Severine slowly turned and faced Grandmère. Severine took a deep breath to hide the terror of being caught. Perhaps she shouldn’t have left before Mr. Thorne returned. “Grandmère, good morning. You look lovely today.”
Grandmère laughed lightly, making the sound menacing as well. “What are you doing? Looking for the jewelry, no doubt. No one knows the combination to the safe, my dear.”
Severine paused and then said, “Surely, Mr. Brand does.”
“If he does, he refuses to open it.”
Severine used the same serene but cool tone when she asked, “Why would he? Nothing in there is yours.”
She shouldn’t have done it, she knew. The second the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them.
Grandmère pounced. “So ready to rake through the things of the dead. So ready to put on the tiara and proclaim yourself princess. Greedy child.”
Severine pursed her lips. “Lovely day, Grandmère. Enjoy your morning.”
She ran up the stairs and wove her way through the ridiculous house until she found her bedroom, needing solitude to steady herself. Severine started to dig through her cases and only realized then that they’d been rifled through before her. They hadn’t even been trying to hide it.
Her underthings had been carefully folded and in a smaller bag. Now they were strewn throughout the trunk. Her books were opened and the letter she’d placed between the pages of her current book was opened. It had been written in German and there was nothing secret in it. A comment on hopes for Severine’s safe arrival in the United States and updates on the nuns.
Severine checked the false bottom of her case where she’d kept her important papers, a few of the more interesting things she’d brought with her from the nunnery, and her money. It was undisturbed. She closed it tightly and then rose.
Whoever had done this hadn’t intended to be undiscovered. They had, in fact, wanted her to know that they’d been into her locked room. They’d wanted her to know she wasn’t safe. They’d wanted her to feel hunted and alone.
They had, however, chosen the wrong target. She’d always felt alone and being hunted wasn’t so cumbersome when she was also hunting.
Someone knocked and Severine slowly turned to examine her dogs. The girls were sleeping on the end of her bed. Anubis’s tail flopped against the carpet in front of the fireplace.
“Who is it?”
“Lisette and Mr. Brand,” her friend replied.
Severine opened the door and Lisette said, “Fool. You shouldn’t be hurrying around this mausoleum alone.”
“I can see that,” Severine said, gesturing to her once neatly packed trunk.
Lisette muttered. “Mine too. With a colorful phrase scratched into my mirror.”
“Insults?”
“On the color of my skin,” Lisette finished.
“I am worried for you,” Mr. Brand told Severine, but his gaze moved between them both.
“So am I,” Lisette told him. “I am very much worried for myself. Her too when she isn’t being stupid and practically asking to be strangled behind a curtain.”
“I have Anubis and my father’s gun,” Severine told them, though it was only partially true. “I won’t be run off because they have determined to scare me.”
“We locked this room,” Lisette said. “Mine too.”
They both glanced at Mr. Brand. “What are the chances that someone has a key?”
He frowned and then muttered, “Not impossible. There was the key ring from your father that I gave to you. It has a key for every room. Your grandmother received your mother’s keys, though I removed the key to your father’s office. The butler also has the spare key in his office. I suppose that it would have been possible to get a key for your bedroom from your grandmother or the butler. We’ll have to have someone come change the locks immediately.”
He paused and then groaned while Lisette laughed bitterly as he recalled they were stuck until the area dried.
“We checked on Mr. Thorne and Mr. Oliver’s story about the car,” Lisette told her. “It really does have a bullet hole. Right through the passenger window and into the back seat. My poor pretty.”
“How did you get across the water?”
Mr. Brand snorted. “I carried Lisette with my pants rolled up. We had to wade and change on the way back. The water is still rising. It might be days before we can leave.”
Severine looked out at the day. The rain had fallen off, but it wasn’t gone entirely. Instead, it had changed from dumping buckets to a low drizzle. The skies were gray, and the clouds thick. Severine wouldn’t be surprised if they were assaulted by rain for days and days.
“Being trapped here is not ideal,” Severine told them. “Depending on how murderous this person is, we may all find ourselves killed in our beds.”
“Especially,” Mr. Brand cursed, excused himself, and then finished, “Especially if this fellow has keys.”
“Why would he though?” Severine demanded. “He couldn’t possibly have all the keys to all the rooms. They couldn’t know where we’d be housed.”
She gasped and then closed her eyes. “If they can’t get to Grandmère’s ring of keys, then they’re using the extra keys.”
“What do you mean?” Lisette asked.
“Every room has multiple keys. One for the occupant. One on the mistress’s ring that my mother had, and it seems Grandmère now keeps. One that had been on father’s ring. A final set that hung in the butler’s little office along with any guest key not in use. Those are locked up, but not by any great lock.” Severine, of course, had the master keys her father had kept for himself, but no one knew of that but her and Mr. Thorne. “If they just stole a key from that cupboard, then…”
“Then we can examine them to see which keys are missing.”
“And we can move rooms.” Lisette exhaled in relief. “I was considering wading that rising water with a change of
