Demon on a Distant Shore Read Free Page B

table, and a blackened, wide-bladed knife.
    My beam found the boy’s flashlight on the floor as Michael carried young Gordon from the room. I picked it up and clicked, but the battery had died. Poor kid. I hated to think what he went through when the light died, trapped alone in this tomb, knowing no one heard his cries.
    Trapped. I turned to Royal. “How could we get out if the door was shut?”
    He went to the door, closed it and in seconds found a button high up on the vertical frame. The door came open.
    Gordon watched someone come down the stairs and open the door. But he never came inside to see how it could be opened from in here. He returned here on his own, came into the room and then could not get out.
    The anger I’d felt since the butler told me where Gordon Junior was boiled up my throat.
     
    Light from Michael’s study window shone on Anarosa’s hair as she sat facing me, hands clenched around a balled up handkerchief. Her face was the color of unbleached linen and she still had not looked me in the eyes.
    I spoke gently, keeping my tone reasonable, soft and even. “You were sixteen. You let a man into the house so he could pocket some valuables. Mr. Jordan caught you. There was - ”
    “It wasn’t like that.” Tears dribbled down Anarosa’s cheeks. She wiped them with one palm, the other still clutching the soggy handkerchief. “Jordan . . . did something to me and there . . . there were consequences. I had to tell my brother. He came here to confront Jordan. They struggled, Jordan pulled a gun and shot Mario. I stabbed Jordan in the back with a kitchen knife.”
    The old bastard lied to me. Not surprising.
    “So you hid Mario’s body down below.”
    A huge sob burst out as she violently nodded her head. “We only had each other. I had to think of my future without him.”
    Foolish woman. She didn’t even wipe the knife. It had Jordan’s blood and her fingerprints on it. Modern forensic science would link her to Jordan’s murder.
    I could guess what Jordan did to a maid little more than a child, and the consequences. I’d feel sorry for Anarosa, if not for what happened to Gordon Junior. Still, I hoped she lived to a ripe old age because Jordan was stuck here until she died. I hoped there was a Hell and Jordan went there when Anarosa finally passed on.
    “Gordon saw you go to that room, so he took a look yesterday. Didn’t it occur to you he could be down there?”
    “I . . . I didn’t. . . .”
    “You didn’t look because you were afraid you’d find him there, and what would you do then? How would you explain what he saw?”
    “I’m so sorry.” Anarosa wept into her hands, entire body shuddering.
    I rose up. “I really don’t give a damn about what you did to Jordan, or hiding Mario’s body. You left Gordon to die alone in the dark.”
    Sirens sounded in the distance. I passed Royal as he came in the room, and left Anarosa with him towering behind her. I went to meet Captain Mike Warren of Clarion PD in the mansion’s porch.
    Nicholas Jordan stood in the hall. He saluted me as I passed him, then faded through the wall. He told me what happened the night of his death and where to find Gordon, and I fingered his killer. Deal done.

Chapter Two
     
    Sunlight from the west window bathed the side of Royal’s head, dazzling on his metallic-looking copper and gold-streaked hair, adding a subtle sheen to his pale-copper skin, picking out the mica speckles in his shining new-penny eyes.
    Gelpha are beautiful, and human beings - if they knew of the Otherworldy - would call them supermen. They possess heightened senses and can move like the wind. With effort, they can even slightly alter their appearance. But the killer ability is how they can make a person feel and there are those who use it as a weapon, making their victims compliant to their wishes. They have a scent particular to them; one whiff and you are weak in the knees. A certain look from their eyes and you are breathless,