Murphy's Law by Lisa Marie Rice Read Free Book Online Page B

that… glee she could see in his eyes?
    Kane’s death solved all of his problems. The academic council would appoint him head of the department, and Grif’s life would return to the smooth progression he had been born to. He’d be a good department head, too. Fair and just.
    Had he murdered Kane to become department head?
    “What are you thinking, Faith?” he asked, putting his cup down on the saucer without a whisper of sound. You had to be born rich to know how to do that. “Your thought processes scare me sometimes.”
    Me, too, she thought. “I was thinking about Kane.”
    “Listen, you don’t suppose…he’ll come back, do you?” Grif gave a little half laugh.
    Faith pursed her lips. “From the dead?” If anyone could do it, Roland Kane could. He’d make a great undead. “I don’t think so, Griffin. He looked like he was in a pretty permanent state of death.”
    Grif smiled. “Well…good.”
    Faith’s snicker was lost in a clatter of dishes from the kitchen and the sound of the door to the hallway opening and then slamming shut.
    Quick, tense footsteps and Madeleine Kobbel was frowning down at her. She was breathless, as if she’d been running. “Faith, I heard Roland is dead. Is that true?What’s going on?”
    Her voice was tense. Her stance was tense. Everything about Madeleine Kobbel was tense. She even managed to have tense clothes—a stiff, unattractive dress in an unflattering deep blood red. Madeleine took a seat near Faith just as the waiter started to put another cup of coffee down. She took it from the waiter’s hand and looked up with a tense smile. “ Mille grazie ,” she said, blew on the creamy surface, and then gulped it down.
    “Actually,” Faith began, “that was my —”
    “I needed that,” Madeleine said.
    Not this morning, you don’t , Faith thought.
    Madeleine was usually silent and retiring, but this morning she looked over-caffeinated and…wild.
    Her long, gray hair seemed to lift in electrostatic waves around her face instead of hanging down in lank clumps as it usually did. An undertone of ruddiness underlay her usually sallow complexion. Madeleine had always given Faith the creeps, so it wasn’t surprising death seemed to be Madeleine’s G-spot.
    “Someone said that you found him, Faith.” Madeleine fairly vibrated in her chair. “Is that true? Is he really dead?”
    Everyone seemed worried that Kane would come back from the dead, which Faith understood completely. “Yes, Madeleine. I found him and yes, he’s really dead. He won’t be coming back any time soon.”
    She primmed her lips. “I didn’t mean it that way. I meant—I meant how . He was perfectly all right yesterday. We all traveled together. How did he die?”
    “Oddly enough, not by alcohol poisoning.” A miracle, considering the amount of alcohol Kane had soaked up crossing the Atlantic. “He died by a sharp object through the heart.”
    Madeleine was looking at her strangely, her long, narrow, gray head cocked as if Faith had been speaking some ancient, mysterious language. Sharp? Object? Heart?
    “Someone stabbed him,” Faith said, just to make it clear.
    Madeleine’s gasp sounded loud in the room. “He was—he was murdered?”
    “That’s right.” Why Madeleine should sound shocked was beyond Faith. If there was ever a man who asked for a knife through the heart every day of his life, it was Roland Kane. “He was murdered and the police want to talk to you.”
    “Who?” Grif straightened suddenly.
    “Me?” Madeleine said at the same time. “Whatever for?”
    Faith looked at both of them. She’d worked with them for a year, but she suddenly felt as if she’d never seen them before.
    “The police want to talk to both of you. And as to why, well, I imagine if Kane was murdered, it follows that someone did it. Q.E.D. And—I’m just guessing here, I might be wrong—but they might actually want to know who did it.”
    “There’s no call to be sarcastic, Faith.”