Halting in the narrow attic corridor, Deverell faced Gervase—and saw his frustration mirrored in his friend’s face. “We’ve missed it.”
Gervase nodded. “No sign of a struggle, not even a rumpled bed to account for Lowther’s disarranged state. Dalziel wouldn’t have mentioned it if he didn’t think it pertinent, and Lowther wouldn’t have excused the injury if it wasn’t bad enough to be obvious.”
The cold dread intensified, invading Deverell’s gut; like a fist, it gripped, turning his innards to desolate ice. Hauling in a breath past the constriction banding his chest, he turned, resurveying the doors to the rooms on either side. “So we search again. It’s here, but hidden.”
It had to be. She had to be.
This time they worked together, one tapping on a wall, the other in the next room confirming that the wall was indeed shared, that there was no extra space between. They worked as fast as they could; how long Dalziel could spin out his fabrication of a legal consulation they didn’t know.
They cleared the attics, then the second floor; the only spaces they found were taken up by cupboards. Descending to the first floor, they continued; it didn’t take them long to establish that the larger rooms were all as they should be. Frustrated, in Deverell’s case with a species of icy panic sliding through his veins, they halted in the corridor a little way from the main stairs.
“This is crazy.” Hauling in a tight breath, Deverell raked his hand through his hair. “There has to be something here.”
Gervase grimaced. After a moment he said, “Are we wrong?”
Deverell didn’t want to think it, but in his present state, he wasn’t even sure his earlier deductions were rational. The panic welling inside him was unlike any he’d known. He’d faced death, several times, without such turmoil. Without such desperate, driving, gut-wrenching compulsion to act to fend off the soul-destroying desolation looming.
He had to find Phoebe. He was barely aware of clenching his fists with the effort to smother an urge to roar her name. Lips thin, pressed tight, he looked down, then growled, “Somewhere here there’s something to be found.”
Lifting his head, he looked along the corridor to the stairs. “Let’s talk to the butler.”
He took a step and something crunched underfoot. He looked down, then crouched. Lifting a pottery shard, he held it up so Gervase could see.
“Odd.” Gervase looked right and left. “This place has been swept recently.”
Deverell narrowed his eyes. “What if Lowther didn’t hit his head, but someone hit it for him?”
Gervase met his eyes, then looked around. “Where is the question.” Then he pointed to the side of the corridor past Deverell. “Is that another sliver? There—at the bottom of those doors.”
Deverell swiveled, looked, reached out, and fingered the thin white fragment, then rose, examining the narrow doors in the corridor wall. “Looks like a closet.” He pulled the handle. “It’s locked.”
Gervase ranged beside him. “Why lock a closet?”
“Indeed.” Deverell felt in his pocket. In a few seconds, the doors were unlocked. He tugged them open.
Shelves packed with towels and linens faced them. As one, he and Gervase took a step back, scanning the top, the sides, the floor of the cupboard.
“It’s a hidden door,” Gervase said.
Deverell nodded. “There must be stairs behind it, concealed in the cupboards in the rooms on either side. We need to find the catch.”
Towels and linens flew, then reaching to the back corner of one shelf, Gervase grunted. “Got it.”
Deverell stepped back. A click sounded. Gervase joined him as the two halves of the cupboard swung out from the center, pivoting at the sides to reveal a dark set of very steep, narrow stairs leading upward. They could just make out another door at the top of the stairs, beyond a wide last step.
“Well, well,” Deverell breathed.
Gervase tapped his arm. They communicated by signal; they didn’t know if Phoebe was alone or with a guard.
Seconds later, Deverell crept silently up the stairs, leaving Gervase at their base, guarding his back.
In the room at the top of the stairs, Phoebe had returned to stand against the wall beside the door, but this time on the other side. The beast would expect her to be behind the door; he might well swing it back hard to hit her.
Head back against the wall, she tried not to think about what she intended to do. The beast had left her no choice; she was not going to be his victim.
Her gaze drifted to the mound of white porcelain fragments on the floor by the chest of drawers. She’d broken both the pitcher and the bowl in her quest for a decent weapon. In her right hand, she clutched the long, thin, daggerlike piece she’d fashioned; she’d lagged half its length with the cord with which she’d been tied so she could grip it tightly. The exposed tip was definitely sharp enough to slice through skin; how much more damage it would do she would soon find out.
The stairs creaked.