Most Foul

The scream tears through Crawford Manor so suddenly and violently that every conversation at the table dies instantly. It is unmistakably a woman’s voice, sharp with absolute terror and close enough to echo directly through the dining room walls. For one frozen second nobody moves at all. Then chairs scrape violently backward across the floor as the entire room erupts into chaos.

Brandon startles hard enough to nearly knock over his chair while Roseanne grabs him protectively toward her side. Alisha turns toward the dining room doors with wide frightened eyes while Ingram rises much more slowly, though the sudden tension in his face is impossible to miss now.

I am already on my feet before the second scream even hits. This one cuts through Crawford Manor in a broken ragged sound that collapses halfway into hysterical sobbing, and the sheer panic in it sends cold adrenaline crashing instantly into my bloodstream.

Griswell is already standing before the echo fully dies, wine sloshing from his glass across the white tablecloth. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters. Ingram moves first toward the dining room doors with sudden authority hardening his expression.

“Stay here,” he says sharply, though he already sounds like a man who knows nobody will listen. Nobody does, the entire family spilling into the hallway almost immediately beneath the flickering chandelier light while thunder rattles the manor windows hard enough to shake the walls themselves.

I follow close behind them with one hand already slipping beneath my dress toward the Colt Peacemaker hidden there. Thunder rattles the manor windows hard enough to shake the walls. The scene waiting outside the dining room stops all of us cold.

A maid kneels on the polished floor several yards down the corridor with blood smeared across the front of her pale apron. The young woman is sobbing uncontrollably while cradling Corbett against her lap beneath the candlelight. The old butler hangs partially twisted against the floorboards with an ornate letter opener buried deep in the center of his chest.

For one impossible second my brain refuses to process the image properly. Corbett’s black suit is soaked dark with blood. His pale face has already gone strangely gray beneath the hallway lights. One gloved hand hangs limply at his side while blood slowly spreads outward across the polished wood beneath him.The maid looks up at us in absolute panic. “Oh God,” she gasps. “Oh God, please help him!”

I pull the Colt free instinctively. The revolver clears beneath my thigh with a sharp metallic sound that immediately snaps everybody’s attention toward me. I sweep the hallway automatically while adrenaline slams into my bloodstream hard enough to make the edges of my vision sharpen.

Nobody else stands anywhere in the hallway. No footsteps echo through the manor, and no movement stirs in the surrounding corridors outside the flickering candlelight. Just storm winds rattling the manor windows and the poor maid’s terrified sobbing echoing through the corridor.

The entire scene feels unnaturally still beneath the storm, as though Crawford Manor itself is holding its breath around Corbett’s body sprawled across the polished floorboards. Ingram reaches Faye first, dropping immediately to one knee beside Corbett’s body while the rest of us crowd into the hallway beneath the chandelier light.

For the first time since I arrived at Crawford Manor, genuine emotion breaks through the controlled mask he normally wears. Shock tightens visibly across his face as he stares down at the ornate letter opener buried in Corbett’s heart. The cold authority in his expression gives way to sharp professional focus. “Move back,” he orders firmly.

“You’re a doctor?” I ask.

“Cardiothoracic surgeon,” he replies without looking up. That explains the hands. Every movement Ingram makes around Corbett’s body remains steady, precise, and controlled even now with blood soaking across the hallway floorboards beneath him.

He touches the wound with the calm efficiency of somebody who has spent years standing over open chests while other people panic nearby, and for the first time since meeting him, I stop seeing a wealthy manor owner and start seeing the surgeon underneath.

Ingram presses two fingers carefully against Corbett’s neck searching for a pulse while blood continues spreading slowly beneath the old butler across the polished floorboards. The hallway falls almost completely silent around us except for thunder outside and Faye’s uneven breathing.

I can see the answer in Ingram’s face before he says anything. Still, he tries. He loosens Corbett’s collar quickly before beginning chest compressions despite the ornate letter opener buried deep through the center of the man’s chest.

The motion forces fresh blood up around the wound immediately while Roseanne turns away with a horrified sound. “Ingram,” Griswell says quietly.

“Shut up.” The command snaps through the hallway harder than thunder. Ingram keeps working anyway, one compression, two, three. The doctor’s expression tightens more with every second as professional instinct wages war against obvious reality.

Corbett’s head lolls limply with each compression beneath the chandelier light while blood stains deeper into the front of his black suit. But there is too much blood beneath Corbett’s body already pooling across the polished floorboards. The ornate letter opener has pierced directly through the center of his chest.

Even without medical training I can see the damage is catastrophic. Ingram keeps working anyway, jaw tightening harder with every compression as professional instinct refuses to surrender to reality. Finally, after several agonizing seconds, he stops moving altogether.

Ingram lowers his head slightly beside the body while thunder rolls through Crawford Manor around us. For several long seconds he remains kneeling there beside Corbett’s body with both hands braced against the floorboards and his head lowered slightly beneath the flickering hallway lights.

Then he exhales once, slowly. The doctor disappears behind the Crawford mask again. “He’s dead,” Ingram says quietly. Faye breaks into fresh sobbing beside the body while Brandon buries his face against Alisha’s shoulder.

“Faye,” he says sharply but not unkindly, “look at me.” The young maid struggles to pull herself together through violent sobs. Blood smears across her trembling hands and the front of her apron while she clutches helplessly at Corbett’s shoulder like she still thinks he might wake up if she holds onto him tightly enough.

“What happened?” Ingram asks.

“I-I don’t know,” she gasps. “I swear I don’t know.”

“Start at the beginning,” I say, calmly.

Faye drags in a shaky breath that sounds painful. “Corbett told me to bring fresh candles upstairs in case the storm knocked out the lights. I was coming back from the storage room when I saw him lying here on the floor.” Her voice breaks again. “There was blood everywhere.”

Roseanne turns her face away immediately while Brandon presses himself harder against Alisha’s side trying not to look at the body. Griswell still paces nearby with his cellphone raised uselessly toward the windows searching desperately for signal.

“Did you see anyone else?” I ask carefully.

Faye shakes her head violently. “No. Nobody. I swear.”

“Did you hear anything before you found him?”

“Just…” She swallows hard. “Just the thunder outside.”

“In the name of God,” Roseanne whispers.

I kneel carefully several feet away from Corbett’s body with the Colt still lowered beside my leg while I study the hallway around us. The polished floors remain mostly clean except for the blood spreading slowly beneath him. No overturned furniture. No obvious signs of a struggle.

Ingram rises slowly to his feet again, his expression turning colder by the second. “Nobody leaves this manor tonight,” he says evenly. Lightning flashes through the tall hallway windows behind him, briefly illuminating every frightened face gathered around Corbett’s body.

And somewhere deep outside in the storm beyond Crawford Manor, the ravens continue screaming in the darkness. Brandon stares wide eyed at the body while Alisha quickly pulls him backward against her side before he can move closer.

Griswell fumbles his cellphone from his pocket with shaking hands. “I’m calling nine-one-one.” He raises the phone immediately while pacing several steps away beneath the chandelier light. For one brief second hope flickers across his face. Then it disappears.

“No signal,” he mutters. Lightning flashes brilliantly outside the towering windows. Griswell turns sharply toward them. “The damn storm must have knocked our satellite connection out.” Faye continues trembling beside Corbett’s body, her hands slick with blood now.

Tears stream down her face hard enough to leave streaks through her makeup while she struggles to breathe. “I found him like this,” she sobs. “I swear to God, I just found him here.” I move cautiously closer with the Peacemaker still raised low beside my leg.

Corbett’s eyes stare upward toward the ceiling now, empty. The old butler is dead on the hallway floor with a letter opener through his heart. Deep beyond the walls of Crawford Manor, thunder rolls once more across the Blacklands while ravens begin screaming outside in the darkness. Griswell lowers the useless cellphone slowly from his ear.

Rain lashes the towering manor windows hard enough to sound almost like applause. I tighten my grip slightly around the Colt Peacemaker and glance once more toward the dark empty hallways surrounding us. Because somebody inside Crawford Manor just murdered Corbett, and unless the killer somehow vanished into the storm itself, they are still in the house with us.