Thistlewood Manor: A Speakeasy Demise by Fiona Grace

Author:Fiona Grace [Grace, Fiona]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fiona Grace
Published: 2023-04-04T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

As Eliza arrived back at the factory, she couldn’t help feeling hopelessly deflated. Her meeting with Charlie had not only ruled him out as a suspect but also failed to generate any new leads, and her decision to visit the victim’s wife and child, while well intentioned, had only succeeded in making everyone feel worse.

In truth, all Eliza really wanted to do at this point was go home. She’d gotten shockingly little sleep the night before, and she was exhausted and sad and in no real mood to interact with anyone. But she had work to do, and she’d been away from the factory far too long already, so with a quick, You can do this, Eliza, she opened the door, braced herself, and stepped inside.

What she found was not at all what she expected. Gone was the hustle and bustle of factory work. No machines hummed or whirled. No workers buzzed from machine to machine. It was eerily quiet and concerningly empty.

For a moment, Eliza found herself starting to panic. It was the middle of the workday. Everyone should be here. Unless…

Unless they made good on their option to strike.

It would be impossible to overstate just how bad that would be. If she couldn’t even make it through two days as the interim floor manager without someone literally dying and the entire staff going on strike, her father could not realistically be expected to ever trust her with this sort of responsibility again. Not to mention the fact that it would be terrible for the factory’s bottom line, which, in turn, would be terrible for her family’s business.

In less than seventy-two hours, she’d managed to turn this place from a bustling business into a ghost town.

Nice work, Eliza, she thought miserably.

And then, it occurred to her. Tea! She’d adjusted the employees’ schedule so that they could take afternoon tea. Perhaps they weren’t on strike after all. Perhaps they were just following the new schedule she had laid out for them.

She rushed to the mess hall, and as she opened the door, her spirit soared at the sight of all the factory’s workers, sitting at the table, drinking the tea she’d brought in for them that morning.

Eliza was just about to go make herself a cuppa when Mary rushed over.

“Whadya find out? Did he do it? Charlie?” she asked anxiously.

“No,” Eliza said sadly. “But he did provide me with some additional information that would further suggest Paul was murdered.”

“I knew it!” Mary exclaimed. “You were gone a long time…”

“I stopped to visit the victim’s family. I wanted to offer our condolences and see if we could help with the funeral.”

“Oh…”

“How are things here?” Eliza asked. “Has the tension decreased at all?”

“Sorta. I told everyone what you were up to. Not sure everyone believes your intentions are really good, but they’ve agreed to give you ’til Friday to solve the murder anyway.”

“That’s only two days from now,” Eliza said, the knot in her stomach growing tighter. “What if I can’t solve it by then?”

“Then we strike,” Mary said, matter of fact.

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