Page 25 of Wolfsbane Hall #1

Everett rolled his eyes at his twin. “We must get to the facts.” He motioned to Babette and Frances, because he knew they would appease him—especially Babette. They placed their chairs in a row, looking at the dead body and the detective.

“What is this? The new group therapy thing that is all the rage in sanatoriums?” James asked. “I don’t particularly feel like being psychoanalyzed.”

“There’s not much to analyze in your head, brother. You’re a psychopath. You have no feelings and like to cut things open,” Vivian said, carrying a chair over to the row and sitting. “Perhaps we all should be placed in a sanatorium, seeing our minds are all so incredibly off-kilter.”

“Sometimes, when dealing with our family, I feel like I already am.” Dean shared a look with Vivian and placed his chair beside her.

Everett chuckled.

Frustration was painted across Frances’s face. “Perhaps we should be serious, boys. Lives hang in the balance.” It was a reminder to them that, while they might be behaving as if it were any other night, it was anything but.

James and Dean sat up straight at the words, their demeanors shifting. The men could often lack empathy and focus, but they still knew when to take things seriously.

Everett tried to smooth out his rumpled blue peacock suit, and Dean smoothed the lapel of his perfectly tailored prestige hunter-green suit. James fidgeted with the metal chain of his pocket watch, needing somewhere to put his hands. None of the men was particularly good at sitting still .

“Please, as you were,” James said.

Everett nodded. “We must figure out the motive, means, and opportunity.” But even Everett couldn’t take himself seriously in this role anymore.

He snorted and took a flask from his jacket pocket—a different bottle than he’d been nursing all night—and took a large swig.

“Who am I kidding? Everyone has a motive to kill my mother. She is a vile creature.”

Vivian tried to suppress her own laugh. “It is true, Aunt Lorraine is the biggest c—”

“Vivian, watch your mouth.”

“Yes, mother.”

“Not that it isn’t true,” Irene added. “We just don’t say those types of words in polite company.”

“Ah, so it’s okay in private.”

“Of course not.”

Frances rocked in her seat. “So, if everyone has a motive, perhaps we could discuss that?”

As the detective, Everett took up his position once more and said, ”Well, Vivian’s motive is apparent.”

“It is not.” She stood so violently that her chair crashed to the ground.

Every Ashbrook possessed some sense of a hyperbolic nature, but Everett and Vivian usually took the cake with their over-the-top natures.

Everett simply raised an eyebrow. “Lorraine is single-handedly responsible for not letting you dance ballet. The only thing you love. And she orders animals killed for her custom furs.”

“That doesn’t rise to the level of murder. Besides, that’s old news. She banned me from dancing years ago—and who in their right mind would kill over animal furs? I am devoted to my beliefs, but not that much.”

“You’d be surprised what people would kill over. ”

“Your motive is much stronger than mine, and you know it.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest like a toddler on a triad. “You hate your mother.”

“Everyone hates her. That’s her entire persona.”

“But she killed your—”

“Do not finish that sentence,” Everett growled.

“Motive is motive, brother.”

Frances leaned in and sat up straighter. “Who did she kill?”

Wanting to hear the answer, Celestine leaned in slowly as to not draw attention to herself, hoping they would continue arguing with each other and giving away the answers.

“It doesn’t matter,” Everett mimicked Vivian, and drew his hands across his chest. “If that’s my motive, then it’s also Dean’s.”

All heads swung in Dean’s direction. Normally, so silent and inviable. He wanted to remain so, but it was clear from the weight of the attention now on him that he couldn’t

“I am not involved in this.” Dean raised his hands. “Am I sad she’s dead? No. But this time, I have absolutely no reason to do anything.”

“But you have had reasons before.” Everett wasn’t letting his twin off the hook.

“You all have met our mother. Eventually, everyone finds a reason to want to kill her.

“Son, you might not have a motive now, but you’d do anything for any of your siblings.

” The twins’ father, Archibald, moved for the first time since standing behind his lover and staring down at the body.

He drew out a chair. “You are unquestioningly loyal to a fault—especially with Everett and James.”

“Perhaps”—Dean slid his hands into his pockets— “but the question I would like to ask is, why is she holding your tie? ”

“Everyone saw her accost me. She ripped my tie off during the blackout.”

“While you were stabbing her?”

“And which brother are you covering for now, Dean?” Archibald met Dean’s ire with some of his own.

But it wasn’t his frustration that caught Celestine’s attention.

It was the fact that Archibald was insinuating that Dean wasn’t the murderer, but one of his brothers was, and that this had happened in the past. “Admit it, Dean. You’d bury the body for either of your brothers.

You’ve done it before, and you’d do it again. ”

A dark smirk crept across Dean’s face. “Of course, I would.”

James cut in, trying to release the tension. “Well, at the very least, I don’t have a motive. Dean wouldn’t be helping me do anything.”

Vivian scratched her chin and scoffed. “Of course, you do.”

“And that is what?”

“Money. It’s always money with you.”

“I have more money than I could ever count.”

“Maybe now,” she said back. “But back when my character card took place, they removed your inheritance so that you wouldn’t go into business. It stands to reason that all our cards are from—”

“Fine, you caught me. It is money,” he said, with an even tone. It was nearly impossible to provoke a rise out of James—to provoke any emotion out of him.

Walter, who hadn’t entered the conversation once, stood from the table where he had been picking at food and watching his family argue. “Alright. Could we take a little break from uselessly spouting out all our secrets and do something else?”

He walked over to the group slowly and calmly.

His entire demeanor was vastly different from the rest of his family.

He was even-tempered and solid, like a tree trunk with incredibly deep roots.

But what was truly fascinating about his presence was that he actually did exude a calming influence over the rest of them.

The Ashbrooks all sat back in their chairs, and almost as if they were a choir, they all breathed in unison and released heavy sighs.

But Babette wasn’t here to be calmed down. She was dying, so in a thick French accent, she said, “And what about your motive, Walter?”

He shrugged. “I truly care nothing for Lorraine’s state of living. Dead, alive, it matters not to me.”

When no one counteracted him, Babette turned to Jon, the only other person in the room who hadn’t spoken once. “And you, Jon, what is your motive?”

Jon flashed a dimple and tapped his fingers on the table where he was still eating. “Don’t look at me. I’m only here for the food.”

“Or,” Vivian cut in, unwilling to let him get away with saying nothing, “maybe you didn’t like her constant disapproval of your relationship with Walter.”

“Except, I do not bother caring about the thoughts of an insignificant woman.”

Ignoring the current conversation completely, Dean strolled over to Celestine’s side—who, like a wallflower, was just wishing to stay invisible and watch the drama go down from the sidelines.

“It’s all so terribly dull,” he whispered to her.

Celestine shut her eyes and tried to take in a steadying breath, but it didn’t work. Dean’s words frustrated her to no end. He could be nonchalant and uncaring, because his life wasn’t on the line. “I’m sorry you find my imminent death boring.”

“I could never find you boring.” He stepped in closer, and while he wasn’t touching her, she could feel his presence as if he were. A shiver ran through her core, and she focused her eyes back on the scene before her.

“That leaves Irene and Archibald,” Babette said, her intensity cutting daggers through them.

Vivian rolled her eyes once more. “Their motive is obvious.”

Irene raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

But it was Everett who cut in with the answer. “Adultery, obviously; everyone knows the worst kept secret among the nob—among San Francisco’s social elite—is that you two”—he pointed to Irene and Archibald—“are fucking, and Vivian and James are his illegitimate children.”

Celestine pinched her eyes closed at the final confirmation of what she already understood. They were all brothers. This meant that Celestine’s earlier deduction was wrong. The Specter couldn’t only be one of the pairs of twins. It also could be James.

Celestine felt it in her bones that the Specter was one of her men—not their father or uncles—but she wasn’t entirely certain, so she kept all of them within her suspect pool.

“Well, now everyone knows,” Irene spat out like a venomous lizard.

“Everyone already knew, Mother,” Vivian sighed dramatically—like mother, like daughter. “Your lipstick is on his collar, and you’re not even good at hiding it. I bet Celestine saw that as soon as he entered the room.”

All eyes landed on Celestine, who gulped and nodded. “Yes, I noticed.”

“He might pretend to be the genius detective”—she pointed at Everett—“but he’s a fraud, and she’s the real deal.” Vivian turned and directed her following words only to Babette. “That’s why the Specter truly adores her; her mind, not her…assets .

Babette scoffed.

Irene whirled on Celestine. “Maybe Celestine is the killer.”

Celestine pinched her lips into a flat line and answered, “Me or my character?”

“You. I heard her threaten you and your relationship with her boys. Perhaps you killed her to remove the only obstacle between you and marriage to one of her sons.”

“Only obstacle?” Celestine scoffed. “What about the fact that neither of them has even given me any indication they’re interested?

” After all, Dean hated her guts, and he’d never make such an offer.

What was it with rich people thinking Celestine wanted them or their money?

She just wanted to live in peace. “Besides, I’d be far closer to marrying your son—”

“Marriage, Cellie, I—”

Celestine ignored James altogether. “Firstly, I do not want to get married, and secondly, and not that it matters, James would never condescend to marry me. But if you want to accuse my character, Margot, of trying to marry an Ashbrook, then by all means. She does have a motive to get rid of Lorraine since she is engaged to Everett.”

“Married,” Dean amended.

Silence descended in the room, and it felt sticky, almost as if they had dipped their skin into hot tar.

Celestine’s gaze landed on Everett, as did everyone else’s. Would he finally admit it? He had a lot of explaining to do.

After enough pressure, Everett finally said, “So everyone has a motive. Now what?”

He still wouldn’t admit out loud that he married Margot.