“If you see one, let me know so I can push you on it. Having you die from a snake bite would save me a lot of trouble.”
Well, that was an epic fail, Maggie thought. “What exactly is your plan for me?”
“I wanted to surprise you,” Emily said, sounding more like she was talking about a birthday party than a murder. “But what the hell. The plan is stab you, then push you in the bayou. By the time anyone finds your body, Shane and I’ll be long gone.”
“Okay, first of all, the definition of bayou is ‘a slow-moving stream,’ so don’t count on my body being quickly carried away to oblivion. And second, Shane’s already gone. I saw him pull out this morning.”
Maggie hoped this news would upset and distract Emily, but instead she just smirked. “Sorry, but he just went to town. He’s being the wonderful husband who wants to buy some last-minute gifts for his poor wife who got the shock of her life when she discovered a fellow guest’s lifeless body. Nobody’ll suspect us for a minute.”
“Unless they wonder why the same person found two dead bodies—Debbie’s and potentially mine.”
“Hmmm. Good point.” Emily pondered this potential dilemma, and Maggie congratulated herself on derailing the girl’s master plan. “Oooh, I know. We’ll have Shane find your body instead of me. I told you I was a problem solver.”
“Yeah, you’re brilliant,” Maggie shot at Emily. She was frustrated to find herself thwarted again. “Why did you kill Debbie, anyway? I know you did it. You can tell me; I’m going to be dead soon so it’s not like I’ll turn you in.”
“She heard something she shouldn’t have. She told us she’d never tell and actually knew a way to make it work to both our advantages. She wanted to tie our castles into this secret plan she had for the Cuties. You know, create a Castle Cuties group that she could develop and market the same way she planned on capitalizing on the whole Cajun Cutie thing. But she was screwing her own friends, so I didn’t exactly trust her.”
“Nice move stealing and hiding the scarf to implicate Jan in Debbie’s murder.”
“You know, you’re awfully chatty for someone who’s going to die in a few minutes.”
“I’ve never been in this position before,” Maggie said. “To be honest, I think maybe I’m in shock.”
“I looked up the symptoms of shock when I had to pretend I was in shock after killing Debbie. The way you’re acting wasn’t on the list. Maybe you still think you’re going to live.” Emily stopped, threw her hand over Maggie’s mouth, and gave the knife the deepest thrust yet. Maggie let out a muffled cry. A few tears even escaped, despite her determination to hide her fear and pain. Emily pulled her hand away from Maggie’s mouth and smiled. “That’s better. Now walk.”
The two women trudged through the dense foliage in silence. Sweat dripped into Maggie’s eyes and burned them. “You know,” she said after a few minutes, “there are alligators this way.”
Emily stopped and Maggie sensed she’d finally struck a nerve. “You’re lying,” Emily said.
“Feel free to take that chance.”
They walked a few more steps, and then Emily stopped again. “Is there another way to the bayou?”
Maggie nodded and started in a new direction, Emily and the knife right behind her. They pushed back branches and batted off swarms of mosquitoes as they got closer to the bayou. The ground was uneven and both women stumbled occasionally, but Emily still managed to keep the knife in the small of Maggie’s back even as she clutched her captive’s arm for balance.
“I don’t know how you live in this place,” Emily grumbled. “I can’t wait to get out of here. I can’t wait to get out of America.”
“So that’s the plan? Move into one of your newly inherited estates, Your Highness? Or is that not what you call duchesses? Maybe it’s ‘milady.’ That’s what Beverly Clabber would have been if she’d lived. It’s what she and Hal called each other the one night they were with us. ‘Milord’ and ‘milady.’”
Emily said nothing. She just continued to push Maggie through the woods.
“You may have stolen the rings and brochures from my house, but what you didn’t get were the copies of them that I made,” Maggie continued. “And I stared at those copies long enough to remember where I’d seen the Murray family crest before. On the paper scrap in your room. It was the crest on the knight’s shield. And I thought, could the person who murdered Beverly be next in line for the Dundess inherited peerage? And could that person be you or Shane? My guess, given your family’s background, is that it’s you.”
“Wow,” Emily said. “Way to put things together. I thought you were just some whiny, self-involved artist.”
Maggie was surprised to find herself stung by Emily’s judgment. “I’m going through a hard time, okay?”
“Like I said, whiny. Yeah, it’s me. My dad told me when I was little that we were distantly related to this titled Scottish family, but the odds of us ever inheriting were pretty remote. Then I started doing some genealogy research. The family was a bunch of nut jobs—I mean, literal nut jobs, like they ended up either in loony bins or killing themselves—and there was just one old guy left in Scotland. When my dad died, that meant I was next in line on our side. But then I found out about Beverly, a Murray on her mother’s side. She was one less removed than I was, so she’d be ahead of me, which made me really mad. You know why she changed her name from Francine to Beverly? Because Beverly was the name of the first Duchess of Dundess. What a wannabe.” Emily peered ahead. “I think I see the bayou. God, I never thought we’d get here.”
Maggie stopped short. “Oh, crap.”
“What now?” Emily said, annoyed.
Maggie pointed to what looked like a large piece of wood. “There—a gator.”
“Bull,” Emily scoffed. “That’s a log.”
“Does a log have two eyes? Let’s go—quickly.” Maggie turned abruptly, throwing Emily off balance. As Emily tried to steady herself, Maggie threw her weight into her captor. Emily let go of the leash she’d attached to Maggie, and the knife went flying out of her hand as she fell into the hole that the treasure-hunting Rykers had dug. She clawed at the edge as she pulled herself to standing. It was a surprisingly deep hole, and Emily was in it up to her neck. “My leg,” she screamed. “Oh God, it hurts. I think it’s broken. Help, please. Get me out of here before the alligator sees me.”
Maggie knelt down and got in Emily’s face. “You can just rot here until I come back with the police. Because, guess what? You were right. That is a log.”
Maggie stood up, triumphant over her enemy. But Emily still looked terrified. “I’m not talking about that one,” she said, gesturing to the log with her hand. “I’m talking about that one.” Emily pointed beyond it to what looked like another log.
Only this one moved.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Maggie stared, frozen in place, as the alligator hefted his enormous body out of the water onto dry land. Emily whimpered, and the gator turned his head toward the women. He eyed them with curiosity.
“What do we do?” Emily asked in a shaky voice.
“Pray that he’s already eaten.”
Emily whimpered again.
“Never show fear to a wild animal,” Maggie snapped at her.
The gator contemplated his next step, which gave Maggie a chance to contemplate hers. As much as she’d love to leave Emily to her fate, she couldn’t bring herself to do that. The gator was moving slowly, as if he had a full belly, but her parents had always warned her not to buy into the misconceptions about a gator’s behavior. Alligators had the ability to move fast on land, and while most avoided human contact, others could be aggressive. The jury was out on this one, but the fact that he hadn’t retreated back into the water was not a good sign. Maggie regretted not asking her parents for a refresher course on what to do should she actually run into one.