To My First Love, With Regret - 112

They hadn’t simply been flung from their coffins by the blast. Eve’s father and brother were laid out neatly upon the frozen earth, displayed like a feast prepared for the stray dogs.

The madman had actually gone through the labor of digging up those frozen graves in the dead of winter, prying open the caskets, and meticulously sorting the bones one by one. As if rewarding that extreme malice, a large dog clamped its jaws around what appeared to be a human shinbone.

 

—That… that mad beast dares to touch the Duke….

 

The caretaker and the butler both moved toward the fence in a panic, but the dogs bared their teeth and growled savagely.

 

—Leave them be.

 

The bereaved survivor herself stopped the men from retrieving the remains of her own kin.

 

—Isn’t that just the natural order of things?

 

Eve turned away from the caretaker, who couldn’t possibly understand her cold-hearted directive, and looked to the butler.

 

—Keep this quiet. Seal the graves back up with dirt.

—And the headstones, my lady?

—Just piece them back together as best you can.

 

She handed down her orders dryly and began walking toward the car parked outside the cemetery. A bone, belonging to heaven knows which of them, caught under the toe of her shoe.

Is this a shoulder blade? How utterly useless even their corpses are.

The bone—smothered in soil and canine saliva as if discarded for being nutritionally worthless—was shaped like a wing.

Seeing the owners of those graves, who had been forcibly dragged out after shamelessly enjoying their rest while the world above turned into a living hell, Eve was reminded of Ethan as he woke up this morning. Even in a bed meant for comfort, his face had looked as exhausted as a prisoner undergoing punishment.

When Eve had drawn the curtains and let the morning sun pour in, he had groaned low and furrowed his brow. He could have just turned his head away, but the man chose to lift his arm and shield his eyes instead.

From beneath that thick forearm, his eyes followed Eve by the window like a shadow. It was less like the gaze of a wolf hunting to kill and more like a dog tracking its master, yet it was suffocating all the same.

Desperate to feel alive, Eve had thrown the window wide to inhale the cold dawn air. It was then that Ethan asked in a voice thick with sleep:

 

—Our child… is there no grave?

 

Eve had shaken her head. He closed his eyes as if resigned and muttered helplessly through dry, parched lips:

 

—Right. No name, so of course there’s no grave.

 

It seemed he had soothed that remorse by stripping the graves away from the enemies who actually had them.

A deep-seated hatred, a vow that those two men would never be allowed to rest in peace even in death, drifted over the cemetery like a thick fog. If it was a matter of hating them, Evelyn Sherwood refused to be outdone.

 

 

Cranch.

 

 

Eve ruthlessly stepped on the shoulder blade, crushing it. A strange sense of pleasure rose from the tips of her toes as she ground the bone fragments into the mud, but at the same time, a terrifying chill crept down the nape of her neck.

The only reason Eve could afford to be composed right now was that Ethan Fairchild’s violence had been directed at her enemies instead of her.

But the moment that man’s muzzle turns back toward me….

Eve looked down at the broken wing and wrapped her arms around her shoulders. She felt a throb of phantom pain, as if her own shoulder blades had been torn away.

If she failed to escape that cruel monster, this sensation would not remain a mere hallucination.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The game of spies ended as of yesterday. For today, Anthony Sherwood was a detective.

Today, Great Detective Tony’s case was to track down the man who had vanished like smoke without leaving a single footprint: Ethan Fairchild.

 

—Where did he go?

 

Having fallen asleep late last night, Tony woke up late to find him nowhere in sight. He began his inquiries the moment he finished breakfast, but everyone claimed they had no idea where the man was.

 

—I smell something suspicious.

 

Tony stood before the door of the missing person’s bedroom. His sharp eyes scanned the hallway to the left and right.

—No prying eyes.

However, like a seasoned detective who had seen it all, he tilted the brim of his invisible fedora and pulled it down low just in case. Only then did he use the master key to unlock the door and slip inside.

As expected, the room’s owner was gone. But it was too early for disappointment. Tucked in a corner of the dressing room sat Ethan’s massive military trunk.

 

—He didn’t leave for the battlefield without telling me. The target is still in the vicinity. Whew….

 

For a moment, Tony forgot that an experienced detective doesn’t let out a giant sigh of relief like a nine-year-old kid.

An Air Force officer’s service cap was also hanging on the wall. This meant he hadn’t gone into work at Littlewick Base, either.

 

—Then where did he go?

 

The boy, having removed his invisible fedora to snatch and wear Major Fairchild’s officer cap instead, tilted his head in thought. As he circled the bedroom searching for a clue to the man’s whereabouts, Tony’s steps came to a sudden halt by the window.

There were many strange objects in Ethan’s room, but most were as dull as the drab paintings on the walls, enough to make one yawn. However, the pair of objects sitting on the windowsill with an ashtray between them was enough to pique a nine-year-old boy’s interest—no, to trigger a Great Detective’s investigative instincts.

 

—…Skulls?

 

And there were two of them. Tony’s eyes went round as saucers as he peered into the hollow eye sockets.

 

—Are they real?

 

There was only one way to find out: find the owner of these skulls and interrogate him directly.

As soon as Tony stepped out into the hallway with grim determination, he pressed his back flat against the wall. He descended the empty stairs in secret, hiding behind statues and grandfather clocks, but he couldn’t escape the sharp gaze of the guard stationed at the front door.

When their eyes met, the guard tipped the edge of his hat in a respectful salute to the Duke. Tony, pretending not to be flustered, raised his chin high and passed the man with dignity—but he didn’t dare walk through the door, instead turning into the first-floor corridor.

 

—Security is tight.

 

This wasn’t just a line delivered out of immersion in his detective game. Someone was guarding every single exit of the mansion. Eve had explained that security was heightened because of ‘Mom,’ but Tony couldn’t understand it.

 

—I smell a rat. This mansion is definitely hiding something.

 

Without hesitation, Tony infiltrated a nearby vacant room. His target was the window. Once he opened it and confirmed the coast was clear, he vaulted over the frame and landed in the garden.

—Oof!

Tumbling into the flowerbed was, he swore, a calculated part of the operation. Tony quickly snatched up the service cap he’d dropped and gave it a vigorous shake before putting it back on.

 

—Until we meet again.

 

The capable detective turned back toward the window to give the incompetent guards a salute and a wink before vanishing smoothly into the thicket of shrubs.

His real mom had strictly warned him: A Duke does not travel alone. He must always move with someone else.

But right now, Tony wasn’t a Duke; he was a solitary detective. If he walked around with a flashy retinue, his true identity as the Duke of Kentrell might be exposed.

 

—A detective always moves alone.

 

The little detective successfully scaled the perimeter wall, slipping through the garden’s dense surveillance network like a nimble squirrel.

 

—All right.

 

Standing in the middle of the road, Tony first shot a glare to the left, then to the right.

 

—Now, which way did he go?

 

To the right was the eerie Kentrell Castle; to the left was the isolated lighthouse.

 

—The castle is….

 

Judging by the boom from earlier and the way Eve had rushed off with the butler, more of the cliff had clearly collapsed over there.

 

—Mustn’t go that way.

 

It wasn’t that he was a coward; he was simply following the instincts of a veteran detective.

 

—If my deduction is correct, he went toward the lighthouse.

 

With the hem of his invisible trench coat fluttering in the biting sea breeze, the little detective marched toward the lighthouse without hesitation.

To find his missing father.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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After Ethan had once again subjected those who stole his future to the ultimate sentence, the place he sought out was a murder scene—one utterly harrowing despite the absence of a single drop of blood.

It was the site that had driven his child to death. That cold stretch of road where Eve had stood… or rather, where he guessed she must have stood, on a certain autumn night ten years ago.

God damn it. To think I can’t even find my own child’s grave.

Trapped on the road like a man blocked by an invisible wall, he paced up and down. Finally, unable to bear the sheer stupidity of trying to retrace a memory he didn’t have, his knees buckled. He sank onto the grass at the side of the road.

Since returning to these cursed cliffs, every day had been a relentless struggle to remain conscious. By now, a palm-sized flask wasn’t enough to make him lose his senses. Ethan raised a heavy bottle of whiskey and poured the poison down his throat.

But he lost his balance before he lost his mind. His massive frame collapsed into the tall grass like a corpse.

The winter wind bit into his skin, rapidly stealing the heat from his body. Ethan closed his eyes and let his form freeze.

It would be fine to stop breathing right here. What better offering could there be for a dead child’s grave than the life of the murderer who killed them?

Will I be able to… see you then?

Someone he had never known in life had become a lifelong longing. It was cruel beyond measure.

You were definitely alive right here that day….

The heartbeat of the child that must have pulsed so fiercely seemed to linger yet; the ground thrummed against his body. Remorse squeezed through his tightly shut eyelids and soaked the earth.

If I had only stopped here that day….

 

—Dad.

 

Yes, that is what you would have called me.

Won’t you show me your face, too?

Hoping the whiskey-induced hallucinations would grant him a vision, Ethan opened his eyes.

A child was actually looking down at him.