“Who—who?” I asked weakly. “Someone who—knows I saw the killer?”
My eyes couldn’t stop staring at the hole in the window seat.
If Gabriel hadn’t been right behind me. . .
If he wasn’t always such a fucking controlling prick. . .
I’d be dead right now.
“How—"
“There’s no way some fucking random could come all the way up here without any of the servants or us noticing. Which means it’s someone here in Ashgrove Manor who did it. And I am going to find out who this shithead is.”
Gabriel kicked at the other bookshelves, ripping them from the walls as all the priceless leather books fell on the floor.
“What are you doing?” I shrieked, grabbing my notes hastily.
“This place is getting fucked up from top to bottom until I find out who did it.”
“But—what—” I cried as he grabbed my arm and pulled me along behind him down the hall, tearing the priceless art from the walls.
I had never seen Gabriel like this.
In the darkness, with only the moonlight shining on him, he was a massive, hulking shadow.
Once we headed down to the first levell, Gabriel began to whistle sharply, and each worker he found got a sharp, domineering interrogation until my husband was satisfied.
After each person was dismissed, he ordered them to leave the manor.
“Go,” Gabriel said sharply. “Leave now.”
With frightened glances they did, fleeing the house in little knots of twos and threes and into the dark night.
Once he saw Branby, Gabriel gripped him around the collar.
“Where are my father and uncle?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where’ve you been all day?”
“Out—” Branby began, but Gabriel didn’t even let him finish his alibi before head-butting him so hard the older man crumped onto the floor.
“He’s the one who’s been following you around. He’s the one who would know where you usually sit.”
Gabriel grabbed my hand and pulled me after him, his fingers reaching for a door that was almost invisible—hidden in a wood panel beside the butler’s closet.
“You doesn’t move a fucking inch without me,” he snarled, and then yanked me down into the cavernous darkness.
Nothing about how I might be too delicate for whatever we were going to find, as we descended level by level into the basements.
“How deep does this staircase go?” I whispered, frightened.
“I don’t know and no need to whisper. I want anyone to know I’m coming. Give them time to piss themselves.”
Who was down here?
Still holding my hand, Gabriel pulled me along the hallway as I shuddered away from the slick walls.
