“No, I haven’t seen anyone since I ran out last night,” she said.

“You need to talk to Detective Stewart,” I said. “It looks bad the way it is now.”

“I’m afraid he’ll arrest me,” she said. “And when Piper finds out that the baby is Dooney’s, she’s going to come after me. The Mays have a lot of money. They’ll do everything they can to make it look like I did it.”

“But if the evidence doesn’t hold up, it doesn’t matter how much money they have,” I said. “The real killer will be caught but the police need to remove you as a suspect so that can happen.”

She shook her head at me. “You know better than that. There are two sets of rules out there. One for people with money and one for the rest of us.”

She wasn’t wrong. I knew that, but she couldn’t hide in the castle indefinitely.

“Even if the police do take you in for questioning, don’t you think you’d be safer with them than alone in a castle with a murderer on the loose?” I asked. “If you’re not worried about yourself, what about the baby? We have no idea who murdered Dooney or why or what lengths they’ll go to in order to protect themselves.”

She stared at me and then she nodded. “Maybe. But what if it wasn’t a person that murdered him, or at least someone who’s not a person anymore?”

“What do you mean?”

“You have to have heard the rumors,” she said. “The McKenna bride and her curse.”

“I don’t think—” I began but she interrupted.

“But it happened before,” she said. “I’ve heard the stories. Three times, brides who were to be married in the castle died just before the ceremony.”

“The castle is over a thousand years old,” I argued. “Of course people have died.”

“But these were brides who didn’t want to get married, just like the McKenna bride.”

“I think those stories are coincidences that happen to fit the narrative of a ghost story,” I said. “You know, to give the castle more allure to tourists and such.”

“But what if it’s true?” she insisted. “Then it’s my fault Dooney is dead. Because he loved me and not the woman he was supposed to marry, the curse killed him.”

“Listen to me very carefully,” I said. “A curse didn’t murder him. A person did and you could be next. Do you understand?”

She nodded. Her hair hung about her face. I noticed she was wearing the same clothes she’d been in at the dinner party, and she smelled like she could really use a bath.

“Why are you helping me?” she asked.