Cobalt by Aldyne Nathan

Author:Aldyne, Nathan
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781937384876
Publisher: Felony & Mayhem Press
Published: 2014-02-16T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

CLARISSE GAPED AT Ann’s corpse, thinking I never even learned her last name. The two gulls that had at first drawn her attention to the pool swooped down again, and now Clarisse, appalled, knew why. She flung her untasted scone at the birds and rose from the chair and flapped her arms. The gulls wheeled away.

She realized that she must do something. She looked at the doors of the three apartments of Noah’s compound, as if some prize awaited her behind one of them. Which should she try first?

She could not understand why Ann should be alone. Ann and Margaret had been inseparable; how could one have drowned without the other’s knowledge? In any case, Clarisse determined to enter the middle apartment first. Her frantic voice calling to any of the men—Valentine and Axel, Noah and the White Prince—would draw Margaret to one of the windows and from there, looking down into the pool, she would see her friend’s corpse. It was a sight Clarisse wanted to spare her, so she stepped quickly around the pool, not looking again at Ann’s staring face, and slipped silently inside.

She called Margaret’s name softly, then more loudly. She knocked on the frame of the door, then smacked the palm of her hand against the banister rail. She mounted the stairs, and continued to call Margaret’s name. Suddenly she was afraid.

But Margaret was not in the house, and when Clarisse realized this, she could not be certain exactly what her fear had been.

She moved to the wall that she knew was common with Valentine’s room on the other side, and kicked it several times. Then she ran downstairs, out the door, and into her and Valentine’s place. Above, she heard Valentine’s inarticulate growl. She called, asking him to come down. When he protested, she cried, “Daniel! Look out the window!” When she addressed him as “Daniel,” he always knew something of importance was afoot.

Without waiting for his reaction, she ran outside again and toward her uncle’s apartment. Her commotion had already roused Noah and the White Prince, and they appeared simultaneously in the windows of their bedrooms, Noah bare-chested and the Prince in an emerald-green silk robe agitatedly running his fingers through his hair.

“Clarisse,” called her uncle, “what on—”

She extended her arm toward the pool, as a ringmaster might introduce a new act. Hearing exclamations of surprise and dismay on all sides, she dropped into a chair and burst into tears.

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