“And I never saw anything, CDs, pictures, letters, nothing-that had anything to do with you. You always said you never slept with him. There wouldn’t seem to be anything he was blackmailing you for-”
“He wasn’t.” Penelope sighed. “You know what?”
“What?”
“I loved the creep. I had no idea he was blackmailing anyone. Sure I knew he was a player, but when we were together…I thought neither of us were playing. It was all back pocket. No one knew we were lovers. No one. I thought that was a good sign. I thought…I was different for him. That he was ready to grow up, quit messing around, settle into a real relationship. I thought we were such a natural pair. We knew so many of the same people, had the same values and politics and all.”
Penelope dove in her lizard bag for a second time and emerged with a gun. It was actually a tiny thing, Sophie noted. Silver and black. Very shiny. There was just this little eye, aimed straight at her.
Since honesty had failed, Sophie was happy to try begging. “Come on. Why would you do this? I thought you were my friend.”
“You were. I thought. But damn it, Sophie. You can’t let anything go. You kept finding out more and more things. And sooner or later, I was afraid you’d find out about me. Jan knew.”
“Jan knew you killed him?”
“No. Jan knew I loved him.”
“Then why…?” It was hard to talk when a girl was hyperventilating. Sophie couldn’t see many more options. Her back was to the sink. At the end of the kitchen counter, before the nook table, was the back door. She was in stocking feet, and it was cold out there, and she didn’t know if the door was locked…but it was the closest exit there was. The only exit there was.
“You asked me why? It’s all…because of the day that Jan came crying to me. She was beside herself, telling me about the blackmail, about how much trouble she was in. She only told me at all because she was desperate for money. She thought she could trust me for it.”
“And I’ll bet she could,” Sophie said. “You were good friends. And you weren’t the kind of friend who’d judge her.”
“Don’t play me, Soph.”
“I’m not playing you. I’m trying to understand. I never thought for a moment it was you.”
“That makes two of us. I never thought for a minute that I could kill anyone. God knows, I never planned to. I came over, middle of the day, sure Jon would be able to explain it all. There had to have been some huge misunderstanding. I knew he slept with other women. But when I got there, he had all this…stuff around. CDs. Letters. It was his at-home afternoon.” The gun wavered like a sick butterfly when Pen tried to laugh. “He was doing his blackmail accounting. When I got there, he just…smiled at me. Invited me in.”
“And then…?” One more step. Sophie leaned back, as if she were shifting to a more comfortable position.
“I hadn’t been to his place. He always slept at mine. He seemed to think that my being upset was silly. He put all that stuff away, locked it up, taking his time. I was just amazed. He had all these different hidey-holes and secret places, in the floorboards, inside drawers-he was like a boy in an electronics shop. And then…” Again the gun wavered. “Then he said come on, let’s go to dinner. As if I shouldn’t be upset. As if he thought I should have known…that I was just another lay for him. Special, he told me, because he wouldn’t blackmail me. We were the real thing. ‘Real thing.’ That’s what he called it. The real thing. So I hit him.”
“I would have, too!”
“And then I hit him again. And again. And he fell down the stairs-”
Sophie bolted. She fumbled with the doorknob; her hands were so slick, and she was petrified it was locked, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t. She yanked it open, heard Penelope scream at her. She started to run, but stumbled-she’d never been out his back door, didn’t realize there were a set of steps.
But then she was past it-the three steps-then she was in the damp, spongy grass, running, hell bent for leather. A long slope of grass led to a fence in one direction, woods in the other. She didn’t think, couldn’t think. Just barreled toward those woods…
She heard a pop.
She ran harder. So hard, she was gasping, and her side had a sharp burn, and because she couldn’t help it, her eyes were stinging tears. And still she ran.
She heard another pop. Heard Penelope scream at her again. Screaming, more pops, then suddenly…nothing.
Confused, panting, she turned her head-and immediately stumbled over her own feet and crashed on a knee-but not before she saw a shaggy head and a set of broad shoulders, tackling Penelope. A nearby siren screamed from the street-not soon enough, as far as Sophie was concerned. On the other hand, it wasn’t as if she needed the police.
Cord was here.
Frustrating Cord no end, he hadn’t gotten his hands on her yet. Couldn’t. Damn, but what a hullabaloo. Penelope Martin had started uncontrollably crying, babbling a full confession even before the police arrived and cuffed her; then Sophie suddenly shrieked because the back door had been left open and Caviar could get loose. Bassett tried to talk to Sophie, to calm her, because the cops figured he had the best shot at getting her to spill the whole picture of how it had come down. None of the authorities seemed to realize that the parts of the story they cared about, and the parts Sophie cared about, were miles apart.
Practical issues made it even harder to get his hands on her. He’d seen her feet when she first came in…and pretty immediately, hit the bathroom to run the tub. It was no surprise her feet were bloody, with running over rough ground in the woods in stocking feet. She also had the mother of all slivers. She wasn’t ready to have it taken out yet. She said she needed something tall and powerful before anyone-including him-came anywhere near that splinter.
He figured, when she asked for something “tall and powerful,” that she was asking for a shot of whiskey. Instead, it seemed she wanted a glass of wine.
So she had her wine and was now soaking her feet, sitting on the tub rim. Unfortunately, George Bassett had chosen that moment to try to speak to her. Cord could have warned him. But didn’t.
“You owe me an apology,” she told George Bassett. “In fact, you owe me a million apologies.”
“I know. We’re sorry.”
“You should be sorry. Not the royal we. You. Specifically, you. Thinking I was guilty of something, without even asking me! Asking Cord to spy on me! What’s the matter with you? How could you be in that job without having any judgment about people? Obviously, Cord didn’t know anything. He wasn’t living here, had no possible way to know what his brother was doing-”
“We…I…know that, ma’am. Listen, I just need a statement from you, and then I can leave you alone. We’ll all leave-”
“I haven’t heard my apology. And you almost let my cat out!”
“I’m sorry. And I’m sorry about the cat, too.”
“You think that’s enough? I’ve been scared out of my mind.”
“I’m sorry. Very, very sorry.”
She sniffed, but then seemed to relent. “Okay. I guess I’m sorry, too.”
“For what?” Bassett’s jaw dropped, as if disbelieving he’d opened his mouth. “Never mind. I don’t care what you’re sorry for. It doesn’t matter.”
“I don’t think it does, either. Because I wasn’t really tampering with anything important. I just-”
“Sophie.” Cord figured he’d better interrupt before she spilled the story of her altering the pictures of Jan. He still didn’t know how she’d done that, and wasn’t sure he wanted to know. “If you’ll just give Bassett three minutes, that’s all he needs. Then he’s gone. Then everybody’ll clear out of here and be gone. If more comes up later, we can deal with it some other day.”