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Not to read Steve Clifton’s book about his aunt. I was giving dead women stories a rest. I got my e-reader to go back to the book I’d been reading and take a couple of hours to myself before I had to start to get ready for dinner that night.
I walked my Kindle back to the lounge, stretched out, opened and woke it, only to stare at what came up on the screen.
The hairs rose on the back of my neck.
It was an old-timey picture of a group of people standing in front of Duncroft House.
“What the…?”
I looked at the header, and it was Steve Clifton’s book.
I went to the table of contents and saw that there was a section of photographs.
I let out my breath.
I’d opened the book last night. Somehow, I’d hit something that forwarded it to the photo section. I’d never done anything like that before, and I’d never known the Kindle to jump around either.
But that had to be why that photo came up.
Since I was there, I went back to the photo and lifted it to my face, looking closer.
It was an old black and white, not sharp to begin with and even more difficult to see on an e-reader. The people were mostly dark forms wearing the height of twenties outdoor fashion: the women in big, boxy coats, some with fur trim, and cloche hats with feathers or rosettes or ribbons, the men in suits with wide-shouldered overcoats.
Dorothy with her flair and platinum hair was easy to spot off to the side. She had a leg kicked back and she was leaning into both hands she was resting on the chest of the man beside her.
His head was turned, not her way, in the opposite direction. The picture was taken while he was moving, making his face a blur. But he was tall and dark, and his shoulders were broader than others, because the shoulder pads in his coat were augmented by the real thing underneath.
And I knew it was William because Virginia and David were front and center.
David had his arm around his wife, and he was smiling at the camera, the man of the house, the king of his castle, the god of his domain. Devilishly handsome and stylish and living his best life with an injured beauty at his side and a vixen in the wings.
Virginia had her eyes cast down to what looked like a few feet in front of her, which was the gravel of the drive.
The others were striking gay poses too, like Dorothy. Arms flung up or out, one man in the back had jumped up high, one man on the opposite front side to Dorothy was hunkered down, looking like he was pumping his muscles for the camera. Some were holding up coupé glasses of champagne or full bottles of it.
Good times.
Fun times.
Happy times.
And then tragedy would strike.
I was about to try to figure out how to enlarge it so I could get a better look when two things happened.
One, my phone vibrated against my ass with a text.
The other, I noted a woman in the back row. All you could see was her head. She was short-ish and mostly hidden.
But she was not striking a jolly pose.
She was gazing at Dorothy and William in a manner that I looked back to William to see if he might not be turning his head to look at his brother and/or Virginia. But to look at whoever that woman was.
My phone vibrated again, so I slid it out and saw it was a text from Ian. One of the things he did other than work while I mindlessly watched stock info I had no hope of understanding on his TV, was put my number in his contacts.
With a little thrill at getting his first text, I set the Kindle aside and pulled it up.
I’m heading your way.
