“Good Lord!” Geoffrey said, breathing the words.
Hester stared straight ahead, her mouth open much as her father’s had been. But Molly’s eyes were closed, and she appeared almost to be smiling. In the short time Ethan had known her he had never seen her look more at peace.
He stepped into the room, his throat tight. There were cushions everywhere; a half-completed pillow sat on the floor by one of the beds along with several spools of thread.
On the table in the center of the room, he found a piece of parchment and, beside it, a pen and an inkwell. He picked up the note and looked at the others.
“What does it say?” the colonel asked.
“‘We’re sorry.’”
“That’s all?” Greenleaf said.
Ethan held the note out to him.
The sheriff didn’t bother to reach for it. “Well, that’s very convenient for you, isn’t it?” But Ethan could tell that the man’s heart wasn’t in the accusation.
“He was with me at my house for some time before you arrived, Sheriff,” Geoffrey said.
“Aye,” Ethan said. “And before that I brought Derrey Jervis to the Dowsing Rod. He had been with me at the shack on Hull Street. He was wounded there.”
Dalrymple crossed to where Ethan stood and took the note from him. He examined it briefly before turning to Greenleaf. “Sheriff, do you honestly believe that Kaille had a hand in the deaths of these women? It looks a good deal like suicide to me.”
For just a second Ethan thought that the sheriff might try to blame him for everything. But the man’s shoulders slumped and he shook his head. “I agree,” he said. “They killed themselves. As to the rest…” He shrugged. “I suppose their note is proof enough of their guilt.”
He walked out of the room, making no effort to hide his disappointment. Ethan glanced at the colonel, who raised an eyebrow.
“He doesn’t like you very much.”
“No, sir,” Ethan said. “There are few people in positions of power in this city who do.”
Dalrymple grinned. Ethan hadn’t seen him smile before; it made him look ten years younger.
“You seem proud of that,” the colonel said.
“Not proud exactly. But I have gotten used to it.”
The colonel looked up again at the corpses of the two women, his grin turning to a grimace. “Did they really kill every man on the Graystone?” he asked.
Ethan considered this. He could still hear Osborne bullying them both with one breath and with the next assuring them that the army had done the actual killing. And he could hear as well what Hester had said. He lied.
“Yes,” Ethan said at last. “They killed them. They were trying to help their father, and did far more damage than they ever thought possible.”
“You sound like you almost feel sorry for them,” Dalrymple said.
“I do. If you had met their father, you would, too.”
Chapter Twenty — Four
With the colonel convinced of the guilt of the Osborne women, and Greenleaf resigned to the fact that he wouldn’t be able to blame Ethan for any of what had transpired in the past week, Ethan was free to leave Wood Lane.
He made his way back to the Dowsing Rod as quickly as he could. Kannice must have been watching for him, because she met him at the door with assurances that Diver was all right.
“I gave him a room upstairs,” she said. “He’s resting. And Doctor Rickman is waiting for you at a table in back.”
“Good,” he said, exhaling the word. He put his arms around her and held her for a long time.
“Is it over?” she asked at length.
“Almost,” Ethan said. “The worst of it is.”
“I’m glad. Go find the doctor. I’ll get Kelf to bring you something.”
Ethan found Rickman sitting alone near the back of the great room. The surgeon regarded him with genuine alarm and was on his feet before Ethan reached the table.
“You look like you’ve been through a war.”
“Close to it,” Ethan said.
“I know that you can heal your own wounds if you have to,” he said, dropping his voice. “But at least let me see to the burns and cuts.”
The truth was, too many people had seen his injuries for him to heal them with spells, and so he welcomed Rickman’s ministrations. “I’d be grateful, Doctor,” he said, lowering himself into a chair. “But first tell me about Diver.”
Rickman shrugged. “There’s not much to tell,” he said, still whispering. “The wound is closed, and it appears to have been healed internally, as well as externally. He’s breathing easily, his pulse is steady. I wouldn’t call it strong yet, but if there was lingering damage to his heart I’d know it.”
“The people who healed him never got the bullet out. There wasn’t time.”
Rickman blinked, but kept silent as Kelf came to the table and set a cup of ale, some bread, and a bowl of chowder in front of Ethan.
“My thanks, Kelf.”
“Anythin’ for you, Doctor?” the barkeep asked.
Rickman shook his head. Once Kelf had gone, he leaned toward Ethan. “I assumed that you had healed him.”
“No.”
“I’d like to speak to the people who did.”
“That isn’t possible,” Ethan said.
The doctor seemed to hear the finality of this. He nodded, his expression grave. “I see.”
“The bullet, Doctor?”
“It shouldn’t prevent a complete recovery,” Rickman told him. “I don’t think it’s still in his heart-I can’t imagine that he’d be doing as well as he is if that were the case. Which means it’s probably lodged in the muscles or flesh surrounding his heart, nearer to his back, I would assume. It might cause him some discomfort, or it might not. But I doubt it poses any real danger to him.”
Ethan closed his eyes, knowing a moment of blessed relief. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he reached for his ale and nearly drained the tankard.
“The people who healed him saved his life,” Rickman said. “You understand that.”
“Yes, I do. They were also the people who killed the men aboard the Graystone.”
Rickman didn’t appear to know how to respond to that. He stared at his hands for a long time. After several moments, he looked up at Ethan and said, “Let’s see to that burn, shall we?”
For the next hour or so, Rickman swabbed and bandaged the burns on Ethan’s neck and arm, cleaned the cuts on his head, and probed his side for broken ribs. By the time he finished, Ethan felt marginally better. He promised himself, though, that once the doctor was gone and he was alone with Kannice, he would use spells on the burns. They hurt far more than his other injuries, and as long as they were bandaged no one would ever know that he had healed himself.
Rickman left not long after. He needed to return to the Launceston, but he promised Ethan that he would check on Diver again in the next day or two.
Ethan sipped a second ale by himself for a short while, but when Kannice came by to ask if he planned to wait up for her, he shook his head.
“I’m about to fall asleep right here,” he said.
“Go to bed,” she said, kissing him gently on the lips. “I’ll try not to wake you when I come up.”
“All right. What room is Diver in?”
“First one on the right.”
“Thank you, Kannice.” He climbed to his feet, and waded through the crowd to the stairs.
At the top of the stairway he let himself into Diver’s room, trying not to make a sound. A single candle burned atop a bureau by the door, and a chair had been set beside the bed. Diver lay beneath a pair of woolen blankets, looking pale and very young. Ethan walked to the bed and laid a hand on his friend’s brow. It felt warm, though not fevered.
“I thought I’d gotten you killed,” Ethan murmured.
He watched Diver sleep for a few moments before letting himself out of the chamber and going to Kannice’s room.
He slept like a dead man-he didn’t notice when Kannice came to bed, or when she got up and dressed the next morning-and only woke when she returned to the room to tell him that a soldier was waiting for him down in the tavern. He rolled out of bed, stiff and sore, wincing with every movement, and he donned the last set of clean clothes he had put aside in Kannice’s wardrobe. If his next job was anything like this one, he would have to remember to buy himself more shirts and bring half of them over here.