Murder in the Oval Library by C. M. Gleason

Author:C. M. Gleason
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2018-06-17T16:00:00+00:00

The day was sunny; so bright it hurt the eyes. Adam wore a hat low on his forehead to keep the glare from blinding him as he scanned the never-ending prairie of dry, straw-colored grass. It swooned and shimmered with each breath of breeze, like the waves of a dun-colored ocean.

It was a beautiful afternoon. His heart was full. His grandfather’s fiddle sat in its case, roped to the back of his saddle, ready for tonight’s shindig. He couldn’t wait to see Tom, Mary, and little Carl and all their other friends.

The Skilltons’ house was a neat log cabin on the edge of cleared land Tom meant to farm. Wheat, he said. Some oats, and he reckoned a bit of alfalfa too. A winding brook cut through a stand of willow trees. It was just down a small incline from the house and its stable so Mary could easily get water until the well was dug. And the stable, Adam remembered with a grin, had been built even before the house because Tom’s precious horses and cow needed shelter.

As he drew near the dirt track that led to Tom Skillton’s cabin, he heard the sounds.

Shouts. Screams. Gunfire. Whinnies.

Then a roaring noise that somehow filled the ears, though he could see nothing to cause it.

And smoke. Thick and choking, it suddenly enveloped him. Everything became a blur, and black and thick, and Adam’s world was suddenly hot and bright, filled with a fire, laced by screams and terrified whinnies. Shots. More cries.

Pain. Searing, blazing.

And suddenly, there was Leward Hale, dancing and laughing in his face. He held Adam’s left arm, and he waved the limb along with his rifle in wild victory as he mounted his horse. He rode down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the White House, leading a group of men carrying rifles.

Blood spun and splattered on the street behind Hale and his cronies, and it splashed against the pristine white of the President’s House . . . dripping down the sides as if buckets of red paint had been spilled from the roof.

And Jane Thorne was there, dancing and twirling in a skirt and crinoline as the slit in her throat yawned like a wide, ugly grin. It came closer to Adam, bright red and shiny, thick with evil and heavy with rust, until it overtook him: wet, dark, thick, smothering—

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