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She just couldn’t freaking move.
Señora Sanchez continued. “My mother was one such healer. And when I visit her every few years, I replenish my supply of the extract. You never know when you might need it. The toxin itself isn’t poisonous, although in high doses, it can paralyze the respiratory system so a victim will actually…suffocate.”
Horror filled Allie. Was that how she was going to die? Unable to breathe?
“Don’t worry. I’m quite adept at calculating the proper amount. The ratio I used should be low enough that you can continue to breathe on your own…for now. The toxin will gradually wear off and will be virtually untraceable. But until it does, as you’ve learned, it renders you completely paralyzed.”
“Everything in the house is secure.” Unlike his mother with her heavily accented English, Javier sounded as American as the next guy. “How much longer?”
“As long as it takes,” she snapped angrily. Then her demeanor changed again. “Javier, why don’t you go keep watch at the windows,” she said more indulgently. “Make sure no one arrives without our knowing.”
The last button released, she pushed Allie’s blouse open. Allie prayed Javier had followed his mother’s orders and wasn’t watching. “My son is not happy about any of this, but he sees the importance of keeping your silence. He has a family now. Children. Things he can’t risk losing. It’s your life or his.”
Her life? God help her.
So they did plan to kill her. Why, oh, why hadn’t she sat tight at school until she heard from Sam?
Hopefully, he’d gotten her message and was acting on it. Hopefully, he’d be here any minute, if nothing else to discuss her theory.
She prayed she’d still be alive when he confirmed it.
“You really should have reconsidered hiding your extra house key someplace less obvious. Over the past couple of weeks, I can’t tell you how many times I saw you or that daughter of yours retrieve it from under that rock. Not very good thinking on your part.”
She’d been watching them?
The bitch leaned Allie forward and pulled her blouse off. “You know, I made a mistake with Jackson,” Señora Sanchez said into the quiet stillness of the room. “I should have left his body somewhere no one would ever find it—at least not until long after I was gone. But you got it into your silly head to build that ridiculous peace garden. The most idiotic idea I’d ever heard. I thought Jeremy was going to win out and nix the idea, but somehow, you wormed your way around him and all the other objections.”
She folded the blouse and set it carefully aside. Allie wanted to scream.
“I really am sorry for having to do this to you.” She sighed, then her face hardened and she snorted. “But Jackson? He deserved it. He used me. Lied to me. And tried to discard me like some old whore. And not even for someone of my same class and breeding. But to that…that surgeon’s wife. Who already had everything and only wanted to take more and more and more.”
Her jaw clenched, then her face smoothed out, and she pinned Allie with a cold stare. “But you, you kept trying to immortalize Jackson as some saint, someone worthy of attention, and you kept digging. Even destroying the files down in archives and wrecking your car wouldn’t sway you. You and Jackson were both of heartier constitutions than I gave you credit for.”
She unclasped Allie’s bra with some difficulty, then eased her back in the tub. “I used to slip small amounts of a pesticide into the cream he added to his coffee every day. He never even suspected he was being poisoned. I got a lot of enjoyment at seeing him suffer from the stomach cramps. But it was taking an awful long time. Arsenic poisoning is not an exact science, you know. The amount I put into those creamers you like so much didn’t have quite the desired effect. I’d been hoping to make you sick enough to put you out of commission for a few weeks, well past the time you needed to make your video. But it didn’t work as planned.” She sounded disgruntled at that.
Allie thought back to the stomach bug she’d had last week. Well, that explained why she’d passed out at the carnival. The subsequent headaches. The confusion. Things she hadn’t even considered were caused by being poisoned. If she managed to get out of this alive, she’d never touch that sweet creamer again as long as she lived.
Señora Sanchez smiled down at her beneficently. “I have patience, though. And I would have been patient while Jackson slowly succumbed to the poison. But then he got it in his head to run away with his whore. That was the last thing he told me before I plunged that damn letter opener into his chest. Poetic, really. She had given it to him, you see.”
She reached for the water taps, but paused with her hand on one. “I almost buried it with him, but why should he be able to have something of hers rest with him for all eternity? I had Javier pull it out of his chest when he helped me lay the cheating bastard in that cold grave, and I cleaned it with bleach and returned it to his desk. No one the wiser.”
She smiled, then focused her attention on the button and zipper of Allie’s jeans. “I just wish I’d thought about that damned book. You know which one I’m referring to. I heard you mention it to Sam in your voicemail. You should have left well enough alone. Now look at what I must do to silence you.”
She stopped speaking finally, all of her attention consumed with trying to pull Allie’s pants down past her hips. After another moment’s struggle, she called out for her son again. “Believe me, dear. This will still be a much easier way to go than with Jackson. Just take a deep breath and it will all be over.” She tilted her head thoughtfully. “It’s too bad about your little girl.”
Violet. Oh God. How was she going to take this? Allie felt the warmth of tears trickle down her cheeks.
Javier came to the bathroom door. “What is it?”
“Help me pull these off,” she said. “We have to be careful. I can’t risk anything tearing. It has to look like she undressed herself.”
His hands, hot and clammy, were on Allie’s waist, touching her skin. Señora Sanchez had left the bra loose around Allie’s shoulders, giving her a bit of modesty—before she was killed. But Allie could feel his gaze on her. His hands lingered far too long as they grabbed the pants and her panties and worked them down. His nose made a whistling noise from his efforts. More tears flowed down her cheeks, this time from humiliation and fury. She wanted nothing more than to scream at him, to bite him, to tell him to keep his filthy hands off her. But she couldn’t move.
“You can let her go now, mi’ja,” his mother said, humor in her voice.
He dropped her clothes on the floor, but one hand still rested on her hip. He seemed embarrassed for a moment, and then he stood in front of her, staring down at her almost naked body. She willed her eyes to shoot daggers of disgust and anger at him, but they wouldn’t obey. They stayed staring straight ahead.
Finally, she sensed him leave. Señora Sanchez sat on the toilet and pulled Allie’s bra—and her last vestige of modesty—from her shoulders, and tossed it on top of the rest of her clothes. Then she leaned forward again to turn the taps.
