Jean Barrett - White Wedding

Lane decided she didn’t want to remain in the room. She couldn’t bear another minute of this empty waiting. She went out into the foyer and stood at the bottom of the massive staircase, listening. Silence.

She turned away and noticed that the door to the Viking banquet hall hadn’t been closed. The room was too cavernous to be adequately heated. Cold air from the place invaded the foyer. Lane went to shut the door, and instead found herself venturing into the great room.

The soaring, raftered hall was a well of darkness. Her hand groped for a light switch on the wall inside the entrance. She failed to find one. It didn’t matter. There was a kind of grilled hatch in the wall that backed up to the library. Light from the library on the other side spilled a weak glow into the hall. It was just sufficient enough to permit her to make out the nearest objects in the gloom.

Lane could see the poinsettias massed on the long table. She could also make out an enormous sideboard where Teddy Brewster had arranged a collection of Father Christmases garlanded with holly and ivy. They were another depressing reminder to her that this was Christmas Eve. The members of the house party were supposed to be in the lounge drinking punch, decorating the tree, sharing a lively anticipation for tomorrow’s wedding. Instead, they were dealing with murder.

It wasn’t the cold in the hall that made her shiver. It was the sight of the poinsettias on the table. They were as red as blood.

Mistake, she thought. I should never have wandered in here.

Lane turned sharply and started to leave. Instead, she collided with a shadowy figure who had slipped in behind her. She gasped with alarm, prepared to scream the house down, as a pair of hands reached out and gripped her by both arms.

“Easy,” muttered a deep voice.

He was no more than a silhouette against the light from the foyer. But she recognized that rich baritone. Though she hated to admit it, she was immediately reassured.

“Jack! You might have warned me instead of sneaking up on me like that.”

“Sorry. I didn’t know it was you I was investigating in here until you turned around.”

“Then you had no reason to grab me.”

“I wasn’t grabbing. I was steadying.”

His hands were still on her arms, and the sensation of his strong fingers scalding her flesh was decidedly unsettling.

“Well, you can un steady me now.”

She could sense his reluctance as he slowly released her. “What are you doing in here, anyway?”

“Just waiting for an all clear from the search party. Where are the others?”

“Still playing hide-and-seek upstairs. I got tired of the game.”

“Did you find anything?”

“Yeah, a hell of a lot of dust bunnies.”

She hadn’t expected otherwise. “Then can I go to my room? I don’t know about you, but I’m ex—”

She never finished her plea. Jack silenced her with a shake of his head and a rapid finger against his mouth. She noticed that his attention was suddenly riveted on something over her shoulder. Her head swiveled in bewilderment, and then she saw it, too.

The lighted opening revealed someone stealing into the library on the other side, carefully closing the lounge door behind him. There was a definite furtiveness about the scene framed by the glowing hatch.

Jack seized her by the hand and drew her quietly toward the light.

“What are you doing?” she murmured.

“It’s called spying,” he whispered.

“You can’t,” she whispered back.

He ignored her warning. “This is far enough,” he breathed into her ear. “There’s glass under that grille and no light on this side. If we’re careful, he’ll never know we’re here.”

Lane decided not to challenge him any further. The activity in the next room was far too intriguing. The figure that had slipped into the library was Chris Beaver.

They watched him as he moved swiftly to the open bookshelves. From a cabinet underneath, he extracted a thick volume, which he placed on a table directly in line with their view of the room. It wasn’t until he began flipping through its pages that Lane recognized the book as a photo album. He found what he was seeking seconds later. From its clear, protective envelope he removed a sizable snapshot. Lane, holding her breath, saw him grimly study the photograph for a long minute. From this angle and distance, there was no way to identify the subject.

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