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Russo’s eyes narrowed. “All night?”
“I’m afraid we partook in too much wine, and Mr. Anzio was in no state to walk back to the inn in the storm, so I offered him my bed for the night while I slept in my workshop.”
Constable Russo eyed me as though trying to read the lie on my face, even though the lie had been Devere’s. Such a smooth lie, and one I was grateful for.
“Then why, may I ask, are your belongings stacked in the front hall?” Russo asked.
“Oh, a mistake.” I smiled, hoping it looked innocent. Iwasinnocent. I had done nothing wrong. “Mixed messages. The lord believed I’d agreed to stay at the house and had my items brought here, but I hadn’t actually agreed to anything. An innocent mix-up.”
“A mix-up?”
He didn’t believe me. Russo had been bright and ruthless as a boy. That clearly hadn’t changed.
“Nasty knock you’ve got on your head there, Val. How’d you come by that?” he asked.
“Why are you interrogating me when I’ve merely arrived to collect my things from the lord? Where is he? Perhaps you should take up any issue you have with him?” I started for the house. “Good day, Russo—”
“Lord Rochefort is dead.”
I heard his words, but it took a few more steps for them to sink in, and when they did, they plummeted through my chest, landing hard. “What do you mean, dead?”
Thomas was dead? But he’d been fine. My racing heart galloped harder.
“Exactly as I’ve said. Murdered, sir. Which I believe is your forte, no?”
“Murdered?” All the blood in my body stopped flowing and turned to ice. I straightened, trying to keep hold of my balance and composure. “What makes you think it was murder?”
“Well, Val, the steak knife in his chest is a rather substantial clue.”
The knife. What had I done with the knife after I’d cut his face? I’d had it when I left the dining room, but not when I knocked on Devere’s door. It couldn’t be the same knife. I’d cut Rochefort, nothing more. I certainly had not stabbed him in the chest.
“He brought you here to investigate the toymaker’s suspicious death, no?” Russo’s keen eyes flicked to Devere, standing beside the carriage, quietly observing.
I dared not look at him too.
“He did.”
“I dare say, you’ll not be getting paid for that.”
“No, I suppose not.” Thomas was dead, but I’d left him alive. “May I take a look… at the scene? Where did it happen? Perhaps I can help?”
Russo studied me anew. Outsiders were rarely trusted, but I wasn’t an outsider. I was one of them. He knew me, albeit from a long time ago.
“Terrible thing what happened to your parents,” he said, his timing odd.
“Yes. It was. Very uh… terrible.”
“You weren’t here then, were you, sir?”
“No, Constable. I was in Massalia.”
He glanced again at Devere. “All right, go on up. But don’t touch anything.”
I started forward again, but as Devere approached, Russo held up his hand. “Not you,” he said. “You stay here.”
Devere looked at me, his face still concerned, but for me or himself, I couldn’t be sure. I left him by the carriage, climbed the steps, and ventured back into the house I’d fled from the previous night.
All the warmth had been sucked out through the open door. None of the fireplaces were lit. I passed my bags stacked in the hall, just as Russo had noted. They hadn’t been there when I’d fled, which suggested someone had been here after I’d left the lord alive. If I could find that someone, they might be able to confirm I’d left before the nasty business of Rochefort’s murder.
