When Murder Comes Home (Aileen & Callan Murder Mystery Book 1)

Chapter 11

Aileen slumped on the door in front of her closet. What an idiot she had been!

Hadn't Aileen always vowed to trust herself? So when the keys weren't in their place, two times in a row, she should have been suspicious. Besides—

Aileen gasped again. What had happened to the lights? She was cast in pitch darkness.

Aileen held her thoughts on a leash, calmed her mind and perked up her ears: everything was absolutely quiet. Noiselessly, she held the phone's torch in her hand and tiptoed to her room's door.

Her boots made muffled sounds on the carpeted floor, then an old plank creaked. It sounded loud in the hush of the night.

There was no other sound, no shouting to indicate the lights had abruptly gone off.

Squaring her shoulders, Aileen walked down the stairs.

A door at the far end of the corridor opened, and she paused.

Heavy footsteps strode towards the stairs, then a torchlight shone in the corridor.

The light beam came closer but Aileen couldn't see the person behind it.

'Hello?' Aileen cleared away the fear in her throat.

The torch jerked, followed by a curse before the voice spoke. 'Jake Grant. What's happened?'

'The lights went out. Let me head over to the main switches.'

Jake followed Aileen as she went into the control room.

Just then she heard a car drive up. It had to be Callan.

Sure enough, heavy footsteps soon raced up the stairs, and another brighter torch appeared and followed them.

'Everybody okay?' Callan asked.

Aileen cleared her parched throat; she had a bad feeling about this. 'I don't know. I was just about to check the fuse board.'

But Callan pushed ahead. 'Darn it! Looks like someone's turned off the switch for the lights.'

'But the board's locked behind—'

The lights blinded them for a moment. Aileen opened her eyes to see Callan give her a look. He turned to Jake. 'Please head over to the library.'

Another set of footsteps came down the hall. John Cook appeared, and behind him came Martha Smith, along with Anne Grant.

John strode up to them. 'We were in the drawing room when the lights went out.'

Martha nodded. 'Yes, we thought the power must have tripped.'

Callan looked at them and scratched his beard.

Jake pointed at Callan. 'He's asked us to wait in the library.'

When it was just the two of them, Aileen turned to Callan.

'Someone turned them off deliberately?'

Callan said not a word. The fuseboard was indeed barricaded inside a locked cabinet. A consummate thief could click the lock open, but he had no doubt that whoever had done it had an entire set of keys. They didn't need to break in. And only the lights had gone off; the rest of the power had stayed on, so it didn't seem to be an electrical fault.

'It's not a red herring like yesterday's alarm,' Callan muttered. His intuition told him something had happened. They were too late.

'I'm going to knock on everyone's door. Assemble everyone in the library.'