Chapter 15

I stared at the gun. I wanted to move my eyes to Vivienne's face, but I couldn't. The gun was like a magnet, and I couldn't pull my eyes away from it.

"Listen to me very carefully," Vivienne said. Her words were clipped. "Put the flashlight down."

I put the flashlight down, and it rolled away on the uneven floor. The light warped along Vivienne. For a moment, it ballooned along the side of her face. And then she was in shadow, and the gun was a glint of blued steel.

"Take one step back. One, Dashiell. I'll shoot you if you try to run."

I took a step back. And somehow, I managed to say, "Just Dash."

"Just Dash," she mimicked as she got up. "Hardly. You're not just anything. Do you know how carefully I've planned? How hard I worked? And you still managed to bring the whole thing crashing down."

As my eyes adjusted, I got a better look at her. The strain of the last few days showed in her face: her eyes hollowed out with shadows, her hair a mess. She looked older. Still full of that terrifying vitality, but as though she'd sprung a leak, and it was slowly draining out of her.

"It went wrong," I said, "because—"

"Because that idiot Huggins betrayed me! Precisely!"

"Like you said, you had the whole thing—"

"I had the whole thing planned! Yes, yes! Every bit of it! I was going to disappear. It was going to be as simple as that. I'd be dead, as far as anyone knew. Certainly as far as my dear friends at the Internal Revenue Service knew. Do you know something, Dashiell? A little life lesson, although you won't have time to put it to much use: your bad decisions catch up to you."

"You'd been cheating on—"

"On my taxes!"

I was starting to think I was never going to finish a sentence.

"That idiot Huggins said he'd hired an expert. He said the whole thing was foolproof. He said everyone did it—everyone with money did it. Moved things around. Kept what they'd earned instead of letting the government go at it like a hog at a trough. And then the letters started coming. The notification of an audit. I knew I had to do something, but I figured it could all be handled. I'd tell them Huggins had told me to do it; that seemed a simple enough explanation. I'd pay the fine, whatever it was, and life would go on."

"Except it wasn't just the taxes," I said. "It was Matrika—"

"Nightingale, yes! She ruined everything."

"Okay, but if I could have a turn—"

"Nightingale, with her persistence and her whining and her complaints and her demand that they reopen the case, her appeal for a consideration of new DNA evidence. Well, God help me, we didn't even know about DNA back then. I certainly couldn't have prepared for that, and let me tell you, I tried to prepare for everything."

"Because you—"

"Framed her!"

I said some more of those un-birthday-card-like words under my breath.

"Of course I did," Vivienne continued, gesticulating with the gun. "You're not an idiot, Dashiell, appearances to the contrary. The evidence was there. She made it so easy; she was practically asking for it, the way she left her office unlocked, with all those stupid feathers lying around, everything covered in her fingerprints."

"It worked out perfectly," I said, "except an innocent woman went to prison for the rest of her life, and a serial killer escaped."

"Don't be ridiculous. There never was a serial killer; we came up with that, Adrian and I. We both needed something big, something to help us break out. He was muddling along in the district attorney's office, and I—I knew I could be great if someone would just give me a chance."

"And all it took was ruining Matrika Nightingale's life."

"I hadn't thought about her in years, can you believe that? The letters came. The threats. The pleas. I filed them away in case I ever needed them, but I didn't think about her, not really. And then I learned about the appeal, and I knew it was all going to come undone. Everything I'd worked for. Everything I'd built. But still, I had time to prepare. Appeals are a lengthy process; I didn't need to rush."

"So you decided—"

"To fake my own death. It was the perfect plan. My money was safe and sound in a numbered account in the Caymans. I'd have a tragic accident. The sheriff and the district medical examiner were more than willing to help me on my way, as it were, in exchange for my generous appreciation."

"But Matrika—"

"Escaped! And then there was no time left; I had to run."

"Only you didn't count on—"

"Huggins turning on me like the traitorous snake he was." Vivienne's voice was thick with rage. "He was always nervous. Always high-strung. He thought the Nightingale case would put him in the national spotlight, but as soon as the case went to trial, he fell apart. A complete nervous breakdown. He left the district attorney's office—was practically forced out. Who took care of him? Me. Who made sure he always had a roof over his head, food to eat? Me. And how did he show his gratitude? He came here as soon as he learned about the appeal, and he told me he was going to tell them it was my idea. It took everything I had to persuade him that things would be all right. We'd already laid the groundwork for me to disappear; we simply had to accelerate the timeline. Once I was established, I'd make arrangements for him to join me. Everything would have been fine."

"When did you realize that Mr. Huggins had stolen your money?"

Her laugh sounded startled more than amused. "Almost immediately. My arrangements with the sheriff went off perfectly: the corpse from the morgue, which he quickly made disappear into a body bag; the deal with the district medical examiner; all of it. I was free. Except when I retrieved my new ID and account information, I couldn't access any of the money. I thought something was wrong. I thought there had been a mistake. And then Adrian came here and told me what he'd done. All of my money in a numbered account, and I couldn't get it because he was the only one who had the number. He was so smug. He thought he was so smart. He stood there, telling me how he'd taken everything, how he was the one who deserved it. He was going to kill me, he said; he was going to make sure everyone thought you'd done it." Her voice tightened. "But Adrian was always weak. He hesitated. And he didn't expect me to be armed. Or to be ready to defend myself. But he should have remembered that I've dealt with far more dangerous men than Adrian Huggins."

"You were stuck here," I said. "Looking for the account numbers. That's why you tore apart Mr. Huggins's house. And that's why you went back again last night. You were the one the sheriff was talking to when I was upstairs. He wasn't surprised to see you; he was the one who helped you fake your own death. That's why he was so lax about procedure. He even had authority to remove your ‘body' from the scene."

"Yes, well, he'd become a loose thread," Vivienne said with a grimace. "It was one thing to help me disappear, but I knew he wouldn't look away after what I'd done to Adrian. He had to go. And can you imagine my luck? Matrika was right there, a perfect patsy for the deputies to pick up. God, the poor thing really has no luck. Can you believe I managed to get away with it twice?"

"You haven't gotten away with it yet."

"Almost, Dashiell. One more loose end. And then, money or no money, I'll be gone. It's not personal, by the way. I didn't expect you to find my body. I didn't really think about you at all—it was simply poor timing, you being here. I thought—"

"You thought I'd be useful," I said. "Because your writing had stalled. You told me when we first met that you knew what writer's block felt like. You ripped off Pippi's cozy because you thought it might help, but you must have known it was too different from your own style. And then I wandered into your life." In the grand scheme, the hurt I felt about my writing was a small thing, and my reaction was probably childish. But I couldn't quite keep the ache out of my voice when I said, "You told me how much you liked ‘Murder on the Emerald Express.'"

In the distance, waves beat against the cliffs. I thought I could hear her fingers open and close around the gun's grip.

"You should be flattered, Dashiell. I would have stolen your work, of course, but isn't that the highest form of flattery?"

"No. Not really."

"It was a risk, searching your room when I knew you were in the house. But I did hope that you'd managed to find something at Adrian's house, something I'd missed. If there was even the slightest chance..."

"I did, actually. I found his files from the Nightingale murders. That's really when it all started to come together, even though I didn't realize it at the time."

"Ah." It was difficult to tell under the thick shadows, but Vivienne's face seemed to change, and her voice was different when she said, "I think it's time for us to take a walk, Dashiell. Turn around and slowly—slowly—exit the room."

I turned—slowly—and headed out of the room.

"Left," Vivienne said.

So, I turned left.

She was clever. She was wily. She had faced down killers of all kinds over the course of her life, and she'd always come out on top. Because she was Vivienne Carver. She didn't make any stupid mistakes like walking too close to me. She didn't give me a chance to catch her by surprise, to feign a stumble, to wrest the gun away. If I made a wrong move, she'd kill me, and that would be that.

The corridor ended in a half-flight of stairs that led up to an old door, barely more than a shape in the thick shadows. When I reached it, I caught a whiff of dry rot and then fresh, briny air.

"Open it," Vivienne said. "And if you're thinking about running, think again."

The door was heavy, and it took a strong pull to get it moving. As it inched open, moonlight and the roar of the waves spilled into the dark stillness of the tunnel.

"It will look like an accident," Vivienne said over the noise. When I looked back, the ambient light fell over her face: the eyes, the flattened hair, the small, hard mouth. "If that's any consolation."

As I stepped out into the night, it didn't seem like a consolation. The door hidden in the foundation—invisible from the outside—opened onto the rocky strip of cliff behind Hemlock House. The hemlocks grew thick and tangled here, warped by decades of storms into gnarled embraces. The wind ripped at my hair and sent the leaves whispering, the branches clattering. I could taste salt in my mouth, and something else that I thought was pure fear.

"The cliff!" Vivienne shouted behind me. "Go!"

I took a stumbling step into the shifting shadows under the hemlocks, and I turned to face her. The gun was steady in her hands; it seemed like the only thing that wasn't moving—the hemlocks swaying, the breeze pulling at my tee, even the ground underfoot slippery with spray.

"You don't have to do this," I said. "You don't have to kill me."

"I'm sorry, Dashiell, but I think I do. And I'm sure, as a writer yourself, you can appreciate the irony. All those years of catching murderers, and now I'm going to get away with it myself."

"It's just Dash," I said.

For a moment, incomprehension showed in her eyes.

"I prefer Dash," I said. "I told you that."

She opened her mouth.

"Did you all hear her?" I asked.

"Loud and clear," Fox called from one side of the house. They poked their head out, their face grim.

Millie emerged from the other side, her usually cheery complexion set in a furious scowl. "We heard EVERYTHING!"

Vivienne actually jumped a little at the volume. I said a little prayer of thanks that Fox had spoken first, or I'd probably have a sizable hole in me.

"What is this?" Vivienne asked. And then, with a disbelieving laugh, "A public confession. Good God, isn't that the oldest trick in the book?"

"Put the gun down, Vivienne," Fox said. "We were your friends. This doesn't have to get any worse."

Vivienne's mouth tightened into a line. The waves turned and broke. The wind rushed through the trees. Over Hemlock House, a star was falling—a glimmer, and then gone. And whatever I'd seen in Vivienne's face, for a single instant, was gone too. Now it had only a burned-out coldness.

"I don't think so," Vivienne said. "Come with me. We'll take a different route. There are other ways out of Hemlock House."

"I don't think so," I said.

"Come with me or I'll shoot you this instant, you stupid—"

The bong sounded like something out of a cartoon. Vivienne's eyes rolled up in her head, and she did a staggering foxtrot to the left, and then she crumpled. Behind her, Keme held a massive cast-iron pan, and his face was set with disturbingly cold intent.

The only thing I could come up with was "Keme!"

Indira appeared from the tunnel under Hemlock House. She stepped around Keme carrying a length of rope, and she knelt and began tying Vivienne's hands—although, to be fair, it looked like Keme had knocked Vivienne into next year, so I wasn't sure the ropes were really necessary.

"Keme had very strong opinions about certain parts of your plan," Indira said. "He told me about them. At length."

"He did?"

Keme made a rude gesture at me. Then, the corner of his mouth cracked into a smile.

"It was either let him help," Indira continued, "or spend the rest of the night arguing with him."

"But—that wasn't the plan. Keme was supposed to be safely somewhere else. Anywhere else. And you were supposed to call the sheriff's office while I kept her busy."

"Yes, well, Keme was feeling quite…protective."

Keme looked like he was feeling seventeen years old and chock full of testosterone—and, frankly, like he wanted to do some more bashing with that frying pan. I thought one of us should probably take it away from him before he decided to indulge himself.

"Wait," I said. "He was feeling protective of me?"

Indira and Keme shared a look, and then Keme stared straight at me and rolled his eyes.

A laugh that was somewhere between mania and hysteria bubbled up inside me.

Millie's cry of "BOBBY!" interrupted me before I could completely fall apart.

And there he was: Deputy Bobby in his khaki uniform, staring down at us, apparently speechless. And then, with what sounded like a lot of effort, he said, "What in the world is going on?"