Page 23 of The Valiant Knight (The Ravensmire Chronicles #2)

The whole way back to the castle, each and every single one of them were thinking the same thing.

What can of worms had they just opened by moving Ceit? And was it about to bite them in the ass?

Holy shit!

This little job of moving the bones just got a whole lot more complicated.

For them.

* * *The Ravensmire Castle* * *

Ravensmire Castle

Five P.M.

The Storage Room

Hustling it through the woods, they had managed to get the bones back to the castle, and Tony had painstakingly, and gently, set them up on another table beside Duncan’s remains.

The vast difference between them was startling.

The bones from Ceit’s grave were so much smaller and childlike.

If she was five feet tall, he’d be shocked.

As he sat there, staring at the skull, he knew they had a problem.

Not a law problem, but a castle problem. Callen and Chris had bought this place, and it was for Elizabeth. She was going to be hella pissed if there was a murder here and now it was haunted by vengeful ghosts.

He couldn’t help but think about how Gabby felt like she’d been pushed backward into the crypt, and how she described sinking in the lake as being pulled down.

She was a rational woman, and scientist. He doubted that all of a sudden, she was getting fanciful with her explanations.

That wasn’t likely happening.

Once he had to tell Chris and Callen about what was going on here, Elizabeth would get wind of it. There was no doubt.

Looking at the clock, he knew it was early back in DC, but the men should be up.

So, he called using MATE to contact them. He was going to bite the bullet and give them a heads-up.

That was, after all, why he was sent there.

As soon as Chris answered, he saw that the man was in his office just adjacent to the morgue.

“Morning, Chris,” Tony said.

The man smiled.

“Hey! Good evening,” he said. “Are you behaving?” he asked. “You aren’t calling for bail money and because you can’t tell Jaxon, are you?”

Tony laughed.

Oh, those days were over. As a happily married man, the only thing that got him in trouble were the bugs and spiders in his desk.

“Well, that depends.”

Chris warned him.

“Elizabeth will get on a plane, head there, and drag you home. Don’t test her. She was on a tear over the spider, Anthony. She was working all night, and didn’t appreciate you doing that.”

He was curious.

“Is Morticia okay?” he asked.

Chris just shook his head.

“You’re lucky Jaxon humors your idiosyncrasies. She saved Morticia and put her away.”

Thank God for that.

Tony was stalling. He didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news.

“So, whatcha working on?” he asked. “Are you guys on a case?” he asked.

Chris shook his head.

“We aren’t. Elizabeth closed a case this morning. I’m just doing the paperwork. Now, we’re waiting on the Presidential Gala. It’s in four days, and we’re not allowed to cancel. Last I saw my wife, she was running on a treadmill and cursing Gabe for making her go.”

Well, at least they had some downtime.

“How’s the situation there?” Chris asked, grateful that the man was handling it. Once Elizabeth had found out there were graves, she’d been twitchy.

No one liked an armed, twitchy wife.

No.

One.

It looked like he had no choice but to warn the man.

“Well, about that. Can you take a look at what I found?” he asked. “I gave my postulation, but I would like you to take a look to confirm it.”

He sounded nervous.

“Sure, I can do that. Send me the file, and I’ll walk through it right now.”

When he did, Chris sat back, and MATE created the holographic image of the remains so he could go over them for Tony.

As they appeared, Chris saw the copious amounts of damage.

“Wow. This was rough,” he admitted. “There’s massive trauma. Who is it?” he asked. “Which set of remains am I looking at. I see the pelvis, and I think woman, but…”

Oh, well, he’d nailed that.

“That’s Ceit. The lady of the manor. We just took her from the cliffside grave, and I’m about to put her in her crypt.”

He had to ask him one question.

“Are you seeing two possible CODs?” he asked, knowing Chris would since he had.

Blowing up the bones, he was able to see the massive stress fractures.

“She definitely fell from a high distance up. The velocity of slamming into the ground would have been COD,” he said. “Her organs would have been obliterated.”

Tony said nothing.

Why?

Chris was focused on her face.

Tony saw the exact moment he paused and looked confused.

Been there.

Done that.

Now, the questions would begin.

“How does she have that massive amount of facial trauma?” he asked.

“Her whole skeleton shows she impacted back first to the ground. It shattered bones and left fractures. Her face also has damage. There’s no sign of her head coming off in the fall, and no weird damage to her cervical vertebra, so… ”

Oh, Tony was well aware.

“Let me know if this fits,” he said, sending a holographic mockup of what they thought happened.

When Chris got it, he played it.

What he was seeing was a woman being hit in the face, taking a few steps backward, and tumbling out the window.

She landed on her back.

Chris took it all in.

“Oh, no, no, no,” he said, freaking out. “Please tell me that we didn’t buy a castle with a murder victim in it. Elizabeth will skin both of us alive,” he said. “Callen will have a better chance of getting away. I’m not a runner.”

Tony hated to burst his bubble.

“My dude, I have bad news to go with this bad news.”

He waited, his nerves shot. Elizabeth was really on her last patience about this castle.

If she found this out…

They.

Were.

Divorced.

Okay, not that extreme, but neither one of them was getting laid for a long damn time. She’d made that perfectly clear to both of them.

One homicide, or one haunting, and she wasn’t setting foot there.

“What now?” he asked.

He broke it to him.

“The second we opened Duncan’s crypt, to ensure it was him, we began experiencing some paranormal shit here.”

Chris stared at him.

“You’re yanking my chain, right?”

He shook his head.

“I wish I was. Normally, I wouldn’t believe it, but Gabby and Detective Inspector McKnight seem to be having issues. On top of that, when we opened Ceit’s grave, we heard a disembodied voice crying, and some masculine laughter.”

Chris was speechless.

“I heard it, Chris, with my own ears. You have a haunted castle, and worse, the land around it is too.”

He closed his eyes.

This was…problematic.

Tony kept going. It was best to yank off the bandage and not pussyfoot around it.

“Gabby nearly drowned on the lake, and she heard the same male voice as she was pulled under the water. The detective saved her, but barely.”

Chris couldn’t believe this. Gryphen and Ian said they heard and saw Ceit, but that she’d calmed down when they found her resting spot.

“Again, tell me that you’re yanking my chain, and this is an April Fool’s joke.”

Well, if that’s what he wanted.

“I’m yanking your chain.”

Chris looked relieved until Tony told him.

“Actually, I’m not, but if that’s what you want me to say so you don’t have to tell the woman you love that we have a whole lot of issues here, I say go for it,” Tony stated.

“Oh, God.”

Chris rested his head on his desk.

“I’m a dead duck,” he warned.

Well, unfortunately for him, Tony wasn’t done.

“The castle is gorgeous, but I think digging up Ceit and disturbing Duncan did something. The vibe is off. You have a haunted castle, my dude, and your wife is NOT going to like that. You have ninety-nine problems, and ALL of them are about to be Elizabeth when she shows up here and experiences it firsthand.”

“Shit!” he said.

Chris knew they couldn’t give a haunted castle to their wife. She was not happy about the gift to begin with, and add in the mayhem…

She’d be on the warpath.

“What do you want me to do?” Tony finally asked.

Chris thought about it.

Ghosts weren’t their thing.

Maybe, if he was lucky, he could get Tori or Julian Littlemoon there—last-case scenario. Only, Elizabeth would find out.

Elizabeth and Tori spoke constantly because they were besties.

“I’ll talk to Callen. We can’t sell it. It was on the market for YEARS .

Like forty,” he said. “It was about to be a pile of rocks, and we already dumped millions into it. Let’s see if it calms down when you put everyone back into their crypt.

I think you just need to follow the trail, and get everything situated. ”

There was an issue.

“Elizabeth is bringing us back on Sunday. There’s no way we’ll be done with all of this by then. This is going to take time.”

Oh, he was well aware.

Damn it.

“Callen and I will have to figure it out. Just do what you can, and try to keep it to a minimum. Oh, and for the love of everything unholy in the world, don’t tell Elizabeth!”

That was likely for the best.

“Are you afraid about what’s there?” Chris asked. “Does it feel dangerous?”

Tony was honest.

“It seems to be focused on Gabby—not me. Maybe it’s because she’s the only woman here. I don’t know. This isn’t my normal rodeo. I’m a man of science, and I can tell you that whatever is going on is very sixteen hundreds.”

That didn’t sound good.

Fuck.

Elizabeth was a woman, and they planned on bringing her to the castle for Gryphen and Ian’s wedding in six months. That wasn’t good.

He was going to have to manage this.

Somehow.

“Just keep me updated. I’ll talk to Callen. We’ll figure it out.”

Tony was curious.

“Hey, I have a question regarding the skull?” he asked.

Chris waited.

“What about it?”

Tony had an idea.

“Let’s get Blue to do a facial reconstruction. Have her print out the skull, and give Ceit a face. You know, so we can see if it’s really her.”

Chris was okay with that.

Tony continued.

“We can’t do DNA. The bones are so old and none of them are viable. I found one tooth that MIGHT be able to be extracted, but I have to keep it frozen, so it doesn’t continue to degrade.”

Chris was good with that.