Chapter One: Red Red Roses

Chapter Author: Sin

Abigail

The car hums in idle as my eyes comb over the invitation one more time. This wooded, isolated drive doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

The vellum is fine, with the invitation itself handwritten in red ink in a swooping, calligraphic style. The envelope itself was even sealed in a rich, red wax.

The address is more plainly written, and assuming this isn’t some kind of a trap—which I haven’t ruled out—I’m headed in the right direction.

Straight on the path to Briarton Manor.

My ginger curls cling to my neck in the humid Georgia air, but even wrangling them into a ponytail does little to ease the oppressive mugginess that makes me work just a little harder for every breath.

The real question is, why was I invited in the first place?

At first, I assumed it must have been some kind of mistake, but my name is unmistakably there, handwritten in those rich, swirling letters.

Abigail Cross.

I’m no stranger to mysterious letters, and my natural inquisitiveness has taken me to many strange places in my work as a private investigator, but there was no cry for help in this message, no promise of work.

Just an invitation to a party, signed by Camille Briarton herself.

Briarton is a name I’ve heard before, but only in the sense that the Briarton rosefields are the most prestigious supplier of roses across the United States—the kind of name a person hears a lot around Valentine’s Day, along with fancy jewelers and chocolatiers.

Staring at the wooded path in front of me, my lips curl into a frown.

It seems… odd that the nation’s premier rosefields would be through a path like this.

Typically, I’d expect that any business doing regular shipments would be on wide, clear roads.

Compared to my little car, I guess it’s not a stretch to see how shipping trucks can fit here, but still, even if the Briartons do have a system in place for keeping the roads clear, it’s still weird for a major national company.

An odd choice, sure, but it’s nothing compared to Camille Briarton inviting me, a complete stranger, to some sort of party at her family’s ancestral manor.

I’ve heard the woman is nothing if not eccentric.

Setting the letter in my passenger seat, well within reach in case I need it to explain what I’m doing on the property, I shift my car back into drive and head down the wooded road, each rotation of the wheels carrying me further and further from anything resembling civilization.

After nearly a half hour of driving, my mind starts to wander.

Maybe I’d taken a wrong turn after all.

Maybe this is going to turn out to be an ambush—lord knows I’ve racked up enough enemies over the course of my career.

But all doubt goes out the window when the woods open up into what can only be described as a vast sea of bright, ruby red roses, broken only by the stunning old mansion standing at the center.

My jaw hangs open in pure awe of it, my chest tightening with an almost eerie feeling of unreality as I take my time, driving slowly in case any of the field workers happen to cross the road.

The closer I get to the road though, the more I notice how strange the place feels.

How empty.

I’d have thought a place like this would be swarming with employees, but I haven’t seen a soul, not even when I get close to the building, where I’d expect someone to tell me where to park.

There is, however, a painted wooden sign directing me to a small parking lot, so I join the five other cars parked there.

Only five.

Either I’m early, or this is an awfully small gathering to be inviting a stranger to.

Outside of my car, dark clouds crowd the sky—it’ll rain soon, no doubt. My shoulders sag with relief that I got here before I had to drive in it.

Clutching my invitation against a gust of wind, I make my way toward the gates. 

Still no one.

My hand hovers over the latch, before, out of the corner of my eye, I catch a small path leading off from the main house.

I shouldn’t follow it. 

I know that.

But my feet move as if of their own accord, and soon, the gorgeous carved stone of a private cemetery comes into view, vines creeping along the ornate wrought iron fence.

My hand rests on the gate, used to letting myself into places I don’t belong, and my body jerks like I’ve been electrocuted when I’m startled by a man’s deep voice.

“Friend of the family?” He steps out of a big mausoleum, tall and broad-shouldered, with intense eyes.

He must be the groundskeeper.

“Not… exactly,” I admit, fully aware of the way his intense eyes narrow on me. “I was invited, though.”

“Invited to poke around the family cemetery?” He asks, taking a few steps closer to me. “Or are you just drawn to places you don’t belong?”

My lip threatens to twitch up into a grin—he has no idea. 

I’ve made a career out of getting into places I don’t belong, and gathering evidence of things people would rather never see the light of day.

“Occupational hazard.” I smile, extending a hand for him to shake. “Abigail Cross, Private Investigator.”

He doesn’t take my hand.

In fact, his honey-brown eyes never leave mine, his stare searching for something that he’s not finding.

Maybe he’s more of a security guard than a groundskeeper. 

That would make sense, with the muscles that stretch the fabric of his black shirt beneath the leather jacket.

“Well, Private Investigator… ” The words roll over his tongue, almost like an insult. “I’m not sure who invited you, but you’d best be careful.”

“Is that a threat?” My eyes light up with near manic excitement, noting the way the corner of his mouth turns up into something almost resembling a smirk.

“It’s a warning.” He turns the knife-edge of his hand toward the house. “Briartons have always kept secrets, lot of which they don’t want to see the light of day.”

“Well, it was a Briarton who invited me here,” I challenge him, holding up the letter for him to see.

“Camille Briarton,” he reads, shaking his head. “Can’t believe she’s hosting a damn party in the old place.”

“Is it that odd?” My brow raises, and I lean my weight onto one hip, trying to look casual, like I’m not salivating at the chance to unravel old family secrets. “I thought it was pretty standard for rich people to throw mansion parties.”

“Maybe for other families, at other mansions, but this place?” He shakes his head, staring at the Antebellum architecture with nothing but pure disdain. “If you knew even half the story of this place, you wouldn’t set foot in that building.”

“And how do you know so much, if the Briartons are such a secretive bunch?”

He lets out a scoff, with what I think is an edge of humor, before he extends his hand for me to shake.

“Name’s Beauregard Briarton,” he tells me as I take his hand, and he exhales through his nose—just shy of a laugh, when my eyes go wide with recognition. “Yep, this is my family, for what that’s worth.”

“Wow.” I swallow, feeling like a bit of an ass for making assumptions when I’m the one trespassing at his family’s resting place. “That’s quite the name.”

Beau Briarton, black sheep of the Briarton family.

He may be a Briarton, but it’s just as strange to see him here as it is me.

The media was all over Beau Briarton’s supposed fall from grace, but he’d disappeared almost completely from the public eye soon after, despite building his own empire on innovations in farming equipment.

It sounds like he didn’t know that Camille was throwing a party here… but that only makes me more curious to find out what he’s doing here.

He grins fully this time, like he’s taking some kind of sick amusement from my discomfort. “Yeah, that’s why most people who know me call me Beau.”

“Should I call you Beau?” I look up at him through my lashes, swaying on my feet just enough to look non-threatening, maybe even a bit flirtatious. Getting on someone’s good side has always worked out well for me when I’m working a case… Okay, so this isn’t a case, but there’s definitely a mystery here. “Beauregard is a bit of a mouthful.”

“Do you know me?” He asks, taking a step closer, close enough that he could touch me if he wanted.

“Maybe I’d like to.”

He leans in, so close that I feel his breath against my skin when he speaks. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

Beau

“Maybe you shouldn’t,” I breathe into her ear, my blood boiling at the way her heart beats rabbit fast.

She doesn’t take a step back like I expect her to, but I’m not sure if it’s bravery, or if she’s rooted to the ground by nerves.

Instead, I step back, shocked by the amused curve of her lips, and the interest in her pale green eyes, rather than the intimidation I was going for.

Which isn’t necessarily a good thing.

This place, with its elaborate columns and many coats of restorative paint—now chipped and worn by the elements, has never been friendly to those inclined to stick their noses where they don’t belong.

If she sees that as a challenge rather than the glaring red warning sign it really is, she’s liable to end up hurt.

Or worse.

“If you’re Beau Briarton, then it’s my turn to ask what you’re doing here.” She grins like the cat that got the cream. “I have an invitation, but I and the rest of the world were under the impression that you’d broken off from your family.”

An answering grin tugs my lips at her audacity. “I have an annual engagement to keep.” I gesture toward the mausoleum behind me. “I come back here once a year to pay respects to my mother’s grave.”

Her eyes go moon-wide, and she has the grace to realize she’d intruded on a sensitive moment. “I’m so sorry—”

I can’t have her thinking too highly of me, though.

It’s dangerous, a woman like her getting involved with a man like me.

Briartons have always been wolves in sheep’s clothing.

A blessing and a curse I can’t shake, even after all these years.

“...And to make sure my old man stays in his.” My voice is low, rumbling in my chest with pure disdain and anger that I don’t have to pretend.

“I… Strained relationship, I take it?” Her tongue darts across her plush pink lips, discomfort evident on her face as she tries to avert her eyes from both me and the old graves around us.

“My father was the worst man I ever knew.” No sense in sugar coating it. “That’s why I left the family in the first place. Thank god Mom didn’t live to see it.”

Her lips press together into a thin line, and she nods, as if beginning to piece some puzzle together. “I lost my parents when I was young too.”

“I’d imagine that’s about where our similarities stop,” I huff, and she recoils like she’d been scalded.

I’m not such a dickhead that I don’t feel bad about the look on her face, but I’m not wrong.

For most people, the death of a parent is one of the worst things they go through in life—hell, it probably was for her. 

For me though, as hard as it was to lose my mother, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that the world is a better place without my father stealing breath.

I wasn’t kidding when I told Abigail that the Briartons keep dark secrets.

She probably thinks I mean the more traditional dark secrets of rich families whose wealth was established in the Antebellum South—racism, slavery, all associated abuses that southern estates like to gloss over.

But it’s different for us.

I tried to put a stop to it, but all it got me was blood on my hands, and a bad taste in my mouth.

The pressure of her hand on my arm makes me flinch back, and the concern on her face tells me I was doing it again.

Drifting so far off into my own world that I can’t hear what’s going on around me.

“I—Sorry.” My eyes focus back on her. She’s almost too bright, after falling down the rabbit hole of my inner demons. “I didn’t hear you.”

“I asked if you’re okay,” she repeats, her pale brow creased with worry. “It was like you weren’t here for a minute.”

“Sorry.” I clear my throat, my eyes flitting to the house I spent so much of my life in. “It’s this place—it has a way of bringing back memories.”

“Not always pleasant ones.” She swallows hard, giving me a small nod. “I get that, I really do.”

Do you really? I think, with no small trace of sarcasm, before I catch myself.

It’s not like I have a monopoly on pain, but it’s hard not to focus on my own when we’re standing in the place where all my family’s sins are dead and buried.

Including my own.

I nod, and if she thinks we’re sharing a moment, that’s alright.

What’s not alright is that she, with her inquisitive nature, is about to be thrown to the wolves.

What Camille was thinking when she invited a private investigator to the old house, I have no idea, but I do know that I can’t in good conscience let her go in there alone.

I’m inviting myself to that damn party.

Thunder cracks, and once again I’m pulled back into the present, and Abigail’s pretty face staring back at me.

“We should go inside.” I gesture toward the dark clouds filling up the sky, no doubt ready to burst into a summer downpour. “Unless we want to get caught in the rain.”

Abigail

“We should go inside.” Beau gestures toward the dark clouds filling up the sky, very obviously deliberately trying to draw my attention away from the expression on his face. “Unless we want to get caught in the rain.”

Beau Briarton, a mystery of a man, made that much more interesting by virtue of hiding things from me.

If there are dark secrets to be found behind those storied old walls, then it’s in my nature to sniff them out.

My eyes linger on him, studying as much as appraising as I gesture down the path back to the front gates. “Lead the way.”

In a shocking show of chivalry I hadn’t expected from him, Beau offers me his arm, brow half raised as though he’s challenging me, like he’s testing me somehow.

I wish I knew more about him, but as much as the media tried to theorize why Beau left the Briarton family, the man himself managed to fly under the radar.

Narrowing my eyes, I slip my arm through his.

There’s not a doubt in my mind that Beau intends to keep an eye on me, but that will only give me more of a challenge.

Where’s the glory in plundering old family secrets if there aren’t tight-lipped descendants trying to stop me?

A small smile slips onto my lips as Beau leads me toward the front doors—Nana and Nessa would absolutely love this, Ness for the aging but still sturdy architecture, and Nana for the promise of a good mystery.

While my cousin doesn’t share our love of discovery, our grandmother passed her insatiable hunger for the unknown to my mother, and to me.

Especially when she took me in after my mother’s accident, and my father’s… well, his untimely death. Nana’s stories about her fantastic escapades stoked a fire in me.

Once I get to the bottom of the Briarton family secret, Nana will be the first person I call.

Beau hesitates when we reach the doors to the manor, his eyes set into a hard stare that makes me wonder if he isn’t off in his own world.

My lips curve into a frown, recognizing that look of vacant dissociation. “Are you alright?” I ask, giving his arm a light squeeze.

“No,” comes his blunt response, before he exhales sharply through his nose. “When I left, I had no intention of ever setting foot in this place again.”

My brow furrows. “Then why now?”

He’s keeping an eye on me, of course, but will he say that outright?

“Need to know what Camille is up to.” He rolls his shoulders before taking my arm again. “Let’s go.”

As Beau reaches for the door, it occurs to me just how this looks.

I’m showing up on the arm of the Beau Briarton, who hasn’t set foot here in decades.

Whether or not I was hoping to make an entrance, I’m damn sure making one now.

Heads turn as Beau and I walk into the foyer, and I recognize all four faces staring back at us. What really stands out though, is that Camille Briarton is not among them.

Her husband and daughter, Joseph Millworth and Cassandra Briarton are here, and Cassandra’s eyes widen when her father whispers something to her.

“They’re talking about me,” Beau scoffs under his breath, the corner of his mouth turning up into a grin. “Can’t believe Camille’s little girl is all grown up.”

My eyes linger on Cassandra—dark brown hair, and a timidness to her that probably comes from a lifetime of living in her mother’s shadow.

She may not have her mother’s platinum blonde hair or her unabashed confidence, but besides that, she’s Camille’s spitting image, every inch the Briarton.

“You’ve never met her?”

“She was just a baby when I left the family.” Beau shakes his head, and Cassandra quickly looks away from us. “Not surprised she doesn’t remember me.”

“And Joseph?” It’s hard to believe someone as bland and borderline pastoral as Joseph Millworth could be married to a woman as eccentric as Camille, but aside from his nervous demeanor, he seems to have nothing in common with his daughter, not if his wisp of straw blonde hair is anything to go by. “What’s the story there?”

“He married Camille for the Briarton family fortune, that’s for sure… his family was old money, but these days, they’ve got nothing but influence,” he explains. “Turns out, influence doesn’t pay the bills.”

“But why would Camille marry him?”

“You know, I never was sure.” He lets out a rasp of a laugh at that. “But I think it might have something to do with how easily she could control him. She’s always been like that—has to have things her way.”

“Aren’t most rich people like that?” I flash him a challenging grin, and he returns the gesture.

“You may have a point,” he concedes, his eyes sliding to the tall man, dressed in all black, his long dark hair hanging wild beneath his cowboy hat.

“That’s Elijah Dean Elkwood, isn’t it?” I watch the man take off his hat to run his calloused fingers through his receding hairline.

Even approaching sixty, the famous folk singer still cuts a starkly handsome figure—there’s no way I can leave here without his autograph. If Ness found out I met the legend himself and didn’t bring her back a souvenir, she’d kill me.

“Not surprised he’s here.” Beau nods. “It’s an open not-so-secret that my cousin has been in an on-again, off-again affair with him since they were young.”

“Oh,” I gasp, hand flying to my mouth. “So that song, ‘The Grave I Call Home’, is about her, isn’t it?”

“More than likely.” He turns his attention to the mousy woman standing near the staircase, tightly clutching her laptop. “Not sure who she is, though.”

“I can answer that—that’s Jennifer Castle,” I explain, a little too loudly, apparently, since her head snaps in our direction.

“Sure is,” she beams, striding over to the two of us. “Award-winning horror novelist, Jenny Castle, at your service.” Her eyes narrow as she leans in just a little too close to me. “And you’re Abigail Cross—a private detective of no small renown with none other than Beau Freaking Briarton on your arm! The plot thickens.”

“Investigator,” I correct her. “Detectives work for the police—that’s not my job.”

“Is that the only difference?” She asks, propping her laptop up in her arm, seeming to take notes.

“Well, I’ll get arrested if I get caught breaking and entering.” I shrug, earning a rumble of humor from Beau. “I’m more into solving mysteries than catching criminals.”

She raises a brow, turning her attention to Beau. “Like the mystery of what happened to Beauregard Briarton?”

“Apparently,” he scoffs.

Jenny nods to him, before looking back at me. “Maybe next, you can solve the mystery of exactly where our enigmatic host has disappeared to.”

“Not much of a mystery.” I tilt my chin toward the overlook atop the magnificent double staircase. “There she is now.”

A hush falls over the foyer as none other than Camille Briarton saunters over to the railing, draping her bony hands across it as her billowing white dress settles around her like a ghost.

She has the same honey-brown eyes as Beau, but there’s a chill in her gaze that sends a tremor down my spine.

“A pleasure to see that you all made it.” Her painted red lips split into a smile that doesn’t seem like it suits the harsh angles of her face. “How good of you to join me.”