Page 18 of Tanglewood Legacy (The Three Sisters 3)
Some color returned to the boy’s cheeks, and his lips bent into a tentative smile. “Ah. I am sorry,monsieur, that I lost her trail.”
He delivered two heavy thumps to the boy’s back. “That’s all right. Now, finish with the horses and off with you.”
The boy gave a shallow bow and took off for the stables.
Pierre’s smile faded once the boy was out of sight. He hated to lie, but a rumor of witchcraft could be deadly, and Isis Tanglewood did disappear. As God was his witness, she’d dissolved into thin air.
ChapterNine
Early the next morning, Pierre woke to the sound of a woman screaming. He bound out of bed, dressed quickly, and headed in the direction of the sound, pulling on his boots on the way. Only when he made it to the center of town did he see the cause for alarm. A group had gathered in the square, and a large, gray lump lay between them. As he drew closer, he made out the body of a man and a familiar-looking waif of a woman with her hands raised to her mouth, who he supposed was the source of the scream.
He was relieved when the surgeon arrived on the scene. “Back away. Give us room,” Viel ordered. He exchanged a dark look with Pierre as he lowered himself to the victim’s side.
It was clear whatever had killed Guillaume had struck again. Two puncture wounds marred the neck of the corpse. Although no blood stained the pallid skin or the white sleeping shirt the man wore, Pierre thought the state of the corpse was too similar to the first to be a coincidence.
“Drained,” Viel said under his breath, shaking his head.
Something about that sleep shirt bothered Pierre, but he couldn’t wrap his mind around it.
Viel ordered a lieutenant nearby to inform the governor and to bring a cart for the remains. Someone else was dispatched to fetch a priest. Viel continued his examination, as questions piled up in Pierre’s still-waking mind.
“Who is this man?” Pierre asked the slight woman whose screams had roused him.
Heaven help her, she looked ill. Her eyes were dull and listless, her dark hair limp, and her bare feet filthy from the dirt streets. “He’s… my… husband,” she said, the words broken with sobs.
Pierre couldn’t miss the purplish bruise that blossomed beside her left eye or the round bruises that marred the wrist of the hand that gripped her handkerchief to her face. Whoever this was, her husband had been rough with her. He wondered how disappointed she could be that he’d met his fate.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Madame…”
“Cavalier. Lucienne Cavalier.”
“How did this happen?” The man must have left his marriage bed at some point in the night. But Pierre had been watching this area when Isis left for home and searched it thoroughly once she’d disappeared. The murder must have occurred after that.
“Jacques said he’d heard something outside. He took the candle and went to check and never returned.”
“You didn’t go searching for him when he didn’t come back to bed?”
“I fell asleep,monsieur. I only realized he was missing this morning and found him thus.” She pointed a hand at her husband’s corpse and blotted her eyes.
“Of course, I did not mean to upset you,madame, only to understand the events of the night for some clue to what might have done this.” Pierre walked around the body, noticing again how there was no blood on the nightshirt. No blood and no mud. His eyes went wide, and he focused on the man’s bare feet. Now he realized what had bothered him before. Unlike his wife’s, which were covered in dirt, Jacques’s feet were clean, which meant the man had been… carried.
Pierre pictured a giant bird swooping down and lifting him off his plank wood porch. Icy realization skirted through him. He’d watched Isis disappear the night before not far from here. What if the same creature had taken her? She’d spoken of vampires. Wasn’t the legend that they could fly? She’d been in this square only minutes before.
He had to find her and make sure she was okay.
He turned for theordinateur’soffice.
“Where are you going?” Viel asked.
He cleared his throat. “To investigate along the river. If this is some kind of animal, there will be footprints.”
Whether Viel was appeased by the explanation, Pierre couldn’t be sure, but the priest arrived then, and the men turned their attention back to the body. Oh, Pierre did plan to check the riverbank for strange footprints, but first, he planned to find Isis and make sure she was okay. A quick visit toCommissaireSalmon and he had a map to the Tanglewood Plantation. The man kept records of each land grant, and as architect and engineer for the parish, Pierre had no trouble learning the precise location of the Tanglewoods’.
He rode at the fastest pace his horse could manage in the sweltering heat, following the water and then weaving through the thick forest. As it turned out, he didn’t need to reference his map to know he was in the right place. A home the likes of which he hadn’t seen since he left France rose at the top of a knoll, surrounded by oak trees. Behind it, a massive field of sprouting indigo stretched toward the swamp. He couldn’t help but gape. True to her word, there wasn’t a slave in sight, but the Tanglewoods had managed to build a plantation worthy of a king’s visit in a matter of weeks.
His stomach dropped. This wasn’t possible. It wasn’t…natural. Could Henri have been right? Was Isis not a pirate as he’d assumed…but awitch? He tugged the reins and brought his horse to a stop, then took a long drink from his canteen. The heat must be getting to his head. Witches didn’t exist. Neither did vampires.
“Are you here to see me?”
