MY GAZE DARTED to the door, my hand gripped the top of Largo’s cage. How fast might Marco draw his gun? How fast could I run, and where would I go? I could grab my coat, run to the cottage, hide there, or find somewhere else to hide …
But no. This was a small island. They’d find me. My eyes pricked with tears as I also realized that Largo would quickly freeze to death. I understood now, from Claire’s creeping smile, that in the time between my coming here and Rosita’s coming here after Oliver, Rosita had again taken Claire in as confidante. And told her everything.
“And then there’s Aurelia. Rosita’s darling,” Claire said. “Every time I’d come here, there you’d be, cowering in the corner, so unsure of yourself—until it was time to dash off to serve Rosita her breakfast, her lunch, whatever she needed. Do you know how often we laughed at you—me and the other women—for being such a mouse, scurrying off to see the cat, trusting time and again that you wouldn’t be eaten. But of course you were, bit by bit.”
I stared at her, numb.
“I told the others to pity you. I knew why you were really here, though they didn’t. Eddie and Rosita and Cormac did such a great job covering for you. The poor widow of Pony Walker.”
Marco startled, stared at me.
“Pony was killed in a mob shooting. Shot through the head. Dumped from a car onto the road—where he’d be oh-so-conveniently found. His wife—Susan Walker—supposedly running off, never to be seen again. Easier to arrange that, to pay off the Walkers’ neighbors to keep their mouths shut, than to let the cops talk with Susan. God knows what Pony had told her, or what she’d share about Eddie’s operations. But actually, she was sent here to recover, under the name Aurelia Escalante.”
“Claire, stop, please—” My heart pounded harder.
“Because Susan was really the one who shot her husband. Marco’s dear nephew Nelson took the fall—Cormac set that up, just like he set up the raid on Dr. Aldridge’s practice. All so Susan could get away with killing her husband, but really to come here because Rosita wanted to keep her confidante, her pet, available on her island.”
Marco leapt to his feet, drawing a gun. Seamus wasn’t the only one who’d secreted a gun from Cormac’s search. I wondered how many others might have done the same, then startled as Marco pointed his gun at me. “I knew Nelson wasn’t to blame—he was with me and my wife at dinner that night. I figured it was someone in Eddie’s gang, knew Cormac had set up Nelson to take the fall, but—” His aim turned to Eddie. “For her? You set up my nephew to take the fall over her?”
Eddie shrugged, unconcerned by Marco’s threatening stance, as Cormac quietly rose and moved toward Marco, who was so intently glaring at Eddie that he didn’t notice. “I wanted to have her killed, make it look like a murder-suicide, but Rosita wanted to protect her. And at the time, you and I were at war with each other, so—”
Cormac grabbed Marco’s wrist, pulled it down, wrested Marco’s gun from him. Marco winced, cried out, “Give me my gun back! Rosita’s gone now, so—”
“Now’s not the time,” Eddie said quietly.
My heart raced—not the time to kill me, not just yet. I was still useful.
Cormac tucked Marco’s gun into his waistband. Defeated, Marco sank down into his chair, turning his hateful gaze on me. Far worse were the looks of shock on the faces of Henry, Maxine, and Liam. I ventured a glance at Seamus. He was expressionless.
“Anyway,” Claire said impatiently as if she’d merely been interrupted in conversation, “Aurelia knew that Rosita could reveal at any time to Marco who she really was, and Marco would have the, well, predictable reaction he just had.”
“But Eddie knew, too, and could have revealed it,” I said. Though I was trembling, white-hot anger rose in me toward Claire.
“Why would he? After all, Eddie wants Marco happy. Buying the island.”
“Rosita told you all this?” I asked bitterly, knowing the answer.
Claire gave her tittering laugh. “Of course! After you were sent here, what was she supposed to do? Sit with her thoughts? No, she reclaimed me as her confidante, told me everything—”
I’d had enough. I jumped up, my fists clenched at my side, my shoulders tight to my body. Largo squawked and everyone stared at me. “Everything? Really? Did she tell you that after losing our first baby, I thought I’d never be able to get pregnant again? But then I did, and I thought I could be happy … until Pony was cut out of Eddie’s organization. I never knew why. But he took his anger that he wasn’t rising like he wanted in Eddie’s organization out on me. He hit me—and I lost the baby.”
“Oh, dames lose their litters now and again,” Marco said. “And a man’s got a right to discipline his woman, and you don’t know getting swatted had anything to do—”
“It did.” Dr. Aldridge spoke up. His voice was shaky, thin, but he gave Marco a harsh look. “I attended Susan—Aurelia here—multiple times at Rosita’s request. And after she lost her baby. Susan had called Rosita for help. She was badly beaten, far worse than in the past.”
Seamus’s gaze flashed between sorrow for me and rage at Pony. Eddie gave me a slightly sympathetic look. Everyone else—except Marco and Cormac—looked horrified.
“Still didn’t need to shoot him over that,” Cormac said, giving me a look that said he thought I was an interfering dame. “Did you really think we was gonna cut him free and let him live? We knew he’d been talking to a rival.” He stabbed Marco with his gaze, and Marco squirmed.
Had Pony been stupid enough to make plans to try to jump to Marco’s gang?
It didn’t matter now.
“I didn’t shoot him over causing me to lose our baby,” I said. “I shot him because of what he did to the canary Rosita sent to cheer me up—”
Eddie frowned. “I told her to cut you off after we got rid of Pony.”
“But she didn’t. She sent me the canary. I named her Dahlia. And that night, he got angry at me when he demanded I get Rosita to get you to bring him back, and I told him that wouldn’t work, and he grabbed Dahlia out of her cage. And he squeezed the poor bird to death.” My throat clenched, but I forced myself to go on. “And I couldn’t … I just couldn’t take it anymore … and his gun was on the end table and I just picked it up and I shot him.”
I stared at my right hand as if it was a foreign thing with a will of its own. But no. I knew what I was doing.
I wanted to kill him.
The moments after I pulled that trigger flashed across my mind. The reverberating air. The sound of Pony crying out, then falling silent. My rushing out of the house, Mrs. Schmitt out on her front porch sweeping as she did every night, pausing to stare after me as I ran, ran, ran for Rosita. The only person I could think of going to.
I should have just grabbed any money or anything of value in the house and run toward Chicago as I’d planned. But my emotions were a swirl—horror, then relief, then horror at that sense of relief—and I missed Rosita and was still so dependent on her friendship.
She’d comforted me, told me she’d figure things out. She called for Dr. Aldridge, who came and gave me a double dose of Veronal. By the time I was coming around, Rosita, Eddie, and Oliver were out of their Toledo mansion. Only Cormac was there, gruffly ordering me about, taking me by my Toledo house one last time, then taking me to Trouble Island, where I’ve been ever since.
“Well, enough of Aurelia’s sob story,” Claire said, and gave a small, shaky laugh. “That’s everyone, so who do we think the killers really are—”
“Not everyone,” I snapped. “You’ve left yourself out.”
Surprise flushed Claire’s face, a satisfying sight. “Why would I kill my dear cousin Rosita? I needed her, after all, and of course I loved her, too—”
“Someone had to go up to Rosita’s suite. And of everyone here, who would she most likely have let in? Her dear cousin, as you say. Her once and future confidante. Maybe you went to beg her to reconsider the movie with you and Douglas. Maybe she laughed at you.” I paused. “Maybe you convinced her to walk again those paths you know so much about, the ones she’d once made you walk with her when you were children. And maybe jealousy finally took over. If she wasn’t going to help you, after all these years of you being in her shadow, then why not get rid of her? Make it easier for Eddie to sell the island to Marco. You could cozy up to him, later, for influence and money.”
At that, Claire blanched. “I wouldn’t, I—”
“Oh, come on.” My voice grew in both volume and coldness. “You enjoy toying with people, don’t you?”
“Well, I certainly wouldn’t have had the strength to tie her body up—”
“So, you got big, dumb Joey’s help. Then stabbed him and left him for dead. And now you’re assigning motives to everyone else.”
Claire sank down into her chair. “You don’t have any proof,” she said petulantly, staring into her empty glass.
“Neither do you,” I snapped.
Claire looked up at me then. “But I do know this. Rosita blamed you for Oliver’s death. You set everything in motion, by killing Pony. She wished she’d never helped you. Wished she’d let Eddie have you killed as he’d wanted. She told me on the way over from Toledo. As she stood by Oliver’s casket.” Tears rose in Claire’s eyes. “She never left his casket. Stood with it the whole way. And standing there, she told me she wanted you dead. But that she knew she couldn’t bring herself to kill you. Couldn’t bring herself to ask Eddie to get rid of you, because now she hated him, too. All she knew was that the worst thing that ever happened in her life was meeting you—”
Maxine stood, rushed over to Claire, put a hand on her arm. “Claire, please—”
Claire shook Maxine’s hand free as if it were merely a pesky fly, and on she went, her cold voice sprinkling down on my head like ice shards, like the spitting ice and snow outside. “She told me that the only satisfaction she could imagine would be to keep you serving her as you had been over the past year, seeing the shame and guilt you carry in your expression, your shoulders, your eyes, seeing how torn you were between knowing what you’d done, that you didn’t deserve freedom, and yet longing to pursue your fanciful dreams of traveling far and wide. Oh yes, she told me how you still talked about that with her, even after you came here. So, she would make you keep serving her, but not talk with you at all, and watch you slowly wither. And then, if you didn’t kill yourself as you apparently wailed you wanted to after killing Pony, she’d eventually get Eddie to have you killed.” Claire finally paused, long enough to take a breath. Long enough for her thin smile to again slowly creep across her face. “Because she hated you, Aurelia. To the bitter end, she hated you.”
I gave my head a defiant toss. “I know she hated me. The last time I saw her alive, she made that clear.” A lump rose in my throat, but I swallowed it back. “But I never hated her. And I didn’t kill her.”