It didn’t budge.
Okay, no problem. She tipped half of the snow off. That worked.
By the third shovelful, she was panting. By the fourth, she couldn’t lift it one more time.
A big hand closed over hers. She raised her gaze to Cooper’s. “I’ll get it,” he said.
She could see the exhaustion in his face. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I wish you didn’t have to do this.”
“You feel bad?”
“Very.”
That seemed to perk him up. “Enough to make it up to me?”
She had to laugh at the teasing light in his eyes, but as he turned back to work, her smile faded. Because she found she did want to make it up to him. She wanted to do that, and more.#p#分页标题#e#
A lot more.
Breanne went inside to get more bottles of water. Shelly would have gone but Breanne insisted, needing a moment alone. In the kitchen, she set the tray on the counter and loaded more water bottles onto it. As she did, her eyes strayed to the cupboard beneath the sink.
Was the towel still there?
Heart in her throat, she nudged the door open with her toe. Yep, bloody towel still in place.
Her stomach lurched sickly, and she considered staggering weakly back to a chair but heard something behind her.
She spun around fast enough to get dizzy but realized the sound had come from beneath her.
Beneath her.
Whirling back, she peeked out the kitchen window. Dante, Patrick, Cooper, and Lariana were there. Shelly, too.
Everyone was outside.
Every single person.
At least every single alive person.
Oh God, don’t go there. This wasn’t the movies. There had to be a perfectly good explanation for that noise, and she was going to find out what. Yes, she was. She grabbed a flashlight, and on second thought, another knife from the butcher block.
Just in case.
Just in case what, she had no idea.
The hallway to the servants’ quarters was going to give her nightmares for the rest of her natural-born days. Halfway down it, her heart was pounding so hard and fast she couldn’t have heard a tornado ripping through over the sound of her own pulse drumming in her ears. She actually had to stop and breathe for a moment to be able to hear at all.
Nothing but silence greeted her, and then . . . a faint thud.
It’d come from behind the one locked bedroom door, naturally. Forget evening out her pulse now—the best she could do was gulp in a breath. She knocked once. “Hello?”
Nothing, though she imagined she heard panicky breathing. On both sides of the door. “Anyone in there?” She knocked again and told herself she was fine. Nothing could happen to her; she held a butcher’s knife, for God’s sake.
No one answered. Of course not, because the only one down here was Edward, and his answering days were long over. Turning, she peeked into the room where Lariana had been sleeping. Neat and tidy as a pin.
The bedroom next to it—Dante’s, she could tell by the beanie on the foot of the bed—wasn’t nearly as neat. He hadn’t made his bed, and he had yesterday’s clothes on the floor.
But from under the bed peeked out a hand.
Oh God.
In some kind of trance, her feet took her inside the room, and then to the mattress, knowing if she found another body she was going to truly start screaming and never stop. Cringing, she bent down, then let out a short, rough breath as she realized the truth.
Not a hand, but a glove. A rubber kitchen glove stained with the same dark brown stuff that was on the towel upstairs beneath the sink. Desperately she wanted to believe what she’d told Cooper, that she was looking at dried ketchup, but she knew better, and had to shove a fist against her mouth.
And then she heard the one sound she hadn’t wanted to hear. Footsteps. Wildly, she looked around her. No time to get out; oh God, no time to do anything but flatten herself to the floor and scoot beneath the bed, which she managed just as someone came into the room.
Two black boots and two white Keds. Two someones.
“We only have a few minutes,” Dante said, sounding out of breath. “The cop is determined to get out of here.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Shelly. “Dante, I lied to you.”
Breanne, already frozen in place beneath the bed, stiffened in shock. No, Shelly.#p#分页标题#e#
“Tell me.” Dante’s voice was low and gruff, and yet infinitely gentle. “It’s okay, just tell me.”
“Oh no, it’s not what you think!” Shelly rushed to say. “I meant I lied just now, upstairs, about having to talk to you. Because really what I wanted was . . .”
“You wanted what?”
The two Keds shifted until they were toe-to-toe with the black boots. Breanne didn’t dare move but the gloves, the bloody gloves, were too close. They were really beginning to get to her.