The Dead Dragon Job by Anne Lyle

Author:Anne Lyle [Lyle, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knife and Quill

Freya drove to Winterglass House in a cold fury, a hundred possibilities chasing one another through her imagination. All she knew was that no matter what the truth, she was not going to enjoy what her father had to say.

Mnyakuzi let her straight in this time; even a Shetani knew when to back away from a fight he wasn’t going to win. She strode through the ground floor, peering into each room as she went, but there was no sign of her father.

At last she found herself at the patio doors that let out into the garden. Like the front of the house, the grounds here were laid out in a formal pattern of gravel paths and topiary. The one concession to the wildness of nature was a double row of stone columns across the far end, wrapped in the twining trunks of wisteria. At the midpoint of the walk the columns were more widely spaced, creating a small terrazzo area. Despite the chill in the air, a table and chairs had been set out and her father was seated at one end, sipping tea and reading a newspaper.

Freya strode down the central path towards him, the gravel crunching loudly underfoot. He did not look up, though she suspected he was using magic to watch her instead. It was hard to tell at this distance, with the sunlight dappling the air beneath the wisteria canopy. At last she came close enough for him not to need to raise his voice.

“Freya, my dear! Do join me.” He put down the newspaper and gestured to the other chairs. “To what do I owe this pleasure?“

Freya made a point of standing. “We found your note.”

“Good, good. I hope that’s all sorted out now.”

“Hardly. How did you get Valentine to write it? And why?”

“How?” He smiled. “I can be very persuasive, as you well know. As to why… Lady Rosegrove had made a hash of the whole business. I could not allow a scandal like that to reach the papers.”

“A scandal? What kind of scandal?”

He sighed. “She thought to blame someone for the theft of her necklace, so she could claim its value on her…what do the Underfolk call it? Insurance? Yes, insurance.”

So the two cases are connected! Freya suppressed a grin of triumph.

“But the necklace was an illusion,” she said.

“The insurance company doesn’t know that. And you cannot prove it either. So when accusing that little thief failed, she tried to pin the blame on young Silverbrook.”

“He was the other man in my vision. The one in her bed.” At least that part of Valentine’s confession held a crumb of truth. If the servant had been in love with his mistress, her affair with Leo Silverbrook could easily have given him cause for jealousy.

“He was there that night, certainly. But when she tried to force a confession out of him, it”—his features twisted in disgust—“went too far.”

“She killed Leo?”

He nodded.

“And Valentine?”

“His only role was to dispose of the body.”

Of course. Her ladyship would hardly want to get her hands dirty.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.