by Rachel Woods
“Icarus is the wicked,” Doris said, her voice rising a few octaves, as though gathering strength and gaining momentum for some powerful oration. “And a wicked man is loathsome and cometh to shame. The wicked is driven away in his wickedness. The way of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord!”
“Oh my God,” I whispered, as the revelations and realizations unified, exposing a horrific truth I didn’t want to face, a truth I couldn’t deny as Doris made several drunken-like side steps toward the love seats in the sitting area, a position directly diagonal from where Icarus and I were on the floor near the bed.
The truth was in Doris’s right hand.
A large, blood-smeared kitchen knife.
Chapter Forty-Eight
“Henri was raised by a good, God-fearing woman who taught him right, but he let the devil trick him and take his mind,” Doris said and then lurched forward a few steps, clutching the knife and swaying on her feet, as though she was moments from collapsing. “The Bible say, ‘Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men! For they sleep not, except they have done mischief; and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall! For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence! The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble.’”
Trembling, I stared at Doris, paralyzed by her words and the righteous condemnation in her tone, feeling as though she was damning me to the blackest pits of hell.
“Henri stopped going to church. He stopped reading his Bible,” Doris went on, remorseful now, hints of sadness and regret in her voice. “He was a good boy until he started working at that evil place! That hotel of sin and wickedness! The Heliconia Hotel. It is an evil place of sinful lust and wanton idolatry, an abomination! The Bible say you must purge the evil from among you!”
My fear turned to terror.
Doris was trapped in the throes of some strange religious mania, caught up in some belief that she had been divinely chosen to rid the island of the evil brought upon it because of the Heliconia Hotel.
What I saw was a woman losing her mind right before my eyes; a woman losing her grip on reality and embracing the psychotic rage propelling her; a woman who had become homicidal and believed herself to be some sort of avenging archangel, destroying sin and wickedness with the slash of her blade.
“Henri tricked me,” Doris said, and at once, she seemed lucid, almost serene. “He told me to go and pick up a package for him. He said this package would be at the Golden Lizard Beach, in the locker room. Henri tell me inside the bag there will be five little packages, wrapped in newspaper.”
The blackmail money, I realized, shocked to learn Henri had sent his sister to the drop-off location to retrieve the cash.
“Henri had given me a plastic grocery bag and inside was five little packages wrapped in newspaper,” Doris went on. “Henri said take the five packages from the grocery bag and put them in the beach bag and then put the packages from the beach bag into the plastic grocery bag. Then he said put the beach bag back in the locker and then bring the grocery bag back to him.”
The newspaper bundle switch was what Doris had just recounted. A story I had been suspicious of when Icarus had told me, but he’d been telling the truth.
“All of these instructions seemed very strange to me,” Doris said, swinging the knife back and forth at her side, her grip firm. “I said to Henri what is this all about? What is going on? He tell me just do what I say. But, something about it seem wrong. And so, before I took the grocery bag back to Henri, I opened the little newspaper-wrapped packages, and inside of them was filthy lucre! And I knew it was evil riches. The fruits of an evil plan from the devil himself!”
“That’s when Henri told you about the plan to blackmail me?” I asked, staring at the knife, thinking that maybe if I could keep her talking, I could somehow distract her and get away.
“They is demons!” Doris ranted, teetering back and forth. “All of them! Henri, Sam, Icarus, and Stazia, they all belong in hell for the evil wicked things they did!”
“So, you killed Henri because he blackmailed me?” I asked and then glanced at Icarus, lying unconscious, slumped against the foot of the bed. The bloodstain on his T-shirt seemed to have expanded. My heart lurched, but I forced myself not to scream. There was no time for hysterics. I had to get help for Icarus. The girl in the great room—Stazia, I was guessing—was already dead, but there was still a chance to save Icarus. But, first, I had to get away from Doris. No, no I couldn’t run away. I couldn’t leave her alone with Icarus to finish him off. I had to overpower Doris, somehow. I had to make sure she wasn’t able to get up and come after me.
“Henri had to die, don’t you understand?” Doris scowled at me. “The evil among you have to be purged. Henri was evil. Sam was evil. Stazia was evil. Icarus was evil. They had to be purged. It is not murder to get the sin and evil from among you!”
“What about Joshua?” I asked, glancing toward the terrace, wondering if it might be my only hope. If, somehow, I could lure Doris out onto the terrace, then maybe I could … could what? Push her over the railing? Killing Doris would make me no different from her. And I wasn’t a murderer, but …
“Joshua is wicked and evil,” Doris said, her features twisting into macabre masks and grimaces as she spoke. “He try to blackmail me. He told me he had a video of me taking that evil money out of the locker, but he say he removed that part of the video because we know each other a long time, he say. But, then he say he want all that evil money or he will show the video of me to the police. But, I tell him I don’t have that filthy lucre! I burned that evil money! But, he don’t care. He expect me to give him ten thousand dollars. So, I made a fool of him. I call him and say I got your money. Can I come over and give it to you? He said yeah. So, I go to his place and stabbed him because evil must be purged.”
“He didn’t die, Doris,” I said. “He’s still alive. The evil wasn’t purged.”
“The wicked shall be turned into hell,” Doris said, but she faltered a bit, as though she wasn’t quite so sure. “The flame burned up the wicked! That’s what Sam Collins found out. I sent that evil greedy Sam Collins a text. I made him think I was Stazia. The text say I have the money. Meet me at the hotel spa and we can split it. And that fool, he come to the spa, and he got what he deserved!”
“You killed Sam Collins,” I said.
“The wicked shall be turned into hell,” Doris repeated, as though maybe she was reminding herself. “That is what the Bible say, and it had to happen!”
Stabbing Sam Collins hadn’t been murder; in Doris’ warped mind, it had been the judgment he deserved, divine judgment for his sins.
“You sent me a text pretending to be Stazia, too, didn’t you?” I asked, my mind churning. “The same day you sent Sam a text, you sent me a text.”
“But, you never suspected me, did you?” Doris smiled. “I was with you when you got that text. You lied and said it was something from work, but I knew it was the text I had scheduled to be sent to you at that time.”
Crazy like a fox, I thought, realizing her psychotic ingenuity.
“I was gonna make it look like you had killed Sam Collins,” Doris said, and shrugged. “But, then I figured I would kill two demons with one stone, so I set the fire.”
“But you didn’t kill me,” I said. “Icarus saved me.”
Glaring at me, Doris said, “But he ain’t gonna save you this time. He’s probably already in hell where he belongs.”
Terrified, I took deep breath.
“I tricked Stazia, too,” Doris said, smug. “She’s an evil, greedy Jezebel. The dogs will eat her flesh. All I had to do was send her a text. I made her think I was Icarus. I texted her I know where the money is hidden. Meet me at my aunt’s old place. And, she text back immediately I am on my way.”
As Doris swayed back and forth, my terror turned to disgust and anger. I felt the need to extract my own vengeance—against Doris.
&n
bsp; “And so she come here,” Doris said. “She sees me and she is surprised. Doris, she say, what are you doing here? She is no fool, though. She know her time is come and so she tried to fight me. She almost got away, but the wicked shall be turned into hell.”
“You stabbed Stazia,” I said, dazed by her twisted confession, trying to force myself to come up with some sort of plan, some way to prevail against her.
“And then I trick Icarus,” Doris said, smiling slightly. “I make him think I’m Stazia because I know he been looking for her. So I send him a text, telling him to meet me at his aunt’s house.”
Staring at Doris, I entertained ideas of lunging at her, wrenching the knife away, and stabbing it into her chest, just like she’d stabbed her brother, Sam, Stazia, and Icarus. She was nothing but a coldblooded, heartless sociopath, twisting her religious beliefs to justify her own homicides.
“The Bible say the robbery of the wicked shall destroy them! And they had a plan to rob you. Don’t you see why they had to be destroyed?”
“Doris, please listen to me,” I started, deciding to take a page from her psychotic playbook—I would have to trick her. “I think—”
“But, I can tell you don’t understand what I had to do,” Doris said. “How could you? You are the wicked, too. You are just as filthy and sinful as Henri and the rest of them! I saw what you did with Icarus in the spa.”
“You’re right, Doris,” I said, pretending I agreed with her, trying to save my life. “That was a mistake. And, I do regret it. I never should have done it, and if I could go back—”
“You’re a wicked Jezebel!”
“I made some terrible choices,” I said, trying to breathe, trying not to cry. “I shouldn’t have done those horrible things with Icarus.”
“Liar!” Doris growled the words through gritted teeth, an angry crease between her brows. “You wanted to do those evil, lustful things!
“No, Doris, I—”
“I could tell you liked it!” Doris said, eyes wide, glistening with rage. “On the video—”
“But, I didn’t like it,” I said, stumbling over my words, my heart thundering. “I hate what I did, I never—”
“Evil must be purged!” Doris stalked toward me. Face twisted with rage, she charged me, the tip of the blade leading the way.
Screaming, I leaped onto the bed, my gaze focused on the wall of French doors about fifteen feet from the bed, thinking I could crawl across the thick duvet and then sprint to the French doors and … and then what the heck would I do? Go out on the terrace and leap over the railing to the ground below? Fall to my damn death?
Still struggling to come up with a plan of escape, I was halfway across the bed when Doris vaulted over the footboard and lunged at me, landing on top of me.
Doris was petite but strong. She had no trouble pinning my arm over my head and holding it against the bed as she tried her best to make ribbons of my face with the knife.
Adrenaline flooded me, infusing me with strength, and I fought for my life.
Grunting and screaming curses, Doris raised the knife and slashed it down toward my face. Quickly, instinctively, I moved my head and saw Icarus at the foot of the bed as the knife stabbed into the mattress, inches from my ear.
“Dirty, evil bitch!” Doris grunted, yanking the knife and ripping the comforter as the blade sliced through the padded fabric. She plunged the knife down again, and I jerked my head, avoiding certain death as I resumed slapping and hitting her face, desperate to get away.
Doris yanked the knife, but it wouldn’t budge. She cursed and yanked it again, but the blade seemed to have gotten stuck between the thick cotton mattress padding. Taking advantage of her distraction as she wrestled to dislodge the knife, I balled my hand into a fist and slugged her as hard as I could.
Crying out, more in shocked rage than in pain, it seemed, Doris abandoned the knife and clamped her hands around my throat. Gagging, unable to breathe let alone scream, I tried to pry her hands from my neck as my body jerked and twisted. Knees drawn toward my chest, I slapped my feet up and down on the mattress, not sure what to do or how to get Doris’s hands from around my neck.
Punching and scratching her hands and arms wasn’t working. Her hold was like a steel trap, and as she glared at me, her eyes narrowed to thin slits, I knew she was not letting go until she’d squeezed all the breath from my body. But, I would be damned if I let her kill me.
I slugged her again, my knuckles slamming into her left eye. Immediately, a blood vessel burst, streaking her pupil with thick red lines. Screaming, she released my throat and cupped her eye with her hand. I hit her again, as hard as I could, ignoring the pain as my fist jammed into her jaw. The strike was forceful enough to send her toppling off me. Freed from her, I sat up, my eyes on the door, and—
Doris backhanded me, a stinging blow that set off a ringing in my head. Dislodging the knife, she scrambled on top of me, straddling me as she raised the knife. “You wicked—”
“Freeze! No one move! Everyone stay exactly where you are! Do not move!”
Chaos erupted as more than a dozen cops swarmed the room, converging upon us as they took up tactical positions around the bed, weapons drawn, loaded, and locked on me and Doris.
Above me, clutching the knife, Doris looked like a rabid animal—nostrils flaring, eyes crazed, and teeth bared as she growled, “The wicked shall be turned into hell!”
“Drop the knife, Doris!” one of the cops bellowed. “Now! Drop it!”
“You stupid wicked fool!” Doris spit the words back at the cop as she glared at me, lowering the knife in her shaking hand until it hovered inches from my eye, wobbling slightly.
Frozen, I stared at the tip of the blade, trembling, my heart and pulse racing to levels that couldn’t possibly be safe and would give me a heart attack or a stroke, possibly both. On a night where nothing made sense, and nothing was what it seemed and nothing could be believed, this moment was the accumulation of all the rage, panic, shock, disbelief, and abject horror I’d experienced. Dizzy and nauseated, I wasn’t sure if I would ever recover from this bizarre nightmare.
Seconds later, l recognized Detective François’s voice as he said, “Doris, put the knife down! Don’t make me shoot you! Throw the knife on the floor, and then put your hands on top of your head!”
“You don’t understand!” Doris said, glaring at me. “Evil must be purged!”
“Throw the knife down, and put your hands on your head!” Detective François ordered. “I am not going to tell you again!”
With a lightning-quick flick of her wrist, Doris brought the knife to my throat. Pressing the blade against my neck, she said, “The wicked shall be turned—”
The gunshot was like a detonation, reverberating like a powerful shockwave. Dazed and terrified, I screamed as Doris’s body fell toward me.
DAY TWENTY-THREE
Chapter Forty-Nine
“How are you feeling?” I asked Icarus as I sat in the chair next to his hospital bed.
“Could be better,” Icarus said. “But not as worse as I could be, I guess.”
The doctors expected Icarus to make a full recovery, but he’d lost a lot of blood and probably wouldn’t be released from the hospital just yet. Two days had flown by in a blur since the nightmarish experience at the Esperança House, when Doris had tried to kill me. Once the police arrived—thanks to the cab driver, who had been suspicious of me and had called the cops because he’d thought I was “up to no good”—things happened in a quick, dizzying succession.
After falling on top of me from a gunshot wound to the shoulder, Doris had immediately rolled off the bed and onto the floor, where cops swarmed her. As they cuffed Doris and explained her rights, she continued to rant and rave about purging evil and sending the wicked to hell.
An ambulance was called, and when it arrived ten minutes later, Icarus had been transported to the hospital. Stazia Zacheo—the dead woman on the floor in the great room—had been zipped up in
a black body bag and taken to the morgue.
With Doris being led away, I was attended to by paramedics while being interrogated by Detective François. Grateful to be alive, I’d given my story, telling him everything from the time I’d arrived at the Esperança House to the moment when Doris fell on top of me.
It took nearly three hours, what with the detective interjecting questions, but eventually, he was made aware of how Doris had admitted to killing her brother and the members of his alliance because she believed she was supposed to purge evil and send wicked people to hell.
Icarus had given a statement yesterday, telling Detective François he’d been tricked into coming to the Esperança House when Doris sent him a text, pretending to be Stazia, claiming to have proof of my innocence. Proof she would give him, for a price. When Icarus arrived, he’d found Stazia crawling down the hallway, bleeding from several deep stab wounds to the chest and neck. Hoping to save Stazia’s life, Icarus had picked her up and brought her into the great room. Placing her on the floor, he’d removed the knife and was about to turn on a lamp when light flooded the room. Turning, still holding the knife, he’d seen me.
I’d seen him and had taken off, confused and horrified, assuming I’d been a fool and he’d been the killer all along. Icarus had followed me but encountered Doris. He’d been surprised to see her and even more flabbergasted when she knocked him over the head and then stabbed him.
“I’m just glad that every time I open my eyes,” Icarus said, “I see you sitting at my bedside.”
“I’m just so thankful that you’re in this hospital bed and not …” Feeling tears welling, I remembered how close Icarus had come to death.
Taking my hand, Icarus said, “I’m okay now.”
