“He didn’t mean it,” Jack said.
“It’s possible,” Sara said slowly, “that seeing Sean again... I mean you, Jack...awakened memories in him. He used to be a man of ambition and he wanted to overcome his origins. He wanted his daughter to marry an earl and live in an ancestral mansion.”
“But she fell in love with the stableman,” Kate said.
“She was going to have his baby,” Puck said.
They looked at her. “We couldn’t help overhearing.”
“What else did you hear?” Sara asked. “Or see? Or intuit? What?”
They stared at her.
“Willa is different. When people are looking, she seems to like Clive, but one time, she... I don’t think she’ll write him any more love letters.”
“Byon?” Kate asked.
“Something has hurt him.” She looked at Jack. “But you are charging him.”
“You mean like a dead battery?” Sara said, and Puck nodded. “I agree. Tonight he was quite animated in his storytelling.”
“All his stories were old,” Kate said. “In every one, he said, ‘Of course that was before cell phones.’ What’s he been doing for the last few years?”
Jack and Sara looked at each other. When Sara lived in New York, they often went to Broadway plays, but that was years ago. What had Byon written lately?
Sara looked back at Puck. “How is Nadine different?”
“I think she’s afraid.”
“Of what?” Kate asked, but no one answered. “If someone did kill Mr. Howland... Why? Who? Think Nadine knows something?”
All three women looked at Jack.
“I think you guys should leave. Go home.” He looked at Puck. “You need to go with them.”
Puck sat down on a stool. “Whoever killed Sean is here. In this house. If you leave, they’ll know why.”
“I think she’s right,” Sara said. “I don’t believe in coincidence in book plots or in life. I don’t know why Mr. Howland was killed, but I truly believe it has something to do with Sean’s death.”
“And Diana’s,” Kate said. “She could be, uh, hidden somewhere.”
“I think—” Jack began, but stopped when they heard voices. “The police are here. Are we agreed on this? You’re all going to leave?”
“No,” Sara said. “We’re a threesome, remember?”
“Maybe I should tell the police that I found the—” Puck began.
“NO!” they shouted at her.
“You know nothing,” Jack said. “Understand me? I don’t want to see you with a plastic bag over your head.”
“Or shot and poisoned and strangled,” Sara said.
Puck looked shocked.
“Agreed?” Sara said.
Puck nodded.