“I don’t know why. I don’t know why I did that. But then she was dead and I ran. I thought I’d be okay, but then I started thinking about Marie. She’d met me a hundred times. What if she told the police about me? I absolutely panicked… and then I….” Cynthia paused to wipe her nose on her other glove. “The Citycame out with quotes from Marie, so it was a good thing I did.”
So she’d decided to off Marie before the early printing was even fresh off the press. “And Brad?”
She shook her head. “He knew me too. Even though they were separated, wouldn’t the cops talk to him? I wasn’t sure if Sandra wrote down my appointments, but if she had, he’d know where. Then the cops would be knocking on my door.”
I took another step, saying, “You made Marie’s and Brad’s deaths look like Sandra’s on purpose, didn’t you? They were all killed with flatware. They were all found with a spiritoscope—well, sort of.”
“I only had two,” she whispered. “Those are the only ones known to exist. But I knew one involved a big band on the apparatus, to spin the wheel, you know? I had rubber bands from a delivery of a tête-à-tête two weeks ago, so I just used that.”
“But why the knucklebones? The apple? The quarter?” I let out a breath and wearily answered myself, “You wanted the police to think there was a new serial killer on the loose.”
“Serial killers do things like that,” she said. “They have an MO and a signature. They’d never suspect it was me.”
“Gloves,” I said with a nod of my chin in her direction. “Pretty much untraceable flatware. Victims mostly within the same community. The Spiritualism tokens.”
Cynthia nodded, her smile hysterical. The blonde model who so many would automatically equate to “dumb rich bitch.” But she was right. No one would ever assume that someone like Cynthia was versed in Spiritualism history—that she was apparently a fervent believer and familiar with Hare and the Fox sisters. And she’d gotten the serial-killer thing mostly right—enough that it threw everyone off for the first critical forty-eight hours, anyway.
“But I was watching the news,” Cynthia explained further. “To—to make sure no one said my name.”
“Right.”
“And they were talking about you! All I had to do was google it, and I saw all the weird cases you’d been involved in, and I knew you’d figure it out.”
“You had me fooled,” I told her. “I was close, but I’d have never pinned you down on my own.”
“I couldn’t take that chance. I didn’t know how to get you alone, but then Chris mentioned he’d been shopping yesterday, and it was like the stars fucking aligned!”
“The police think Chris did it. You used his credit card at the auction.”
Cynthia said, “I don’t care. Let them think it.”
“Cynthia—”
She charged forward without warning.
I stumbled a few steps—my legs were like Jell-O. I grabbed the back of a nearby dining chair to steady myself as she came around the table, lunging with the weapon. I threw the chair into her path as Cynthia swiped with the knife. The same instant she tripped and caught herself on the carved backing, the tip of the blade sliced a tear across the front of my shirt, catching a button and popping it free. I immediately put a hand to my exposed stomach, but I was so hyped on adrenaline and fear that I couldn’t feel whether or not I’d been hurt. I chanced a peek, but there was only a thin line with a few beads of blood—hardly more than a cat scratch.
Cynthia righted herself, screaming something incomprehensible as she lunged again in my direction. The heel of her stiletto got caught in the Bubble Wrap on the floor, and shepop,pop,popped while racing toward me. She raised the knife up, slashed, and this time I fell in my attempt to scramble away from the danger. She dropped to her knees and crawled after me, making desperate, heaving sounds as she stabbed over and over at my feet while I scuddled and crabbed backward as quickly as possible. Thank fuck I wasn’t wearing my slip-on loafers, otherwise they’d have fallen off and my stocking feet wouldn’t have had purchase on the polished floor.
“Stop! Moving!” Cynthia screamed between gasping breaths.
As if.
I rolled onto my side, scurried to my hands and knees, and grabbed a crystal wineglass from the table. The fanciful etchings gave serious weight to it. When Cynthia let out another wild scream, I turned and smashed the glass against the side of her head. For half a second, she stared blankly inward. Then the chef’s knife fell from her grasp, her eyes rolled back, and she dropped onto the floor.
The house was silent again.
I was too scared to reach for the knife, with it still so close to her hand, but I managed, after a few misses, to kick it clear across the room. I looked around for a moment, spotted the fancy tiebacks on the curtains, and went to the bay windows. I yanked the rope free, returned to Cynthia, and after confirming she was still breathing, heaved her onto her stomach and tied her wrists together.
“—But sir, you can’t just—” echoed the housekeeper’s voice from downstairs, before the sound of the front door slamming against the wall cut off the rest of her words.
“Where’s the dining room?” That was Calvin.
“S-second floor. But—sir, wait!”
Multiple pairs of feet were pounding up the steps, but it was Calvin who reached the gallery first. He looked toward the back of the home, where the kitchen was located, as Quinn and Radcliff joined him at the landing. They all had their weapons drawn.
“Calvin,” I called. It felt like I’d whispered his name, but he turned suddenly, so my voice must have come out at regular volume. I got to my feet as he raced into the dining room, and then his big body was wrapped around mine and I leaned every ounce of myself into the hold.
