Aleister appears in the doorway. He doesn’t dare inter the premises.
“Fitz?” His voice is high and shaky, and I look over my shoulder.
He stands just outside the door holding the towel. It trembles in his outstretched hand, and I notice he’s shaking from head to foot. His face is pale, and one thing is not in his eyes…
Confidence.
“Toss it to me.”
He poises himself on the landing, working to maintain his balance, and throws the small hand towel to me. I wrap it around my hand and grip the end of the mattress, sliding it away from where it covers the baron’s body.
“Oh!” I step back, recoiling from what I see. Aleister makes a frightened squeak behind me.
“Fuck,” I growl, clearing my throat.
On the floor lies the baron, very clearly dead. He’s been strangled to death.
His face is purplish-black, and his eyes bug out of their sockets. The whites are completely red from the exploded blood vessels. He emptied both his bladder and bowels in the struggle, and there’s foam at the corners of his mouth.
A swell of vomit rises at the base of my throat as I creep closer to try and see if I can detect any clues.
Ice fills my stomach when I see it.
Blood red bruises in the shape of chain links cover the skin around his neck and jowls. I recognize the marks at once as being made by the long gold Romanov chain looped what appears to have been at least three times around his neck. The gold links cut deeply into his skin, and in some places, it’s broken and blood has seeped out.
“Christ,” I hiss.
My mind fills with the memory of the girl with the blonde curls and huge blue eyes. I can still hear her breathy voice calling him Daddy. I can still see her clutching his arm and gazing with rapture into his watery blue eyes.
She killed him.
She strangled him with that gold chain, and from the state of the room a violent struggle ensued.
I imagine her small hands grasping it tighter around his neck, riding his back like some sadistic child as he tried to fight her off.
From the looks of it he didn’t go down easy.
I see everything differently now.
A man struggling for life ripped the books off the shelves.
A man fighting off an attacker pushed the mattress to the side.
A young woman driven by rage took his life, then took everything from his safe.
Anger coils in my chest as I imagine Molly planning this entire scenario start to finish. She zeroed in on him at dinner, fingering the chain, letting him touch her body. She lured him to his death.
As soon as I have the thought, I ask the obvious question. Is a girl that small strong enough to accomplish this?
What other suspects could there be?
Turning from the room, I sprint to the door, pushing my way into the hall. “Do not enter that room!” I shout back. “I’ll send the porter to secure the crime scene.”
One thing is on my mind. The only person who might be willing to help Molly do this horrific thing.
Lara.
I fly through the sliding doors into the next car, skidding to a stop at her door. Pausing again, I look inside at the completely barren stateroom. Clothes, shoes, toiletries… Everything is gone.