Free For Elise by Sarah M. Eden

mistaken—in each hand.
    “Did this man say anything?” the runner continued.
    “He told us to get out of the carriage. It had turned over.”
    “Was anyone injured by the carriage tipping?”
    Elise nodded. “But not like . . .” She shook her head and sank into silence, her brow creased.
    “Did he do anything? Before telling you to get out of the carriage?”
    “He said he’d shoot me if we didn’t get out immediately.”
    “He said he’d shoot you in particular?” Miles stared at her. Elise didn’t acknowledge the question but continued looking blankly ahead. The runner gave Miles a look that warned him not to interrupt again.
    “And after you left the carriage?” the runner asked.
    “He made us walk a little away from the carriage.” Elise spoke mechanically. “The horses were struggling. Injured. The driver was”—she seemed to swallow with difficulty—“already dead.” She breathed heavily. Miles found his own breathing just as labored. “Mr. Linwood said that if the man wanted our valuables, he could have them but only to leave us be.”
    “Did the man seem as though he wished to rob the three of you?”
    Elise didn’t immediately reply. Her lips were slightly parted, her eyes staring unseeingly ahead, her color dropping steadily.
    “Did he accept Mr. Linwood’s offer of the valuables?”
    “He shot Papa.” The words emerged shaky and nearly incoherent.
    “Quick as that? No provocation?”
    “Mr. Linwood said he could have the valuables. The man raised his gun. I thought he was only showing it to us, trying to scare us. But then he shot Papa in the head.” A single tear dripped from her staring eyes. Her mouth closed tightly as if barely holding back a rush of bile. “Mr. Linwood told me to run. But the man pointed another gun at me. He told Mr. Linwood to go where he told him. We had to go around the trees. Mr. Linwood asked him to let me go. He asked why he was . . . why he was doing—” Elise shook her head and didn’t complete the sentence.
    Miles crossed to the sofa where Elise sat alone and took a seat beside her, pulling her hand into his. Lands, she was shaking.
    “The man shot him.” Elise tapped her chest right above the heart. Another tear trickled along the path of the first. “And he . . . he . . . The man laughed. He laughed.” She breathed rapidly, her breaths alarmingly shallow. No color remained in her face.
    “And then he shot you?” the runner pressed.
    Miles squeezed her hand. She would not hold up much longer.
    Elise nodded, touching her left shoulder. Her arm hung in a sling.
    “I need you to describe him to me,” the runner said.
    “Black horse. Black coat.”
    “His face?”
    “He wore a mask.”
    “Voice?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Anything identifiable?”
    Elise’s brows had been drawn, even her lips had had no color. She’d turned and looked up at Miles, her blue eyes swimming in tears. “He laughed.”
    It had been one of the most heartrending episodes he’d endured. Elise never was able to say more than that. The murderer had carried two weapons, had ridden a black horse, and had worn a black coat. A mask disguised his face. The one thing she repeated in the days that followed that interrogation was that he had laughed.
    It hadn’t been enough information, and after a week of fruitless effort, the runner had returned to London, warning Miles that the murders would likely never be solved.
    “Miles?”
    He’d been lost in his thoughts and had completely forgotten Beth and Langley were in the room. “Forgive me.”
    “Think on what I said,” Langley suggested with emphasis. “Elise was young, but she was not foolish. She must have had a reason to leave her home and her closest friend and confidante. I think you need to find out what that reason was.”
    Beth and Langley didn’t stay in the library for very long after that. She must have had a reason. That insight echoed in his mind. There had to have been a reason. But what?
    He