Labyrinth (4 page)
Authors: Tarah Scott
“We can have dinner tonight.
,” Cat said.
“Perfect.
Gives me loads of time to get into trouble.”
Cat nodded and Margot couldn’t help thinking Cat had lost her sense of humor. Murder did that to a woman.
“You’ll have to keep clear of this wing until after five when the crew clears out,” Cat said. “They pretty much take over the hallways. They don’t want anyone traipsing through the work area. Insurance concerns. You know the drill.”
“I’ll clear out for the day. What time do they arrive?”
“Nine. They’re not early birds. See you later,” she said, and left.
Margot glanced at the clock. 7:01. Construction didn’t start for another two hours.
Plenty of time to take care of unfinished business.
She threw back the covers, sloughed out of her shirt and pajama bottoms, and studied her naked body. She reached between her legs,
then
stopped. Cat hadn't said why she’d come to Margot's room so early.
Chapter Four
Atlantic wind whipped the small notepad Margot scribbled on. Her grip on the Blackberry plastered to her ear tightened as she seized the pad that skittered across the surface of the stone wall where she sat. Knuckles scraped rock and she grimaced.
“You there?”
Bobby Sares’ voice over the Blackberry sounded far away.
“Yeah.”
Margot gave her hand a vigorous shake and sucked on the knuckles as she cast a murderous glance at the sea that stretched out to the horizon. She hadn’t gotten a phone signal at Castle Morrison and had been forced to make a five mile bike ride to
Gearrannan
Blackhouse
Village
. The strong four-bar signal she’d gotten came at the expense of a merciless wind.
“What’s that noise?” Bobby demanded.
“Wind.”
“Jesus,” he muttered.
Margot swung her legs over the wall, dropped to damp ground, and leaned against the hard stone. Making the phone call with the gorgeous view in sight had seemed like a fair trade for the long bike ride. She’d been wrong. How did the people in the village live with the unrelenting wind?
Trying to ignore the dampness seeping from the moss covered ground past her jeans to her panties, she said, “Anything else on Franklin Williams?”
“He’s a big time contractor in
Las Vegas
.”
“A millionaire who came by his money honestly.”
“If you think
any
multi-million dollar businessman in Vegas is honest, I've got a bridge to sell you.”
If anyone could spot a crook, it was Bobby. The forty-two year old ex-bookie ran
Wilkinson
County
’s internet crimes department, officially called the IT department. Bobby didn’t know anything about criminal justice, but knew every computer trick in the book, had even invented a few, and ran rings around the kids coming out of tech schools. Hicks had recruited Bobby under threat of prosecution for felony gambling charges. Bobby had also taken bets in
Louisiana
, which meant he would be charged in both states. He’d faced a lifetime in prison. He almost didn’t take the deal.
Margot liked Bobby, everyone liked Bobby, and everyone knew he ran numbers. In a county with the population of eleven thousand, everyone knew everyone’s business, and butted into everyone’s business. Everyone cared, no one cared. When Hicks offered Bobby the deal, Margot—everyone—figured the chief had finally miscalculated. Even if Bobby agreed, he could find a way to get even.
But Bobby had taken to the job like he’d been born to it. Within the first six months, he’d caught two pedophiles trying to seduce young girls over the internet, shut down the internet gambling ring that had been his competition, even caught a guy making moonshine and selling it over the internet. Bobby was a regular Lone Ranger. Hicks had been right. There was something to be said about having a criminal on the good guys’ side.
Margot jammed ear and shoulder together to hold the phone in place and bent her knees to support the pad so she could jot down
Las Vegas
contractor
beside Franklin Williams’ name. The letter
m
in the twenty-seven million she’d been scribbling trailed off the page with a sudden gust of wind.
“Thanks, Bobby. I really appreciate it.”
“Chief is going to kill you,” he said.
“I don’t work for him anymore.”
Bobby snorted. “That won’t stop him.”
He was right. “You worry about yourself,” she said.
“I’ve already deleted the evidence.”
That meant no one would find a trace of evidence that he’d run a check on the guests staying at Castle Morrison.
“Smart move,” she said. “Hicks would simply shoot me,
then
bury the body. You, he’d torture.”
“He’d try,” Bobby said. “What do you think you’ve found over there?”
“Rich people who are paying way too much for a hotel room.”
“Sounds more like stupidity than a crime.”
“Crimes are often born out of stupidity.”
“Yeah,” he drawled. “Just make sure you’re not one of the stupid ones.”
Affection warmed her. “I’ll be careful.”
“Ain’t
nobody
there to ride to your rescue,” he added, then before she could reply, “Call if you need anything else.”
“I will.”
Margot tapped the screen to end the call and looked at her notes. John and Tory Hanley occupied the rooms at the far end of Castle Morrison’s west wing. Joseph Morris had the next room, Leslie Evans the third, and Franklin Williams the fourth. They were all worth a bundle, but Williams topped the bunch at a whopping twenty-seven million. Williams would be one helluva step up from Donny’s measly four million. A thought struck. What better way to find prospective rich victims than a hotel that ran twenty-five thousand dollars for a two week stay?
Hard to believe people would part with so much cash to live for two weeks like people did three hundred years ago. Not quite like three hundred years ago. There were toilets instead of chamber pots. According to Cat, research showed the lack of plumbing would have been a deal breaker. She planned to upgrade heating be used only in the coldest months. Otherwise, the fireplaces would be maintained in the guestrooms.
Safety codes dictated a telephone had to be installed on the second and third floor alcoves, but they were connected to emergency only. The two phones located on the main floor used by Cat and her
staff were
off limits to guests. Morning and evening meals were served family style in the great hall, the food placed in troughs located in the middle of the table just as it would have been in the seventeenth century. Only indigenous foods were served: pheasant, duck, grouse, wild boar, salmon, trout, pike, potatoes, greens, fruits and an assortment of pastries that made her mouth water. Yep, the genuine seventeenth century experience—if you were a seventeenth century king.
Cat had uncovered a lucrative niche market. With money like that she didn’t need to kill again. But Cat was a Black Widow in the making. She simply wouldn’t be able to keep from biting again—until she got bit back. Margot prayed like hell Cat hadn’t already committed more murders that would initiate her into the bloody list of female Black Widows.
Margot closed the small notebook and lifted her gaze. The dry stone masonry and thatched roofs of the dozen croft houses that made up the inlet village were recreations of the original settlement. The bleating of sheep could be heard between the
crash
of waves against the beach. Oddly, the mundane sound soothed.
*****
Margot sipped the scotch she had chosen over the mead being served with dinner. She wasn’t the only one who had declined the honey wine. The three men had chosen from the variety of whiskies offered, and Leslie Evans had opted for claret. Not a great choice in Margot’s opinion, but better than the mead. Tory Hanley had been the only one to drink the old-fashioned honey wine.
“A Don Juan for a ghost,” Tory said in Cat’s pause for breath while relating the tale of Castle Morrison’s ghost.
A faraway look entered the forty-year-old’s hazel eyes and Margot was reminded of a teenage virgin on her first
drive with the local football hero. She would lose her virginity, her heart, and those rose colored glasses.
“How perfectly delicious,” Tory added.
Margot sipped her scotch. The woman needed to get laid. Her husband sat beside her, wolfing the wild boar as if it were going out of style. If he put half the gusto into fucking his wife as he did eating his dinner, they would both be better satisfied. Tory
sighed
like that virgin teenager, and Margot corrected herself. Mrs. Tory Hanley wasn’t the sort of woman a man fucked. Tory would be deeply disappointed with the ghost of Lord Morrison. He would be the football hero all over again.
Cat placed her elbows on the head of the table where she sat and leaned forward. “Not just your average ghost, Mrs. Hanley. More like…”
“A siren,” Margot offered.
She’d read the legend that hung over the foyer entryway. Lord Colin Morrison needed a particular woman to break the curse that imprisoned him in Castle Morrison.
The woman must be pure of mind, have a heart of gold, and the body of Aphrodite
. In his search for this perfect woman, he lured women into his bed, fucked them,
then
killed them when he discovered they weren't the one to free him from his supernatural prison. And they never were
the one
. He was a regular Romeo—with a deadly twist. Margot understood why the morbid legend appealed to Cat, birds of a feather…
“That’s right,” Cat said.
“The sea nymphs who lured men to their deaths?”
Leslie Evans asked.
“It’s an apt analogy,” Cat said. “The curse compels Colin to entice women into his bed. The last woman known to enter the castle and disappear was Rita Jones in
.”
“She was the
last
known woman.” Margot lifted her glass of scotch in salute. “Who knows how many have disappeared since and weren’t reported.” She downed the scotch and set the glass on the table.
Cat nodded.
“Exactly.”
Tory shivered, and Margot couldn’t blame her. The gleam in Cat’s eyes became almost predatory. What was she up to?
“A ghost can’t kill women,” Tory said.
Her husband leaned toward her. “Not a ghost, dear, a siren.”
She shot him a recriminating look and opened her mouth, but Cat cut off the obvious retort. “You wife is right, Mr. Hanley, Lord Morrison is long dead.” She glanced around the room as if his specter might appear. “But not even a ghost can escape the powerful magic of a witch. His spirit walks these halls.” Her gaze settled on Tory. “But you’re wrong about a ghost not being able to lure the living to their deaths.”