Free The Blood Promise: A Hugo Marston Novel by Mark Pryor

probably didn’t mean soon.
    “I’d like that, I really would.”

    He sat back and looked up, the vines overhead rustling and shifting in the wind, showing glimpses of white clouds scudding across the sky. Downtime suddenly seemed like wasted time, the small pleasures of reading and walking in the fresh air tainted by Claudia’s gentle, honest, yet surprisingly hurtful rejection. He’d been lucky in life, personally and professionally—he knew and appreciated that. He couldn’t help but wonder about his love life, the emptiness that he ignored so much of the time and filled just occasionally with painful memories. Memories of his first wife, Ellie, who he’d loved so desperately and who’d died in a car accident, sucked from his life in an instant. Memories, too, of Christine, his second wife who he’d thought he’d loved and who’d left him . . . why, exactly?
    He shook his head and stood up. Maybe that’s part of what I need to figure out.
    He looked up at the sound of feet on gravel and his mood shifted immediately. A dapper man was walking gingerly across the lawn toward him, a little plumper than he’d been the last time they met but still impeccably dressed and sporting one of his many bow ties. Hugo started toward him and they shook hands warmly.
    “Raul, you made it early. I’m so glad to see you.”
    “ Merci , I’m pleased someone is.”
    “Problems at work?”
    “Work, home.” Capitaine Garcia wore those problems for all to see—for Hugo, anyway. Garcia’s normally happy face looked gray and heavy, even the extra weight in his body looked to Hugo as if it came from stress and not pleasurable indulgence.
    “Anything you want to talk about?”
    “Maybe over a drink, later.” Garcia nodded toward his feet. “This grass, it’s like a carpet. My shoes are cleaner walking on their lawn than in my own home.”
    “I know, it’s a lifestyle I could get used to.”
    “You?” Garcia snorted. “Not a chance, you are a man of action, you’d be bored here within days. Hours, probably.”
    “Possibly,” mused Hugo, “but there are days when I’d sure like to give it a try.”
    “ Certainement .” Garcia looked back at the house. “So what exactly is going on here?”
    “I’m not sure there’s anything going on. As I said on the phone, Senator Lake insists someone was in his room, and Henri Tourville insists not.”
    “Somehow I’m supposed to get to the bottom of this? How is that possible unless they have cameras in the hallways?”
    “They don’t have cameras, and your job is much harder than solving that little mystery.”
    Garcia cocked an eyebrow. “Oh?”
    “Your job, and mine, is to investigate and keep both sides happy. Seriously, I can’t imagine you’d find anything, any prints will belong to family members or staff, all of whom have a right to be in there. Lake emptied his briefcase and left it behind, so I think the plan is for you to make a good show of it so I can report that you interviewed everyone here and dusted for prints.”
    “Right, well, I should get started. Everything I need is in the car.” He gave Hugo a wry smile. “I do have real police work to do, you know.”
    Hugo clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder and they began to walk toward the chateau. “Not today, my friend, not today.”

Capitaine Raul Garcia watched as Hugo peeled away the masking tape that he’d used to seal Lake’s bedroom immediately after the senator had packed and vacated it. Garcia stood behind him making a note in a small pad that, according to the witness, Hugo Marston, the tape had not been broken and therefore no one had entered the room since it was closed up. Once the door was open, Hugo stepped aside and left Garcia to his work.
    Standing in the bedroom, Garcia took a few deep breaths and looked around. He could feel the age of the room, with its worn rug and oaken floor that a thousand feet had polished to a shine. To his right a table flanked the inside wall of