Page 6 of Immortal by Morning (Argeneau #37)

Abril’s breath came out in gusty relief as she skidded into her bedroom and quickly closed the door behind her. The last couple

of minutes had been somewhat harrowing. She’d left the kitchen, only to freeze as she got halfway across the marble floor

of the entry and her gaze fell on the pale carpet beyond. She’d peered down at the black mud covering her clothes, and back

to the cream-colored carpet unsure what to do.

Biting her lip, she’d considered the situation briefly, peered nervously back toward the kitchen, and then had done the only

thing she could. Taking off her coat, she’d laid it down with the cleaner inner lining to the marble floor, then she’d quickly

stripped off her jeans, taking her shoes with them. Dropping them on her coat, she’d then rolled the whole mess into a ball,

snatched it up and run through the living room to the guest bedroom she was occupying while house-sitting.

Now she leaned back against the closed door and sighed her relief at reaching the safety of the bedroom without being spotted running around in her underwear. Wouldn’t that have been embarrassing?

More than just embarrassing, she thought pushing herself away from the door and crossing her room to the attached bathroom.

It would have been mortifying, humiliating even, Abril decided as she dumped her dirty coat, jeans, and shoes into the clothes

hamper in the bathroom.

She turned toward the sink then, and stopped dead when she saw her reflection in the mirror. While her legs were bare and

mostly clean, there were still streaks of mud that had leaked through the heavy denim to mark her skin. The rest of her, however,

was much worse. Her coat had been open and her white blouse was stained dark brown down the center. Her hands and face were

streaked with it as well. When she turned her head, she could see that her hair at the back was one big clump of mud from

her fall into the hole next to the house.

Abril groaned to herself as she considered that she’d stood around looking like this during her entire encounter with Officer

Peters, and detectives Roberts and Delacort.

“Great first impression, girl,” she muttered to her reflection and then grimaced as she looked herself over again. A quick

washup in the sink was not going to do the trick. She definitely needed a shower. That thought in mind, she quickly turned

on the shower, and then stripped off her shirt, bra, and panties. All three had been muddied to one degree or another, the

muck having oozed determinedly through her outer clothes to taint them.

Not wanting to dirty her robe, Abril wrapped one of the large bath towels around herself, grabbed the hamper and made a quick trip to the laundry room to get her wash started.

With that done, she rushed back to her room, eager to step under the rushing water and wash away the mud drying on her body.

The shower took a little longer than Abril had expected thanks to her hair being so muddy, but she was as quick as she could

be about it. Once done, she dried off, and dressed. Abril didn’t bother with makeup or fiddling with her hair. She’d already

left the detectives alone much longer than intended, so she simply ran a brush through the wet strands, made a face at herself

in the bathroom mirror, and then headed out of her room.

A glance at the clock as she entered the kitchen told her there should only be half an hour left of the washing cycle before

she could switch her laundry to the dryer. That was something she wanted to do the moment she could since she had only one

coat here and needed it to take Lilith out for potty breaks. Worried about getting distracted and forgetting to do it, she

said, “Alexa, set the timer for twenty-eight minutes.”

Abril waited for Alexa to announce that the timer was set, and then turned her attention to the detectives. Both men were

seated at the island. Roberts was drinking from what appeared to be a glass of water, while Delacort was holding a coffee

mug in hand. Lilith was on the floor between the two men.

The scene was almost cozy, Abril thought as she moved to the coffee machine.

Casting an apologetic smile over her shoulder to the two men, she grabbed a mug out of the cupboard and then began to pour herself a coffee as she said, “Sorry I took so long. I tried to be quick, but”—she shrugged—“best laid plans and all that.”

“It is fine,” Roberts assured her easily. “I noticed the mud in your hair and expected it to take a bit of time for you to

get it out. We just did what we could to help out and keep busy while we waited.”

Abril was a little confused by the words, unsure what they could’ve done to help. Before she could ponder it too much, Lilith

nudged her nose into her hand, distracting her. Startled at the fact that the dog had got up and come to her side without

her noticing, Abril automatically gave the dog an affectionate pet. Feeling her damp fur, though, she looked at Lilith properly

and noted that the yellow Lab was no longer mud covered. In fact, she was sparkling clean.

“Oh my gosh you gave Lilith a bath,” Abril gasped. Glancing at the men, she grinned and asked, “Did you take her outside and

hose her down?”

Detective Roberts looked amused at the question. Detective Delacort, on the other hand, sat up a little straighter, his mouth

thinning. He was obviously insulted at the very suggestion, which made her frown. She hadn’t meant to offend him. She just

couldn’t think of any other way they would’ve done it. They didn’t know the house.

“Delacort gave her a bath in the guest bathroom down the hall while I washed the kitchen floor,” Roberts explained.

“Oh! Well, thank you, Detective.” She was smiling at the taller man when the rest of what Roberts had said suddenly caught

her attention. Delacort gave her a bath in the guest bathroom down the hall while I washed the kitchen floor.

Abril straightened from petting Lilith and peered around at the hardwood floor.

The tigerwood too was sparkling clean with not a trace of the mud that had been tracked around it earlier.

In fact, she hadn’t seen it this clean since Gina’s housekeeper had quit two weeks ago.

Unfortunately, Gina was hard on staff and was constantly losing and having to replace them.

Well, actually, Abril was the one stuck with the chore of replacing staff, and she’d been looking for a replacement cook/housekeeper these last two weeks without luck so far.

She needed someone who could handle Gina and wouldn’t quit after a week.

Abril would rather not have to replace another housekeeper a month from now.

“Both Lilith and the floor look lovely. Thank you, gentlemen,” she said now. “Your help is greatly appreciated. Especially

since it wasn’t your responsibility, and must have been done out of pure kindness,” Abril finished solemnly, and almost laughed

when both men appeared to squirm a bit, obviously unused to, or at least uncomfortable, with her praise. Roberts just looked

a bit discomfited as he waved away her thanks, but Delacort actually blushed. Abril thought that was positively adorable,

but knew better than to comment on it, or tease him as she really wanted to do.

Picking up her coffee, she carried it over to claim the chair at the end of the island. “Okay. I know you have questions for

me. I guess we better get to it.”

Both men nodded, but it was Roberts who started.

“Peters told us that you are house-sitting for your boss, a Miss Gina Spaldine, who has only owned the house for—” He paused to check what she suspected were his notes on the small tablet he’d pulled out, and then said, “She bought the house last summer, so eight months?”

“Almost nine,” Abril corrected. “Gina bought the house from the Bransons at the beginning of August. It’s now the end of April,

so pretty much nine months ago.”

“Right,” Roberts tapped something into his tablet, and then asked, “Do you know anything about the Bransons?”

“Well, let’s see,” Abril murmured thoughtfully, and considered what she knew about the previous owners of the house. The Bransons

had been kind enough to offer a tour and an explanation of how everything worked, things like when the septic tank had last

been emptied and would need it again. When the filters for the furnace and water treatment should be changed, etcetera. Gina

had left all of that up to Abril to sort out, so she’d spent some time with the couple, and they’d been friendly and chatty.

“The Bransons are a family of five—the parents, two sons, and a daughter,” she began.

“The children were all grown up and gone so they were downsizing.” She paused, searching her mind, and then added, “They’d lived here for twenty years and there was only one owner before that who had built the house and lived here for four or five years before selling to them.

I don’t know their name, but the story Mrs. Branson told me is that the husband was the contractor, it was their dream house, but.

..” Abril shook her head. “She wasn’t sure after all that time, but it was something along the lines of there was some kind of accident, the wife was paralyzed and used a wheelchair and the house just wasn’t set up for that, or she couldn’t stand living where there were so many memories of her life before the accident. Or both.” Abril shrugged.

Roberts nodded. “Is there anything else you can tell us about the previous owners?”

“The Bransons?” she asked, unsure if he meant them or the couple before them.

“Yes. The Bransons,” Roberts confirmed. “Do you know their first names? Or where they moved to?”

“You’re thinking the bodies in the garden were put there by the Bransons?” she asked with dismay.

“That idea troubles you?” Detective Delacort asked gently.

Abril shifted in her seat and then shrugged helplessly. “I mean I don’t really know these people, but they were very nice

to me. They didn’t seem like crazy serial type killers to me.”

Knowing that what she thought didn’t really matter, she stood abruptly and headed for the hallway to the guest bedrooms on

this side of the house. She and Gina were temporarily using them as offices until the addition was finished. “I’ll go check

the purchasing contracts. That should have their first names on it.”

She paused at the mouth of the hall to turn back and add, “Although, it seems to me they said they’d purchased a new house

in Port somewhere or other.” She frowned, trying to recall which town it was. There were a lot of lakeside towns an hour or

so on either side of London named Port something or other; Port Bruce, Port Burwell, Port Stanley, Port Glasgow, Port Franks...

Unfortunately, she couldn’t recall at that moment which one they’d mentioned moving to.

Shrugging the concern away, she added, “I remember that they owned a store in the city, a craft shop or something. I can’t remember what it was called, although Mr. Branson told me the name at the time.

” Abril grimaced apologetically. “Unfortunately, I had no idea then that it might be important so didn’t commit it to memory. ”

“Of course not,” Detective Delacort said reassuringly.

She smiled at him with gratitude, and then turned into the hall again, saying, “I’ll get those contracts.”

Abril was a very organized person. It was what made her good at her job. She had a place for everything and kept everything

in its place, so she was able to find things quickly when needed. Gina was less so, and apparently had gotten into the files

at some point and mucked them up. Abril had filed away the purchasing contracts in a special file that she now couldn’t find.

It took several minutes for her to track it down, minutes during which she became more and more irritated and silently cursed

her boss.

She knew that was silly. In the end, the files were actually Gina’s, not hers, and her boss had every right to do what she

wished with them. Unfortunately, though, it made her life more difficult when Gina ran roughshod through the filing cabinet.

Something she’d done repeatedly since Abril had started to work for her.

Finally finding the contract in question, she pulled it out, slammed the drawer closed, and hurried out of her temporary office.