by Meg Muldoon
I headed back over to the brew still bubbling on the stovetop.
“You can’t control outside events, only how you respond to them.” I muttered Dr. Honeycutt’s words. “I can only control how I respond to them. I can only control how I respond to them. I can only control how I—”
I gasped.
Then, I screamed.
Chapter 54
Sherwood lay in the very center of the kitchen.
He must have fallen over when the lightning hit.
Only I knew there was more to it. I knew that even a lightning bolt couldn’t knock Sherwood off his feet if he didn’t want it to.
When Sherwood fell over, it was always for a reason.
The fact that he was here, in the middle of the floor, meant something significant.
Last time, Sherwood fell over right before everybody found out about Penelope’s car rolling off the cliff.
I felt a pit growing in my stomach.
What did it mean this time? What was he trying to—
I froze.
Over the loud rain hammering the roof, there was another sound.
Click, click, click.
Footsteps.
Out in the dining room.
Click, click, click.
Growing louder.
Someone was in the café.
Someone was walking back toward the kitchen.
Click, click, click.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Footsteps.
It wasn’t the sound of Maddy’s boots. Or Eddie’s Converse shoes. And it wasn’t Sapphire’s dragging flats. Or Rudy’s worn tennis shoes scuffing across the floor, either.
There was no time to think any more about it.
Everything in my body told me one thing and one thing only:
HIDE.
I blew out the candle and ran through the darkness.
Chapter 55
The beam from the flashlight bounced around the walls of the dark kitchen, sending small waves of fear through me every time it started moving in my direction.
My breath came out in ragged, uncontrollable exhales. I tried to steady myself against one of the shelves, silently mouthing Dr. Honeycutt’s words about not being able to affect reality, only being able to determine how I respond to it.
“I can only control how I respond… I can only control how I—”
Stupid new age space cadet!my mind screamed. Someone’s just broken into the café. How can I respond to this in any other way but with terror? How can I—
The footsteps stopped. From where I was in the pantry, I could just make out a black figure standing behind the flashlight.
How could they not know I was here? There was the pot on the stove, still simmering. My shattered phone somewhere on the floor. The sulfur smell from the matches in the air. Whoever was out there had to know I was here. They had to—
That’s when I saw it.
In the window’s reflection – the flashlight giving off just enough light to see.
Just a momentary glimpse.
But in that glimpse, I saw everything for the first time.
I saw Mayor Penelope Ashby’s killer standing there by the kitchen counter, and I saw the murderer reach for the book.
The mechanic’s book.
It wasn’t Nigel.
He hadn’t killed Penelope.
We’d been wrong.
Dead wrong, as it turned out.
And then, the killer looked right at me.
Chapter 56
“Why don’t you come out of there, Ginger?” she said, her voice booming through the kitchen. “Let’s have a chat.”
I swallowed hard, unable to speak.
I wanted to retreat back into the pantry. To dig my way out somehow through the plaster. But I was trapped.
“C’mon,” Lilliana Marsh said, her voice as calm and collected as it had ever been in all the times she’d sat out in the café, torturing Christopher with her very presence.
It felt as though I was at the bottom of the ocean floor and everything was moving slow. My mind wasn’t working right. I stood there, frozen.
Lilliana let out a long sigh.
I had to be realistic, I realized. The only chance I had was to somehow get around her and outside.
Everything in me told me not to.
But in the end, I slowly stepped out of the pantry.
She shone the flashlight directly in my eyes and I squinted hard.
“We’re closed for the night, Lilliana,” I said, holding my hands up to my face. “But if you’d like, I think I could get you some coffee and some—”
“That cheap trough water?” She scoffed. “I think not, Ginger. I’m not here for that. I came to get something that belongs to me.”
She lowered the flashlight, and for the first time I got a good look at her.
I could now see her face. Pale skin, dark eyes. Her hair was slick with rainwater, dripping onto her Burberry trench coat.
She looked down at the mechanic’s book in her hands.
“It’s amazing what you can learn from reading,” she said. “So many useful things. People really don’t take advantage of the library as much as they should.”
She had done it.
She had really done it.
She’d cut Penelope’s brake lines.
She’d murdered the mayor.
And now, she was going to—
“But reading can’t buy you happiness,” she said just as the rain started coming down harder outside. “Only something real can do that. Money and security, for example.”
Maybe I could nudge her. Hypnotize her the way I had Nigel. Will her to leave here and leave me alone.
I gazed into her eyes, trying to quiet my mind enough to get into that space where I could persuade somebody. But either I couldn’t find that place or it wouldn’t work on her because she continued to stand there, looking at me with those big black eyes.
“Do you know why I come to your café every single day for lunch, Ginger? Do you?”
I stepped sideways in a slow, controlled motion. Maybe I could keep making progress like this and eventually get close enough to the back door. Then I could make a run for it.
“Because you love our lemon scones,” I said. “Right?”
“Afraid not,” she said. “I come here every day because up until recently, he was here every day. You understand?”
It dawned on me who she was talking about.
And it wasn’t Christopher.
No wonder all those love elixirs I’d been making for Christopher hadn’t been working.
Lilliana had been after someone else the whole time.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand, Lilliana,” I said, inching toward the door.
“Don’t be dimwitted, Ginger,” she said, anger rising up in her tone. “I know you know what I’m talking about. I was at Nigel’s house this afternoon, upstairs with him when you and that reporter arrived. I know you were there talking to him to try and clear you aunt’s name.”
I gulped hard, remembering how that lavender smell kept drifting down from upstairs.
Feigning ignorance wasn’t going to work.
That much was clear.
“Why did you… I mean, what did Mayor Ashby…” I started, unable to finish the sentence.
“Because, Penelope was out of control,” Lilliana said. “She was stalking Nigel. And when she discovered that he and I were seeing each other, she kicked me out of her book club and told me to stay away from him. She began harassing me, talking to people I associated with back in Seattle. She began asking questions about the nature of my husband’s death. She began digging up things she had no business digging up, Ginger.”
Her eyes flickered.
“Things the police didn’t find.”
I stopped inching toward the door.
Oh, my God.
Penelope Ashby hadn’t been Lilliana’s first victim.
And as I stared into those black
eyes, darker and sharper than Astor Rock, I realized that Penelope wouldn’t be her last.
“Penelope was going to tell Nigel about my past,” Lilliana continued. “And she was going to the police, too, with what she had discovered. I couldn’t let her do that. Nigel was almost under my thumb. I couldn’t let her get in between me and the life I deserved – a life of money and prestige and fame.”
Her eyes scanned over me like I was a filet of halibut at the market.
“I was cornered. I had to do it.”
I forced a smile.
“No, I understand,” I said, my voice coming out thick and shaky. “And more than that, I think you did the town a service, Lilliana. I mean, you know how much my aunt and I disliked Penelope. Everybody’s… everybody’s better off with her dead.”
I was a bad liar.
I began moving toward the door again. Slowly, steadily, trying not to draw any attention.
“Thanks for saying that, Ginger,” she said, clutching the mechanic’s book to her chest. “It really means a lot to know I’m not the only one who thinks that.”
The woman was certifiable.
A nut with a crush.
A crazy.
I thought of all the times she’d sat in my café, sipping coffee and eating salads and scones. Looking so perfectly normal.
All this time, a psychopath lurked beneath that finicky façade.
A hard silence fell over the kitchen.
“I won’t tell anyone, Lilliana,” I said. “Believe me, I understand why you did what you did. I won’t tell anyone about the book or what you just told me. Honest. Good riddance, I say.”
“You promise?” she said. “Because if you go and repeat any of this to the police, believe me, you’ll live to regret it, Ginger.”
Could it be? I was selling this so well that she actually believed that I would stay quiet?
Maybe I wasn’t as bad of a liar as I thought.
“I promise,” I said, my voice trembling. “I know how to keep a secret.”
She studied me for a moment longer.
Then smiled.
“I believe you.”
Before I could even scream she rushed at me, shoving me head-first into the pantry and locking the door.
Chapter 57
My head was throbbing.
I felt dazed and in pain and confused. But not so dazed and in pain and confused that I didn’t know what was going on.
Through the small barred window of the pantry door, I saw Lilliana and her flashlight go to the stove. She stood over it for a while, and it wasn’t long before I smelled it.
Gas.
I began pounding on the thick pine of that old pantry door like a drowning man trapped in a ship.
Because, for all intents and purposes, that was what I was. But instead of water, I would be drowned by fire.
“You can’t do this, Lilliana!” I screeched. “You can’t!”
She turned around, leaving the burners. I couldn’t see in the darkness, but by the smell, I knew that she had turned all of them on to full blast.
I pounded my fists against the door some more. Nothing budged.
“Let’s not kid ourselves, Ginger. You were always going to go to the cops about this,” Lilliana said, her voice as calm as ever. “You weren’t ever going to let your aunt take the fall, were you?”
“Let me out of here!” I screamed.
“It won’t be so bad,” she said, backing away, pulling something from the pocket of her trench coat. “There’s going to be a big explosion. You won’t feel a thing. Nothing at all.”
“Lilliana!”
She brought the flashlight up to her face.
My blood turned to ice as she fingered a gold lighter in her other hand.
“Say hi to Penelope for me, Ginger.”
She turned and walked out of the kitchen.
“Lilliana! Come back here! Don’t do this! Help!”
I kicked at the door frantically, watching in terror as she disappeared. I began to mumble a spell, trying to will the door to open in desperate, hushed tones. But the door stayed right where it was.
Doing spells out of desperation and terror rarely worked. And desperate was exactly what I was.
The smell of gas only got stronger as the room fell into complete darkness again.
But over my own frantic breaths, I heard something strange.
A delicate noise, hardly noticeable. Like the sound of a mouse scurrying. Something moving fast and quiet across the pine floorboards.
And through the small pantry window, I could have sworn I saw something. Something thin and darker than the night itself drifting out of the kitchen, following after the murderess.
Thwack!
Then, silence.
Chapter 58
Waiting for death makes you think about things.
And after I pounded and kicked at the thick door, and went through desperate spell after desperate spell, my mind drifted far away.
To another time when I was so distraught, I thought I would die.
I buried my face in the wet pillow, already damp from a summer’s worth of tears.
The creak of the bedroom door groaned.
“Hon?”
I didn’t answer.
It was early afternoon. Through the cracks in the blinds, I could see the powder blue skies of a September day peeking through. The sunshine would be shimmering like gold dust on the waves. But I couldn’t bear to see such beauty.
It’d been that way since June.
Since the accident.
The worst summer of my life, nothing like the summer before.
“Ginger, Eddie’s on the phone for you. He’s leaving for college today, you know.”
Not to Boston, though. Not on a full-ride sports scholarship, either. He was just another freshman going to a state school. Getting into debt. His pitching hand forever damaged.
I had made sure of that.
I closed my eyes, more tears spilling down my cheeks.
“Tell him I’m not here.”
Aunt Viv paused, standing back in the doorway. Then I heard her mutter something into the phone.
“I’m sorry, kid. She must have stepped out of the house without me knowing it.”
A voice came through the speaker, indistinguishable words.
“I know,” Aunt Viv whispered. “I know, sweetie. I know. I’ll tell her.”
More words from the other side of the line.
“And Eddie,” Aunt Viv said. “Go get ‘em. You’re going to do amazing in college, kid. I know it’s not exactly what you were hoping for, but you’ve got a strong spirit and you’ll make the best of it. You’re special, you know that, Eddie? We’re cheering for you. All of us.”
More tears slid down my cheeks.
I heard her hang up the phone. Then, a rare sigh from Aunt Viv.
“It’s not too late, hon,” she said. “You can still call him. He doesn’t leave for an hour yet—”
“No.”
Footsteps on the hardwood.
The bed sank as Aunt Viv took a seat at the edge.
“You know I don’t give advice much, Ginger Marie,” she said. “I believe that everybody should make their own decisions according to their intuition and guides. Which is why what I’m about to say is so hard for me.”
I stared at that crack in the blinds, wishing she would just leave.
“You’re making a big mistake. You might not know it now, and you might not know it anytime soon. But one day, you’ll look back at this and realize you shouldn’t have let that boy go. That you should have talked about the accident.”
I turned over, feeling white-hot rage boiling up inside of me.
“Do you know what I did to him, Aunt Viv? All that blood. All that pain. Do you understand? I caused that to happen. Me. It’s my fault he’s not ever getting to the Major Leagues. It’s my fault he lost the scholarship to that great school. It’s my fault that…”
I trailed off, a deep sob ov
ertaking me.
“It was an accident, Ginger Marie. They happen. You’ll learn to better control those outbursts soon.”
She gazed at me.
“There’s a reason why things happen. But it doesn’t change the fact that Eddie… well, he just loves you so mu—”
“I can’t hurt him like that ever again,” I said. “Don’t you see? I won’t ever be sure that he’s safe around me. And I won’t ever risk that. Not ever—”
I began sobbing again.
“Oh, honey,” she said, reaching across the bed, grasping my hand. “Doesn’t Eddie have a say in any of it?”
I wiped away the tears.
Then I shook my head.
I’d made my decision.
I never called him.
I never said goodbye.
And Eddie Cross, the boy I loved then and would love forever, walked out of my life.
***
They say in your final moments, your life flashes before your eyes.
But that isn’t exactly true.
There were plenty of things I should have thought about as I waited to die.
Like dancing with Aunt Viv to Rumours that one Halloween night. Eating lunch with Maddy during my breaks and stealing some of those gross kale chips off her plate. Laughing with Héctor once in the kitchen when he opened a bag of flour, and the white dust flew up in his face. Petting Lindsey Buckingham.
But the only thing I thought about before being blown to smithereens was that September day when Eddie left.
Aunt Viv had been right.
I did regret it.
I regretted not saying goodbye, not telling Eddie how much I loved him. Not telling him I was sorry for causing the accident that sank his pitching career.
I regretted making a decision like that out of fear.
Where would we have been now if I’d called him that day? If I’d apologized and he’d forgiven me? What kind of life would we have had together?
Missed opportunities.
Missed chances.
Roads that were never taken.
Those are the things that you think about in the last moments of your life.
