“He may still have been involved. We already determined that the mastermind behind the murders had hired an assassin. Maybe Marchand had ordered Alanna’s death already and the assassin had yet to carry it out. ”
“But why Alanna?” Jade’s throat constricted and her eyes stung. “Alanna wasn’t involved. She had no stake in the conflict.”
“But she might have known who the killer is.”
Theo’s soft words stopped Jade in her tracks, bringing her to Alanna’s last moments in the parlor.
Alanna said she didn’t think Marchand was behind the murders.
She’d recognized a man at Marguerite’s ball and made a connection to someone who might be responsible.
But was he the assassin or the mastermind?
Theo got only a few steps ahead before he noticed Jade had halted, and he turned back around to her. “We can come back in a few days and question Arabella once things have settled a little,” Theo suggested.
“No.” Jade dropped her face to the floor, shaking her head. “We don’t have that long. If the killer is still out there, we can’t delay. Prince Reynauld may be targeted . . . or Arabella. We can’t . . . I can’t let them die.”
Jade didn’t try to hide the desperation in her voice. She’d failed too many times. The killer had bested her again and again, but no more. She would end this.
“So what do we do? We don’t have any more leads.”
Leads. Jade knew where she could always get a fresh lead. He always managed to be one step ahead of her.
She swallowed as she tilted her face up to Theo. He wasn’t going to like this idea, but it was their best course of action. Jade would just have to convince him.
“I have to go to Nicolas.”
A breath left Theo’s lips in a disbelieving huff, as though even the thought of her suggesting such a thing was criminal. “Absolutely not.”
“It’s our best chance.” Jade’s voice lowered, heavy and earnest. “He will know something. I’m sure of it.”
Her eyes locked onto his, pleading with Theo to agree. A muscle ticked in Theo’s jaw as he lifted his gaze.
“All right, we can get a unit for backup—”
“We don’t have the luxury of that much time, Theo.
Gathering a unit in this mess won’t be quick, and it will take even longer traveling with a group.
The farmhouse is four hours away as it is.
” Jade lifted her hand to Theo’s face, resting gentle fingers on his jawline and angling his face down to her.
“I need to do this. Now. Before someone else dies.”
Theo’s jaw worked again before he shoved his free hand through his hair. “All right. But I’m coming with you.”
Jade nodded quickly, thankful she’d at least gotten him to agree. “Of course.”
Theo took Jade’s fingers from where they rested against his face and squeezed them. Jade felt the message in the squeeze.
I hope you know what you’re doing.
As the two turned to continue down the winding hallways, Grand General Devereaux came around the corner, stopping the minute she saw them. Jade and Theo saluted in an instant.
“Grand General—”
Devereaux raised a hand to cut Jade off. “I heard. I’m on my way there now.”
Jade nodded and moved a foot to go on, but stopped as a new thought passed through her mind. “Grand General . . . ”
Devereaux’s gaze pierced Jade. “Yes, Captain?”
“The informant we discussed previously, Nicolas Camarata . . . Did you know him as a personal guard to King Mervyn? He was a private hire, not associated with the military.”
Jade had to ask; she had to know. So far, no one had been able to verify Nicolas’s claims, but as closely as Devereaux had worked with the king for so long, she surely had to know of him.
The question seemed to catch Devereaux off guard. She turned her body toward Jade, her eyes slightly widening as her head tilted. “Yes. Yes, I did.”
Something akin to relief flooded through Jade’s system, as though the confirmation from Devereaux was all she needed, regardless of the confession she was about to make.
“He only ever provided me solid leads and always had the most up-to-date information. Since the killer is apparently still active, I think it would be beneficial to go back to him and see what he knows. If I have your approval.” Jade said nothing about the grand general being wrong about Marchand, but the implication hung in the air between them.
A curious expression stole over Devereaux’s face as she glanced between Jade and Theo.
Her eyes landed again on Jade as an assessment of the captain settled onto her features.
“Go. You are not needed here.” Devereaux slightly tipped her chin up and straightened out the angle of her head. “See what you can learn.”
Jade set a brisk pace, keeping their horses at a canter for most of the ride to the farmhouse.
With the sun often behind big, billowy clouds and a touch of coolness in the breeze as they rode, Jade shivered with the sweat that rolled down her neck.
It matched the unease in her gut that hadn’t abated since Alanna had fallen to the floor.
She had no idea what her encounter with Nicolas would be like.
She hadn’t seen him since the night he had rescued her from Reynauld and they had kissed.
He might be angry with her, upset that after such an intimate night, he’d heard nothing from her.
Or perhaps he hoped to pick up where they had left off.
A wave of nausea rolled over her as she considered the possibilities of what awaited her.
When they reached the overgrown drive that led down to the farmhouse, Jade brought her horse to a stop, and Theo followed suit.
The sun dipped low over the horizon, casting a bright glow that filtered through the surrounding trees.
Jade brought her horse around in a half-circle to face Theo, grim determination on her face.
He wasn’t going to like what she was about to say.
“I’ll go on up to the house, but you’ll need to stay here on the outskirts of the property.”
Theo’s brows drew together as his mouth fell open. “There’s no way I’m staying behind. I’m going with you.”
“You can’t,” Jade insisted, guiding her horse to the side of his so they sat facing each other. “I have to go in alone, like normal. He might not give me any information if he knows you came with me. He can’t know you’re here.”
Theo snapped his mouth shut and clenched his jaw, grinding his teeth a moment before speaking again. “And what do you expect me to do? Sit out here and wait? The purpose of me coming with you was to keep an eye on things and make sure nothing happened to you.”
“Just give me a head start.” Jade dug into the saddlebag strapped to the horse and pulled out a piece of chalk. “I’ll give you a trail to follow in the tunnels. Then you can wait and listen outside the door and be ready if things go south.”
Theo still frowned at her, but he didn’t say anything. Jade reached a hand out to him and took one of his own off the reins, intertwining their fingers. “Please, Theo. Trust me.”
He didn’t have particularly good reason to where Nicolas was involved, but he squeezed her hand and gave a curt nod. “What am I supposed to do in the meantime?”
“Wait out here until I go inside the farmhouse.” She swiveled her head toward the building in the distance.
“You’ll be able to see me from here with the daylight.
Then tie your horse off somewhere and follow me down.
That should give me enough time to locate Nicolas and get him engaged in conversation. ”
Theo’s thumb ran over the back of Jade’s hand. “I don’t like it,” he said, his head angled down at her, “but I do trust you.” He lifted her fingers to his lips before releasing them. “Go. I’ll be right behind you.”
A small smile curved Jade’s lips, and she nodded before she directed her horse toward the farmhouse and trotted through the tall grass.
The appearance of the farmhouse proved different bathed in the golden light of sunset, if not arguably worse than at night.
Something about being hidden by shadows and caressed by moonlight made the dilapidated, abandoned home seem more mysterious and intriguing than gloomy and foreboding.
But the beauty of the evening exposed its worst features.
Now, it was easy to see it for what it was—the broken home of long-forgotten occupants.
A bygone remembrance of what once was, now a twisted, inhospitable version of its past self.
Jade led her horse to the barn and ushered it inside, finding another horse present and accounted for. Nicolas had to be here.
With the horse taken care of, Jade turned and strode through the yard toward the farmhouse.
She ran her fingertips over the tops of overgrown grasses and plants that came up to her thighs.
Her hand brushed the single, circular white petal of a tall flower, several of which poked through the sea of grass around her.
The peeling paint on the exterior of the house flapped in the slight breeze as Jade stepped onto the hazardous porch. In her mind’s eye, she saw Nicolas leaning in the doorframe with a cocky grin on his face. He’d offered her a hand over the rickety boards and pulled her almost flush to his chest.