Constance knew she would be caught and the murders would be her legacy, eclipsing any other notoriety or success, but that didn’t matter anymore. She would finish things between the Hunters and the Sampsons tonight and then wait out the few months remaining to her, since the doctors were unable to fix her heart and she refused a transplant.
Pulling up to the gate, she noticed the rusting metal and missing finials. The gate was open, so she drove through and along the circular driveway. As she neared the house, it too seemed tired and unkempt.
Constance shuddered, suddenly longing to just drive off before anyone knew she was here, but Brenda was already on the step, waving for her to stop.
“Roger and his father are at the club and suggested we have dinner there,” Brenda said, opening the passenger door and getting inside.
“Well...”
“It will be a nice treat for you, the club,” Brenda said, snapping her belt in place. She looked in the liquor bag by her feet. “What lovely wine. Remember that horrible sludge your mother made that we drank?”
Sitting by the lake, they would stare at the peaked roofs, like this one, imagining themselves queens of such castles, although Brenda insisted she wanted nothing more to do with people up here, including her own family who lived here, although on the other side, where the houses were less grand.
“I’m getting out of Amelia as soon as I finish school and not coming back,” she vowed then, but her attitude changed quickly after Constance confided that she and Roger Sampson were seeing each other. First feigning support for the couple, it wasn’t long before Brenda spent less time at the lake and more at the club with the ones she’d wanted to get away from.
“You did the right thing leaving here,” Brenda said as Constance slowed for a turn.
“I didn’t leave by choice, or don’t you remember?” Constance said, her voice growing tinny and thin to her ears. “I was forced away.”
“Believe me, you would never have been happy here.”
“You mean in Amelia or up on the mountain?”
“He was never going to marry you, Constance. Why did you think he would? Sampson men...”
“...didn’t marry Hunter women, right?” Constance looked over at Brenda, wondering if it was a sigh or chuckle she’d just heard. Blood pounded in her ears as the pain in her chest grew worse.
“Watch the road,” Brenda said.
Instinctively, Constance turned the wheel left. Her forehead grew clammy with sweat.
The mountain had become dark quickly. There were few lights visible from behind the trees. Constance put on the high beams, flooding the darkness ahead with an eerie glow.
“I never like driving this road in the dark. Roger insists I’ll drive myself over the edge one of these times.”
The sharpest turn was coming up fast, the one Roger’s mother hadn’t negotiated that night she careened off the road and plunged into the lake. The drop from that spot was straight down to the water, a few hundred feet below.
As much as the road was kept in good repair, there had never been a barrier at these dangerous turns, not that a piece of metal would offer much resistance to a speeding car and a heavy, determined foot on the gas, Constance thought, pressing down harder.
Brenda cried out, trying to grab Constance’s arm, but it was too late.
Together forever, an old promise, now kept, Constance thought. Brenda’s terrified face would be the last thing she saw, before closing her eyes.