Death in Castle Dark by Veronica Bond

Author:Veronica Bond [Bond, Veronica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2021-08-03T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

* * *

The chapel wasn’t as frightening as I’d feared. It was filled with morning light and the varicolored reflections from stained glass windows. The room had been cleaned thoroughly. I tried not to focus on the spot where Garrett had lain, but instead to look at the window above the altar, where a saint of unknown origin sat smiling at a dove perched on her hand.

Derek pulled me aside before I sat down. “Nora, I heard what happened. Let me assure you, I will get to the bottom of this, and the sun will not go down today before every door in this castle is secured.”

For an illusory moment, I felt that Derek’s handsome, impassioned face could have belonged to some distant king determined to ensure the safety of the people under his protection and to root out the enemy within his walls.

I patted his arm. “It was scary, but I’m over it. Thank God you put Dash in that room next door.” I pointed to the hallway down which was the room where I had sat, shrouded in horror, while John Dashiell had pulled thorns out of my feet like a man in a fable.

Derek’s brows rose. “You call him Dash?”

The heat in my face infuriated me. “Well—you had called him—I assumed that—”

He nodded, his face a reassuring mask. “Of course, I had forgotten that.” He looked at his watch. “We’re about to get started. Just have a seat anywhere.”

I sat down in an empty row, and moments later Paul sat beside me. Like Derek, he apologized to me with an earnest expression. “If you want us to relocate you to another room, just say the word,” Paul said. While Derek’s eyes were a sort of dark gray, his brother’s were a deep blue and compelling. I found it hard to look away once I had made eye contact.

“No, it’s fine. Connie and I have pledged to watch out for each other.”

Something flickered across his face, and then he smiled. “That’s good, but you shouldn’t have to worry about that. After this blessing, I’ll need you to come with me to my office so that I can fill out an incident report.”

“Oh—uh—I mean, I already told the police. . . .”

“This is for our records, Nora. Our business. In case you decide later that you wanted, let’s say, compensation . . .”

“Oh, Paul, I would never—”

He patted my hand. “We’ll just fill out the report and be done with it.” Paul was clearly a man who liked things slotted into tidy rows. Perhaps these features were the perfect contrast with those of his creative, dramatic brother. He sighed, looking around. “Garrett and I had some great talks together,” he said. “One of them even in this room. He was an opera enthusiast, did you know?”

“I didn’t. I barely knew Garrett.”

“Right, you’re brand-new. Well, I love opera, too. We would talk about the various scores and the great composers. He was a Puccini fan. I lean more toward Rossini or Bizet as the best of all time.

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