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I could feel adraugr-sized pocket inside the house, so I zapped the gate with a pulse of magic. I never did such things if I could avoid it. Leaving a gate broken was a special sort of wrong when you knew it was there to keep out things that wanted to gnaw your face. Today, the face-gnawer was inside.
“Biter,” I explained, jerking my head toward the house.
I pushed open the gate.
At the door to the Chaddock House, Eli twisted the knob. It was unlocked. Inside the house was seemingly empty, but I felt the presence of death. Gun in hand, I crept up the stairs. There was a possibility of life in the house, too, but the pulse of the dead was too strong to ignore. I had to reach the dead, and if I was intercepted, I’d deal with it.
At the top of the beautiful curving wooden staircase, I turned left.
Eli followed behind me. The carpet was so indulgently thick that our steps made no sound. The house was the sort of posh that seemed to need to announce wealth with art and high-end everything. We’d sought again-walkers often enough that it felt familiar. What was new was how much the dead called. Typically, my magic found them, and I could call them to me. This time, it felt as if I was the one being summoned.
Using one booted foot, I carefully nudged open the door to the room. My gun was drawn, and my sword was held at my side. Call it paranoid, but the lady of the house had damn near killed me the last time I saw her.
Inside the room was a massive wooden-four-poster bed, not just a king but embarrassingly large in a way that screamed custom-made and possibly orgy-time. The dead body of Tres Chaddock was in the bed, and at his feet, holding a pistol, was the widow Chaddock.
“You came!” Alice Chaddock looked so relieved I almost questioned my memories. “I wasn’t sure if you got my messages, and I was so worried and Tres said you saved Jimmy Odem and—"
“You tried to kill me,” I pointed out, cutting off her verbal vomit.
“Well, not really.” She pressed her lips into a pout that had exactly no effect on me. Okay, it pissed me off, but I was fairly surethatwasn’t the result she was seeking. “I tried to misfire the second injection. I couldn’t stop Lydia, but I figured you were still alive so. . .” She waved her hands as if a gesture would substitute for filling in the sentences. “And you’re here. It turned out fine!”
I raised my gun. Fine? Excruciating pain. Angry neighbors. Worried friends. Summoning Beatrice. Accidental engagement. So very not fine.
She stood and put herself between us and Tres’ body, as if that would stop anyone intent on reaching him. She had a gun, and she held it like she knew how to use it, but I beheaded face-gnawers for a living and had just overcome dying. I was fairly sure a woman who was sobbing wasn’t going to be my demise—although she had come near to killing me once already, so I could be wrong.
Either way, I couldn’t shoot Alice. I didn’t shoot for vengeance or in anger. She wasn’t an imminent threat. If not for the venom glowing vibrant green all through Tres’ body, I’d be tempted to call the police and leave.
Well, the venomandthe need to be sure the murder of businessmen was at an end. Both Tres and Beatrice had paid me to find answers, and Alice had some of them. Walking out wasn’t going to help.
Alice Chaddock was a sobbing mess, and from the looks of her reddened, swollen eyes, she’d been crying for a while.
“It wasn’t me, Geneviève,” she said. “I didn’t want you dead. Lydia was going to call the police about having you take care of Alvin. She wanted him to wake, you know? And I ruined her plan, and she found out and—”
“She killed your husband?” Eli asked, interrupting her with a calm I didn’t have. “Lydia killed Chaddock?”
“Lydia Alberti.” Alice nodded. “She wanted to kill her husband. He was going to divorce her and there was a prenup, you know?”
She leaned down and brushed Tres’ face with the hand not holding the gun. “He looks like his father.” She glanced at us. “You must believe me. I had no other choice. I was trying to do right by Alvin, and things just got out of hand.”
“I have trust issues with those who try to murder me, Alice,” I said dryly. “Move away from Tres.”
“I didn’t kill TresorAlvin!”
As I stepped forward, Alice threw herself over his corpse. Sobbing and clutching him, she was still somehow holding a gun. I was at the end of my patience.
I glanced at Eli. He was so much better at delicacy than I was ever going to be. “Help?”
“Mrs. Chaddock? Alice?” Eli walked over and took the pistol from her hand. She didn’t resist.
That alone eased my anxiety. Murderess with a gun? It wasn’t a comforting look on anyone.Myattempted murderess? That made it emotional in ways I hadn’t expected to confront.
After Eli had the gun, he glanced at me inquiringly.
I shrugged.
“Alice!” I raised my voice. “Get off Tres. You’re embarrassing yourself.”
“Promise you won’t chop off his head. Swear it!” Alice was wrapped around the dead man like a violently possessive monkey. “I want you towakehim. Like you did with Jimmy Odem. I can’t figure this out on my own. I don’t want TresandAlvin dead. I need someone to look after me!”
