The Sinful Scot (Saints & Scoundrels) Page 22

  He glanced across at her. “Like I said. We’ll get to the bottom of it all, Connie. I promise you that.”

  There was such certainty and confidence in his eyes, she knew he would do just that, and it filled her with hope.

  They came to the back of the apothecary, where they’d fled from the other day, and instantly Connie’s steps faltered, and her whole body braced. The back door was wide open, swaying softly with the brisk wind, a slight creak groaning each time. But what alarmed Connie more were the splatters of blood trailing down the back stones of the door stoop, leading into the premises.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Alec knew something was wrong, and though every instinct was urging him to take Connie and run, he had to check if anyone was inside and needed help. “Stay here.”

  “I’m not staying out here. You could be walking into anything in there, and I won’t be a party to standing around and doing nothing, like I did yesterday.”

  An expression of utter determination crossed her face, which Alec knew from experience meant she wasn’t going to budge, and it would be a futile waste of time to even quibble. “Lord, you are difficult, woman. Stay behind me, then, all right?”

  She nodded and smiled briefly before looking past him to the doorway. The determined expression quickly gave way to trepidation before being replaced by resolve. Alec couldn’t help but be impressed. This woman had an innate strength, and he was proud of her for it.

  Returning his attention to the blood on the stones, Alec put his finger up to his mouth to signal Connie to silence. He listened intently, but apart from the subtle moaning of the door as it swung lightly in the breeze and the passing traffic coming from Main Street on the other side of the building, it appeared all too silent from within. Careful not to step on any of the blood splatters, Alec approached the door and gently pushed it fully open.

  Inside the hallway, there were more drops of blood, but there were some footprints too. And from the two different shapes of the boot prints, it would appear that two people had stepped through the area. But one of the bloodied boot prints was especially interesting, as its size and narrowness suggested that it belonged to a woman.

  Pulling out his revolver, he slowly crossed over the threshold, careful to step on only clear spaces of the floor. He cocked the hammer of his gun, the soft click sounding ridiculously loud in the silence of the narrow passage.

  He stilled, but there was no movement from within.

  Steadily he continued forward, his eyes scanning the length of the passage, noting the bloodied footsteps led to the front of the store.

  Pausing, he looked back over his shoulder to Connie, who was following, careful of where she was treading, too. “I don’t know what we’re going to find through there,” he whispered, tilting his head toward the archway ahead. “You can wait here, if you want.”

  Her eyes strayed to the doorway. “I will be fine.”

  Alec resumed walking, his steps silent on the wooden floor beneath. There were still bloodied footprints in the corridor, with droplets of blood next to them.

  Turning to the left, Alec stopped in the doorway and gently pulled open a section of the red velvet curtain hanging across the entrance. He peered out into the main store, but just like the back of the shop, the front was eerily silent, and it looked like there wasn’t a soul around.

  Holding his revolver in front of him, Alec pushed open the curtain fully and stepped into the room. He was standing behind the counter and quickly scanned the space. It was empty. But the bloodied footprints continued along behind the counter to the right side of where he stood.

  He followed their path, and there lying on the floor behind the counter was Mr. Middleton. But Alec was too late to do anything to help the man.

  Middleton’s throat had been slashed, with his life’s blood having spilled out across his chest to pool around him onto the wooden floor beneath. The man’s once white shirt was now an oozing mess of rusty crimson, and his eyes were staring vacantly up at the ceiling.

  Death had not been kind to him.

  Connie stumbled to a stop beside Alec and grabbed ahold of his arm. “Oh, Good Lord. Can you do anything for him?”

  “We’re too late.” Alec bent down and felt the man’s wrist. “He’s well past the point of assistance, though he is still slightly warm.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means he hasn’t been dead long.” Straightening, Alec visually examined the man. There didn’t appear to be other injuries, at least not visible ones, and rigor mortis hadn’t set in yet. “Given that the blood around the wound is still wet, and his body temperature hasn’t yet dropped much, I would estimate he died in the last hour.”

  “And he’s holding something.” Connie pointed to the piece of paper laying crunched up in the man’s open right palm.

  “Looks like it may have been placed there after his death.” Alec crouched down beside the body.

  “How can you tell?”

  “Do you see the blood there?” He pointed to red fluid covering Middleton’s fingers.

  Connie nodded. “I do. It’s all over his hands and fingers, actually.”

  “Yet barely any on the crunched-up paper, perched on the man’s palm,” Alec observed before glancing over his shoulder toward her. Thankfully, she seemed to be handling the situation well, which he was glad of, considering he hadn’t been certain how she’d hold up confronting another dead body. And apart from appearing somewhat paler than usual, she was doing well under the circumstances.

  “So presumably, if he’d been holding the paper before his throat was cut, then he would have dropped the paper. Yet if he pulled it out of his jacket after, it would be covered in the blood from his hands,” Connie surmised.

  “Exactly,” Alec confirmed. “Suggesting that the killer may have placed it there after Middleton died.” Alec reached across and picked up one of the corners of the paper. Normally he’d be loath to touch or interfere with anything at the scene of a crime but, in these circumstances, he needed to see what the page contained.

  He stood and carefully pulled open the paper. A chill of foreboding inched along his spine as an altogether familiar image stared back at him from the paper.

  Beside him, Connie breathed in sharply as her gaze locked on the paper in his hand. She grasped his arm, her fingers digging deeply into the material of his coat. “That’s me on there. A ‘wanted’ picture of me. How could that be?”

  The Inverness Police had clearly wasted no time in having the small “wanted” signs of the Duchess of Kilmaine printed out and distributed across the city. But what was more concerning was the fact that one had been left in Middleton’s hand, appearing as if he had been clutching it before his death.

  Once the paper and Middleton’s body were discovered by the police, they would immediately leap to the conclusion that Connie was involved in the man’s death. Especially if they questioned Mr. Trenton, who would obviously confirm that Connie and Alec had visited Middleton, too. Which would serve only to heighten the suspicion already surrounding Connie over Duncan’s death, especially as a dagger had been used in Middleton’s death, as it had been in Duncan’s.

  “Why would a ‘wanted’ picture of me be left in his hand?” Connie asked, slowly unclenching her fingers and taking a step back. She took in a deep breath, and for a moment Alec was worried she would faint.

  He reached out and steadied her, gently rubbing her back in the process. “It’s going to be all right.” He prayed it was, because seeing the wanted poster had rattled him. “Even if the police were to suspect you had something to do with Middleton’s death, you’ve been with me the entire time, so you have a solid alibi.”

  Slowly, she nodded, and second by second, she seemed to pull herself together, straightening her spine and lifting her chin to face him directly. “Perhaps. Though they may think you’re lying to pro
tect me. In any event, it certainly seems someone is trying to frame me for both murders, don’t you think?”

  Curtly, Alec nodded. She was right. “The question is, who? It very well may be Fergus. Middleton did lie to us about making the remedy. He could certainly have lied about Fergus not being the one to purchase the sedative.”

  “Which could explain why Middleton is now dead,” Connie mused aloud. “Fergus might have been trying to cover up his involvement in Duncan’s death, and the only way to ensure Middleton didn’t talk was to silence him permanently.”

  “It could be,” Alec agreed.

  “Perhaps Fergus even had Lady Tarlington’s assistance,” Connie added.

  “The footprints do suggest a man and a woman.” Alec walked back over to where Middleton had kept the journal listing the sales, but instead of the thickly bound book below the countertop, there was simply an empty shelf. “Damn it. It’s gone.”

  “What do we do now?” Her eyes bore into his own, and for a minute, Alec didn’t know what to tell her to erase the haunted look that had returned to her blue depths.

  Suddenly, there was a loud rapping against the front door of the store. Alec swiftly glanced up and looked across to the glass panels. There, standing on the entrance step, were two police officers, one raising his hand to knock again while the other placed his hands up to the glass and peered inside the store.

  They were in trouble.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Her heart started hammering like a percussion instrument the instant she saw the blue uniforms of the police at the entrance to the store. How had they known to find her here? She knew the instant the policeman recognized her, when he pulled back in surprise and yelled something to his colleague.

  Suddenly, Connie could see her future laid bare, trapped behind the dank, dark walls of a rat-infested prison cell, waiting to be led to the gallows. It was a future that terrified her. A future she couldn’t allow to occur, as she was done letting circumstances and fate dictate her life.

  The constables began to rattle the door handle before they tried charging at it with their shoulders.

  “We need to leave now,” Alec said, reaching over and offering her his hand.

  Without another word, her fingers latched with his, and they bolted out the back doorway into the hallway of the store, caring little that their shoes trampled in the blood as they ran to the back door and the alley they’d come from.

  Following Alec out the door, she desperately hoped there weren’t other police waiting for them out there. They’d never get away if there were.

  A ragged breath of relief left her lungs when she saw the alleyway was empty. But that wouldn’t last long. Alec paused for a moment, his gaze glancing up and down the street.

  “We’ll head to the Campbell town house,” Alec announced, guiding her swiftly down the alley.

  “Are you mad?” Connie had to keep propelling her legs forward, instead of giving in to the impulse to stop and shake him. “You wish to put us in the vicinity of Fergus and his men?”

  “It will be the last place they will look for you.”

  He did have a point. But still, the idea of going anywhere near Fergus sent a shard of fear into her heart. “I really don’t like this idea of yours.”

  “Neither do I,” Alec said. “But we need to speak to Lady Tarlington, or whoever she actually is. And we will have a better chance of finding her there than anywhere else.”

  “What about after?” Suddenly Inverness felt extremely small, as if the very city itself was beginning to close in on them. “Clearly the police are looking for me.”

  “After we speak to Lady Tarlington, we’re going to need to get out of Inverness as soon as we can.”

  “And how do we do that?” If they couldn’t escape, she really was doomed. Especially after the police inspected the store and discovered Mr. Middleton’s body, lying right next to where she had been standing. “I imagine they’ll be keeping a watch on every entry and exit of the town.”

  “Don’t worry—I have an idea.”

  …

  “Are you sure it was the duchess?” Jarrod asked one of the officers who had apparently seen her grace flee the scene only an hour ago.

  The constable nodded. “It was her, sir. And she was even more beautiful in person than in her picture.”

  “Is that why you let her escape?” an unamused voice asked from behind.

  Jarrod and the constable looked over their shoulders to the newcomer who had entered the store.

  “I s-swear I didn’t let her escape,” the constable started to splutter.

  Holding up his hand, Jarrod signaled for the constable to be silent, all the while staring steadily at the newcomer, who didn’t seem perturbed in the slightest. “It’s all right, Geoff. You run along and assist in guarding the perimeter with the others.”

  The constable looked between Jarrod and the man, confusion in his gaze, but he nodded in compliance before walking over to the entrance of the store.

  “I hadn’t finished questioning him,” the man stated, his gaze unblinking on Jarrod.

  “You must be Inspector Johnson,” Jarrod said to the man, taking in his measure in one glance. The inspector looked to be in his mid-forties and was wearing a tweed jacket, brown trousers, and his equally brown hair was combed back to cover the balding patch in the middle of his head. He was half a head shorter than Jarrod and didn’t seem pleased at all.

  Jarrod had dealt with many like him over his twenty years enforcing the law. They were career officers, looking for a sensational case to get their names in the paper and recognition from their superiors. And they didn’t care who they trampled in the process.

  Jarrod had never cared for men like that. But when they were his superiors in rank, he unfortunately had to put up with them.

  “Yes, I am,” the inspector confirmed as he pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Jarrod. “You must be Sergeant Clemmings. It seems I’ve arrived not a minute too soon.”

  Jarrod quickly read the paper. It was the inspector’s identity documents confirming his authority in investigating the murder of the Duke of Kilmaine. “You got my message, then.”

  “I did.” Inspector Johnson bobbed his head. “And I thank you. It would have been pointless staying at the Campbell estate when the prime suspect for the duke’s murder is gallivanting around here in Inverness. And it seems she’s killed another poor man.”

  “I wouldn’t be jumping to that conclusion,” Jarrod replied.

  “And why not?” the inspector pronounced. “Your own officers found her here at the scene of the crime, before fleeing as soon as she saw the police. That is highly suggestive of guilt, in my humble opinion.”

  The inspector looked anything but humble. In fact, he looked rather smug.

  “I like to be a little more certain of someone’s guilt before I jump to conclusions,” Jarrod remarked.

  The flash of anger in the man’s eyes was bright, but then it was quickly blanketed. Jarrod knew he shouldn’t push a superior officer. But when some of them got on their high horse and started making assumptions based on no evidence, it annoyed Jarrod to no end. It was the lazy way to investigate. And when the investigation was a murder, laziness had no business being involved.

  “Was she not found, or rather, seen next to the body?”

  Jarrod could only assume the inspector thought that particular fact meant she was guilty. “She was.”

  “Well, there you have it, then.” The inspector dusted some lint from the arm of his jacket. “She is guilty. Now, what are you and your men doing to recapture her?”

  It took a bit of effort for Jarrod to keep from saying what he wanted to, but he managed it—just. “I have men at each entry and exit of the city, keeping an eye out for her.”

  “Well, that’s something.” The inspector
walked around to where the body of Mr. Middleton was lying. “A slash to the throat?”

  “Yes.” And though the gash looked messy, Middleton wouldn’t have suffered too long afterward. Some small mercy, Jarrod supposed. “And interestingly enough, my men report that the duchess had not a drop of blood on her.”

  “If she’d been standing behind him when she slashed his throat, she wouldn’t have any blood on her, now, would she?” The inspector looked supremely smug once again.

  “No, she wouldn’t,” Jarrod agreed. “But Middleton was too tall for her grace to be able to reach his neck from behind.”

  “What do you mean?” The man crossed his hands tightly across his chest.

  “Exactly what I said,” Jarrod replied. “The duchess is barely five foot four inches, apparently. Whereas Middleton is over six feet. There is no way the duchess would have been able to reach up and slash his throat if she’d been standing behind him.”

  Inspector Johnson’s mouth worked up and down for a little bit, trying to articulate words but not quite getting anything out of his mouth. “Well…perhaps she was standing on something, then.”

  Jarrod shrugged. She could have been. Though there was nothing in the store to suggest she was. “There was a man with her.”

  “I’d heard,” the inspector replied. “Do we know who he is?”

  “Not yet.” Jarrod shook his head. “Though I’m hoping to learn more this afternoon when I visit with Lord Fergus, or perhaps I should say the new Duke of Kilmaine.”

  “Oh, my dear sergeant, that is well above your pay grade, I am afraid.” The inspector straightened his tie and plastered a sickly smile on his face. “I myself shall visit with Lord Fergus. You, Sergeant Cummings, will be overseeing your men and ensuring that they find the duchess. Oh, and a word of warning… Do not let her escape again, or I will hold you personally responsible.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The greenhouse in the back gardens of the Campbell town house had always been a favorite place of Connie’s to spend time with Amelie. The sweet scent and vivid colors from all the flowers inside couldn’t help but brighten her mood, no matter how bad things had seemed.