Okay, so I’ve exaggerated a little bit. He didn’t exactly grab my shoulder. But he definitely put his hand on it to stop me. And the hand over my mouth was too gentle and careful to say that it clamped. My nerves were stretched so tight, though, that both of those things felt like that, and I would have let out a holler they could have heard back in Atlanta if I hadn’t had a hand over my mouth. I jerked free and whirled around, ready to fight.
“Don’t, Delilah,” Will Burke said in an urgent whisper. “It’s just me.”
My heart was hammering like John Henry on steroids. I stared at Will and opened and closed my mouth without saying anything several times until I realized that I probably looked like a fish. With an effort, I got my breathing under control and managed to stop staring bug-eyed at him. That whole fight-or-flight thing was right; when I spun around I’d been ready to either start throwing punches or run for my life.
When I was able to talk again I leaned closer to him and hissed, “What in the Sam Hill are you doin’ out here?”
Will smiled, which made me want to smack him all over again. “I could ask you the same question. We’re fellow skulkers.”
“Yeah, well, I was about to go talk to Lieutenant Farraday.”
“What happened to the deputies?”
“I figure he’s got them all downstairs, searching for clues. Telling us that they were going to stand guard up here all night was just a bluff so folks would stay put in their rooms.”
He thought it over and then nodded, evidently agreeing with my logic. “Yeah, that’s probably right.” He paused. “Or maybe the lieutenant’s trying to lure the killer back out into the open.”
I frowned. “Are you sayin’—”
“No, of course not. I don’t think you’re the killer. I’m just not sure it’s a good idea for either of us to be out wandering around in the hall, under the circumstances.”
“You haven’t told me yet what you’re doing here,” I pointed out.
He chuckled. “I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I told you I was looking for a midnight snack.”
The look I gave him was all the answer he needed.
“This is an old house,” Will whispered. “No matter how quiet you try to be, the floor makes some noises now and then. I thought I heard someone go by in the hall, and something about it seemed more…stealthy, I guess you’d say…than if it was just one of the deputies. So I decided to take a look, and sure enough, I saw that red hair of yours.”
“I didn’t hear you come out of your room.”
He shrugged. “I’m light on my feet.”
I didn’t know whether to believe him or not, but one of the nearby doors stood open, which seemed to back up his story. I supposed I was willing to accept it.
Like me, Will was wearing pajamas and a robe. His weren’t silk and didn’t have any lace around the collar, of course, but still, the nightclothes and the fact that we were standing out in the hall whispering in the middle of the night gave the whole situation a definite feeling of intimacy. I liked that in a way—it had been a while since I’d had any sort of middle-of-the-night conversation with a man—but it made me nervous, too. I had met Will Burke less than twelve hours earlier; we sure as heck shouldn’t have been to the pajama buddies stage yet.
“Well, now that you know what’s going on, you can go back to bed,” I told him, “and I’ll go find the lieutenant.”
“I’ll come with you,” Will suggested.
“There’s no need for that.”
“Don’t forget there was a murder here tonight. Even with all the cops nearby, I’d feel better if you weren’t walking around by yourself.”
“I appreciate the concern, but I don’t need you to protect me. I can take care of myself just fine.”
“I’m sure you can, but there’s such a thing as being too stubbornly independent.”
My eyes widened again, but with anger this time, not surprise and fear. “Are you callin’ me stubborn?” I demanded.
“Well…aren’t you?”
I jabbed a finger at him. “Yeah, but that’s not the point. You and I barely know each other. But like all the rest of you Southern men, you figure that I’m just a fragile little female who needs lookin’ after by some big strong redneck—”
“I’m not your ex-husband, Delilah,” he broke in. “I don’t know if that’s the way he treated you or not, but either way, I’m not him.”
I stood there taking deep breaths, trying to bring my anger under control. “How’d you know I was divorced?” I asked after a moment. “I don’t recall mentioning that.”
“You didn’t. But you said that Luke is your son-in-law, which means you have a grown daughter. You don’t wear a wedding ring, which you probably still would if you were widowed. I can see the untanned line on your finger where one used to be, though. It was just a guess that you were divorced, but I thought it was a pretty good one.”
“Who the heck are you, Sherlock Holmes?”
A smile lurked around the corners of his mouth again. “I’m right, though, aren’t I?”
“Yeah, yeah, but for your information, Dan didn’t treat me the way I was talkin’ about. Not often, anyway, even though he might’ve liked to.”
“I can understand why he wouldn’t, with your temper. That red hair—”
I lifted a finger again. “Don’t you say it. Just don’t you say it.”
Will held up both hands, palms out in surrender. “Sorry. I’ll make a note of that for future reference. Don’t equate hair color with temper.”
“I reckon you are smart enough to be a professor. Maybe.”
“But I still think I ought to go with you. Just in case.”
With a sigh, I gave up. I didn’t want to stand around in the hall arguing with him all night, not when Elliott Riley was looking better and better to me as the killer, especially if I could figure out why he’d had that knife with him.
Or maybe Kelley had had the knife, and the murderer had taken it away from him….
That would bear some thinking about, too. I whispered to Will, “All right, if you’re gonna insist, then come on.”
I halfway expected either Lieutenant Farraday or one of the deputies to show up anytime and shoo us back into our rooms, but we reached the stairs without running into anybody. Looking down the grand, curving staircase with its elaborately carved banister and the portraits of previous generations of Ralstons on the wall, I didn’t see anybody.
Will and I were about to start down when I heard the sound of angry voices somewhere above us. I couldn’t make out the words, but I thought there were two voices and that they belonged to a man and a woman.
Will must have heard them, too, and realized why I stopped short at the top of the stairs, because he put his mouth close to my ear and asked, “Who’s that?”
I shook my head to indicate that I didn’t know.
“Should we find out?”
He was asking if I thought we should play detective. I had already been leaning in that direction because I wanted this mess cleared up before it did too much damage to my fledgling business. And, to be honest, because I was curious. Like I said, I guess I’m just a natural-born snoop. Maybe all mothers are, to a certain extent. When our kids reach a certain age, they make us work like detectives to find out what’s going on in their lives, and some of us never get out of the habit, I suppose.
So I hesitated only a moment before I nodded in response to Will’s question and inclined my head toward the stairs that led up instead of down.
As we climbed them, staying close to the wall so that the steps were less likely to squeak under our weight, I felt nervousness tingling along my veins. I didn’t know what we’d find up there on the third floor. Some of the tour guests were staying there, and the Ralston family quarters were on that floor, too. And just because there were no deputies in the hall on the second floor, it didn’t mean there wouldn’t be any upstairs. If Will and I kept this up, we ran the risk of getting into trouble with Lieutenant Farraday.
Of course, the man already considered me a murder suspect, and he had the whole lot of us under house arrest, pretty much, so how much more trouble could I get into, I asked myself.
As we followed the curving staircase and neared the third-floor landing, the voices became more distinct. “I tell you, it’s none of your business,” I heard a woman say. Her voice was just familiar enough so that I knew I’d heard it before, but I couldn’t place whom it belonged to.
That wasn’t the case with the voice that replied, “And I tell you, it most certainly is my business.” I would have known those plummy, slightly British tones anywhere.
Recognizing Edmond Ralston’s voice tipped me off that the other one belonged to his daughter Janice. I motioned for Will to stay where he was and went up another step, craning my neck to try to see down the third-floor corridor.
Ralston’s quarters were on the left at the far end of the hall; his daughter’s were across the hall. Both of them had spacious suites. I had discovered that earlier when I was working with Ralston and Farraday, figuring out the accommodations. Ralston had said nothing about a wife and I hadn’t seen any evidence of one, so I assumed he was either divorced or a widower. And Janice was either an only child or the only one still living here on the plantation, because there were no siblings around.
The hall was empty except for Ralston, who stood in front of the door to his daughter’s suite. Janice faced him in the open doorway, with one hand on the edge of the door itself. She had changed into a nightgown, but Ralston still wore the costume he’d had on earlier, during the ball.
Even at this distance, I could tell that Janice’s eyes were red and puffy, like she’d been crying. And I could hear the strain in her voice as she told her father, “Just go away and leave me alone.”
“It’s just that I hate to see you suffering so over that…that disreputable…weasel!”
Janice took a step toward him. “Don’t call him that! You have no right to judge him. You don’t know what he was really like.”
“I know he was married,” Ralston said coldly. “And so do you.”
I became aware that Will Burke had edged up beside me, even though I had told him to stay back. That came as no surprise, since I didn’t really have the right to boss him around. He gave me a look of surprise as we both digested Ralston’s comment.
“As far as I’m concerned, you’re well rid of him,” Ralston went on. “Whoever killed that bastard did you a favor, my dear.”
Janice’s hand flashed up and cracked across her father’s face in an angry slap. Ralston didn’t hesitate. He slapped her. Janice gasped in pain and shock and put a hand to her face as she took a step backward.
Ralston reached out to her. “Janice, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. It was just a reaction—”
She closed the door in his face, hard enough so that it was just short of a slam. Ralston stood there staring at the door for a long moment, then shook his head heavily and turned away toward his own rooms across the hallway.
Will and I both sunk down quickly, sitting on the steps, as Ralston started to turn. It would have been pretty embarrassing if he had caught us spying on him—which was exactly what we’d been doing, of course. We sat there listening to his footsteps, and I don’t know about Will but I was sure hoping that Ralston wouldn’t come this way and start down the stairs. If he did, there was no place for us to hide.
He went into his suite instead, closing the door behind him. I breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed slightly. As I did, I became aware of how closely Will and I were huddled together on the step. My leg was pressed against his. I didn’t figure I could move it without being too obvious about what I was doing, so I left it where it was for the time being.
“Kelley was carryin’ on with Janice Ralston, too,” I whispered. “Were there any women on this plantation he wasn’t foolin’ around with?”
“I don’t know, but from the sound of it, Mr. Ralston wasn’t happy about the situation.”
“Did you know about Kelley and Janice?”
Will shook his head. “No. They must have been pretty discreet. And you saw Janice earlier, after the murder. She didn’t act like somebody who was all broken up about Kelley’s death.” He grunted. “She’s an even better actress than I thought she was, but she could only keep up the façade for so long. Once she was alone, it was too much for her.”
“Her daddy knew about it, though, and he didn’t like it.”
Will looked intently at me. “What are you thinking, Delilah?”
I said, “I’m just wonderin’ how far Edmond Ralston would go to break up a romance between his teenage daughter and a married man with the habit of sleepin’ with everything in a hoop skirt.”