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“Rachel was going to get caught,” Laurel said. “Rumors started swirling. People on the outside started paying attention. Even the governor talked about it during some speech. It took all of our favors to keep things quiet.” She frowned. “She was always in the way, from the beginning. Don’s monstrous daughter.”
“His real one?”
Laurel’s eyes brightened. I’d hit on something she cared about. “No.Can you believe it? They weren’t even related. Don just found her and felt sorry for her ’cause she was some foster runaway. So he took her in and treated her like family. The only good she ever did was lead Don to us.”
Rachel and Don weren’t related. A thousand memories came back—the lack of emotion between them, Rachel’s nonchalance while we grew increasingly obsessed with her dad. Was she Don’s first victim, or were they grifters together—two people who’d realized their proclivities aligned? Was Rachel the one who scouted us for Don, told him all about our vulnerabilities? We’d seen her as a ticket into Rothschild; she’d seen three young women ripe for deliverance.
“It doesn’t matter that she wasn’t his real daughter,” Laurel said. “He treated her like one, and that was the problem. There couldn’t be two favorites. And she was going to ruin the Paters before we could ever reach our goal, get to Albany. So I confronted her.”
“You did?” I couldn’t imagine it—shy, gentle Laurel against cold, vicious Rachel.
“I yelled and threatened her, but she wouldn’t break. She just kept smiling at me because she knew she had the ultimate weapon. Her terrible secret. That’s when she told me Clem hadn’t chosen to die. Rachel chose for her.”
My heart beat wildly in my chest. “How did she do it?”
“Somehow she found out Clem was planning to run. I think she used to spy on us. When she took Clem to campus that day, Clem snuck out of class and ran to Cargill to meet her soccer coach. She didn’t realize Rachel was following her.”
Laurel walked across the room and stopped at a low wooden chest, pulling open the top drawer. She slipped a hand inside and tugged out a glass-topped box, flipped the hinges, and drew an object from its crushed-velvet bed.
The pugio. I would recognize it anywhere. In Laurel’s hands the dagger was oversized, the metal blackened with age, its tip ending in the narrowest point, like a needle. Lethal delicacy.
She turned it in her hands. “Rachel used this. Held it to Clem’s throat, forced her to put her head through the loop in the rope. Sliced her up. Forced her to carve the words into her arm.”
Thin cuts, like from a razor blade.But it hadn’t been a razor blade that made those marks on Clem’s body; it had been an ancient Roman weapon.
“I’m sure she used it because she thought Don would approve. Rachel said she’d been planning how to kill each of us from the moment she moved into the suite.” Laurel walked toward me, holding the knife. “When she told me what she did, it was the strangest thing. This calmness came over me. It was like I was an actor in a play. In an instant, I’d plotted it all out in my head. The entire scene.”
The truth hit me. “You killed her.”
Laurel met my eyes, unblinking. “She killed Clem first.”
“You hung her outside the theater.”
Laurel stared at me, eyes large and intense. “Poetic justice. Besides, I needed people”—her voice caught—“to think she was me. No one would come after me if they thought I was the one who died. I could get rid of her, and in one fell swoop, Clem would have her vengeance, the Paters would lose our greatest liability, and Don would be mine. She looked so much like me, remember? Like we were sisters. Don always used to say that, no matter how much I hated it. I finally put it to good use.”
She shook her head. “Rachel fought me, obviously. I wasn’t as good at hurting people as she was. I couldn’t get her to write the letters. But I managed the important part, in the end. And everything I messed up, the Chief fixed.” She flashed her teeth in a way that reminded me, eerily, of the Paters and their wolf smiles. “I’m sure your literary brain can tell me what kind of irony that is, the Chief cleaning up after me. Dramatic? Tragic?”
I was silent, and she rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me you wish she was still alive, you liar. You hated her, too.”
I searched myself, trying to locate remorse for Rachel’s death, but she was right. All I felt was numb horror at what Laurel was capable of. “Don wasn’t angry?”
She resumed her path toward me, idly scratching the blackened knife. “Maybe a little. But you remember how pragmatic he is. He helped with the cops, then he helped me bury her.” She glanced at the door. “It’s been the two of us ever since. Blissful, like a honeymoon.”
In my weakest moments I’d fantasized about seeing my dead friend again. The things I’d tell her, the way I’d hold her. But this was nothing like I’d imagined. The reality seeped in, grave and deadly. Laurel was alive, she’d killed Rachel, and Don hadn’t skipped a beat. If that was true, what would he do to me, the woman who’d betrayed him?
“Laurel.” Her chin snapped in my direction, dreamy expression gone. “He’ll kill me if he finds me here. Please, help me escape.”
For a second, she just stood there, knife in her hands. Then a strange darkness passed over her face. “He’s not going to kill you, Shay. He used to love you best.”
“What?”
She searched my face. “And why wouldn’t he? Since the day we met, I was half in love with you myself. It’s your superpower. I used to dream about slipping into your skin, just for a day.” She smiled wistfully. “Cracking open that head and sneaking in to read your thoughts, know what it was like to be so beautiful you could turn any man’s head. Tell me the truth.”
My breath caught.
“Is it everything?”
I couldn’t speak—didn’t know where to start—and the smile washed from her face. “If he sees you again, he’ll want you. You’re the only threat left.” She was close enough now to touch. “I never thought you’d come back.”
