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Yes, Monty Dunhill despised Sandra Deakin, Victoria Sykes and anyone else in the psychic community that wasn’t him. But it was a professional hatred; disgust at the way they did business. The attacks this week were personal, emotional, uncontrolled, feverish. Multiple, vicious stab wounds were not the work of someone with a professional gripe. They were the actions of someone who felt a burning rage that could only come from personal pain.
Bryant parked where she pointed, and Kim’s gaze scoured the property. She could already see that Eloise’s car was on the drive and there was a shattered glass window to the right of the front door. The bait. The call from the neighbour to get Eloise home.
As she got out of the car, the events of the week started to play back through her mind and a picture began to form. It was sketchy. She didn’t have it all, but things were starting to make sense.
‘We gotta get in there quick,’ Kim said. ‘You guard the front door and I’ll head round the back. We don’t want anyone getting out.’
Hearing the urgency in her voice, her colleague turned.
‘You really think the murderer is in there?’ Bryant asked.
She nodded, and if she was right about their killer, they didn’t have a minute to lose.
She ran around the back, praying that Eloise had opened the back door.
Her fingers were inches away from the door handle when her phone tinged a message. She took it out quickly.
It was Penn with a one-line text.
But that one line told her everything.
SEVENTY-EIGHT
Kim gave herself a count of three, rushed through the back door and stopped dead.
Eloise was in her favourite chair, her face frozen in terror. A seven-inch blade was poised above her chest.
Kim was eight feet away in the archway that connected the kitchen to the dining area.
Too far.
‘Put the knife down, Rose,’ she said, trying to keep her tone steady.
‘Take one more step and she’s dead,’ Rose said, staring straight at her.
She was poised behind the chair, holding the knife with both hands. She was as far away from Kim as she could be, with Eloise and the armchair in between them. Eloise wasn’t being held down, but if she tried to move, the blade would drive deep into her chest. Kim had no chance of rushing Rose without putting Eloise’s life in danger. The woman had cold-bloodedly killed three people already, and Kim guessed she wouldn’t hesitate in killing one more.
Eloise looked back at her with terror in her eyes. Her body was trembling with fear and the need to remain still.
‘Rose, no one else needs to die,’ Kim said, raising her gaze from Eloise to the woman holding the knife.
‘They all need to die. They’re all liars. They all prey upon people, taking their money under false pretences. They all say they can talk to the dead. They’re all fake.’
‘Eloise isn’t fake,’ Kim said, surprising herself.
‘Of course she is. She’s just like all the others.’
Eloise let out a little whimper as the knife dropped lower towards her chest. Just one good plunge and it would all be over, and there was nothing she could do about it.
She had no choice but to try and keep Rose talking, keeping the attention on her. She hoped her failure to open the front door would give Bryant the nod that there was something wrong and he’d follow her in. She had to stall until Penn got there. If he did what she’d asked, he would only be minutes away.
‘They couldn’t give you the answers you wanted, could they?’ Kim asked softly.
‘Brad would try and talk to me and none of these tricksters can give me a message.’
‘So you killed them?’ Kim asked, hearing sirens in the distance.
Rose heard them too. The knife wobbled in her hand.
