Page 6 of You Only Love Twice
Three dead bodies.
Jonathan Carlyle.
She'd been working undercover in Lord Randall's house when his new footman—Carlyle—had murdered him.
She'd spent a year on the Chameleon's tail, trying to track him down. The second they got word Randall was the next target, she'd been sent in to stop it. Instead, the murder happened right in front of her.
From the forged reference they'd found on Randall's desk, Carlyle had previously been working for Lady Harrenhall, the fourteenth victim. They couldn't tie him to any of the previous thirteen murders. It was as if Carlyle appeared out of nowhere, presumably killed Lady Harrenhall, and then moved on to Randall.
But the letter of reference, Gemma's eyewitness account, and confirmation of his previous employment with Lady Harrenhall were enough to condemn him. Case closed.
A sudden horrible suspicion swept through her, and she pushed inside the cell.
Jonathan Carlyle had spent years protesting his innocence. He couldn't remember shooting Lord Randall, and he'd managed to stick to his story the entire time they questioned him.
And now he was dead.
The three years since she'd captured him hadn't been kind. Carlyle lay on the floor, his thin body arranged carefully with his hands clasped over his chest and his eyes closed.
A flashback of Lady Harrenhall slammed through her mind, superimposed over Carlyle for a brief second. She'd been training her memory since she was four, and it was easy to recall the precise details.
Gemma circled the body. "A single bullet to the temple." From the blood spatter pattern on the wall, Carlyle had been standing in front of it. "He saw the killer enter. He faced him. He died."
No trained assassin would ever let down his guard long enough for another to draw a pistol and pull the trigger, and the Chameleon had been the best of the best.
How the hell had someone gotten the drop on him like this?
"Could you give us a moment alone to view the body?" Malloryn asked, though his tone left little doubt it was no question.
Jamison vanished.
"Well?"
She knelt by the body, careful not to touch it. "Inside job. Assailant had his own set of keys and knew the building, the guard roster, and forthcoming events. He chose his time well. Dunne knew him, and didn't protest when he saw him. Indeed, I suspect he was comfortable enough in our killer's presence that he voluntarily turned his back on him. Then our killer moved on and shot Kirkland before staging it to look like a suicide. I want to know if all the Coldrush Guards carry the same style of pistol."
"You don't suspect Kirkland?"
"He kills Carlyle, slits Dunne's throat, then walks all the way to the barred gate before shooting himself? Highly unlikely. And why kill himself?"
Gemma frowned. Why stage Kirkland's death to look like a suicide at all? The second the guards saw Dunne or Carlyle, they'd know this was a murder.
"None of this makes any sense," she muttered, her gaze turning to the playing card the corpse held in his rigid fingers. The posing of the body. The bullet hole to the head. The presence of the playing card.
A horrible suspicion lurched inside her chest.
Malloryn knelt on the other side of Carlyle and then used one of his daggers to turn over the card.
Gemma swallowed.
It was the King of Diamonds.
"Gemma?"
"This is the work of the Chameleon," she said breathlessly, though she'dknownin some part of herself. "Or as near to it as I can imagine. I'm sure it will be confirmed when you have the bullet retrieved."
There'd be a diamond etched into the outer casing of the bullet.
A calling card of sorts.
