“But we’ve been granted a great gift,” he said. “We can turn our worries over to someone else. We can—and for many of us, it will be a first—trust to the help we’re getting from strangers. I urge you to offer the investigators among us your unhesitating cooperation. Lady Marianne invited them here, our own tribute has vouched for them, and we welcome them—now more than ever. They can free us from our fear and anger so we can concentrate on our grief.”
There was a collective exhalation. Some people still looked testy and mutinous, but most of them were taking Lord Sinclair’s permission to choose sorrow over suspicion.
He hadn’t been trying to stir up a mob. He’d addressed the elephant in the room—or the cemetery—and then convinced everyone to move on, at least for now. That was much better than she’d expected.
And now that he’d calmed things down, he moved on to a more traditional eulogy. Iris slowly relaxed her grip on Keith’s hand and took the chance to catch her breath.
It occurred to her that it would have been easy for Lady Marianne’s death to have sent her spiraling, like it was another tragedy that had happened (somehow) because she wasn’t good enough, wasn’tunicornenough.
Keith had saved her from that. If he loved her, she was going to keep fighting back her worries until she loved herself too.
And she was going to avenge Lady Marianne’s murder, or at least she was going to help.
She brought you to me, she thought in Keith’s direction.She believed in me when nobody else did, even if she believed in me for the wrong reasons. We’re going to make sure she gets justice.
*
Once the funeral wasover, the crowd filtered out of the clearing, and Iris and Keith drifted over to Simon and Cooper.
Keith said, “I’m glad you two made it so you could keep an eye on things. I should’ve thought to get up earlier and let you through the barrier, but it just slipped my mind.”
Cooper shook his head. “Don’t worry. Funerals are hard. And this one was obviously ... complicated.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” Keith said. “But how did you get in?”
“Iris’s brother-in-law.”
Iris guessed that made sense. Blake had the skills to prop the door open, after all, like she’d told them last night. But how had he known they would want to be let in? Did he have a secret crime drama addiction she didn’t know about? Or had they arranged things last night, when the team had interviewed him and Seraphina?
“Scared the hell out of us,” Simon went on. “We can’t see through the barrier at all—”
“Neither can we,” Keith put in. “Not on the outside looking in, anyway. Just on the inside looking out.”
“—and then he just popped out like a jack-in-the-box and asked if we wanted to come in. Said anybody who was anybody was going to be at the funeral and it might take a few hours, so we should come in if we were coming, especially since you wouldn’t have your cell phone. We left Evie on guard—Iz is taking a breather, and Vin’s still en route—and decided we’d keep an eye on things in here. We’ll play musical chairs now and go get some breakfast, so you can look forward to Iz and Evie and maybe Vin showing up a little later.”
“Sounds good. Any progress so far?”
“We stayed later than we meant to last night, doing a few more interviews, but everyone’s pretty tight-lipped,” Cooper said. “Aside from ....” He looked at Iris with a hint of apology in his eyes. “Aside from telling us you’re trouble. And then the juiciest story anybody had about you was that you once sunbathed in a bikini in your own backyard. They seemed pretty annoyed that we didn’t think that was a good enough reason to arrest you for murder. I know I said this before and I apologized, because I figured you shouldn’t criticize people’s hometowns, but now that I’ve spent a little more time here ... uh, you two know this place is weird, right?”
“Yes,” Keith said instantly.
“God, yes,” Iris said.
“I’m beginning to understand why you were the way you were when I first met you,” Cooper said to Keith. “That uptight kid who didn’t listen to music and was scared to crack a smile.”
There was nothing in his voice but warm fondness, but Keith blushed anyway.
“I was an asshole.”
“You were a kid. And anyway, you’re not an asshole now.”
“You’re a prince among men,” Simon added, with exaggerated seriousness. “I just want to pinch your cheek, you’re so cute.”
Iris couldn’t help laughing at howaggrievedKeith looked at that. The laugh came out as an indelicate snort instead of a ladylike giggle, but she decided she could live with that.
“Incoming,” Simon said, and the playfulness in his expression vanished, replaced by a look that managed to be easygoing and steely all at once. “Brother-in-law again. This guy’s everywhere today.”
Iris looked over her shoulder and saw Blake making a beeline for them. He had departed with the rest of the guests, but now he was back, and still dressed in his funereal black.
