I repeated the story we all told, that Flynn and Corbin had been outside trying to get Obelix – the fat, recalcitrant castle cat – to come back in for his dinner, and they found the babies crying in the woods. I said I’d been sleeping at the time and all the commotion had woken me up, so I came downstairs to see what was going on. I hadn’t heard or seen anything out of the ordinary, and the furniture in the Great Hall was moved around because I was forcing the guys to clean the place up a bit.
“You were dressed in this outfit when the officers arrived at Briarwood,” Inspector Davies said, gesturing to my current outfit of skirt, shirt and my old Coopersville High sweatshirt.
Shit.
“Yeah, well, I sleep naked, so I didn’t exactly want your officers to get a show.”
“There’s fresh dirt on your sleeves and ankles,” Inspector Davies pointed out. “Where did that come from?”
I looked down at my wrist, where a smudge of dirt ran along the cuff. I also noticed a bloodstain on my collar, and more droplets of dried blood on the hem of my skirt.They must’ve happened in the fae realm.
Inspector Davies hadn’t mentioned the bloodstains, but the way she was staring at me with that focused intensity, I knew she’d noticed them.
Double shit.
“Oh,” I feigned surprise. “I was in such a hurry, I just pulled on the first clothes I grabbed from the hamper. I was helping Rowan in the garden in the evening, and then he was showing me how to make sausages, and I guess I got pretty filthy.”
“Will Mr. Smith be able to corroborate this story?”
I nodded.If you can get Rowan to say anything at all.
“You are American. How long have you been in Britain?”
I counted in my head. “Only seven days.” It felt like three months; so much had happened since I’d arrived at Briarwood Castle.
I didn’t bother explaining I was actually born in England and that I’d been illegally adopted. I didn’t want to give her any more reason to look closely at me.
“And you are renting at Briarwood?”
“I am the owner. I inherited the castle from my mother. It’s been held in trust for me until I turned twenty-one.”
If Davies was surprised by this news, she didn’t show it. “And how long have you known Jane Forsythe?”
“I met her a few days ago. I went to visit her after I heard what happened to Connor. I don’t think she has many friends, and she was having a hard time coping. I helped clean up her cottage a bit, then then later she came to visit me at Briarwood.”
“What do you know about Jane Forsythe?”
“Not much. Like I said, we’ve only been friends a few days. She’s a single mom. She lives in her grandmother’s cottage, and she doesn’t get along with her mother.”
Was that too much information? I didn’t know how to talk to the police. I wished Corbin could be here with me. He’d know exactly what to do.
“Were you aware she was arrested for street solicitation in 2016?”
What?
At first I thought she meant Jane was trying to sell knickknacks from a street cart without a permit, but then the inspector’s words clicked in my exhausted mind.
Jane had been trying to solicitsex.I tried to marry that information to my picture of Jane, and I just couldn’t make it stick.
Inspector Davies watched me, those careful eyes studying my expression. I kept my face passive, trying not to let my surprise and shock seep through. “No, I was not.”
“Or that in 2014 she was held in custody on suspicion of managing a brothel?”
I shook my head.Good god, what has Jane been involved in?
Inspector Davies continued. “You’re new to this village, Maeve, and you probably expect a slower pace of life from the gun violence and cowboy cops in your country.”
“That’s not?—”
