And yet, as I step forward, the breeze more powerful at this elevation, I feel like I’m being pulled, my body levitating over the ledge, in the direction of Marlowe. I keep one hand on the door handle for balance.
“See anything out there?” Damien asks, and I shake my head in reply.
Hair tickles my face as I lean over and inspect the broken railing. As I suspected, it would take massive force to break it, a propulsive movement. A clumsy trip wouldn’t do the trick. The only way Marlowe went over that ledge by herself was if she had a running start, but I’ve already ruled out suicide as a possibility. And if she did kill herself, how would that explain the toppled table, the broken vase?
“There was a struggle,” I say, “before she fell.”
“I didn’t enter the library earlier,” Ava says. “Maybe it was already like this?”
I shake my head as I return inside. “I came in here after dinner. Just after I gave Marmee her cake. The room didn’t look like this.”
“If Marlowe was fighting with someone, how did none of us hear her?” Constance asks.
“Let’s confirm where everyone was at the time she fell,” I say. “I was outside. I heard her body hit the ground. Everyone else was inside, right?”
The others remain quiet, afraid to be the first to speak.
“I was in the parlor,” Preston says, finally. “I made another drink.”
“Okay,” I say. “Everyone else?”
“I was in the bathroom,” Constance says.
“Which bathroom?”
“The one connected to my bedroom. Upstairs.”
I look at Ava.
“I was in the cinema,” she says, “watching the movie. I figured you’d join me after your reading.”
We all look at Damien. My chest flutters with anticipation.
“I was in the billiard room,” he groans. “Admiring the memorabilia.”
This comment, along with his reluctance to answer, bothers me. I don’t like the idea of him wandering around the house, appraising the various trinkets for their worth. I consider the way he marveled at the chandelier upon his arrival, his admiration of the Venetian glassware in the dining room, his questions about the cinema.
Or maybe he was never in the billiard room at all. Rather, he was in this very room, arguing with Marlowe. They’d already bickered earlier in the night over Michael’s text messages.
Everyone was upstairs at the time Marlowe fell, except for Preston, who returned to the parlor for a drink.
“Can anyone verify where they say they were?”
They look around the room, eyes wide and lips sealed. Everyone has an alibi, but no one to confirm it. Any of them could be lying, could easily have been in the library with Marlowe right before her fall.
“We aren’t the only ones here,” Damien says, making my hair stand on end.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Your grandmother is here, right?”
I charge toward him. “You can’t possibly be suggesting—”
“She’s an old woman!” Ava says, coming to Marmee’s defense before I can even finish.
Damien raises his hands in a surrender. “I’m just saying, if we are trying to account for where everyone was, it’s worth mentioning.”
“The tarot reader!” Preston shouts. “She was still here when Marlowe fell.”
