The Unkindness of Ravens, M. Hilliard [romantic books to read txt] 📗

grip on me as I craned my neck, trying to spot him. There was a commotion near Felicity’s car, and I saw Matthew bolt toward the Ravens Kill with a policeman on his heels.

“No!” I croaked, and then screamed it, my lungs clear at last.

I watched as Matthew gained the center of the stream, using the current and his own strength to try to get to the woods on the opposite side.

“We’ll get him,” said Jennie, “don’t worry.”

“No,” I whispered, my eyes on the fleeing figure.

With a groan, the accumulated deadfall broke loose from the footbridge and swept downstream, flying apart and scattering. It slowed Matthew, but he kept moving. A tree limb popped to the surface, bobbing along behind him, twigs like small fingers snagging his jacket and hair.

I was inspired.

“Matthew!” I screamed, “It’s Carol! It’s Carol, she’s calling to you! Can you hear her? Matthew!”

He heard me. His stroke faltered and he looked back, his face so contorted with rage it was unrecognizable. Somewhere, a knife slashed through a portrait, and here, tiny branches plucked and grabbed at the monster in the water. He shuddered, and tried to push them away. The slight delay was enough. The tree limb caught him, branches tangling in his jacket as more of the debris roared toward him. He struggled, and disappeared beneath the water. He would not surface again. I had it on good authority that the currents have always been strange in the Ravens Kill.

“Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everlasting stream,” I said.

Only Jennie Webber heard me. She turned her head, her hand still on my arm, as I stared at the kill.

“Book of Amos,” I added. And then I did the unthinkable.

I fainted.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Sunday morning found me stretched out on the large flat stone that crowned the Ravensloft. I woke with the birds and left the carriage house before the parade of concerned visitors and callers commenced. There were things I needed to think about, and I didn’t want to be disturbed. My scraped and bruised face was bare, my hair loose. Even a ponytail hurt. I ached in every limb. I paused at the end of my road, remembering Sadie’s advice, and the path I’d only glimpsed before revealed itself. I walked slowly through the quiet, thick woods, my bruised and aching body loosening as I went, glad to be moving and breathing at all.

I’d been lucky. No concussion, no broken bones, not even a sprain. I’d been released from the hospital late Friday night. Jennie brought me home. Henri and Pierre had greeted me with kisses and containers of food. While I showered, Jennie warmed the food and brewed tea. No whisky, but I let it go. She wouldn’t be there all night.

Over dinner, Jennie brought me up to date. Felicity was alive but in the hospital. She’d been drugged and knocked around, either by Matthew or by being unconscious on the floor of the SUV. Probably both. She regained consciousness in the ER. Since no one was sure what Matthew had given her and her kids were safe with her sister, she didn’t object to being kept for observation.

Matthew’s body had been found early Saturday morning in the same place as his sister’s decades before. It took longer for the Ravens Kill to spit him out, and it gave him quite a beating. Poetic justice, in my opinion.

Jennie and Sam O’Donnell had spent all of Friday night piecing together what had happened, using what I found and talking to everyone involved.

“Felicity believes Matthew either killed his little sister, or made no effort to save her,” Jennie told me. “And she’s sure her mother-in-law believed it, too. When the dementia set in, Marjorie would start talking about the day Carol died, just odd comments and crying. Taken individually, they made no sense but added to what Vince had told her. Felicity heard enough and she got nervous. She mentioned some of the things Marjorie said to Matthew, and that’s when he decided there would be no outside help. It was shortly after that the old lady started getting out.”

“Matthew planted the idea in his mother’s mind,” I said, “I’m sure of it. Then he let her out the night she died.”

Jennie nodded.

“We’ll never prove it, but it seems likely he used one of his mother’s sleeping pills and drugged Felicity that night. He’d made hot chocolate after dinner and she thought it tasted funny, but he told her he’d added brandy and cinnamon.”

“Then he let her believe it was her fault,” I said.

“She never completely bought that, but she was afraid. She had finally decided to leave him but wanted a clean break and no chance of him seeing the kids unsupervised.”

“So, she confided in Joanna, who volunteered to try and dig up some proof and cover for her while she met with the lawyer,” I said, “but Matthew suspected something and decided to get rid of his wife. After all, he’d staged two successful ‘accidents’ so why not a third?”

“Joanna was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Jennie said, “and from the back, in the dark, he thought it was Felicity. He was going to get rid of the one person who suspected the truth, and get control of the money to fund his political career.”

“So, he killed the wrong woman, Felicity got even more suspicious, I started nosing around, and the police didn’t buy the accident set-up.”

“Not for a minute,” Jennie said, “though your comment about the light switch is what clinched it for Sam. Matthew decided both you and Felicity had to go, and he waited for his chance. Anne Marie told Dory she would wait for you, and then Matthew told Anne Marie that Felicity was your ride home. She feels terrible.”

“She couldn’t have known,” I said, “she had no reason to suspect him.”

Jennie ran through a few more details, and then left to tie up some loose ends.

Now I had to do the same.

I