Page 42 of Wasted

Cillian nodded. “Okay, great. So we have at least three other suspects.”

“Other?”

“Besides you.” He grinned.

“Thank you so much.” A small smile curved her mouth with the sarcastic remark, making his pulse skip a beat.

“So does anything in here look disturbed?” He pulled his gaze away to scan the immaculately organized and cleaned library. Looked like something Victoria herself would’ve set up and maintained.

“No.” She rotated, glancing around the room. “It appears the same as when I was here two days ago. Unless…” Her gaze stopped on something near the doors, and she headed toward the bookshelves there. “Oh, my.”

“What?”

“The bookends.”

Cillian followed her to the shelves that lined the wall just to the right of the doors, or the left if a person were entering the room. With that many books filling the room, the whole place must be home to hundreds of bookends.

She put her hand on a shelf just above her eye level. “I only see one.”

“One what?”

“Glass bookend. Thomas had a beautiful set that caught my eye once when I was browsing this section of books.”

“Oh, yeah.” Cillian’s gaze fell on a large, ornately sculpted glass bookend.

“You’re taller. Do you see the other one? Maybe on the higher shelves?”

Cillian stepped back and scanned one shelf at a time. “Nope. Some wooden and metal ones. No glass.”

“He never would have gotten rid of that.” Her eyebrows dipped together toward her nose.

“Maybe it broke.”

She lifted her gaze to Cillian’s. “Perhaps when someone used it to hit Thomas.”

“Good point.” He glanced toward the closest open door. “Maybe the killer hid in here when he heard Thomas come down the stairs. If it was a thief not meaning to kill anyone, he could’ve panicked, grabbed the glass bookend, and just stepped out and—” He stopped at the sight of Victoria’s wince, her eyes sliding shut.

She’d really cared about the old guy. Good to know that hadn’t changed—her caring about people. It was one of the things he loved about her. Probably one of the reasons she’d cared about Cillian so much.

He’d known even then, when they were just kids, that she saw he needed someone. That she was trying to fill the void he had from a messed-up home life and a mother who’d rejected him from day one. But it hadn’t been pity. It had been real love. Love for someone who needed her. But he was pretty sure it had blossomed into something more before her dad forced her to end things.

Victoria cleared her throat. “This is good. A missing bookend is more evidence that something happened here.”

He mustered a teasing smile. “See? Aren’t you glad we came?”

Her mouth angled in a reluctant, adorable smile. “Let’s check the other rooms on the ground floor.” She exited the library and turned left. “If our theory is correct, that either a thief or another killer woke Thomas and then surprised him downstairs, that likely means he didn’t make it upstairs before then.”

“Or she.” Cillian caught up to Victoria and walked by her side.

She shot him a surprised glance.

“If an object like a bookend or fire poker was used, a woman could’ve done it, too. Wouldn’t take a lot of strength.”

“But what about moving the body out to the end of the long driveway?” She had a point.

“How big was Thomas? I didn’t get to see him when...” Best not mention the day Victoria had found him.

“Not very. Only an inch or two taller than me and slim.”