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“The asp was a nice touch, wasn’t it? I have a friend who was only too happy to sell it to me. He rents exotic creatures to film directors. It was exactly the same way with all those other little touches. I’ve been preparing my little movie for months. All I needed was you.
“As for your housekeeper there, that was mere convenience. I’d been using your spare to get in and out of the house, but eventually, even you would have noticed it was missing. But she had a whole set, all to herself, and she’d be the first person you’d suspect if she went missing.”
But she hadn’t. It had never even occurred to her that Madge might be to blame.
Jason thought he was so clever, planning ahead for any and all eventualities, that he’d started to think himself in circles. Johnathan was the same way. He was so used to being in control all the time, that it had never fully occurred to him that someone else might dare take it away.
“I don’t think I need to tell you why your stepson needed to die.” His mouth twisted unpleasantly. “You two provided me with some of the best material I have.”
“And you did all this,” she spoke with effort, “just to teach me a lesson?”
“No.” He tapped the recorder. “I’m going to stitch it all together into a film.Little Deaths, I’m calling it, after my father’s phantom work. Except this is going to be, quite literally, a character assassination. Yours. We’re going to watch it together, Donni Blake. And then I’m going to film the last scene you’ll ever make. Me killing you—slowly.”
???????
Rafe pulled into the parking lot with his lights off, piloting the car carefully in the dark. With no root networks to absorb the rain, the soil at Whytecliff had turned to watery mud. His boots stood up to it better than sneakers would have, but the trek was still laborious. Rain pelted his face and arms, causing the bullet wound to sting.
There were two ways to get to the shed. There was the front way, which he’d used last time, which was the fastest and most convenient. Often, it was the one used by cops when they came down here to break things up. The second way cut around back, used by the kids. That was the path Rafe took.
His knife was missing so he’d taken one of Donni’s Shun knives, wrapping the sharp handle in wads of paper towels before sticking it into his jacket pocket. He let his hand rest on the hilt of it now as he got closer. It was clear thatsomethingwas going on. If the lights themselves hadn’t been enough of a giveaway, there was also loud music, distorted by the rain.
The strange shapes he’d glimpsed from Black Oak Road were actually flimsy white walls that looked like paper, bare on one side, but covered with some sort of images on the other. He was too far to see, but he thought they might be faces. Human faces.
Without becoming any less afraid or concerned, Rafe became confused as well.
And then he heard Donni’s voice say, quite clearly, “Wait—what about the pictures?”
A male voice laughed. “Which ones?”
“My husband had pictures of me with Johnathan in his locker.”
“I had nothing to do with that,” the man said. “I don’t care who my father fucks. I never did. All those women, desperate to get ahead—it’s sickening, really. If you didn’t like the way the industry worked, Donni, why the hell didn’t you get out while you still could?”
“Because herapedme!” she cried. “He never even gave me the chance to say no!”
Rafe thought of the blood-stained lace in the locket.
Donni’s first time.
Johnathan’s son. It all made sense, now. He’d questioned his father’s death, and his questions had led him here, to Riachuelo. To the woman who had been his father’s entry to fame.
The beginning—and the end.
“Fucking liar,” the man snarled. “From what I hear, you were quite the party girl before you met your late husband. Although based on what I’ve seen so far, maybe you only married him to get to the son—”
Donni shrieked and lunged at him with a reserve of strength that surprised both men. She clawed at his face as the two of them went down, and Rafe heard the man—Jason—cry out in raw pain, shrill and wounded, as blood sprayed in a low arc.
The two of them went careening into one of those paper walls, knocking over one of the lights. The can rolled to the side, beaming upwards, shrouding the rain in alien green hues.
“You fucking bitch!” Jason shrieked. “I’ll kill you, you ugly old cunt—”
Before Rafe could get to them, Donni picked up the light by the cord, yanking so hard that it flew out with a spark and a hiss in the rain. It must have shocked her because she screamed and let go, and the heavy metal light knocked into Jason’s skull and sent him staggering backwards, towards the edge of the cliff, where the jagged rock overlooked the quarry and lake.
She was sobbing, crying so hard she could barely breathe as her tears mixed with the rain on her face. One of her hands was flecked with red, darkening to a thick and clotted pulp on her fingers. When Rafe turned to look at the man barely staying on his feet, he saw that one of his eyes was running down the side of his face, where it had been pierced by her acrylic nails.
“Fuck me,” Donni moaned. “Fuck, fuck,fuck.”
And then she looked up and saw him.
