CHAPTER TWENTY

Carmen

As soon as I leave the police station, the rain comes down in thick sheets, pelting Asher’s car, the wind swaying the trees in the distance. I’m grateful at least that the top was up on his convertible when I took it.

I lean forward, struggling to see out of the windshield through the water pouring down the glass, my knuckles white as my fingers grip the steering wheel. In Havana, my parents employed a driver, so even though I know how to drive, it’s a skill I’ve had little chance to perfect. When I borrowed Asher’s car, the weather was placid. I should have known it could all turn on a dime.

I ease my foot off the gas, the sporty vehicle fishtailing along the road. I pull back against the wheel, narrowly avoiding Asher’s car careening into the ditch on the roadside.

My heart pounds.

Is it possible—is Michael Harrison somehow involved in all of this? Lenora’s necklace changes things—linking the past and the present—but I just don’t see how she could be connected to Carolina’s death. It feels like I’m missing some important piece of information, some part of the history that has remained hidden all this time.

The convertible hits a flooded patch of road, sliding for a few yards before I’m able to regain control, terror filling me.

I glance to the left, looking for the entrance to Marbrisa, searching for the iron gates. It’s nearly impossible to see anything in this rain, the unfamiliar area compounding the difficulty.

For a moment, I consider just pulling over to the side of the road and waiting out the weather, but in my time here I’ve learned that storms can last minutes or hours with no predictability between them.

There it is.

In the distance, I can see the entrance’s reflection bouncing off the car’s headlights.

Relief fills me.

I maneuver the car off the roadway, wishing Asher had purchased something sturdier than this flighty vehicle that skitters over the various bumps in the road.

I pass through the estate’s iron gates, the rain coming down harder now, the visibility so poor that I can barely see the house looming ahead.

The palm trees bend on either side of me, their shadows in the moonlight looking a bit like towering monsters.

Lightning flashes ahead, the house coming into view at the end of the long driveway.

Nathaniel’s green convertible is still parked in front.

Thunder rolls, the loud booms shaking Asher’s car and chattering my teeth.

There’s a light on in one of the downstairs windows; at least we haven’t lost power. Hopefully, it’ll stay on long enough for me to pack a bag to take to the Biltmore, although at the moment, I can’t imagine going back out into this night.

Something darts in front of the car, so quickly that there’s no time for me to slam on the brakes.

I turn the wheel abruptly, the car lurching forward and veering to the side. I try to recover, to keep the car from spinning out of control, but it’s too late, and I lose my grip on the steering wheel, the convertible careening toward a tree.

I slam on the brakes.

I’m thrown forward, my head bashing the steering wheel as the convertible’s front bumper slams into one of the mighty palms.

A sharp pain stabs me in the forehead.

For a moment, I pause, struggling to catch my breath, my heart pounding. My neck is sore, and my back aches. Thankfully, I wasn’t going fast; I hate to think what would have happened to me if I had been.

The hood of the car is smashed up against the base of the palm tree, smoke coming out of the engine. There’s a huge vertical crack in the windshield.

Asher is going to kill me.

I feel something sticky on my forehead and I reach up, touching my forehead, staring down at my fingers that are wet with blood.

Sure enough, when I look at my reflection in the rearview mirror, there’s a gash from where I hit my head on the steering wheel. I gingerly probe it, relieved to see that it doesn’t look too deep.

I lean forward, reaching for the glove box, looking for a handkerchief or something I can use to stanch the bleeding.

My hands close around something heavy, metal—

A flashlight.

Thank God Asher is prepared.

There’s a first aid kit as well, and I grab it—

My hands brush against something else.

Cold metal.

I pull it out by the hilt.

There’s a knife in Asher’s glove box.

I study the blade dispassionately, as though it’s perfectly innocuous, as if there’s a wholly logical reason that there’s a knife in my brother-in-law’s car.

There’s dried blood on the blade.

The knife begins shaking, and it isn’t until I blink a few times, clearing the tears from my eyes, that I realize it isn’t the knife shaking, but the hand that’s holding it.

I know with a terrible certainty that rattles my bones that this is the knife that killed my sister.

The police arrested Asher. They’ve been searching Marbrisa for days now without any sign of the weapon. There’s no possibility Detective Pierce wouldn’t have searched Asher’s car.

It couldn’t have been here when the police searched the property, which means either Asher moved the knife after they searched Marbrisa or someone is framing him.

I slip the knife and the flashlight into my purse, using the contents of the first aid kit to patch the wound on my forehead.

I need to tell Detective Pierce what I’ve found.

I wrench open the car door, the rain pelting me as I step out. The front of Asher’s car is completely crumpled, the tree the clear victor in the scuffle. There’s no hope of me driving the rest of the driveway to the house. I’ll have to make a run for it. At least I’m on the property and not back there on the road. On a night like this, I doubt many people are out for a drive.

I walk around to see what I swerved to avoid hitting.

An alligator stares back at me, its scaly, ridged body illuminated by the car’s one working headlight.

The alligator is still for a moment, a standoff between us, and I imagine it’s contemplating its next move, deciding whether it’s going to have me for dinner.

I pray it has already eaten.

If I had to outrun it, would I be faster?

I glance back at the main house, judging the distance I still must go, the rain showing no signs of lightening. I take a deep breath—

The alligator turns away, scampering toward the forest.

I don’t wait for it to change its mind as I head toward the house, my legs pumping as fast as they can carry me, the rain beating down on my back, soaking my dress so that the wet fabric sticks to my legs.

I hurry past Nathaniel’s parked car, wincing at the pain in my head.

The front door is unlocked, and I head inside, shutting it behind me swiftly.

I close my eyes as I lean back against the front door for a moment, out of breath from my dash down the long driveway, adrenaline flooding my body.

There’s a stillness to the house that makes me feel very alone. The household staff don’t live here, which is probably the only thing that kept them from quitting. I don’t think there’s enough money in the world to convince them to stay overnight, considering everything that has happened in this house.

Despite Nathaniel’s car parked outside, when I strain to hear sounds of life—footsteps or voices—I am greeted by silence instead. I open my mouth to announce my presence, but something catches my voice, some warning in the recesses of my mind telling me it’s safer to keep myself hidden.

I push my wet hair off my face, shivering slightly as I walk toward the library. I remember seeing a phone on Asher’s desk the night we spoke.

I turn on the light, grateful that we still have power.

The grandfather clock chimes eight o’clock in the evening.

I rush over to the desk and set my bag down. I pull the knife out, staring at the weapon. It’s unremarkable as far as knives go—it’s neither ornately fine nor roughly hewn. The blade is eight inches give or take. I place it next to the phone, my fingers trembling with the motion. I can’t look away from the spots of Carolina’s blood on the blade.

I feel like I’m going to be sick.

Outside, the storm rages.

I pick up the phone—

“What happened to your face?”

I glance up.

Nathaniel stands near the library door, his gaze on my forehead.

“Were you attacked?” he asks, rushing toward the desk.

“No. I was driving. The car—I was in an accident.”

Halfway through my answer, I realize he’s no longer paying any attention to me at all. Instead, he’s staring down at the desk.

“Where did you find that? Is that . . . ?”

I swallow. “Yes. I think so.”

My fingers itch to pick up the blade, to offer me some protection. I don’t know who I can trust anymore.

“How did you get that?” Nathaniel asks me.

“I drove Asher’s car earlier. After the accident, I was looking for a first aid kit in his glove box. I found this instead.”

He moves closer, his body crowding me, only a few feet between us.

“May I?” he asks, gesturing toward the knife.

I pick it up.

I don’t hand it to him.

Instead, I grip the handle, my knuckles white, the blade pointed toward Nathaniel.

He freezes mid-step.

“Asher told me he let you go,” I say. “What are you still doing here?”

“I was worried. About you. About Asher. It didn’t feel right leaving both of you with Carolina’s murderer at large. Especially after Asher was arrested. I didn’t want you to be by yourself at the house.”

It’s plausible enough, but I still don’t lower the knife.

“The day I arrived at Marbrisa, I saw Carolina meeting a man in the greenhouse from my bedroom window.”

He makes an impatient noise. “She was with me, Nancy Drew.”

My heart pounds. “Were you having an affair with Carolina?”

“No. Of course not. One, it would be unspeakably unprofessional, and you can believe whatever you want about me, but I take my job very seriously. Not to mention, your sister never showed the slightest interest in me. If anything, she always seemed annoyed by my presence. And as lovely as she was, I wasn’t interested either. Besides I never would have done that to Asher. Not only was he my employer, but I like him well enough. He doesn’t deserve to be cuckolded in his own house—not that the opportunity ever presented itself.”

As far as denials go, it’s about as sweeping as they get.

“Why don’t you trust me?” he asks me.

There’s a thread of annoyance in his voice, as though his professional integrity is piqued by the fact that I won’t accept the veracity of his words.

“You tried to be charming when I met you.”

“Asher told me Carolina’s little sister was coming to Marbrisa. Of course I tried to be charming. I thought that if I was charming, you would like me, and if you liked me, you might be more inclined to cooperate with me, to feed me information. I had a job to do.”

“I didn’t find you to be charming. I figured you were being dishonest.”

“Thank you for the tip. I’ll work on my acting skills next time.”

“Why were you meeting my sister at the greenhouse?”

“I wasn’t meeting her, per se. I was talking to some of the gardening staff. Two weeks before the peacock, Asher found a dead alligator in the front driveway. I was investigating. Carolina and I just happened to cross paths. She wanted to talk to me. I think she had figured out what I was really doing at Marbrisa. She didn’t come out and say it as such—she was never as direct as you—but she heavily intimated it.”

“What did she want to talk to you about? The alligator? Asher?”

He takes a deep breath. “Do you ever give a person a moment to breathe? It’s hard to think around you.” He glances back up at my forehead. “You really should get that looked at.”

“I tried cleaning it up with the first aid kit in the car. It was dark. I couldn’t see.”

This time he does move, coming around the desk until we’re inches away from each other.

I don’t let go of the knife, but I don’t stab him with it, either.

He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket, dabbing at the blood on my forehead, his touch surprisingly gentle.

“Carolina had questions about Anna Barnes. And Lenora Watson.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Because Asher told me to keep you safe. Because you’re what, eighteen, nineteen years old?”

I flush. “Almost nineteen.”

“This is serious.” Nathaniel removes the handkerchief from my forehead, staring at the wound before he takes a step back, putting some distance between us, seemingly satisfied with his handiwork. “Your sister was murdered. I don’t want you getting more involved in this. I promised Asher I would keep you safe.”

“Carolina and I were the last Acostas. Our parents are gone. We have no family save for distant cousins that frankly never wanted much to do with us. I feel a responsibility to see my sister’s murder avenged, and right now, I’m not sure the police are following the right leads. They’ve arrested Asher, and now, somehow, conveniently, this knife shows up in his glove box even though the police likely searched it.”

“I agree with you. Asher isn’t dumb.”

“No, he isn’t. Help me. Help me understand why my sister was asking about the past.”

“I don’t know. Honestly. I wish I could tell you more. She wanted to know if I thought that Lenora’s and Anna’s deaths were connected.” He hesitates. “She was worried about you. About you coming here with everything that was happening. She asked me to investigate a possible connection between the two women.”

“Did you?”

“I put in some calls, trying to learn more about Lenora Watson. I didn’t get very far before Carolina was killed.”

His expression is filled with regret.

It feels as though I’m meeting him anew, the character he was pretending to be in the dining room the night we first crossed paths giving way to something more sincere.

I’m in too deep.

I need someone I can trust.

I set the knife down.

Nathaniel leans over it, studying it. “That certainly looks like the murder weapon. Have you ever seen it before this evening?”

I shake my head.

“You aren’t the first person to tell me that Carolina was asking about Anna’s and Lenora’s deaths.” I fill him in on my conversation with Detective Pierce and what I learned about the necklace. “I think what was happening at Marbrisa in the past is connected to what’s happening now. And I think Carolina figured it out before anyone else. I think that’s why she was killed.”

“We need to tell Detective Pierce about the knife,” Nathaniel says.

“I was just about to call him when you burst in.”

I pick up the phone, holding the receiver between us so we can both hear the call. I ask the operator to put me in contact with the police department, with Detective Pierce.

We wait for Detective Pierce to come on the line, my hands wrapped tight around the phone. My mind is racing.

I keep thinking about what Detective Pierce said to me, about how the murderer is likely the person who has the most to gain.

What am I missing?

What did Carolina figure out that I haven’t yet?

My sister was incredibly clever, and I wish she could speak to me now, could help me see what I can’t.

“Hello?” Detective Pierce asks, coming onto the line.

The connection is terrible, no doubt because of the storm, but I can just make out his voice.

“I found the murder weapon.”

Static fills the line.

“Detective Pierce?”

There’s silence and then—

“How? Where?”

I fill him in on the accident, on the knife in the glove box, Nathaniel interjecting beside me occasionally, with a question or statement of his own.

Static fills the line once more.

“. . . Marbrisa.”

I can hear the urgency in Detective Pierce’s voice, but it’s too difficult to understand what he’s saying, bits and pieces of our conversation snatched away by the poor connection.

“What did you say?” I ask.

“Sit tight. I’m coming—”

Silence fills the line.

“Detective Pierce?”

The sky explodes in a bright light followed by a sharp crack of thunder that makes my bones shake.

Marbrisa plunges into darkness.