Page 88 of Crazy Spooky Love
“Thank you,” Richard says, and then he bear-hugs me. It’s unexpected and very, very reassuring, because he’s real and warm andsolid and it feels how I expect a hug from your father might feel, if you’re lucky enough to have one. I’m tearful again, and he tells me that what I just did was incredibly brave and he’ll remember it forever.
Wow. This is so far beyond the expected remits of my job. I’m an emotional wreck, we all are, but I look up sharply when Marina calls my name from over the other side of the cellar.
“Sorry,” I say, dashing the backs of my hands quickly over my eyes. “I need to go.” I glance up and call Artie, and his face appears instantly at the coal chute.
“Boss?”
I reel a bit at the title and then think actually maybe I’ll have earned it if we all get out of here unscathed today.
“Can you help Jojo and Richard outside and then wait for us there, please?”
I shoot across the room without waiting for his reply, because I don’t need to hear it to know I can rely on him to do as I’ve asked.
“They’re back,” Marina whispers as I join her at the top of the stairs. She’s on her own, so Douglas must have gone off to see what’s happening elsewhere in the house.
“Artie and the Hensons have gone outside, so at least we know we’re not going to get trapped in the cellar this time,” I say, straining to hear what’s going on outside.
“No need to worry about that,” she grins. “I knocked the key out of the keyhole with my stiletto heel and Douglas managed to push it back under the door to me.”
“All of those hours rewatchingGhostweren’t wasted after all,” I quip, and she shoots me a sarcastic smile.
“You have no romance in your soul, Melody Bittersweet.”
“I’ll fire you if you take up pottery,” I warn her, and we both start laughing. It’s entirely inappropriate given the situation that we’re in. I think we’re both a tiny bit hysterical.
“Ssh.” I put my finger against my lips to quieten her, because the voices outside are getting louder and approaching the cellar door.
“Let her out this minute,” Leo demands sharply. I guess he must be talking to the twins.
“Yes, let her out so I can break her goddamn legs!” Scarborough booms, and I jump back from the door because he hammers his fists on it. “I hired you to do a simple fucking job, Bittersweet, and you’ve lost me my buyers and dragged distant fucking relatives half-way down the country to break into my property and try and take my house from me.”
“I really think you need to calm down,” Leo wades in again, and then I hear him yowl with pain and the twins squeaking like baby birds as though an eagle just swooped in and took their papa.
“Oh God, we have to get out there and see what’s happening,” I say, desperately fumbling to get the key into the lock with shaky hands. “It’ll be all my fault if he kills Leo.”
It slides into place eventually, and I look at Marina before I turn it because, to be perfectly honest, I’m suddenly terrified.
“Ready?”
She nods. “We’ve got this.”
I draw on her determination and make it my own, then turn the key.
Chapter
Twenty-four
I plan to push the door open slowly, but Donovan Scarborough is faster and rips it back on its hinges the minute I unlock it. He reminds me of Frankenstein’s monster when he looms up toward us in the doorway, his arms aloft and his eyes wild. Marina and I are so shocked that we duck underneath his arms and make a run for it, ending up behind him in the hall as he swings around in a blind rage.
Leo is sprawled out on the floor with the creepy twins on their knees beside him, but from the way he’s batting them off and gingerly feeling his nose to see if it’s broken it’s fairly obvious that he’s going to be fine.
All three Scarborough brothers are here too. Isaac looks mortified, and Lloyd is observing proceedings with an expression of morbid satisfaction. I don’t care if he’s an old man; if he were flesh and blood right this moment, I think I’d actually swing for him to wipe that smug little smile from his face. Only Douglas has the gumption to make a useful suggestion.
“Hit him with that!” he shouts, gesturing toward a tall china vase on a side table close tome.
“Not the Wedgwood!” Lloyd yells, finally roused out of his smugness as I reach for it. “I paid a fortune for that!”
“Shame,” I say, as my fingers clasp around the vase’s slender neck. “It’s pretty.”
