The Monet Murders (The Art of Murder 2)

“They’re not connected,” Bram said.

“You can’t know that. At this juncture—”

Kennedy interrupted, “You’re the one who picked up Poveda. Correct?” He was talking to Daisy.

Daisy’s brown eyes opened wide in alarm. She looked at Bram, her expression guilty.

Bram rolled his eyes. “Hell,” he said. “Go ahead, Miss Chatterbox. I don’t see what the point is now, but go ahead and tell them.”

“There isn’t a lot to tell,” Daisy admitted. “I took a group of tourists over to see the old fort. They were going to have lunch and explore the island. That’s typical of our summer business. A boy about my age came bursting out of the bushes. He was stark naked, holding a branch in front of his crotch like he thought it was a fig leaf.” She gave a nervous giggle. “He claimed he’d been locked up in the Durrand family’s crypt for days and that he’d been, um, molested.”

“Molested?” Jason repeated.

“Raped. He claimed he was being held prisoner. A sexual slave. By Shepherd.”

“There were other witnesses to this claim?” Kennedy asked.

“No. It was just me by then. He’d waited until everyone was gone, and then he ran down to the dock as I was about to set sail. He said he believed they were going to kill him—”

“They?” Jason questioned.

“Shepherd and whoever. Barnaby, I guess. He begged me to take him with me—the kid, that is—and I did.” The look she threw Bram was slightly defiant. “I believed him.”

“If he was locked inside the crypt, how did he explain getting free?” Jason asked.

“He said someone opened the door. He couldn’t see who. He thought it was a trap at first, and he was afraid to come out. Like in the Dangerous Game.”

“Huh?” Bram said.

“Like the story. Or maybe he watched the movie. We read it in high school.”

Bram

shook his head.

“Yes. We read it in Mrs. De Haan’s English class.”

Bram shook his head again.

“Yes. We did. You loved that story!”

Kennedy sighed.

Jason prompted, “Poveda thought the open door might be a trap?”

Daisy nodded eagerly. “Right. But finally he realized it might be his only chance to get away, and he ran into the woods.”

“He didn’t say who opened the door?”

“He didn’t see. He figured it was one of the servants at the house. Someone who couldn’t go along with murder. But he didn’t know. I can tell you one thing, he was scared to death. He wasn’t faking that.”

Bram made a face.

“Why was he so sure he was going to be murdered?” Jason asked.

“He said Shepherd told him they would have to kill him. That he couldn’t trust him not to tell what happened.”

Sam said, “They again.”