A Date with a Werewolf Read online

  "That's right," Elizabeth answered the constable's question. "We're in London for a summer internship, and the Pembrokes invited us to spend the weekend here."

  The constable drained her teacup and set it on the table with a loud clank. "Dawn was hardly a civilized hour to be roaming about the corridors this morning, Ms. Wakefield. How did you happen to discover the body?"

  "I was worried that Jessica might be in danger," Elizabeth explained, "so I ran down the hall to her room and saw . . . the victim."

  Lord Pembroke, still pacing, wheeled abruptly, nearly crashing into the tall, thin man who was carrying in a tea tray. Pembroke sat down quickly in a straight-backed chair as the servant righted the tray and carried it to the table in front of the constable. Jessica heard the silver serving pieces clinking together; the servant's hands were trembling. Apparently, the murder had set the whole household's nerves on edge.

  The constable poured herself a second cup of tea. "But why were you worried, Ms. Wakefield? What would make you suddenly believe your sister was in danger?"

  Elizabeth blushed. "It may sound silly, but I had a nightmare about it."

  The constable raised her eyebrows.

  "And when I woke up," Elizabeth continued staunchly, "I just knew there was something wrong."

  Jessica spoke up helpfully. "It happens to us all the time. It's because we're identical twins."

  "Oh, really?" the constable asked sarcastically, taking in the girls' identical heart-shaped faces, blue-green eyes, and slim, athletic figures. Even their California suntans were exactly the same shade, though they were starting to fade after a week in foggy England. "I hadn't noticed."

  Thatcher rose from his chair, an imposing figure, even in his grief. "What did you do when you entered the room, Elizabeth?" he asked in a tightly controlled voice.

  Constable Atherton cast the police chief a dark look. "With all due respect, sir, this is not London," she reminded him. "And we are out of your jurisdiction. I am conducting this investigation, if you don't mind."

  Andrew turned his back on her and stared instead at the rain-soaked gardens outside the window.

  Elizabeth glanced over at him, her eyes full of sympathy. Then she took a deep breath and spoke to the constable. "I walked into the room and saw . . . everything. . . . It was Jessica's bed, so I thought it was Jessica. I guess I started screaming. Then Luke came running in. A minute later, Jessica showed up."

  The constable turned to Luke. "And why were you roaming the halls at sunrise, young man?"

  "I wasn't," he said quietly. "I was having trouble sleeping. I heard Elizabeth scream, so I ran out of my room to find her."

  Lord Pembroke spoke up suddenly. "I hardly see that this line of questioning is leading anywhere!" he said in his booming voice. "You don't honestly believe that this girl is the murderer, do you?"

  "I admit it's unlikely," the constable replied evenly. "But everybody is a suspect." She glared at him thoughtfully. "And I do mean everybody."

  Lord Pembroke seemed awfully nervous, Elizabeth noticed as the family patriarch sat down. Of course, anyone would be jumpy, after what had happened in Jessica's room that night. But Elizabeth thought his reaction seemed extreme—especially coming from a man so accustomed to affecting the cool, superior demeanor of the British aristocracy.

  Elizabeth wrote a line in her notebook: "Keep an eye on the elder Pembroke."

  She gazed around the room again, thankful that the constable seemed to be finished with her for now.

  Everybody in the room was a suspect, the constable had said. So who else appeared to be hiding something? Elizabeth gazed thoughtfully at the servants. Tall, thin Alistair had seemed friendly and innocuous when she had met him the day before. She could hardly believe he was a killer. But she had noticed his hands shaking as he set down the tea tray. Why? Maybe he knew more than he was saying.

  Alistair whispered something to Maria Finch, the Pembrokes' pretty, plump cook. She stared at the rich red carpeting, wringing her hands; Elizabeth was afraid the woman would burst into tears. Was Maria hiding something, as well? Elizabeth resolved to question the two servants herself, later.

  "Alistair," a calm, commanding voice reproached suddenly. "You forgot the lemon." Elizabeth focused thoughtfully on young Robert Pembroke, who sat with his arm around Jessica.

  Alistair bowed apologetically. "I beg your pardon, sir," he said. "I'll fetch it right away." He turned on his heel and disappeared through the double doors.

  Elizabeth shook her head disapprovingly. Ever since she'd come to Pembroke Manor, she'd been annoyed by the way the Pembrokes treated the "lower" classes. She had never heard a "please" or a "thank you" out of Robert; he took it for granted that people would cater to his every whim. She hated his commanding tone and bossy manners.

  Now, Elizabeth had to admit, Robert had a concerned expression on his face, especially when he looked at Jessica. But unlike his father and the servants, Robert didn't seem nervous. In fact, he looked particularly cool and regal. Somehow, he—like his parents—had found time in the last twenty minutes to dress fully; his cravat was expertly tied and his dark hair was combed. Robert was handsome, certainly. And Jessica was crazy about him. Still, Elizabeth couldn't stand his smug, superior way of looking down his nose at people. Of course, that didn't make him an animalistic murderer.

  "We all have an animal side," she found herself writing in the notebook. For a moment, the sentence startled her, as if someone else had written it there. Then she remembered Luke using those words earlier in the week, as he and Elizabeth toured the eerie werewolf exhibit at the wax museum in London. We all have an animal side. As much as Elizabeth hated to admit it, she had to agree—especially after what had happened early Saturday morning.

  Thank goodness for sweet, gentle Luke, Elizabeth thought, feeling the warmth of his fisherman's sweater against her shoulder. The young poet was becoming more important to her with every passing day, making it disturbingly easy to put out of her mind the image of Todd Wilkins, her boyfriend back in California.

  In fact, to Elizabeth, sitting in the parlor of an English manor house the morning after a murder, California seemed like another planet altogether.

  She was startled out of her thoughts by Constable Atherton, who wheeled abruptly to face Jessica.

  "A girl was murdered last night in the bed you were supposed to be sleeping in!" the constable reminded Jessica. "Tell me, Ms. Wakefield, who might want you dead?"

  Jessica shrugged her shoulders comically. "Well, there's Lila Fowler, but she's still back in Sweet Valley. Other than her, I can't imagine!"

  Elizabeth smiled. She could always count on Jessica to cover up her anxiety with a joke.

  The constable's eyes narrowed. "This is a serious situation, Ms. Wakefield. Do you have any enemies?"

  Jessica rolled her eyes, and Elizabeth realized she wasn't covering up her fear—she wasn't afraid at all. She doesn't take any of this seriously, Elizabeth realized with dismay. She thinks she's the star of an Agatha Christie play.

  Jessica shrugged her shoulders. "I'm one of the most popular people in my town, and I hardly know anyone within about a million miles of here. Besides, I'm only six—" She stopped and glanced at Robert. "I'm only a teenager," she concluded.

  Elizabeth sighed, realizing that Jessica must be pretending to Robert that she was older than sixteen. Leave it to Jessica to be worried about keeping a rich, handsome twenty-year-old interested in her—even with a murderer on the loose.

  "Face it," Jessica said to the room full of people. "I couldn't have been the target. Nobody would want me dead. It was just a random murder, like that doctor who was killed in London last week, and the nurse before that."

  The chief of police turned from the window and stared at Jessica curiously. Elizabeth held her breath. Leave it to Jessica to open her big mouth! Nobody was supposed to know that the girls had been at the Essex Street murder scene. And only someone who had been there—and seen the body—would make the
connection between Dr. Neville's death and Joy Singleton's. And no information had been released about a connection to the death of a nurse the month before—despite the fact that the police must have noticed similarities between the cases. Somebody—or something—had ripped out the nurse's throat, too.

  For some reason, London Journal editor Henry Reeves had not printed the details of the doctor's death. Lucy Friday had been crime desk editor at the time, and she had quit her job over the decision. Jessica and Elizabeth were determined to find out why Reeves—or the Journal's owner, Lord Pembroke himself—would cover up such important news. But now Jessica may have tipped their hands.

  Andrew opened his mouth to question Jessica, but Lord Pembroke beat him to it. The older man jumped from his chair again, knocking it over with a clatter.

  "What do you mean, Miss Wakefield?" Lord Pembroke asked sharply. "Why would you compare last night's slaying to the death of Cameron Neville?"

  Jessica glanced apologetically at Elizabeth. Then she smiled at Lord Pembroke. "That's just what I meant," she explained sweetly. "Both were completely random incidents. There is no connection."

  "Let's stick to the facts of the case at hand, please," the constable insisted. "Ms. Wakefield, at approximately what time did Ms. Singleton come to your room?"

  Jessica shrugged. "Sorry, but keeping track of the time isn't one of my strong points," she said. "I don't even wear a watch in the daytime—let alone in the middle of the night."

  The constable's expression was venomous. "Could you hazard a guess?"

  Jessica shrugged again. "I don't know—two or three o'clock in the morning, I suppose."

  The constable turned around slowly, staring, in turn, at every person in the room. "Was anyone else awake this morning between two o'clock and, shall we say, five o'clock?"

  Elizabeth shook her head quickly and saw that most of the others did, too. But she noticed that Maria looked down at the floor, blushing as red as the expensive oriental carpet that covered it.

  The constable noticed too. "Ms. Finch, may I remind you that this is an official police investigation? Were you awake at that time this morning?"

  Maria nodded slowly, still looking down. "Yes, ma'am," she replied, barely above a whisper. Alistair had returned to the room a few minutes earlier, with a dish of lemon wedges for the tea. Now he stood beside Maria, and she clutched his arm tightly as she spoke.

  "I'm always up and about early," Maria stammered, "to prepare the morning meal, you know." She paused, a frightened look on her face. "But I didn't see a thing, ma'am. I swear it. I was mostly in the kitchen, anyways."

  The constable glared at her suspiciously. "Very well," she said at last. "I suppose you can all go about your business, for now. But don't anyone leave the country without first notifying my office."

  As the group began filing out of the parlor in the direction of the dining room, Luke leaned over to whisper in Elizabeth's ear. "Doesn't it seem odd to you that we're calmly preparing to eat brunch, just hours after a murder?"

  Elizabeth nodded. "You know how these Pembrokes are caught up in tradition," she whispered back. "If the custom is to eat brunch on Saturdays, they certainly wouldn't let a little thing like a murder get in the way."

  Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Lord Pembroke tap Andrew Thatcher on the shoulder as if asking him to stay behind in the parlor.

  "You go on with the rest," Elizabeth whispered to Luke. "I'll catch up with you in a minute."

  Elizabeth turned back to the parlor and peered into the room, around the edge of the open door. The two men stood facing the window, their backs to her. Elizabeth felt a twinge of conscience about eavesdropping, but put it out of her mind as Lord Pembroke began to speak.

  The older man patted Thatcher's shoulder in a paternal manner. "Just a little more time, Andrew," he said. "It's too good an opportunity to pass up—"

  Thatcher whirled to face him. "But Joy—"

  "You know how sorry I am about your young lady, Thatcher. But it doesn't change anything. This is still the chance of a lifetime. We only have to hold on a little longer."

  Andrew turned back to the window and nodded, almost imperceptibly. Elizabeth had to strain to hear his next words. "All right, Robert. As you wish."

  Lord Pembroke steered the younger man toward the door. Elizabeth darted behind it and scrunched her body against the wall, scribbling down everything they had said. Then she followed them down the hall, keeping what she hoped was a safe distance as she pretended to admire the paintings of stern-looking relatives who stared accusingly from the richly brocaded walls.

  Constable Atherton met the two men at the end of the hallway. "Gentlemen," she said in a low voice. "I have been thinking about the comment young Ms. Wakefield made concerning the unfortunate incidents in London. You must be involved in that investigation, Chief Thatcher. Do you believe there is any connection?"

  There was a pause before Andrew's voice answered. "No, Constable. I honestly do not believe there is a connection between the two deaths in London, or between those deaths and this one. There is no evidence to support such a link."

  Elizabeth's eyes widened. As the threesome disappeared into the dining room, she struggled to copy down Thatcher's exact words, incredulous that the police would lie about the fact that three murders had been committed in exactly the same gruesome manner. Four murders, she corrected herself, thinking about poor Poo-Poo, the Yorkshire terrier. The story of Poo-Poo's disappearance had been the twins' first assignment for the Journal. The case had seemed insignificant at first, but it had taken on a chilling tone when Elizabeth found the little dog's lifeless body on a London street corner Monday night, its throat torn open.

  Elizabeth scribbled one more line in her notebook: "Who is Thatcher trying to protect?"

  Suddenly, a strong hand locked on Elizabeth's wrist. She jumped, slamming the notebook shut.

  Lord Pembroke's voice sounded in her ear, calm, but with what Elizabeth thought was a note of menace. "I've seen you writing in that tablet of yours," he said. "Don't entertain any grand ideas about getting your byline in the paper with any of this. The young woman's death is of no interest in London. It's local news. That's all."

  He dropped her wrist abruptly and glided to the other end of the room, not looking back.

  Elizabeth flushed guiltily. She had been imagining her byline on page one of the London Journal—on an article that covered something more important than an exploding eggplant or a missing dog, which were the kinds of stories she'd been assigned all week. Of course, Pembroke owned the Journal. If he really was covering up information about the murders, her chances of exposing him in the newspaper were slim. Still, she was determined to learn the truth.

  She turned back to her first page of notes and underlined a sentence: "Keep an eye on the elder Pembroke."

  She studied him as he stood with Robert, Jessica, and an uncomfortable-looking Luke. Poor, sensitive Luke! He hated being around rich, snobby types even more than Elizabeth did, but he had come to spend the weekend here because Elizabeth had asked him to.

  Now Luke was staring, eyes narrowed, at both Pembrokes, as Jessica carried on what appeared to be an animated monologue. The Pembrokes ignored Luke completely. Robert's eyes never left Jessica's face, and even Lord Pembroke seemed to relax, caught in the spell of Jessica's vivacity.

  Elizabeth noticed that the dining room was decorated with safari trophies. From the wall over Jessica's head, a tiger's mouth gaped open, its dagger-like teeth glistening in the morning sunlight.

  A sense of dark foreboding washed over Elizabeth, and she felt as if she were drowning. And again she heard Luke's words in her mind, so clearly that she almost turned to see if he was standing beside her, whispering in her ear:

  We all have an animal side.

  Chapter 2

  "Thanks for the snack, Maria," Elizabeth said, sitting at the worktable in the huge kitchen of Pembroke Manor. "Your homemade cookies—I mean, biscuits—are first-rate."


  "Oh, it's no bother at all, Miss Wakefield," the plump, pretty cook replied.

  "I guess I wasn't feeling very hungry at brunch," Elizabeth said carefully, "after what happened this morning."

  Maria turned away quickly, but not until after Elizabeth caught a frightened look in her brown eyes. Once again, she was certain that the cook knew more about Joy's murder than she had told the constable.

  Alistair walked into the kitchen, carrying a dust rag, and Elizabeth noticed the familiar way he rested a hand on Maria's shoulder as he leaned over to whisper something in her ear. She smiled up at him gratefully, as if he'd offered words of encouragement.

  Maria wasn't the only person who was grateful for Alistair's presence. Elizabeth wanted to question both of them, somewhere out of earshot of the Pembrokes. Now was her chance.

  "Would you care for more biscuits—I mean, cookies—miss?" Maria asked.

  "No, thank you, Maria. Actually, I wanted to talk with both of you for a moment. About last night."

  Maria's face turned white, and Alistair began clasping and unclasping his hands.

  "As I told the constable, miss," Maria said, "I was awake at the time, but I didn't see a thing near Miss Jessica's room."

  Interesting, Elizabeth thought. I didn't mention Jessica's room. And Maria had implied to the constable that she'd been only in the kitchen that morning.

  "I heard what you said to the constable," Elizabeth replied carefully. "I was just wondering if you'd remembered anything else since you talked to her."

  Maria stared at the linoleum. "Not a thing, miss."

  "I know what it's like to be awake, in the dark, when everyone else is asleep," Elizabeth began slowly. "Sometimes you hear noises, and they scare you, but you tell yourself it was only the house settling, or the wind rattling the gutters. Did either of you hear anything like that this morning?"

  Alistair's hands were trembling again.

  "Alistair, the constable never asked you directly. Were you awake at all between two and five this morning?"