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“Exactly. If the correct amount is administered, it won’t even fully knock you out.”
“But I was knocked out.” Hadn’t I been?
“I didn’t expect you to drink your wine so fast.”
“How long was I out?”
“A couple of hours,” he emptied the second can of lighter fluid on the bed. “Not long enough to interfere with my plans, though.”
Nice of me to be so considerate of his schedule. “Now what?” I asked, stalling for another minute or two.
He tossed both empty cans in the shopping bag. “Now, you have to die.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“It’s the only way I’ll be free.” He opened the bedroom door. I heard the cans clink as he dropped the bag in the hall. “After you’re gone, Wilda will go, too, and I’ll burn the house to the ground around you. With all of the dry rot in these walls, the fire will burn so hot it will take them weeks to find any trace of you and the others in the ashes. Then, like a Phoenix, I’ll rise, reborn, my life fresh and unmarred.”
I’d like another plan, please. One that didn’t involve seared flesh. My heartbeat echoed in my fingertips and toes. “They’ll come looking for you.”
“Of course they will.” He leaned over me. “However, I’ll be long gone by then. A new man, a new identity, free from her at last.”
The crazed glitter in the depths of his blue eyes made me gulp and recoil.
“I’ll always love you, Violet.” His lips hovered over mine, his fingers entwined in my hair. “So divine, even in death.”
Hold the phone! My ticker might be knocking like an angry landlord, but it was still pumping adrenaline through my limbs. I wasn’t ready for a dirt nap, yet.
His lips covered mine, the taste of wine faint on his tongue. I slinked down in my chair under the weight of his kiss, my mouth open for whatever he had to offer as my fingers found the knot and tore at it.
So close, just a bit longer.
He pulled away. “I’ll make it quick.”
Crap! “Can I have one last request?”
“That’s so cliché, dear.”
“I know, but give a girl one last wish.”
“Maybe.” He crossed his arms. “What is it?”
“A chicken leg.”
“What?”
“A leg from that roasted chicken you made for dinner. I want one.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Why not? I don’t want to die hungry. Let me at least have the dignity of dying with a full stomach.”
For a second, I didn’t think he was going to relent. Then he smiled. I wanted to kick in his white teeth.
“All right. A leg of chicken it is.” He closed the door behind him, leaving me untied and alone—not counting the three corpses staring at me.
Or Wilda.
