TOUCHING SHADOWS: Book One of The Scroll of Shadows Trilogy.

TOUCHING SHADOWS: Part 7

I’d expected chaos in my room and wasn’t disappointed. Crystal had been thorough.

Every item of clothing I owned had been strewn around the room, most of it shredded. Pillows, their stuffing frothing out like white cotton candy, lay slit and scattered. Everything from my dressing table was now distributed over the carpet. A crack ran from one side of the mirror to the other. The photograph had been flung away—as I’d seen it when I touched the knife downstairs—ripped, and with its glass shattered. Lucky I still had a copy on my laptop.

The one irreplaceable item lay in the middle of the torn-up bed. I picked my way across the broken glass of perfume and moisturizer bottles to where the remains spread across the mutilated bedspread innards ruptured and spilling out. One eye missing.

Charles had bought me the huge stuffed donkey the day he’d learned he was dying, a reminder, he’d told me in exasperated wrath, that “life’s too short for you to be such a stubborn little ass.” When I’d refused that night—for the second time—to marry him, he’d named it Megan. When he’d asked plaintively if I really wanted our child to grow up a bastard, and proposed a third time, I’d called it Charles. Now it lay there looking how I felt.

Gutted.

The carnage blurred behind a wash of tears. How dared she? How dared she do this?

A sharp, indrawn breath from the doorway made me blink back the bubbling emotion. Nan Appleby, Charles’s housekeeper, stood quivering at the threshold.

“The wicked girl!” she said. “The wicked, wicked girl.” And the spleen behind the words made me extremely glad they weren’t aimed at me.

“I came to get a few things for the night, but I don’t think—” I gave the room a quick once-over. “I can’t see much left to wear.” To my embarrassment, my voice cracked on the last word.

“No indeed,” Mrs. Appleby said, suddenly brisk. “And we both know how much you enjoy shopping.”

She must have seen the unguarded horror on my face at the prospect because she smiled grimly, nodded as though I’d passed some test, and continued. “But that’s for tomorrow. In the meantime, today’s clean laundry has been taken to the Blue Room. There’s a nightdress, underwear for the morning. Your jeans, of course. Oh, and the beautiful lavender silk blouse Mr. Charles brought back from China. The cleaners delivered it this afternoon. It’s as well young Alice was running behind today or it would have been hanging in your wardrobe.” Her teeth flashed between a wry twist of lips. “But I don’t intend to tell her. Now, you need to relax with a hot cup of tea and one of those nice murder mysteries of yours. I’ll put your mail”—she indicated the pile of letters in her hand—“in the Blue Room for you.”

“Thank you.” I rubbed the heel of my hand over my cheekbones, flicking moisture away, impatient with the weakness. At least Crystal hadn’t thought to attack my books with the knife. She probably didn’t think of reading as a pleasure.

I hauled myself to my feet and had taken two steps toward the shelves when Kendall appeared in the doorway. “I’m sorry, Miss Megan, but there is a Detective Inspector Chan downstairs. She would like to see you, if it’s convenient.”

Chapter Four

They’d found Rheda Flynn’s body where I’d seen it through the painting, wrapped in tarpaulin and walled behind fresh brick and plaster in her studio—a renovated stable. They also found a forgery of the El Greco there, slashed beyond repair.

No wonder Montford had cracked. Had he truly believed he’d destroyed the fake? Or had there been enough doubt for him to need to bring the painting in for verification? I guessed I’d never be certain.