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It’s locked. When I see that padlock, I let out a stream of profanities. It wasn’t enough to bury the trunk—Fischer had to stick a massive padlock on it.
Gray grabs the lock and twists hard, and the clasp holding it on snaps. It’s a travel trunk, the clasp only meant to keep out casual thieves.
I yank open the lid, and there is Jack, bound and gagged.
I let out a few more profanities as I pull out my knife—returned by Elspeth—and cut off the gag.
“Thank you,” Jack croaks. “Also, I do appreciate the very colorful words of outrage on my behalf.”
“Oh, I can find a few more,” I grumble as I cut her bindings. “Including a few for the person who decided she should confront a potential killer without waiting for the backup she summoned.”
“I did wait. You took your time coming.”
“Because you weren’t clear in your damned message.” I yank off the bindings as Gray helps her out of the trunk. “It went to Elspeth, who thought you were saying we were the onesresponsiblefor your disappearance.”
“I am fine,” she says. “Thank you for asking.”
“Yeah? Ask Dr. Gray how he is, after being hit in the face, sucker-punched in the gut, and then tossed down Elspeth’s basement stairs while unconscious.”
“Are you all right, sir?” she says, peering up at him.
“Reasonably. And you?”
“Also reasonably.”
“Good,” I say. “Do you need a reassuring post-trauma hug?”
Jack hesitates, as if confused. Then she says, “Gods, no.” She considers. “Well, perhaps, yes. A small one.”
I embrace her, and she falls into it, allowing a fierce hug before moving back.
“It was rather traumatic,” she says. “I thought I might die.”
“I’m sorry. We came as soon as we could.”
She rubs her arms. She’s dressed in her male-passing outfit, but she’s lost her cap, and the loose mop of curls makes it hard to imagine Fischer mistook her for a boy.
“I thought I was being clever,” she says. “I also did not think he was a killer. At most, I presumed he was an unwitting accomplice, who might be eager to confess in the hope of redemption.”
“That’s not what happened?”
“It is not… and yet it is,” she says. “He didn’t transform into some demon. He overpowered me, yes, but he never stopped apologizing, never stopped trying to convince mehewas the victim. Even when I was in that truck, he talked for what seemed like hours.”
Gray murmurs to me, “I will stand watch at the door.”
I nod my thanks. “We ought to take this conversation elsewhere, but I also want the opportunity to search.”
“I agree,” Gray says. “Talk and search, and if he comes back, he is certainly not putting the three of us into trunks.”
“He might,” Jack says. “There are enough of them.” She tries for a smile, but her eyes tear. She blinks it back, looking mortified.
“Did he confess to the murders?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “He said ‘it’ was not his idea. I presumed he meant the murders, but then he seemed to be talking about something else that involved the dead men. He said it was Mr. Burns’s idea, and he was pulled into it, and then when Lord Leslie came in, he was expelled from the group. That is when people started to die, and he thought he was safe until he heard of Mr. Ware’s death. He said Mr. Ware wasnotinvolved, and so the killer murdered him either by accident or mistake. He feared he would be the next to die.” She pauses. “I did not understand most of what he was saying. Does it make sense to you?”
“It does.”
She shivers. I resist the urge to ask if she’d like another hug. She’s suffered a trauma, one that will later strike in nightmares and fears of confined places. We can talk about that later, though I’m not certain she’ll take the advice of a teenage housemaid.
