Page 86 of Cruel Pleasures

I poke my head out, turning it left and right to check either end.

The hall is as eerily empty as it was earlier when I’d chased after…

I close out that thought at the same time I step back into the study. “Nobody’s out there.”

“Good,” Archer grunts. He slips his arms under Timothee’s body and hefts him up and over his shoulder like a sack of fertilizer. “We’ve got to hurry. He might look like a toothpick, but he’s not as light as one.”

“But—”

I’m ignored as I stand by the open door and Archer breezes past me. For some reason I still can’t articulate, I rush to follow. We sneak down the hallway—or as close to sneak as you can transporting a whole-ass dead body—and stop only when we reach a marble console table. A large vase of fresh peonies sits on top.

“Pull on that,” Archer grinds out.

“Pull… on… what?”

“The vase.”

I’m about to question him when I bite my tongue and do as I’m told. My palms slide over the smooth ceramic surface, and I tip it toward me, the bouquet of flowers tickling my chin. I’m not sure what I expect to happen, but it’s not for the wall off to the left of us to slide open.

A secret passageway.

“Don’t look so shocked. The manor is full of them. Designed that way by the family. C’mon,” Archer says from over his shoulder. He’s started schlepping Timothee through the open passage while I’ve hung back in shock.

The wall glides back into place once I step through.

It’s a narrow path built out of stone and more stone, shrouded in more shadows than light.

The sick feeling in my stomach churns ’til I’m slowing down. I’m stuck between focusing on the fact that I’m trailing behind Archer and the body of the man he killed and the fact that if he hadn’t, I might’ve been killed myself.

There’s no telling what Timothee had planned.

That’s beside the fact that I’d wound up in the study because of Lyra in the first place.

Lyra…

My heart twinges, almost making me lose sight of time and place.

I’d been so sure I’d seen her.

Am I losing my mind?

“Wait up!”

Archer leads the way down the rest of the passage. We come out on the other side to what he aptly described as a workshop… or a dungeon.

There’s a draft about the room that’s as grim as it is drab and small. A permanent stench of bleach fills the room as though masking other, much more sinister smells.

There’s a rolling table that has an assortment of instruments I’ve never seen and what looks like some kind of deep freezer. But it’s what’s in the middle of the room that holds my attention most.

An operating table.

Archer dumps Timothee off on the table with an exhausted sigh. He’s dripping sweat from carrying such a weighty load for so long. Wiping his brow, he shoots me a slanted grin I’d find charming if not for the morbid circumstance.

“I hate doing that,” he says, rolling up his shirt sleeves. “I keep saying we need to have contractors come in and build a chute system. That way I can just stuff them down the slot. I don’t have to worry about lugging these things so far.”

“These things? You mean bodies?!” I take a wide step back as if about to turn and run down the secret passage we’ve just traveled through.

He shrugs. “I suppose you could use it for laundry too.”