Page 52 of The Thief
He looked behind him to the table he’d set the pie down on.
“Absolutely.”
Scarlett leaned over and stretched into the morning sun, the warmth of it on her face, making her happy. For the first time in a long while, she didn’t feel sick at all in the morning, and her head was clear. She rolled over onto her side with a smile, knowing that tomorrow she would see her parents.
That alone made her so excited. She couldn’t wait to see her mother.
With a sigh, she sat up, ringing for a maid. When Melody arrived, she looked nervous, causing Scarlett to wonder what had happened, but she didn’t ask. Melody tried to cover her nerves, but had to redo Scarlett’s hair twice because she was not focused on what she was doing.
Scarlett grabbed her hand and turned on the vanity stool, looking in her eyes.
“What happened to make you so nervous?” she asked.
Melody looked away, and then back at Scarlett, squeezing her hand.
“They found an empty bottle of the poison.”
Scarlett grabbed her hand a little bit tighter.
“Did they find who it was?” she asked.
Melody shook her head.
“Only the one bottle. There were two bottles taken from the hospital.”
“Two? So, they still have one left,” she sighed and rested her head on her hand. “Lovely.” With another sigh, she looked up at Melody. “I will be all right. We just need to keep looking. Alastair will keep me safe.”
Melody did not look completely convinced.
She leaned down and hugged Scarlett, and said, “I hope you’re right.”
Scarlett returned the hug and said with a smile, “Let us finish with my hair.”
Melody nodded and let go, standing back up straight and getting to work on fixing Scarlett’s hair.
A few hours earlier…
Alastair looked up when he heard loud voices in the hall.
Not a moment later, his door burst open, Ronald and Ragan walking in.
Bard, looking very frantic, followed close on their heels.
“My Lord, we have found something very suspicious in the stable.”
“The stable? What did you find?” he asked, walking around the small table that held a few of his random papers and books.
He cleared a space for them and watched as Ronald took out a handkerchief and put it on the table. Flipping it open, he revealed a little glass vial in pieces, just like the ones Alastair saw at the hospital all the time.
“Is this not one of the two vials that were stolen from the hospital?” Ragan asked, looking at Alastair.
He nodded.
“It is. It was the only one found?”
It was Ragan’s turn to nod.
“It was found in one of the stalls used by the servants’ animals, not one of the family spots. I asked the stable master if he remembered who it was and he told me that he was not there when they left. He had gone into that stall to make it ready for another horse when he stepped on it. It was covered by the hay, but I don’t believe it was left on purpose. I believe it was dropped and then covered by hay when the horse went to leave.”
