Lake of Sorrows by Erin Hart

Author:Erin Hart [Hart, Erin]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780743471015
Publisher: Pocket Star
Published: 2010-04-14T05:00:00+00:00

2

T he house and yard were swarming with Guards. Soon they would be replaced by scene-of-crime officers going over the minutiae like white-clad ants, carrying bits of evidence away to their own anthill. Nora sat waiting to give her statement to Detective Ward, wishing that they would just let her go home. She wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed, to go to sleep and wake up again, start the whole day over, and find this nightmare vanished.

"Thank you for staying, Dr. Gavin. We'll eventually need to get a detailed statement from you, but at this point it would be helpful if you could just tell me what happened this morning. What made you decide to stop and look in here?"

Nora's mind went back to the moment she'd seen the open door. What synapse made a person do or not do something? What if she hadn't seen the door standing open, or it had been open to a lesser angle? Would she have noticed, or flown past as she'd done all the previous days she'd been here? Had knowing this was Ursula's house made her more observant? "I don't know, really. I saw the door standing open, and I thought it was odd. I thought something might be wrong."

"Did you know who was stopping here?"

"Yes, I knew that Ursula Downes was staying here for the excavation season."

"How did you know?"

For some reason she felt a bit nonplussed. "Cormac Maguire told me last night."

"And how did he know that this was Ms. Downes's residence, if you don't mind my asking?"

Why did she mind the question so much? "I'm not sure how he knew. He never mentioned their acquaintance specifically, but I believe they knew each other from years back. Archaeology is a small field. Everyone knows everyone."

"I see," Ward said, and Nora knew he was making a note to put Cormac on his interview list. "Why don't you take me through what happened, from the time you saw the open door?" His brown eyes were not unkind, and she told herself that he had to be open to every possibility--even those that seemed extremely unlikely. Of course he had to look at Cormac. He'd probably have to interview everyone within a five-mile radius. She took a deep breath and plunged in, recounting all the details she could remember: the broken window, the drops of blood on the kitchen floor, the wine bottle on the table, her panicky journey down the corridor, and the jangling fear she had felt pushing the bathroom door open with the tire iron. She couldn't seem to go on.

"I'll let you go very soon," Ward said, "but I have to ask you, Dr. Gavin, where you were last night. Perhaps you'd oblige me, and go back to the time I left the house after talking with you and Dr. Maguire."

"We ate dinner after you left, then Cormac took me to the top of the hill behind the cottage. That was when he pointed out all the neighboring houses.

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