Chapter 6

Reese Evers was the first to react. She screamed and ran down the steps to Win. She knelt beside him and grabbed his shirtfront.

“Win, darling, are you all right?” she asked.

He didn’t respond. The crowd stood frozen in place, waiting to see if he was hurt.

“Let me through, I’m a surgeon.” A man pushed his way through the people. He was short and stout with an abrupt manner and a forceful look that had everyone stepping out of his way. He knelt down beside Reese and began to examine Win.

He checked his pulse, his heartbeat, the rise and fall of his chest. He ran his hands over him, pausing at his eye and then he moved Win’s head to the side and examined his neck. The doctor sat back on his heels.

He glanced up at Tyler. I could see Tyler’s jaw was tight and he’d gone a pasty shade of gray even in the warm firelight.

“I’m sorry, Tyler, he’s dead,” the doctor said.

Reese emitted a scream that made the marrow in my bones shiver. It was the most mournful sound I’d ever heard as if Win had been forcefully ripped away from her, but then, I suppose he had.

Harrison went to step forward but Alistair grabbed him by the arm, stopping him. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, mate, for either of us.”

“I don’t care,” Harrison said. Bright red splotches appeared on his cheeks and I could see the rapid rise and fall of his chest. “If I did this—”

“No!” Alistair said. “Absolutely not. He was fine when I turned him over to the girls in the kitchen for some ice, I swear. He was still pissed from too much drink and angry that I’d halted the fight, but that’s it. I promise you he was fine.”

“Still, he was my colleague,” Harrison said. “I have to help however I can.”

He turned and pushed his way through the crowd. I didn’t want him to face this alone, so I hurried after him.

Tyler was on his phone to the police. Price, the butler, and more uniformed house staff were keeping the crowd back. Reese was sobbing on Win’s still form, while Ava stared off into space as if mentally removing herself from the chaos around her.

“Price, let me through,” Harrison ordered.

The butler looked at him and Harrison gave him a look that said he would pick up the smaller man and bodily move him if necessary. He gave Harrison a curt nod and Harrison strode forward. I was about to follow when I was hip checked from the side and sent sprawling into the crowd.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said.

I pushed myself off the poor old man in the bright green jacket that I’d crashed into, and he gave me a bolstering smile that told me I hadn’t harmed any vital parts.

“Not at all, my dear,” he said. “That was the most fun I’ve had in years.”

“Uncle Alvie!” The middle-aged woman beside him shook her head at me as if to say he was incorrigible.

I gave them a weak smile and turned back to join Harrison. It was then that I realized who exactly had bumped me into the crowd. Standing beside Harrison with her arm around him while she sobbed into his handkerchief was Tuesday Blount.

Normally, I am a very even-tempered sort of girl, but if you cross me, I can be very grumpy and a little mean. At the moment, the desire to shove my way into their little group and stomp Tuesday’s skinny little behind was fierce and almost impossible to resist.

“No,” a voice whispered in my ear. “Not now.”

I turned and found Viv beside me. She looped her arm through mine and dragged me through the crowd and back to our cluster of friends.

Andre, who never handles the sight of a corpse well, was doubled over with his head in his hands while Nick had an arm around him whispering soothing words in his ear.

Fee and Alistair were standing up on a concrete garden bench trying to see what was happening.

“Harrison is talking to Tyler,” Alistair reported.

“A woman with dark hair is standing beside him,” Fee said. “She looks upset, very very upset.”

Tuesday. I had no idea what her current relationship with Win was, but I knew exactly what her plans for Harrison’s future were and, boy, didn’t a fallen colleague give her a lot of wiggle room to get back into his life?

“Reese Evers is refusing to get up,” Alistair said. His tone sounded grim. “She’s clutching Win’s jacket. Oh, she just took a swing at the butler when he tried to pull her off.”

“Harrison is helping with her now,” Fee said. “Oh, that’s not good.”

Fee didn’t need to say any more. Reese’s voice carried across the now silent crowd of people.

“This is your fault!” she wailed.

I rose up on my tiptoes and saw her shrieking at Harrison. He was holding her by the arms but I couldn’t tell if it was to hold her up or to keep her from hitting him.

“You always had to be better than him, always had to be smarter, faster, more successful, it was killing him!” Reese cried. “Couldn’t you see that? Didn’t you care? It’s your fault he’s dead. Your fault!” Harrison opened his mouth to speak but she wrenched herself away from him, clearly not wanting to hear what he had to say. I could just see over the heads in front of me enough to see that Tuesday was right there wrapping an arm around Harrison and whispering to him in a speech that I was sure was designed to comfort.

I supposed I should be glad that she was there for him, but I wasn’t. I didn’t trust Tuesday and I didn’t like her and I really didn’t want her to be his source of solace. We were his friends, he needed us not her. Okay, more accurately, he needed me.

“The ambulance has arrived,” Fee announced.

Sure enough, two men and one woman were jogging down the steps toward Win’s body. As they began to work, the crowd was pushed even farther back toward the warmth of the bonfire.

A whistling sound pierced the air and it took me a moment to realize that fireworks were going off. I turned around and looked over the roofs of the neighboring houses and saw a burst of red spark up the sky.

I was torn between thinking it was Winthrop Dashavoy’s essence bursting up into the heavens, melodramatic I suppose but I was stressed, and thinking it was in very poor taste to be looking at fireworks when a man lay dead just fifty feet away.

Several booms sounded and the rest of the crowd turned to watch the fireworks. It was surreal to say the least. I glanced back at Harrison. All of the outside terrace lights had been switched on, illuminating the scene, and I could see that he looked haggard in a way I had never seen before.

The instinct to be with him overrode all common sense. I left my friends and pushed through the crowd. I dodged an old lady and knocked against a young man. I was bullish in my need to get through the crowd. Finally, I broke into the inner circle around Win’s body.

My momentum was such that I couldn’t slow myself down and I fell into the middle of things with a lurch and a groan. A strong arm plucked me up before I hit the ground and I grabbed at it. The sleeve was navy blue wool, scratchy but warm.

When I was set onto my feet, I turned to thank my rescuer and found myself staring into the direct gaze of Detective Inspector Simms.

“Ms. Parker, Scarlett,” he said. “Why am I not surprised to see you here?”

“Uh,” I began but ran out of gas before forming a single coherent word.

“She’s my guest,” Harrison said as he joined us. “It’s a party for our clients, so it’s not at all surprising that she’d be here since she is a client.”

Simms looked at Harrison with a considering look. Even I could see that Harrison’s demeanor was defensive when there was no need for it to be.

“Sorry,” I said. I put my arm around Harrison and hugged him hard. I was relieved when he put his arm on my shoulders and did the same. A united front is always better to present, don’t you think?

“I’m sorry, too,” Harrison said. He extended his free hand to Inspector Simms, who shook it. “It’s good to see you, Inspector. We’re all a bit rattled by the events.”

“Understandable,” Simms said.

I glanced at the other safety officers who had arrived and asked, “Is DI Franks with you?”

“No, he’s on vacation up in York,” Simms said. “He goes this time of year every year. I’ll be taking the lead on this investigation.”

“Investigation?” I asked.

Simms nodded. “It doesn’t take a medical examiner to see that this man was murdered.”

“But he was terribly drunk,” I said. “And he fell down those steps hard. Couldn’t that have killed him?”

Simms shook his head. “The marks on his face and neck indicate otherwise. Clearly, he was in an altercation.”

Harrison and I exchanged a glance. I knew we were both thinking that it was best to get this over with now.

“Actually,” Harrison said on an exhale. “I put those marks on his face, but I never touched his neck.”