Page 11 of Death at Inishmore Castle

“Not until early morning and who knows when the bridge will be passable,” Gordon said. “We’ll need to wait for the water to go down. I can take first watch.”

“Uh. Actually, why don’t you let me do that,” I said.

“But you’re a woman. It isn’t right.”

Scott and Rob’s eyes went wide.

I cleared my throat. “I am. I also understand how to preserve a crime scene. Kieran trusts me, and I think he’d prefer if I stayed.”

Or he’d be furious that I’d inserted myself into the situation. One never knew when it came to the detective inspector. Kieran could be a bit overprotective at times, but I’d realized a few months ago that it was only because he cared.

Poor Gordon didn’t need to know all of that. He had enough to stress about.

“Like we’ve said before, she has worked with the detective inspector on several cases,” Rob said. “And even solved a few.”

Gordon appeared confused. “But I thought you were a writer. It’s my home and my responsibility.”

“Let us help,” I said. “Kieran will appreciate that you’ve done your best. And like I said, he trusts me. It’s best to help your wife distract the rest of the guests. I mentioned that they should saythe priest is indisposed for now. We’ll set up right here in the doorway with the door shut, so the killer will have no idea we are in here.”

And hopefully, the murderer wouldn’t be coming back.

“We’ll sit with her,” Scott said. “She won’t be alone. You can tell the others we had a bit too much of your fine whiskey.”

I hid my smile. They were quite protective of Lizzie and me.

“If you’re sure,” Gordon said. The poor man seemed like he didn’t want to leave. Did that make him guilty? I couldn’t tell.

“We are,” I said. “You can help us by keeping the other guests away from this area.”

He rubbed his hand through his hair and frowned. “We haven’t had a murder here since the early eighteen hundreds. I can’t believe this has happened.”

“Did you know the priest?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Only as a guest. He had a lot of questions about the property and was very interested in the castle’s history. He wanted to see all the books, and we’d let him use the study since many of the volumes are in here, as well as in the main library. I just thought he was a history buff.”

Well, that explained why he’d been in the room.

“Was there anything strange about him?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

I’d stuck my foot in my mouth. “Did he give you any reason to think he might be up to something shady?”

Gordon frowned. “He was a priest,” he said, as if that explained everything.

“Right. Well, you should probably check on Nora and the guests. We’ll stand guard.”

The lights flickered out again throwing us into darkness, and there was a scream.

Great. Now what?

THREE

I turned on the flashlight on my phone, and my friends did the same. “Could you tell where the scream came from?” I asked.

They shook their heads.

“Gordon, you and I will go investigate,” I said. “Rob, do you and Scott mind staying here until I can get back?” I really didn’t want to risk leaving the body unattended in case the killer returned. For all I knew, this could be a diversion to get us away from the scene of the crime.

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