“Thom, Thaddeus, Thorne—Thorne! With the surname...” His lips pursed. “I have the report synopsis somewhere. Warton, Worster, Worley? Worley, I think that was it. A footman.”
Relief so enormous that it was painful crashed through me.
“Gabriel?”
I feigned a cough. “Forgive me, go on.”
“Said he had shown up outside her rental more than once. He’d just stare at her from across the street. She found it creepy.” John absently pushed his pen. “Dead? All of them?”
“Four of them,” I replied tightly, their goading faces surfacing in memory.
A look of sympathy settled over his face. Ice dripped down my spine.
“What do you know, John?” Why look atmethat way?
“Only that they had their ladies’ club and they would torture some of the servant boys in the household by making promises and pretending interest. I assume you ran afoul of that at some point.”
If only. If only that had been the extent of it.
“The footman probably caught a lure and became obsessed.” He shuddered, then tilted his head. “Can you imagine what would lead someone to do something like that?”
Being obsessed with something? Yes. Killing people? No.
“But this is good news too, is it not?” He tapped his desk. “Not the murder part, but the timing. Lady Winters’s brother will have to be released.”
“Unfortunately, the inquisitor on the case is proving difficult. Law enforcement is now after her older brother as accomplice and co-murderer.”
His jaw dropped in shock. “What? How the devil did they determine that?”
“Stubbornness, vengeance, wanting to keep the public from panicking? A bad mix. Unfortunately for the panic, Ferris Winters has gone missing.”
John smiled. “How unfortunate indeed. I commend you.”
“Do you have the report from the investigator?”
“No, I told him to report to Octavia directly. I paid him to follow the creep. You were working on other cases, and I figured you wouldn’t want to revisit anything to do with the old grounds.” He rubbed the side of his neck. “You ran and never returned.”
I said nothing.
“When the investigator finished a few weeks ago, he told me he didn’t find much. But maybe he saw something that would help? I know he was following the footman during the time of the first murder—I was at the Plakens’ rout when the news came that a ripping had just occurred in Carowell, and I paid the investigator before the rout for another week.”
He frowned. “He’s in Sandover right now, looking into a smuggling ring there. Three hundred miles is a bit far for a chat. But I have Octavia’s address. Perhaps you can locate the briefthere.” He paged through his papers, organized and neat as they were. “Here it is. A rental. No servants. She barely had the funds for a facade.”
I took the paper. “Thank you, John.”
I was thanking him for more than just the address, and he seemed to know it. He nodded solemnly. “I know you’ll find the bastard.”
I ran those words through my head as I walked home, along with his parting ones:Are you going to tell Marietta?
No.
It had to be this man, this nearly faceless servant. It couldn’t be someone I knew or loved. It couldn’t be someone from Marietta’s family. We would both be pleased at the end. Free to do whatever we wanted.
If only I could convince myself of that. If only I could keep my mind from churning over escape routes and contingencies.
I forced myself to think of Thorne Worley. Of the man I would catch, the man who would confess to everything. Cause to celebrate tonight—to take back the control that had slipped from my fingertips this morning.
With every step I convinced myself more and more. I recognized the irony of the delusion, but forced that section of my mind to lie dormant. I had always been a realist. A disgusting survivor.
