The End of Isabelle by Annette Moncheri

The End of Isabelle by Annette Moncheri

Author:Annette Moncheri [Moncheri, Annette]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-10-24T05:00:00+00:00


7

I turned down the quiet hallway on the ground floor that led to my office, and found myself arrested by the sight of a man with black hair and swarthy skin standing silently in the middle of my hallway, his feet wide apart and solidly planted, his hands resting lightly at his sides, his chin cocked just slightly back and his dark eyes burning into mine. He seemed possessed with utter confidence and the poised threat of a snake who might strike.

With my superhuman eyesight, I looked more closely around his neck, and indeed I saw the very edges of tattoos peeking out above his collar. This was him—Raoul, our murderer.

I took a few steps closer. Perhaps another woman would have put her hand to her heaving bosom and cried out, “How did you get in here?” or something else equally senseless. But not I. No, I was no swooning female. He had not yet caught up to that fact, but he soon would.

Instead, what I said was, “You’ve made a mistake, my friend, because you are alone with me.”

But then, my ears caught the sound of a door creaking open, and Inés Dujardin crept out from another room, her face pale and streaked with tears. She stood next to the man.

I cursed to myself. I could not reveal my powers, and I also could not risk her getting hurt, and so now my hands were as tied as if I were any mortal woman.

“I’m sorry, Madame,” she said helplessly. “I have to go with him now. I have no choice.”

And in fact the brute caught her around the waist and pulled her close, so hard that he drew her off balance, and she was forced to clutch at him—but I could see there was no affection in it.

A jaunty tune began far behind me and celebratory shouts arose from the drawing room.

“I must have Inés,” said the man with the snake tattoo, his voice rough, “I need her now. You have to understand.”

“No,” I answered. “You will not leave here with her. And you will not murder her as you did Isabelle.”

He shook his head, and suddenly misery ruined his handsome features. He looked almost as if he would cry. “You can’t call that murder. That’s not fair. And anyway, it was Inés who gave her the poisoned cup.”

Inés’s face crumpled and she moaned, “I’m so sorry, Madame.”

“What?” I demanded.

Visions of Inés tipping a vial of cyanide into Isabelle’s champagne swam through my mind—but they defied reason. Inés could not be capable of such a thing, not this poor delicate creature. If she had killed someone, then everything I knew of human nature was wrong—utterly wrong.

I stalked angrily toward them, but then, all at once, the man set his jaw and then pulled a pistol from his jacket and fired it at me.

The bullet struck me in the abdomen, shoving me backward, and forcing out a gasp of surprise. Reflexively, I clasped my hand over the wound, and my face pulled into a grimace.



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