I sent Ruan back to the house with instructions to get a message to Hari, my solicitor, and ask him to find out everything he could about Elijah Keene and his whereabouts. Above all, I needed them both to be discreet. A man seeing to his affairs would not be considered out of the ordinary—but with the inspector already convinced of my involvement in Lucy’s death, I needed to keep my head down as best I could. If anyone could find the current whereabouts of Elijah Keene, it would be Hari. He was a brilliant solicitor and one of the few people in this world I trusted with my life. I might not always like what he had to say, but Hari had never steered me wrong. Nor had he ever been wrong—even when I sometimes wished him to be.
I had no solid evidence as to what was going on here, besides that Lucy—or someone—wanted us all on the estate. I wasn’t even convinced that the person who wrote the letter to Mr. Owen was Lucy at all, and if that wasn’t the case—then who did lure us here? And why cover up the séance—or whatever it was Lucy was doing out here the night she died?
Any clues she might have left behind would be long gone by now. I shoved the little blob of wax into my pocket and darted back to the house in search of Andrew, hoping that he remained on estate grounds. He’d been here immediately after Lucy died. Perhaps he’d seen something that might be useful.
ANDREW WAS IN the ruins when I returned to the castle, sitting on the top of a broken-off staircase, using his uninjured leg to steady his notepad. He was sketching something in charcoal. His eyes darting from the page, to the top of the ramparts, then back down. His fingers were smudged from the tiny bit of pencil in his hand as he captured the ruins of Manhurst on paper. This castle had burnt centuries ago and instead of rebuilding it where it stood the Campbells erected the great manor house next door. The keep and some of the outer wall were all that remained of the fifteenth-century stronghold that once proudly stood here in the Scottish borders, a first line of defense against the English. The air smelled strange. Old and acrid, with the scent of decay.
“I’m surprised you haven’t left.”
He looked up at me through those familiar warm brown eyes. “Haven’t you heard? None of us can leave until they find the killer.”
I sighed, shielding my sight from the bright midday sun. “I hadn’t, but I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise. They suspect you too?”
He returned to his sketching, not looking at me as his fingers flew over the page making quick hash marks. “They must. Though they’ve questioned everyone—even my father. Serves the old bastard right for coming here that night. Now he’s stuck with Uncle Owen.” Andrew let out a cynical laugh and sighed. “What is it that brings you out here, Miss Vaughn?”
“Am I that obvious?”
He paused. “You’ve sought me out in the ruins, so yes. I daresay you are quite obvious.”
“You are very like him, has anyone told you that?”
“Owen? All the time. Much to my father’s dismay. Father used to bring me here when I was a boy. Our family had always been close to the Campbells. I wonder how long it will be before this ruin finally tumbles the rest of the way down.”
My shoes crunched on the tall grass as I took a step closer to him, as if the ghosts of this old place might overhear. A part of me didn’t want to disturb him from his drawing, but another part needed answers. “Do you recall the night I pulled Lucy from the lake?”
Andrew set his sketchbook down with a sigh and cocked his head to one side. “I don’t very much think I’d forget—why?”
“You found the revolver.”
He peered behind me toward the earthen bridge leading into the ruins. His jaw tightened. “You should not speak of it.”
“Did you see anything else when you were there? Candles, a salt circle … anything at all? The reason I ask is that when I jumped into the lake, there had been lit candles. A salt circle. Strange drawings in…” My eyes drifted to the charcoal in his hands, then I brushed the thought away. “I think she was trying to do something on the bridge. But the inspector says that when they arrived there was no evidence of that.”
Andrew leaned back, rubbing his fingers together to remove the smudges. “I don’t believe so. I think I’d have noticed candles had they been lit. I did not to go to the bridge though, I was down by the water—where you left her.”
“You never went to the bridge?”
He shook his head. “Why would I?”
My pulse sped as the words did not want to come. “But you found the revolver.”
“Of course. It was beside her body at the water’s edge. In the high grass.”
I had left the revolver with my coat on the bridge, right by the salt circle and candles. For it to be down by the water by the time Andrew arrived at the lake meant only one thing. Whoever killed Lucy Campbell was still there when I pulled her from the water. They’d killed her and stayed to watch her sink to the bottom of the lake.
The thought gave me pause. “Did you see anyone there on your way out or going back?”
He shook his head. “No. But at the same time I was more concerned with why my uncle’s gun was lying beside a dead woman.”
“You have a point.”
He leaned forward, taking my arm and leaving a dark smudge on my lavender sleeve. “You must take this seriously, Miss Vaughn. Someone killed Lucy Campbell, and whoever it is fully intended to frame my uncle for it.”
The words struck me in the stomach. “You cannot think they’d suspect him? He’s eighty years old!”
“What else am I to think when I found his revolver beside her?”
“Unless whoever did it wanted you to find it. Perhaps as a warning?” I gnawed on the inside of my cheek before shaking my head. No, that didn’t make sense either. The killer could not have known that Andrew Lennox would be the first to see the body—he wasn’t even supposed to be on the estate at all.
It’s just as well that Andrew took the gun from the scene—of course doing so meant that the inspector found only my things there. I blew out a breath and swore loudly. Considering how badly the inspector wanted me to be guilty of the crime, it was only a matter of time before he manufactured enough evidence to arrest me.
Which meant that I needed to figure out who killed Lucy Campbell. And I had to do it fast.