Page 99 of Whispers at Dusk
As they spoke, Mason rose in the window opening, hoping Gideon would turn to him.
The ghost did so.
Mason mouthed out a question.
“Could you just shove one of the other chairs?” he asked.
Gideon frowned for a minute, looking worried. Then he squared his ghostly shoulders, looking back at Mason, and nodded.
“Mason is here,” Gideon told Della. “Get ready, I’m going to distract Dante.”
“In England,” Dante continued, “I did the beautiful display. The other, well...was not an idiot! In fact, one of my finest followers. Ah, here’s the thing. The world is open and filled with magic for those who read. I mean, what would the movies have been if Bram Stoker hadn’t writtenDracula? And okay, so...they call Castle Bran Dracula’s castle, but it really wasn’t that big of a deal in his life, and still...what a story came from it. Books! They’re filled with puzzles and secrets and wonders.”
“That tells me nothing about England.”
“You’re not reading enough. Or should I say...perhaps not doing the research that goes into a good book!”
He wasn’t giving Della a definitive answer.
And they might well be running out of time.
Mason gave Gideon a nod.
The ghost moved away from Della, hunched down, squeezed his eyes shut, and summoned every bit of energy he could from the air.
A chair moved, causing a screeching noise against the floor.
Dante looked away, rising, shocked.
And Mason took aim from the window area and fired.
Fourteen
Della dropped the rope, grabbed her Baby Browning from her boot at the same time and sprang to her feet.
Stephan Dante let out a scream of agony.
Mason had aimed perfectly. His shot had caught Dante dead in the wrist. The Glock went flying from his injured hand, up in the air, and down to the floor.
By then, Mason had leaped through the old window opening, and Della had her Baby Browning on Dante as well.
“No!” Dante screamed with rage. “No, no, no! You are to die. I will kill you. I will kill you. I will—”
“What you will do is go to prison!” another voice said.
It was Edmund Taylor who had pushed through the front door and approached Dante without hesitation, a pair of handcuffs ready for the prisoner.
Dante started to laugh, even as Taylor cuffed him.
“Prison! Oh, my friend. I have so many good, good friends there! I’ll be out in no time!”
“Louisiana has the death penalty,” Mason reminded him.
“Yeah, but I can afford a swanky lawyer. They’ll find me incompetent to stand trial, and I will need mental health assistance! And they’ll want me in France and England where there’s no death penalty and... Well, Special Agent Mason Carter, I will kill you.” He turned to Della. “You go ahead and keep sleeping with him now. Because you’re really just a bitch like the rest of them. But when I’m free and he’s dead, I’ll show you something real before... Well, now I know, you need to be dead, too.”
Mason looked at Della. “Maybe I should have shot him in the head?”
“You did the right thing,” Taylor said. “Because I need to know—who else killed women in London?”
