The music and voices were growing louder, indicating she was moving in the right direction but also making it impossible to hear if someone was approaching. Once she reached the ground floor, Ella turned and looked down the perpendicular corridor and saw it—a closed door with a key hanging outside of it.
That had to be the cellar.
She adjusted her sweaty grip on the poker, moved toward the door, and reached for the key.
“Who is there?” boomed a voice.
Ella whirled.
Timothy Grenshaw was approaching from the opposite direction.
Large. Angry. Dark.
He reached into his coat.
Ella didn’t think—she clutched the poker with both hands, squeezed her eyes shut, and swung. Hard. The impact fired pain through her, as if she’d been struck by stone. She opened her eyes.
The giant man dropped backward. The pistol he’d retrieved from his pocket clattered to the stone floor.
An entirely different kind of fear seized her. Had she killed him?
Was she a murderer, just like Clancy claimed her mother had been?
No.She couldn’t let her thoughts get away from her. Her mother was not a murderer, and neither was she.
Blood oozed from Mr. Grenshaw’s head. She froze, staring at what she’d done. She could not stop now. Gabriel was right behind that door.
When she was able to force movement to her limbs, she reached over his still body for the key. Her trembling fingers would barely wrap around the key ring. She stepped over Mr. Grenshaw’s large boot and steadied the key enough to insert it into the lock.
Once done, she turned the key.
And it clicked.
Gabriel grimaced as he wrestled with the knots in the ropes around his ankles. He had to be getting close.
A masculine shout stopped him.
He jerked his head up, ignoring the sting of perspiration dripping in his eyes.
Another shout was followed by a loud bang and a thud.
Frantically, he bent over and tore at the ropes. If someone was coming in, he needed to be free.
The door jingled.
The lock rattled.
He braced himself. Was it Clancy? Grenshaw?
The door opened.
There stood Ella. Pale. Disheveled. The whites of her eyes gleamed in her panicked expression. “I—I—I,” she stammered.
Her sleeves were torn and her hair hung in haphazard clumps around her terrified face.
“Shhh,” he soothed. “Just stay calm.”
“I struck him with a poker,” she blurted. “He isn’t moving. He—”
