Rubies (The Cardigan Estate Book 31) by Emmy Ellis

Author:Emmy Ellis [Ellis, Emmy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-08-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Nora drove towards the manor the next morning full of trepidation and fear, the rawness of her emotions exacerbated by her lack of sleep. Her nerves, brittle and waiting to snap, seemed to buzz inside her. She was knackered, had no choice but to keep going—she had to get through the next part of the plan whether she liked it or not. If she didn’t arrive at work this morning it would look odd.

She gasped and checked the rearview, convinced she’d seen something flicker in the mirror. The ghostly shadows of the three dead people seemed to sit in the car with her, and a shiver wended up her spine, goosebumps sprinting all over her.

She turned onto the driveway, that fear ramping up.

An officer in uniform held his hand up to stop her. She rolled down her window, shitting bricks. Was he going to turn her away? Or was he going to ask her where she’d been last night?

“Name, please?” Brusque. Official.

Nora frowned at him—what would a normal, innocent person say? “What’s happened?”

“Name.”

Bloody hell, jobsworth! “Nora Robbins.”

He checked something in his notebook and gave her the nod. Quenton said he’d put her on an approved list, but it still seemed strange that she could go to work as if nothing was wrong. Was the investigation in the house almost at an end if she was allowed up there? She supposed it might be if they’d been there all night.

She proceeded along the driveway, nauseated. A police car and van out the front wasn’t a shock, but the sight of them still sent her stomach rolling over. The front door stood open, strangers milling in and out, just as ghostly as the unseen spirits in the back of her car. They appeared to be packing things away in the van. She drove around the back and parked between Patty’s and Cook’s cars. Two other maids were in, their vehicles also there. She switched the engine off and sat for a moment, catching sight of an officer’s reflection in the rearview. He stood at the tradesman’s entrance giving her the once-over. She ignored him, but he came over to tap on her window.

She lowered it. “Yes?”

“What are you doing just sitting there?”

“I don’t start work for another five minutes so I was going to smoke a fag like usual. What’s happened? Is everyone okay?”

“I’ll leave it for Lord Goosemoor to have a word with you.” He backed away to his post.

Nora got her baccy tin out and lit a rollie. Her nerves were shot, so she needed the nicotine. Would he think she was suspicious for being so casual, smoking?

Last night, when they’d arrived at her house, they’d all got drunk. She’d tried to explain how something inside her had taken over when Quenton had told her to kill Darcy and her boys, but her explanation of obeying him while she worked here didn’t seem to hold water with her friends. So she’d moved on to another excuse: Darcy had recognised her voice, and had she lived, she’d have told the coppers.

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