The Bourbon Kings

Lane went back to the third one. Leaning in close, he studied a detail of her cheek—a cut in her skin under her eye.

Suddenly, he dropped the images on the table and sat back, closing his lids.

“What?” Samuel T. asked.

It was a long while before he could speak. But eventually, he turned the photo around and pointed to the bleeding cut on Chantal’s skin. “My father did this to her.”

“How do you know?”

With god-awful clarity, Lane remembered once again that terrible New Year’s night, back when he’d been a kid and his older brother had taken a beating for the rest of them. “When he used to hit Edward, his signet ring would leave the exact same mark. My father hit her back handed, across the face … the gold makes the cut.”

Samuel T. cursed under his breath. “Are you serious?”

“Dead. Serious.”

“Hold on, let me bring the investigator back in. They’re going to want to know about this.”

As Lizzie drove in to work at the crack of dawn, she couldn’t help thinking about the trip in from a couple of days ago, when that ambulance had passed her and proceeded up Easterly’s hill.

She had the same feeling of foreboding now. And the same dread at seeing Lane.

No radio today on her commute. She didn’t want to run the risk of the local NPR station cutting in with the big news that one of Charlemont’s most prominent men had put his pregnant wife in the hospital. Further details about the situation weren’t going to change the story, and she was feeling badly enough already.

Proceeding past the BFE main entrance, she went down to the staff road and traveled by the fields and the greenhouses, up to the parking lot. Thanks to her coming in so early, there was no one else around, not even Gary McAdams.

She’d planned it that way.

On autopilot, she turned off her truck and reached across for her purse. “Crap.”

She’d left the thing at home. Which meant no sunglasses, no sunscreen, no hat.

Whatever. She wasn’t driving back now.

And it was probably a good thing that she didn’t have her phone. Lane hadn’t stopped calling her—as early as four a.m. this morning he’d still been ringing her.

The walk up to the back door of Easterly took her a good long time, and she told herself it was a simple case of exhaustion. After Greta had finally left her house around one a.m., she had stayed up to watch the sunrise over the wreck in her front yard.

Nice little metaphor for her life.

Entering through the kitchen, she found Miss Aurora at the big stove. “Good morning,” she said in what she hoped was a halfway normal voice. “Have you seen Mr. Harris?”

Miss Aurora flipped the eggs in her skillet with a spatula. “He’s in his suite of rooms. I had no family orders this morning, so I’m making this for you and me and anyone else who’s around. I’ll have it in the break room in ten.”

“I’m so sorry. I have to—”

“See you in there.”

Lizzie took a deep breath. “I’ll try to make it.”

“You do that.” Miss Aurora looked over her shoulder, her black eyes gleaming. “Otherwise, I’m going to have to come find you and talk to you about how you shouldn’t believe everything you hear or read.”

Ducking her eyes, Lizzie pushed her way out of the kitchen and went across to Mr. Harris’s door. Before she knocked on it, she glanced back at Rosalinda’s. A CMP seal had been put on the panels, and caution tape had been run between the jambs.

Yet another crime scene in the house, she thought. Wonder what Chantal’s bedroom looked like.

The butler opened his door and jumped back. “Miss King?”

Lizzie shook herself. “Oh, sorry. Listen, I need to speak with you.”

Mr. Harris frowned, but something about her affect must have reached through his haughty attitude. “Do come in.”

Predictably, the decor was proper English, all kinds of leather-bound books, antique chairs, and garnet-colored Orientals filling out the space. Beyond the sitting area, there was a galley kitchen, and similar to Miss Aurora’s quarters, on the far side there was a closed door she guessed led to his bedroom and bath.

It smelled good, lemony and clean, not stuffy.

“I’m giving my notice,” she said abruptly. “Two weeks. I would have told Rosalinda, but …”

Mr. Harris stared at her for a moment; then he went over and sat behind a carved desk that had paperwork but no computer on it. “This is a surprise.”

“It’s in my contract. I only have to give two weeks.”

“May I ask why?”

“Just a change of focus. I’ve been thinking about it for a while.”

“Have you.” He steepled his hands. “So this has nothing to do with the reports that came out last night?”

“I’m very sorry that the family is having to deal with such ugliness.”

Mr. Harris cocked a brow. “Is there nothing I can do to convince you to stay?”

“My mind is made up, but thank you.”

She left it at that, returning to the hall and shutting the door behind her. Standing by herself, she blinked away tears, tilting her head back while praying that her nose didn’t start to run.

Of all the ways she had imagined leaving Easterly, it had never been like this. But there was no going back. She had come to her decision to quit with Greta while they had polished off a half gallon of chocolate chip ice cream, in between her first crying jag and her second.