Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 127368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
“You dreamt again last night?”
I nodded.
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
“It wasn’t a bad dream. It started with me having a conversation with Dorothy, however. She was kind of a hoot.”
It appeared he didn’t like that. “A conversation with Dorothy?”
“Yes. We were sitting in a void, and she told me Rose didn’t kill her, neither did David.” I grinned. “I think she liked me. At least she told me so. Then again, as you well know, I’m highly likeable.”
Ian didn’t shift with my mood.
He demanded, “What else did she tell you?”
I sobered and shared, “That she was in love with William. That he hurt for Rose. It all faded away and I was in the bailey of a castle, just inside the gate. Some woman, presumably Anne, ran out to meet her husband when he came home from somewhere.”
“The castle was gone before Walter’s time. Dismantled. Some of the stone was used to build Duncroft. He and Anne lived in this house.”
“I know. The dream got it wrong.”
His gaze coasted to the drinks cabinet, down to the whisky in his hand, and he muttered, “I don’t like these dreams.”
“A lot is happening in my days. It stands to reason my mind would process it at night.”
He looked back to me. “Who did the Dorothy in your dream say killed her?”
I shrugged. “She didn’t. She said it was more important for me to worry about what’s happening in this house. I didn’t disagree. Oh, and she told me to tell you about the flute.”
He grew very still, and his words were vibrating strangely when he asked, “The flute?”
I didn’t like his affect or his tone, so it was hesitant when I said, “The flute up in the Music Room, on the second floor.”
He remained perfectly still for a long, tense moment.
Then he surged forward and crushed out his cigarette, his glass went down with a crash, and he was up and moving.
Heart already racing, I got up and followed him.
Thirty-Three
THE MUSIC ROOM
I had to run.
Ian took the stairs two at a time.
To keep up with him (which I didn’t, entirely), I was winded when we hit the second floor and he took off at a jog to the end of the northeast corridor.
He threw open the door to the Music Room and prowled in.
He stopped and looked around.
I turned to the table where the flute had been.
But now it was gone.
My stomach twisted.
“Where’s the flute, Daphne?” he asked.
I pointed. “It was there. On that table. It’s not there anymore. But I swear, Ian, it was there.”
He moved to the table, bent at the waist, inspected it closely.
Then, without a word, he took off, and I again followed.
He entered another room, this one, the furniture was covered with big sheets.
He pushed on a wall by the door, I heard a click, a panel came away, and he pulled it open. He reached in and yanked on a string, and a single, stark hanging lightbulb inside turned on.
False wall.
Hidden passageway.
Shit.
Okay, it seemed like he was going to enter the belly of the beast, and I was not one with the idea.
Before I could share that, he pulled out his phone, engaged the flashlight and went in.
I didn’t want to, but with the way he was acting, I also didn’t want to be alone. So I followed him.
It was dark in there, musty, the stair treads covered in a well-used, faded runner and dust. There was a small landing, it was a very narrow flight of stairs, up and down.
He went up.
Expelling a breath, I went after him.
We came out on the top floor, in the hallway. I’d never been up there. The ceilings were lower, and the décor was nice, but a whole lot more utilitarian.
He walked down two doors and across the hall where there was a keypad next to the door.
He punched in a six-digit code, I heard a click, and he opened the door.
He walked in, switching on the lights.
I went in after him.
The air was very fresh in there, and it was cool.
It was a big room, lots of old-fashioned filing cabinets. There were some paintings stacked against the wall. A table holding crates with photographs, cardboard tabs sticking out, the numbers of years scrawled on the tops. Carefully stacked and labeled boxes. There was an old pair of riding boots in a glass case on a table. A mounted saber. Both with tabs stuck to them with a lot of writing on them.
And there were two humming units that looked expensive sitting in the corners, I knew, filtering the air.
Boy, Ian wasn’t wrong. Louisa did put in a lot of work, and it was meticulous.
Ian was staring at the line of filing cabinets across the room between the two windows that had their curtains carefully shut to hold back any rays of sun that might fade anything.