Chapter 39

Marley smacks her lips. “Ned, didn’t you ever see that old movie with Cary Grant… Arsenic and Old Lace? I watched it with my sister. It was one of her favorites, though I didn’t quite understand it at the time. It wasn’t exactly Mary Poppins. I watched it again a short while ago and laughed my head off. They should do a remake.”

She rises from the bed and paces the small room. “You know, it’s the perfect poison. Odorless, colorless, tasteless.”

My eyes track her as she moves from corner to corner like a tiger shark in a tank.

“So, Ned, where did I find the arsenic? Arsenic trioxide, the deadliest kind, to be more specific. I was going to purchase some—surprisingly, it’s not hard to get online—but lo and behold, I found a bottle hidden in your medicine cabinet when I was searching for some Advil for Ava.”

She turns and glowers at me.

“You’re a bad enough cad, but I never thought you had it in you.”

What is she talking about?

“Not only did you intend on cheating on your wife with me, but you were planning to kill her. Read my lips.” She points at her mouth as she speaks. “Pre-med-i-tat-ed mur-der.”

Huh?

“I bet you were going to do it slowly. Poison her over time. Drop a little bit into her morning coffee and watch each day as it took effect. But, Ned, that’s not what I’m going to do. I may have the patience of a saint when it comes to babies, but when it comes to entitled assholes, my patience runs thin. Eliminating your parents was a piece of cake.” She snaps her fingers. “Un, deux, trois. In three seconds, they were goners.

“But it’s not going to be quite like that for you. I put a lethal dose, 140 milligrams, into your killer—pardon the pun—drink. It’s going to take a long, painful hour for you to die. I want to enjoy every minute, every second watching you suffer!”

I scream in my head, so loudly I think my brain will implode. I’m scared to death. She’s completely insane.

She takes a few more sips of her drink. “You know, I’m already losing my patience.” She tosses the rest of it on the floor. “Plus, I’m on a tight schedule. I think you need another shot.” She pivots on her heel. “I’ll be right back.”

As she leaves, the burning sensation in my throat trails like a wildfire to my gut. I clutch my abdomen as fear clings to my skin like a fever. It feels like I’ve ingested an army of fire ants. Scorching hot tears fill my eyes and spill down my cheeks. I’ve only cried once in my adult life—for my mother. But I may never cry again because my deepest fear, my reality, is that I may not live another day. Another hour. Another minute. I’m going to die at the hands of this psychopath.

At that horrific thought, she returns. Except it’s not another shot of alcohol, but rather a horrifying, humongous syringe. She grips it in one hand, the six-inch needle pointed at me. A head-to-toe shiver runs through me. I start to convulse.

“You poor thing,” she says as she strides my way. “This will calm you down. Relax you. It’s a nice dose of Anectine, the neuromuscular blocking agent that’s used by anesthesiologists. After I inject you, you’ll feel much better.”

My mouth falls open as she jabs the hypodermic needle into my upper arm. A silent wince. The sting takes my mind off the burn scorching my throat and stomach. Not for long. With a yank, she pulls out the long needle and tosses it onto the floor. I hear it clink.

“It shouldn’t take long,” she says as I feel my body go numb. “And you’ll be thanking me for what I have planned next.”

Now what? And the million-dollar question: Why is she doing this to me?

As if she’s read my mind, she says, “Ned, you must be wondering why I offed your parents. And why I’m torturing you?”

I can’t get my mouth to work. I can’t nod my head. I’m paralyzed. Did my parents do something that set her off and this is all part of her sick revenge?

“Well, let me tell you.” She paces the room again before returning to me. “Does the name Mabel…Mabel Mann…ring a bell?”

I frantically search my mind. The name is familiar but…

“With a few minutes to kill—ha, I’m just so punny and funny today!—let me refresh your memory. She was an aspiring actress who moved to LA while you were attending USC. You met her at a bar near the campus…she was working there as a waitress to make ends meet, and you took her back to your dorm room.”

I met a lot of women in bars, who wanted to be actors, and brought them back to my room.

“Let me jog your memory further. She was tall, slender, and blonde…”

All the women I hooked up with were tall, slender, and blonde.

“And she had a mole on the crook of her neck just above her gold crucifix.”

In my drugged-out, agonized state, she slowly comes back to me. The gorgeous blonde…the one I met when I was in my senior year. She was a great lay and I used to love to suck on that cross while we had sex. I think I saw her a half a dozen times over the course of a month and then I got tired of her. She talked too much. Got too clingy.

“Ever wonder why I looked so familiar to you? That’s because Mabel was my sister.”