Then Comes Murder

A Shot in the Dark (part three)

When Jacob had considered returning to Leverett Hall and the ominous dread with which it had filled him, he had assumed all and any ill-fortune would befall him. He had imagined the death of his own spirit, trapped inside a mausoleum of dangerous memories and ever-present scorn. Jacob had not imagined that true malevolence, dark and brutal murder, would stalk him so closely.

The shock of his father's death was a brief one. Even the most stubborn of men grew old and died, Jacob reasoned. And the old duke had lived a life of excess. An excess of spirits and tobacco and spite. Surely those vices wore away the body and, perhaps, tempted a poisoner's hands. Jacob could not blame a murderer—not when the old Duke was a man who'd done plenty to deserve a soiled, untimely death.

But the sight of his brother, pale and silent on the floor, settled with an incomprehensibility that left Jacob wind-torn and without anchor in his own skin. George was young and hale and loved. His few vices were gentlemanly, sporting even. His manner, while boisterous, was admired. Nefarious or no, there was no acceptable, feasible reason for why George was gone.

It was as if he'd forgotten all the blood and death and suffering he'd seen over the course of his life. Those years toiling through storms, those battles won and lost...they no longer mattered. Jacob had been transported to that time before, when he was his father's favorite whipping boy. When he was small and weak and helpless. Frozen.

Help me!

Somehow that was enough. The terrified pleading from Nora, her determinedness to help when there was no hope to be had woke him, returned him to his body. It was easier to be strong for someone else. For her.

And then it had struck him, sharp and painful. George had run after Charlie. Whoever had shot George had escaped the dark study. Whoever had shot George knew the house's secrets. Knew that there was another way out of the room. Surely Charlie couldn't have been involved...he didn't know the hall's dark secrets like George and Jacob. There had to be another explanation.

Leveret Hall was built by some ancient, paranoid ancestor who'd whittled escapes into the walls. Charlie had been too young to join them, but as children, George and Jacob had been scolded for attempting to explore the ancient and dangerous passages. It'd been so tempting: the house held a trove of secrets and mysteries. George had promised they'd find gold and jewels, pirate maps to buried treasure. For what other reason, beyond adventure and riches, would someone build such a twisted maze?

When caught, they'd been whipped raw for their efforts. Jacob hadn't understood his father's fury. He hadn't understood his mother's harried insistence to tell no one of the secret place between the walls. As an adult, Jacob realized why. The snaking corridors that slipped between rooms secretly connected bedrooms and provided alcoves for eavesdropping. For watching. They provided route for wickedness.

Jacob had never imagined they'd bear an escape for murder.

His heart stuttered in his chest. His mouth ran dry.

He'd never imagined he'd be back in them.

Old memories assailed him with such relentlessness that his hands shook. The walls pushed in around him. The darkness threatened to smother him. He could barely hear the faint conversant of Maxwell and the woman outside the hidden door. 

Get in there, rat!

The ghost of his father's voice rang louder than the hissing voices in the study. Memories drowned out the frantic, hushed discovery. If Maxwell mourned his brother's death, Jacob could not hear it.

Jacob swallowed. He scrambled to focus on anything other than the stuttering of the pulse in his ears, the snaring demons of his childhood. A softer sound called to him.