Alistair nodded.
“Did you ask where she got the earrings?” the mayor asked.
Westie looked at Nigel. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat.
“That’s unimportant. The fact is she had them,” Alistair said.
The question of where Olive had gotten the earrings hadn’t come up in their planning. Most little girls got their jewelry from their mother, so Westie thought people would assume Lavina had killed Isabelle and had given the earrings to Olive. Westie wanted to mention it, but then thought better of it in case the mayor turned that logic back on her, since it was Westie who’d given Isabelle the earrings in the first place.
Westie cursed inwardly.
“Just answer the question, please,” the mayor said.
Alistair’s mask hummed. “No, sir.”
“So it’s possible the girl found the earrings in the forest where she’d been playing, the same forest where Isabelle Johansson met her unfortunate demise.”
“Yes,” Nigel interjected, “but—”
The mayor slammed his hands against his desk so hard Westie could feel it in her feet, cutting off whatever details Nigel might’ve added to the wispy remains of their story.
Westie fought the emotion that had started to make her chin quiver. She looked away from the mayor so he wouldn’t see, and focused on the safe in the corner instead. It had three locks. Now that the Fairfields didn’t have their gold, she wondered what Lavina possessed that was so important she needed to hide it in a safe.
“Unless the Fairfields have blood on their hands and skin in their teeth,” the mayor went on, “I will have no more of these accusations. If there are cannibals running amok, it has nothing to do with my guests.” The mayor pointed a bloated finger at the sheriff. “What you have is circumstantial evidence,” he said, peppering his speech with words from back in his lawyer days, “nothing more. If you want to keep your job, you’ll have to do better detective work than that.”
Westie felt as though the floor had dropped out beneath her. Her vision blurred as tears flooded her eyes. She mopped them up with her sleeve.
The mayor dismissed them. Westie rushed from the room. Outside, the sheriff leaned into Nigel. “This ain’t over. We’ll get them.” Westie reckoned his determination had more to do with the mayor’s threat than it did with seeking justice. He seemed like a man who didn’t take kindly to threats. She knew all too well that passion and determination weren’t enough to catch killers. They needed a solid plan, and because she’d stolen the Fairfields’ gold without one, she feared she’d ruined everything.
Westie plopped down in the carriage seat beside Alistair. She folded her hands in her lap and fought her panic. “It really is over. The Fairfields will leave because of this.”
Alistair’s hand twitched, inching toward hers as if he might take it. But with a flinching move, he placed it at his side. “Don’t give up just yet,” he said. “They’re broke. They won’t leave before trying to get their money back. It’s too much to just walk away from. James doesn’t strike me as the type who’d be content on government handouts. I imagine the Fairfields will keep a low profile till then. At least they won’t kill anyone for a while.”
Westie sighed. “Until they run out of food and realize killing and eating a man won’t cost them anything.”
The conversation came to an abrupt end when Nigel sat behind the reins. His mustache had been twisted to thin points—a habit when he was angry.
No one spoke on the ride to the jail. Once Westie and Alistair retrieved their horses and made it back to the mansion, Westie waited for a good verbal beating. Instead, Nigel went straight to the great room for the rest of the night, which to Westie was far worse than being yelled at.
Twenty-Nine
The next morning Westie heard the brass sounds of tinkering coming from the floor below and got out of bed. She got dressed and followed the racket downstairs to the double doors of the great room. Opening one of the doors, she hit a wall of stagnant air. The room was barely lit except for a candle here and there. Daylight followed her in and smeared the gloom.
Nigel shied away from the light like a vampire. When he raised his hands to fend off the light, Westie noticed a bottle of whiskey gripped in one of them. He sat atop the great magic-amplifying beast, his face oily with sweat. His eyes looked hollow, his cheeks dug out. Alistair stood below, holding an assortment of tools for the assist.
Westie shut the door and crowded them with shadow again. She put her hand to her nose. That sour, swampy smell was all too familiar. It was the smell of old booze seeping from wasted pores, the smell of forgotten nights and drunken mornings after she’d woken up in a pile of her own puke.