He’s already here.
Taking a deep breath, I flattened myself against the door and pushed it open. Quoth leaned forward and craned his neck around the tiny gap in the door.
Most of the lights are off, except the for one in the hallway and a lamp beside the bed. There are two figures in shadows, and they’re arguing. Mina, I don’t think you should—
Too late,I thought back.We have to stop him.
Quoth threw a wing into my face in an attempt to stop me, but I shoved him off my shoulder and darted forward, slipping into the room and pulling the door shut behind me. Unlike our suite, where the door opened directly into our room, the professor had a short hallway with doorways into her bathroom and a small sitting area. I pressed my back against the wall and crept toward the bedroom at the end.
“Please, don’t kill me,” Professor Carmichael begged. “I promise I won’t tell anyone.”
No. I’m not going to let this happen.
“David, you have to stop,” I yelled, lunging forward and reaching for the shadowed figure. “We know what you did—”
The words died in my throat as the killer stepped into the pool of light. A sharpened sword hung in the air, the blade glittering. Behind it, I recognized the smug, perfect features of Christina Hathaway.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“Christina?” I gasped. “But what…”
“You thought sweet David was behind this?” she sneered. “As if such a creature were capable of this chaos. It is I, twisted mad by Jane Austen, by a constant adherence to fictional manners while my father behaved abominably to every person in his life, most especially my mother.”
“You… did all this? You killed your own father?” Her words made no sense.
“She’s crazy!” Professor Carmichael yelled, leaping over the bed. “Get help! Get the police!”
In a flash, Christina shot across the room, positioning herself between the bed and the door. The blade pointed directly at Professor Carmichael’s throat. The professor staggered backward, falling onto the bed.
“It would be unwise for you to move,” Christina called in her singsong voice. “Mina, sweetie, I think I’d like you to stand over there, against the wall. If the two gentlemen who followed you into the room make any move to call for help, I will gut you like a fish, and not feel one whit of remorse for it. Gentlemen, if you please.”
Heathcliff stepped out from the hallway, hands in the air. He was followed by Morrie. From the bed, Professor Carmichael moaned. I scanned the room for Quoth, but so much of it was in shadow, I had no hope of seeing him. I hoped he’d find Hayes and Wilson, but even then, what could he do as a raven? And if a naked guy ran at the detectives, they’d probably assume he was the bomber and shoot him dead.
Quoth, if you can hear me, please don’t run at Hayes. Get Morrie’s clothes from our room. Or find Lydia. Get her to scream outside. That’ll send them all running. Please, there’s only one of her, but I think she could kill us all if she desired to.
Even through the darkness, I could feel Heathcliff’s eyes boring into me. Morrie’s fresh, sweet grapefruit and vanilla scent wafted across my nostrils. Fear rippled through me. I couldn’t tear my eyes from the sharpened point of Christina’s sword pointing directly at Professor Carmichael’s heart.
Christina said she took fencing classes. She knows exactly what she’s doing.
“You, Heathcliff, drop your sword to the floor and kick it across to me,” Christina said. “Quickly, if you please.”
Heathcliff unclipped his belt. A long object sailed across the room and clattered at Christina’s feet. Under the light, I caught her gleeful smile.
She’s mad. Completely bonkers.
“I couldn’t find my sword, so I’m without a weapon. You have our undivided attention, Christina.” Morrie said. “Now, what’s your plan? I know you came to this weekend intending to kill your father, but what’s your game here?”
“Nice try, James,” she said, not taking her eyes off Carmichael. “I know you share the same name with Sherlock Holmes’ arch nemesis, but you and I are not enemies of equal intelligence playing at cat and mouse. I’m not going to sit down and outline my movestête-à-têtelike a chess game. This isn’t chess, it’s solitaire. You are merely specks of dust on the table.”
“Aw, bugger, there goes my plan.” Morrie snapped his fingers. “Very well. I accede to your superior intellect.” Morrie’s voice caught on the last word, as if saying that sentence was a struggle.
“As well you should.”
“Before you dispatch with the rest of your plan, could you enlighten us on one point?” Morrie inched forward. “Why kill your father?”
“All my life, I’ve been living in my father’s fantasy world. It didn’t matter that I wanted, I was his perfect Regency princess, the only woman who could heal his heart after Mother died. He took me out of school and taught me from home, so that he could ensure I never learned about things that weren’t bright and gay. He had me master a list of accomplishments – the piano, needlepoint, calligraphy… the sort of vapid pursuits that occupied the mind of a Regency lady. I wanted to learn the violin, but he forbade it, lest I become too ‘emotional’ from the power of the music. I was not allowed to talk to other men, save himself and David. All the tutors he procured for me were women. Is it any wonder that I grew to crave their touch, their caress?”
Christina’s voice hardened. “When I was sixteen, I told Daddy I was gay. Do you know what he said? ‘No’. Not, ‘I support you, my daughter’ or even, ‘I don’t understand, but I’ll love you anyway’. Just ‘no’. I wasn’t allowed to be gay, because there are no homosexuals in darling Jane’s books. Can you even understand how that might feel?”
