King of Spades

Victor turns the weathered playing card over and over between his fingers. The lines and colors are scuffed and faded with age, the corners tattered, showing signs of having been shuffled countless times.

It's late and quiet. Everyone else has likely drifted off to sleep, leaving Victor awake and alone with whatever ghosts haunt this house.

The king doesn't look off to the side, but straight ahead.

Victor isn't sure what the kings mean, but he doesn't think it's good.

He's glad that things seem relatively normal in this house, though they did in the other house at first, too. At least Joseph has started behaving a little more civilly, though it seems more out of necessity than sincerity.

Marcus's replacement seems nice enough, though she seems to take people apart with her eyes. Victor imagines Lauren thinks she probably has a pretty good poker face, but she's not all that adept at hiding when she's analyzing someone. Given enough time and practice, and Victor is sure her eyes will sweep over someone with the practiced gaze of a criminal taking in all the details needed to make an assessment and move forward with the plan.

EV remains her indomitable self, though she seems to have gotten a little more reserved. Victor can see mixed signals fluttering across her pretty face when he's near, and he's pretty sure she's attracted to him but doesn't want to show it. In different circumstances, he might be attracted back, but the there are too many uncontrolled variables for it to be feasible.

This country house has just as many mysteries as the Victorian one did; it's just as full of locked trunks and books, jars and bottles, crates, cabinets, stairways and shadowed corners. The wedding dress intrigues him. Why was it chained into the armoire? Was someone afraid it would escape?

On a sudden impulse, Victor rises from his bed and crosses the room, opening his CSI bag and retrieving a slide. He walks down the hallway in his shirt and underwear, into the strange room with the armoire doors standing wide. The dress gleams white in the moonlight, and the unsightly stain running down the front is as black as ink.

It flakes off the fabric like old blood, onto Victor's slide, caught with expert precision. He covers the sample and carries it back to his room, ready to solve this mystery at least.

The king of spades watches from the bedside table, impassive, and yet seeming to anticipate what events might come next.