Shamrock Shenanigans (Zoe Donovan Mystery Book 19) (10 page)

I hoped everyone would be away as long as I had originally estimated; I really didn’t want to get caught snooping in other people’s rooms.

Susan’s room was much like the others, although not nearly as neat as Piper and Millie’s. I looked around but didn’t see anything unusual on the surface. I quickly opened drawers and closets, finding nothing out of the ordinary. I took a cursory look around the bathroom and found something that changed everything.

I quickly slipped out the door and into the hall. Boy, did I have news for Zak. I was heading back to our room when I heard my name. Or at least I thought I did. The sound was really faint, and in all honestly it could have been the wind whistling through the old structure, but it was enough to cause me to look around.

When I’m asked about this later, I’ll confess that I really wasn’t sure what I saw, but in that moment I was certain Catherine Dunphy was standing at the end of the hallway, beckoning me to follow her. I’m not certain why I did. Deep inside, I knew it must be an illusion that faded from sight as quickly as it appeared. I knew Zak was waiting for me and would be worried if I was delayed, but I found myself walking to the spot where the image had been standing.

I’d thought a lot about what Millie had said about Catherine and me being linked in some way. I’m not sure how that could be possible, but I believe that it’s true. I know I’d thought about her quite a bit ever since I’d been at the castle. I’d thought about the love she had for her husband and the twelve sons she bore him.

When I got to the end of the hallway I tried to decide if I should turn left or right. Neither direction seemed better than the other until I noticed a faint light in the distance of the left-hand corridor. I turned in that direction and slowly made my way past closed doors that were beyond the area used by the current castle guests or staff. When I got to the end there was a door. The dust on the floor in front of the door, in addition to the rusted handle, evidenced the fact that the door hadn’t been opened in years. I didn’t expect the door to open suddenly, but I’d come this far so I reached out and gave the handle a twist. It turned easily.

When I opened the door I was greeted by a cold draft. Unlike the hallway I had come from, the corridor I entered had no power and, apparently, no heat. I realized I had entered an older part of the castle that probably hadn’t been inhabited for at least a century. I took out my flashlight and made my way down the dark hall. I had no idea if I should continue on or perhaps enter one of the hallways intersecting the one on which I was walking. If I’d thought the castle was huge before, I now realized how enormous it really was.

“Okay, now where?” I asked out loud, considering all the routes available to me. If Catherine wanted me to follow her, she was going to have to make an appearance or I was heading back to the warmer and much cheerier side of the door. I hadn’t planned to leave the warmth of the castle, so I only had on a sweatshirt, not a jacket.

I waited in silence. I know this is crazy, but I swear I could hear the castle breathing. The flashlight I carried only penetrated the darkness so far before the glow it provided was swallowed up in the void.

I don’t remember seeing or hearing anything, but I do recall having the feeling that I should keep moving onward. When I came to a fork I sensed I should take the right-hand passage, just like I knew the door at the end would lead to stairs that would take me downward. I walked slowly along the stairway. It was narrow and made of stone, and there were no windows or exit points. I had to fight a feeling of claustrophobia as I made my way deeper and deeper into the inky darkness.

I’m not sure how far I traveled—over two, maybe three stories—before I came to a door at the bottom of the stairs. Just as the door above it had looked like it hadn’t been opened in decades, it also gave way easily. The door opened into a windowless room that was completely empty. I stepped into the center of the room and looked around. This circular room was made of stone, with no windows or other exits. I had no idea why Catherine would have led me to this extremely isolated yet completely empty space.

“I don’t understand what you want from me,” I said into the void.

I listened for an answer. I was sure I heard voices, but they seemed to fade as soon as they sounded. I imagined sound must carry in the old castle. In all reality I could be hearing voices echoing from other parts of the building. I slowly turned in a complete circle, trying to figure out what to do next.

The strange thing about the empty room is that it should have felt hollow, barren, devoid of life and energy. But somehow it didn’t. Somehow the longer I stood in the center of the round room the warmer I became. I could almost imagine the echo of music and laughter. I felt as if the room contained memories of years gone by, when the now empty room was alive with the people who had lived in the castle all those years ago.

I closed my eyes as I tried to imagine what this isolated room could have been used for. It seemed to exist alone at the bottom of the stairs, but perhaps at one time it was part of a passage to other rooms inhabited by Dunphy ancestors.

I’m not sure what caused me to walk forward, to push against the specific stone I did. It looked no different from any of the others. I guess I decided to let my heart lead my head, and my heart was telling me that Catherine had brought me here for a reason.

I stood back as a section of the wall gave way to a much smaller room filled with what looked to be personal treasures. There were treasures from childhood such as wood-carved toys, clothing to fit a toddler, and a tiny infant’s cradle with a blanket inside that said
Amelia
. There were treasures from adulthood such as a special dress, a woven rug, pottery, and hand-crafted furniture. I slowly made my way into the room, being careful not to touch anything that might be damaged by my touch all these years after it was created. I’d obviously found someone’s secret place. I’d had such a place in an old cave behind my house when I was a kid. It was a place for me to keep my treasures. A place for me to spend time alone when the world became too much for me to handle.

I walked over and sat down on a chair. I tried to imagine Catherine with her twelve sons sitting in this very spot. It must have been a hard life even for the privileged. I didn’t blame her a bit for wanting a place of her own to escape to.

I looked at the cradle. The name on the blanket was clearly that of an infant daughter. Catherine had borne only sons. Perhaps this wasn’t Catherine’s secret spot after all.

I closed my eyes and leaned back into the chair. I could so clearly imagine Catherine sitting in the chair, singing to her babies. On the surface she appeared content and serene, but I know that in addition to the love she felt for her family, her heart was filled with fear and sorrow. The emotions I imagined were so raw and intense that I opened my eyes in order to fend off the pain.

I looked around the small yet cozy room. I imagined that every item must hold great significance to the one who’d placed it there. Next to the chair was a box. I opened it and gasped.

“I see you found my treasure,” a voice said from behind me.

When I became conscious my first thought was of the pounding in my head, followed by the cold hardness of the floor beneath my body. It took me a few minutes to remember what had happened. It was completely dark. So dark that I couldn’t even see the hand I held up to my face. I was cold. So very, very cold. The floor beneath me was made of stone.

I couldn’t remember how I came to be here in this dark chamber, but the dampness on my forehead, coupled with the throbbing in my temple, seemed to indicate that I’d suffered a blow to the head. I tried to sit up but found the movement made me dizzy, so I lay back down until the dizziness passed.

Once I was able to sit up I looked around, but the movement did me no good because there was nothing to see. I tried to remember what had happened in the minutes before I woke up here. I remembered walking through the castle. I was following someone. Catherine.

I remembered walking down an endless flight of stairs. The hollow darkness seemed to envelop me, as if I were traveling through a void separating time and space.

I remembered the circular room and the feeling of light, warmth, and belonging that seemed to fill my soul as time passed. The emptiness in my heart was enough to let me know that I was no longer in that special room. The question was, where was I now?

It was cold and dark and I could hear the sound of the ocean in the background. I had the sense that I wasn’t being held within the castle walls. The only conclusion left to me was that I’d been left in the dungeons beneath the castle. I rolled over onto my knees and then slowly stood. I reached out my arms, which met with nothing but empty space. I had no idea which direction would lead to the light and which would take me further into darkness.

I sat back down on the floor as I tried to figure out what to do. I knew that by now Zak would be looking for me, my knight in shining armor who always saved the day. He’d want me to wait for him, so I would wait.

I crossed my legs and tried to curl my body into itself for additional warmth. Waiting wouldn’t be easy in this dark and frigid place, but at the moment I didn’t see that I had all that many options. I needed a distraction, so I used my time to try to figure everything out.

When I’d gone into Susan’s bathroom I’d seen she had a bottle of ipecac. Ipecac is used to induce vomiting, and I realized that her little demonstration on Friday was simply to provide herself with an alibi for Thursday. I don’t think she necessarily planned to use an illness as an alibi; it occurred to me that she was a bulimic who carried the stuff with her wherever she went, and my stopping by her room provided the situation she needed.

The question remained, had Susan killed Brent, and if she was involved in the buy/sell operation, was she the buyer or the seller?

And then there was Lord Dunphy. His was the voice behind me but it hadn’t been Dunphy who had hit me. I’d turned to speak to the lord of the castle, who I guess technically owned the jewels. We’d both had our backs to the door when someone came in from the staircase and hit me. I remembered the look of surprise on Dunphy’s face before I blacked out. He may or may not have been part of a scheme to buy and sell something, but I didn’t think he’d followed me to the room with the intention of hurting me. I think he somehow knew that, for whatever reason, Catherine would lead me to the jewels that had been hidden all these years.

Zak had said Brent had come to the island to catch an international thief. I really doubted Dunphy was that person, and I also doubted he was the buyer. Which meant that there were two other people involved. I suspected Susan was one of the two, with maybe Luke or Liam? I might not have all the answers, but as soon as I got out of there I planned to resolve any unanswered questions that remained.

I was attempting to focus on my breathing so as to avoid hysteria when I heard a sound to my right that sounded like groaning.

“Is someone there?”

The groaning grew louder.

“Lord Dunphy?”

“Ms. Donovan? Is that you?”

“It’s me. Are you okay?”

I waited in silence for a response. It seemed as if an eternity passed before the person next to me responded that he was very much
not
okay.

“Did you see who hit me?” I asked.

My question was met with silence.

“Lord Dunphy? Are you still with me?”

I scooted across the stone floor in the direction from which I’d heard his voice when there was no response. I just hoped I’d find Dunphy still alive. I’d been hit on the head, and while it smarted, I didn’t think it was terminal, but I had no idea what had been done to his lordship. For all I knew, he could have been shot.

I paused several times during my journey across the floor to gauge the accuracy of my direction. I couldn’t see a thing, but if I listened closely enough I could hear the slight sound of breathing. Maybe Dunphy knew a way out of here. Of course I was going to have to figure out a way to wake him up long enough to get him to tell me what that way might be.

It took quite a bit longer than I had anticipated, but eventually my outstretched hand met with flesh and blood.

“Lord Dunphy,” I tried, gently shaking his shoulder. It was obvious he was passed out cold. I could feel a dampness on his shirt, probably blood. “Can you hear me?”

Dunphy groaned.

“We need to get out of here. It feels like you’ve lost a lot of blood. Any idea where we are or how to get back to the castle?”

“Dungeon.”

“I sort of figured that. I’m not familiar with the layout. Do you think we’re in a cell?”

Lord Dunphy groaned again, but I felt him sit up beside me. Maybe he wasn’t hurt as badly as I’d thought.

“The cells no longer lock. Unless Luke fashioned a locking device of some sort we should be able to get out of here. Eventually.”

“So it
was
Luke. He was number two on my suspect list, behind Liam.”

“Suspect list?”

“I ranked the other guests based on the likelihood that they’d killed Brent, who isn’t really Brent, by the way.”

“Brent isn’t Brent?”

“I’ll explain later. How do you suggest we find our way out of here?”

“The floor slopes gently toward the ocean. If you travel down the slope you will reach the entrance on the beach. If you travel up the slope you’ll find the entrance in the workroom.”

I felt the floor near where I was sitting. Dunphy was correct; the ground sloped enough to actually determine a direction. If you were heading toward neither the beach nor the workroom you would be traveling parallel to the entrances.

“Okay, what do you suggest? Up or down?”

“Down, I think. Unless someone has moved the cabinet in front of the door in the workroom we will be trapped at that point.”

I touched Dunphy’s shoulder with my hand. “Can you move?”

He let out a deep sigh, or maybe it was another groan. “I can move. I assure you that I have no intention of dying in my own dungeons.”

Dunphy and I began to crawl toward the downward slope. It was slow going, but crawling seemed to make the most sense when there was no way to see where we were stepping.

“I guess Luke got the jewels?”

“Blackguard. Those are my jewels. I’ve been looking for them for most of my life.”

“So you never found the hidden room?”

“The door leading to the stairway has always been frozen shut. It is a heavy door. Built to last an invasion. I’ve never been able to open it.”

“But it opened right up.” I stopped crawling when I felt something rough on the ground. Whatever it was, it was sharp enough to cut right through human skin. I warned Dunphy and we scooted our way around it.

“For you. Mother said you were the one.”

“The one?” I asked.

“The one Catherine has been waiting for. I knew it was only a matter of time before Catherine revealed her secret to you, so I have been watching you. I followed you today. At least I think it is still today. It’s hard to tell.”

“I’m pretty sure we haven’t been down here for more than an hour or two at the most. Zak would have found me by now if it had been longer.”

“You seem pretty confident of your young man.”

“I am,” I answered, and I was. Still, it seemed like Zak should have come looking for me in the dungeons by now. He’d know I was missing and he knew I was fascinated by them. I hoped he was okay.

I stopped crawling when my hand came into contact with metal bars. “I think we’re at the edge of the cell.”

“You will need to find the door. As I said, unless Luke fashioned a lock it should open to the main walkway.”

I stood up. The bars gave me a frame of reference and something to hold on to. “I’ll go left and you go right. Whoever finds the opening first should holler.”

It took a few minutes, but eventually I found the doorway that led into the cell. Not only was it not locked, it wasn’t even closed. Luke must not have been too worried that we would regain consciousness.

Once we made our way to the walkway that ran down the center of the old cells, it was just a matter of maintaining our downward journey. As we neared the opening from the beach to the dungeons it began to get lighter. Eventually, it was light enough for us to see where we were going.

Dunphy was in pretty bad shape. I was surprised he’d made it as far as he had. I instructed him to stay put while I went for help. There was no way he was walking back into the castle with a bullet in his chest.

I snuck in through the door behind the kitchen. I figured Luke would have to wait around until the bridge opened, and he might be using force to ensure that the others didn’t come looking for me. I was right. I looked out from the kitchen into the dining room. All the other guests, as well as the staff except for Liam, were sitting around the table. It looked as if their hands were tied behind their backs. Luke stood at one end with a gun in one hand and Charlie in the other. I guess that explained why Zak hadn’t come looking for me.

What I found interesting was that Susan was sitting at the table with the others. I’d really thought she was in on the whole thing.

Now I just had to figure out how to save everyone so that everyone could save Lord Dunphy.

I stepped back into the kitchen as I assessed the situation. Luke had a gun. I didn’t. There were knives in the kitchen, but everyone knows guns trump knives. Additionally, Luke had my fur baby in his arms. There was no way I was going to do anything that might lead to Charlie being injured. It seemed a direct invasion of the room wasn’t going to lead to anything good.

What I needed was a diversion. I needed to be careful, though, because I didn’t want to make things worse. Still, Dunphy was in bad shape, so I had to act quickly. I had an idea. Granted, it was a lame idea, but it was all I had. I was about to put my lame idea into action when someone clamped a hand over my mouth from behind.

“Don’t scream,” a voice I recognized as Liam’s said in my ear.

I stood perfectly still. I
knew
Liam was part of this. I should have trusted my first instinct. Of course if he was working with Luke, why was he lurking around in the kitchen with me?

“If I remove my hand will you remain silent?”

I nodded my head that I would. I really had nothing to gain by drawing Luke’s attention to our presence.

Liam slowly removed his hand. I took a deep breath and turned around so that we were facing each other. “Are you working with Luke?” I whispered.

“Does it look like I’m working with Luke?”

“No,” I admitted, “I guess not.”

“I need you to go back outside and circle around to the front of the castle. Once you get there create a disturbance. Can you do that?”

“Yeah,” I assured him. “I can do that.”

I let myself out the back door, circled around to the front, then opened the front door and stepped inside yelling, “Honey, I’m home,” as loudly as I could.

Luke stepped toward my voice while Liam came in behind him and hit him over the head with something. The blow didn’t kill him, but it did knock him out.

After Luke’s gun had been removed from his possession and he’d been secured, the men went to rescue poor Lord Dunphy. Luckily, his wound looked worse than it actually was and it appeared he would make a full recovery.

About the time Lord Dunphy was settled in his rooms, the phones came back on line and Zak was able to get hold of both a doctor and the local authorities.

Once law enforcement arrived and everything got sorted out, it was discovered that Luke had taken the job with Armand in order to travel the world, with access to restricted locations under the radar. All those times Armand thought Luke was partying it up with the woman of the moment, he was actually procuring priceless jewels, artifacts, and works of art, which he’d later sell to the highest bidder. On this particular trip he was here to sell a diamond worth close to a hundred million dollars to Susan, who had come as the representative of her very rich and very extravagant boss. She needed a cover so she hired Sam to be her pretend boss. Once Luke and Susan heard about the jewels Catherine had supposedly hidden in the castle, they’d decided to look for them. After all, the bridge was closed, so they weren’t going anywhere.