Murder Takes the High Road(51)
She paused midway down and smiled. It was a cool, enigmatic smile, and yet, it was a beautiful smile. It changed her face. Lit her eyes. Made her look younger.
“As we say in the Gaelic, Ceud mìle fàilte. One hundred thousand welcomes. I am Vanessa Rayburn.”
Chapter Seventeen
She did not look like a murderess.
Not that murderers look different from the rest of us. If there’s one thing crime fiction teaches us, it’s that murderers come in all shapes and sizes. But she didn’t seem like a murderer—which I suppose is an equally silly observation given, again, my familiarity with crime fiction.
Vanessa seemed too self-possessed to ever have to resort to violence, but of course she had lived a lifetime since her teenage self coshed Donald Kresley over the head and left him to drown. She wouldn’t just seem like a different person, she was a different person. And yet...
I watched her moving through our group, greeting us one by one. She took her time. She seemed genuinely interested. She had even memorized what each of us did for a living.
“Wally. What a pleasure. Pediatrics is such an admirable profession. And this must be Nedda...” She was charming and methodical as she ticked us off what was clearly a mental list.
The only time Vanessa seemed to hesitate was meeting Daya and Roddy, and that was because Daya unexpectedly threw her arms around her and hugged her tightly. Vanessa was flustered—and the rest of us surprised. Vanessa recovered, but she was slightly off her stride as she moved quickly on to the next person, which happened to be John.
John said tersely, “John Knight.”
“John, how lovely that you were able to join us at the last moment!”
John remained stoic as he shook hands.
Vanessa waited an expectant beat, then turned to me.
“Carter Matheson,” I supplied.
She brightened. “The librarian. Oh, we love librarians!”
“I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to actually meet you,” I said. That was the first and least embarrassing thing I said. I was in full fanboy mode, and only when I happened to glance over and see John’s quizzical expression did I break off, flushing. “I’m sorry. I’m gushing.”
Vanessa squeezed my arm. “Don’t apologize! It’s endearing. It isn’t the critics and naysayers we creatives need, you know.” She turned to the next person, Edie Poe, who turned out to be no slouch in the gushing department herself.
Alison appeared between John and me. “Carter, John, your room is ready, if you two want to go up with Elizabeth.”
I glanced around and realized that as Vanessa finished greeting each of us, we were drawn from the group and directed to our rooms. It was very smoothly done. Besides John and me, only Edie, Bertie, Yvonne and Ben were left in the large hall.
Alison handed us off to Vanessa’s personal assistant, and we made the trek upstairs past a museum’s worth of antique weaponry, several glum galleries of people who looked more troublingly alike with each generation, numerous candelabras, and one whole hell of a lot of taxidermy. It was great. I was reminded of the art from a graphic novel or maybe a video game, Mystery Case Files: Dire Grove or Escape from Ravenhurst, and I didn’t think that was by accident.
“What do you think?” John asked, once we were installed in our room and had started to unpack.
“I love it.” I studied the two queen-size beds beneath blue brocade coverlets, the azure-and-purple Persian carpet, the charmingly mismatched antique furniture and kooky bibelots. The real beauty of the room lay in the stunning view of the Pentland Firth. “It’s perfect. Better than I could have imagined.”
John eyed a large marble bust suspiciously. “I don’t mean the room. I mean her.” He approached the bust and gave its head a tentative twist, like a halfhearted assassin.
“What are you doing?”
“Checking to see if our rooms are bugged.”
My paranoia seemed to be catching.
I laughed. “Seriously?”
“Hell, yes. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a camera somewhere.”
“A...camera?” I stopped laughing as I recalled in technicolor some of our livelier moments at the Ben Wyvis Hotel and Manor House.
John was feeling beneath a silk lampshade on the lamp near the window. “You don’t think this is a weird setup? Look around you. It’s like we’re in a mystery novel.”
“I know! Or a video game. It’s brilliant.”
He gave a short laugh and shook his head. “And what about her? Lady Macbeth. The writer you traveled the world to meet.”
We were sharing the en suite with the Matsukados, and the sound of running water next door reminded me that the walls had ears, even if the statuary didn’t.
“Well...it’s kind of weird when you finally meet someone who, up until that moment, you’ve only seen on book jackets.”
“That’s true. I was surprised to realize the book jackets were life-size.”
I snorted. “She is a lot smaller than I expected. What did you think of her?”
He grunted. “I don’t know. She seems...forceful.”
“Daya’s the one who surprised me. I know she’s a fan or she wouldn’t have paid to go on this tour, let alone drag Roddy along, but she’s been so critical every time the books are discussed.”