Murder on All Hallows: A Violet Carlyle Historical Mystery (The Violet Carlyle Mysteries Book 15) by Beth Byers

Author:Beth Byers [Byers, Beth]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Published: 2019-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

“Bloody hell, Jack!” Ham said as they appeared in the hall. “Where have you been?”

“The cellars,” Jack said as Victor stepped into the hall from the cellar.

“Beatrice!” Ham took in the sight of her as Violet followed, the last to leave the cellars. “Jack. Vi. Damn it!”

“What?”

“Kate, Ginny, Geoffrey, along with Em”—he glanced at Violet, cleared his throat, and amended—“Miss Allen—were too clever for your scavenger hunt. They found your joke, which would have been fabulous if not for the rest.”

“And?” Violet asked, knowing that the culmination of the day’s events must have come. What would it be? Thousands of beetles? A bag of rats? A room of displays crushed into shards of glass with priceless artifacts destroyed?

“A body.”

Violet grabbed Jack’s arm before she tumbled back down the cellar stairs and then carefully shut the door behind them.

“A body? A murder? Who?”

Ham paused. “Actually, I don’t think it’s a murder.”

Violet frowned. “Is it a dummy?”

Ham shook his head. “It’s quite real. It’s just…been…”

“What?” Violet demanded. “Stop softening it for me.”

“I think it might be some poor fool who had been donated to a university.”

Violet stared, blinking slowly. Then she let go of Jack’s arm to shove into the kitchen and take a seat in the corner.

“Don’t worry madam,” the chef called. “I’ll reheat the fish over a cast iron pan. I’ve made a lemon sauce and vinegar sauce. We’ll cut them into bite-sized pieces. It’ll be a bit sticky and it won’t be stones into gold. Perhaps stones into copper. We’ll—”

Vi shook her head. She really might be sick, she thought. Had someone donated their body to a university for students only to end up as the prank of some idiot? She hadn’t thought she could get angrier, but she had reached a level of rage where it seemed the blood in her veins boiled. She felt as though she could feel its passage through her temples and at her wrists. Her heart pounded in her chest in rhythm with the throbbing in her ears.

Jack took her hand, and she glanced at him.

“A body?”

He nodded.

“At my party?”

“Are you all right?” He cupped her cheek and turned her face to his, and then winced at the raw rage in her expression.

“Someone used the remains of a poor soul to prank my guests?”

Jack cleared his throat as Violet’s nails slowly curled into her palms. Hands fisted, she rose.

“I won’t be too slow next time.”

“Vi—”

Her gaze narrowed on him. “You should find them first.”

“Vi—”

She didn’t reply. She strode down the hall towards her friends in the ballroom. If Violet needed someone who would break the law with her, who would set aside all bounds of what might be, then what Violet needed wasn’t her beloved Jack or her beloved twin. It was Rita and Lila.

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