Chapter 38

I’m choking as Marley goes on. My breaths coming out in short, startled gasps.

“Remember I told you at that little French joint that I went abroad? Well, it wasn’t exactly for research. I’d call it more of a pleasure trip. I got a job as your parents’ caregiver—a travel nurse.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

“It honestly wasn’t a hard job, but it was hardly as rewarding as caring for sweet, little Isa. Mostly, I was there to give them daily massages, but sometimes I had to stick enemas up your father’s ass and inject Botox and fillers into your mother’s face. Your constipated father didn’t have a nice word to say about you, but it sickened me how much your precious mother adored you. But together, they created you. A monster, and so I had no choice…”

I want to scream how could you, but my vocal cords are ablaze in my larynx. I have no voice, and no choice but to listen.

“It just took a little manipulation of the fuel blower system. Easy-breezy. Even you could have done it! While I was off duty shopping on Piazza dei Mulini—wearing your mother’s Hermès scarf and the lilac perfume I stole—the fumes accumulated…”

Loudly, she claps her hands together like cymbals. “…and BOOM! The boat exploded and caught fire.”

She shakes her head and tsks. “It’s a shame they were on it. A shame they never got to meet their first grandchild. A shame they raised a man like you. So primitive and privileged.”

I process her words. She blew up my parents’ yacht and killed them? But why? I can’t ask. I can’t form words. Unable to get them past the molten lava scorching my throat.

As I writhe in agony, she smiles at me coyly. “Ned, for the car and the money, do you know what the drink’s secret ingredient is?”

I stare at her wordlessly, helplessly. A life-or-death timeclock ticks in my head.

“Bzzzzz. Time’s up! You lose! It’s good old-fashioned arsenic.”

I’ve been poisoned!