EVERYONE LOOKED SHOCKED. But Eddie went as still as one of his precious labyrinth statues.
“Oh, now, Aurelia, you are so silly—” Rosita started in Claire’s singsong.
“I can go get the evidence,” I snapped. “From Claire’s room. I’m sure no one will believe me that you confessed to both me and Seamus that you killed Dr. Aldridge, but I have evidence that you killed him. He quickly figured out your ruse, pretending to be Claire and letting everyone think Rosita was dead when it was really Claire. Because he removed your beauty mark almost a year ago so you and Claire could swap identities.”
“No, no, this can’t be true, we would have noticed, I would have noticed—” Eddie stammered to a stop.
Suddenly, Rosita sat down in a chair, with a weary sigh and a petulant pursing of her lips, an expression that wasn’t quite like Rosita, nor like Claire, but a disconcerting mix of both identities. When she spoke, though, it was in Rosita’s lower, reedier tone. “Oh, don’t bother. Aurelia—clever little Aurelia—is right. But you didn’t notice the switch, did you, Eddie? None of you did. Not just because of my own cleverness, or how much alike Claire and I look, or because I’d been covered by a veil, unseen by anyone but Claire for the past year, so you’d slowly—or maybe gladly—all begun to forget the small differences between the details of how we look. But because really, wasn’t it going to be easier for all of you if I was dead?” She looked at Eddie, her gaze as sharp as a knife she’d like to drive into his heart. “Easiest of all for you—”
Eddie’s eyes widened. “No, no, I came here hoping—”
“That what? I’d fall into your arms, let you sell my island to this monster?” She waved her hand dismissively toward Marco. She shook her head. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Oh yes, yes it will,” Marco bellowed. “I came all this way—”
“Shut up!” Cormac snapped. “Or I will shoot you, whatever the fallout.” He glared at me. “All right, if you’re so clever, then tell us who killed Claire thinking she was Rosita—if it wasn’t Henry or Marco? And don’t say it was me or Eddie. Because it wasn’t.”
I dared not look at Liam. I didn’t want Henry to be blamed, or anyone else for that matter, yet those fossils and artifacts lovingly arranged in his room came to my mind. He was so sincere. And so clueless. I wanted to tell him, Run. If Eddie had been willing to shoot Marco as Rosita’s murderer, he’d do the same to Liam, never mind that his father is a senator. Eddie might even have the senator taken out.
My mouth gaped open. Nothing came out. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe. My mind raced—Say it was Henry, though that would break Maxine’s heart. Or Seamus, already dead. Dr. Aldridge. Joey. Make something up, I ordered myself. But my mind went gray.
“Apparently she’s turned shy. Well, I overheard her and Seamus talking,” Rosita said.
I wanted to shake my head, no, no, at her, keep her from saying what I feared would come next.
But there was no stopping Rosita when she’d decided something. And I could tell from her expression—so like the night she’d helped me after Pony—that she had not only made up her mind. She was thinking multiple steps ahead.
“Liam must have mistaken Claire for me that night and killed her. Left her body under the dock, where he knew Aurelia—or, shall we just drop the pretense, Susan—put one of Eddie’s lockboxes, which she found on the shore. And Liam guessed, correctly, that she would panic at some point, try to leave, and first retrieve the lockbox. After all, the contents of each box are probably worth five hundred dollars.” Rosita gave me a damning look. Then she switched the grip of her gaze to Liam. “But why did you want me found? And for that matter, why did you kill me?”
It was cruel, saying me, like she was a ghost. Liam already had a haunted look about him, and I understood that. He’d taken someone’s life. I knew how that felt. We were not people who could take life cavalierly, like the Eddies and the Marcos and Cormacs of the world. Even with a reason that at least some would call understandable, I walked with shoulders drooped under a heavy mantle of guilt, even though I’d come to hate Pony. But I’d never learned his story, how he came to be the way he was. I could never get him to open up to me. And as cruel as he was later in our marriage, he’d made me laugh at the beginning. So there was still a spark of good in him.
So yes, I still felt guilt for Pony. For so much more, before Pony.
I feared Liam’s motive would not be understandable, especially to Eddie. And, though he was also guilty of past deaths, I wanted Liam to evade Eddie. To think slickly.
For a moment, since his face was so stiff, implacable, I thought he might pull it off. Say in the same flat tone he’d lull into when he went on too much about a particular topic, I didn’t kill her … it was … and then blame one of the others who have already died these past few days.
But Liam’s face cracked so suddenly it was like a boulder had hit him square on. He crumpled to the floor. On his knees, he looked up at Rosita, and wailed her name, then, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
She knelt down on her knees before him, grabbed his chin, stared into his eyes. Her voice was as airy and cold as the outside. “Why did you kill me? Explain. Without blubbering.”
She let go of his chin as if she were shaking off spit, but she did not release his gaze. And he had no will to look away. His sobs had stifled a bit, but each word pulled out of him with painful effort. “I was out, moving lockboxes for Mr. McGee that first night,” Liam said. “On the path, near the main dock. I heard a sound, grabbed the shovel from my wheelbarrow. Realized it was a woman’s voice—you, I thought.”
“But Claire’s voice is so different than my voice.”
“We—we—hadn’t talked in so long. You—she—was singing, warbly, off key. I figured from drinking, from the cold. She was wearing only her nightgown, no coat, no shoes. I asked where they were and she said she’d thrown them in the lake. She didn’t need them, she didn’t need anyone, she said, and she wanted to go skinny-dipping.” Liam dropped his head in shame. “And then she came over, and grabbed my arms and said I should go skinny-dipping with her, and in the moonlight, at least, I was sure it was you.” He paused and pointed at the right side of his upper lip. “You had—she had—the beauty mark.”
“Makeup, Liam. Just makeup. She’d play with my makeup during the times we switched roles, and I went out among the guests as Claire. And she’d add that beauty mark, as a lark, as a joke. Put on my veil. She’d say in case that Susan comes in off schedule. She’d painted on the beauty mark that night in my bedroom. You’re right, she was drunk, and putting on my makeup, all the while talking about Hollywood.” Rosita glanced away for a moment. “She had … a bad time in her childhood home. I tried to protect her.
“That night, she became combative. She was angry that I wouldn’t sell the island, go with her and Douglas to Hollywood. I tried to tell her that was their dream, not mine. And then she said—” Rosita paused to clear her throat. “—said it was time for me to get over Oliver. Let go of the island.”
Rosita looked sorrowful for a moment. “I slapped her, ran back to the mansion. It was too much for me. By the time I was back, I decided to wait in her room for her return. I fell asleep, and well, Claire never came back.” Her eyes hardened on Liam. “Because of you. Why?”
“I thought she was you. I was sure she was. And she was flirting with me—I think. And I—I said I’d always loved her, and we should take the yacht, and go away together. That we could leave the records with Dr. Aldridge and he could take them to the Feds.”
At that, Eddie and Cormac looked genuinely shocked. They had no idea that they had a mole in their gang—what’s more the quiet, putzy doctor. That’s the problem with men like Eddie and Cormac. They take everyone else for granted, as if loyalty is owed to them.
“I said that we could take the lockboxes—”
“You were going to steal my woman and my money?” Eddie gave a harsh laugh at the preposterousness of Liam pulling off such a thing. And yes, it was preposterous. But the look on Liam’s face was heartbreakingly sincere.
“—and run off together. But Rosita just laughed—I thought she was Rosita—and said, ‘I’ve been working with Eddie this whole time, you silly boy.’” Liam stopped, cast his gaze downward. “I realized Rosita never cared about me. She was just using me to get what she needed to get back at you, Mr. McGee.”
“But that was Claire,” I said quietly. “She was drunk and had forgotten to be Rosita. Claire meant she’d been working with Eddie to come up with a scheme to convince Rosita to leave the island, turn it over to him to sell to Marco.” If only Seamus was here, I thought. He could help calm Liam, get him to carefully parse his words.
My breath caught in my throat and my eyes stung. Seamus—shot down, his body left out on the icy, frozen land. I had to keep myself from glaring at Cormac. I wished I could hurt him and Rosita for what they’d done to Seamus. I wished I could properly bring his body back to the graveyard where his wife and son lay at rest.
I forced myself to refocus on Liam. “So you’ve been used, and confused, for a while now, Liam.”
I turned to Eddie with a pleading glance, hoping against hope for pity for Liam. “He didn’t understand, he’s not fully responsible for his actions.”
But Liam pressed on, his eyes foggy and distant, like he was back in the woods with Claire, thinking he was with Rosita. “And she said I was a fool to think she’d ever love me, and to let her go. I did, but it was cold and I wanted her to have my coat, and I stood up, and started to take it off, to give to her, but I must have scared her, made her think I was reaching for my gun. Out of her robe pocket, she pulled out a small pistol, aimed it at me, and, and, I swear it was instinct. I grabbed the shovel and hit her, and the front point sliced through her neck.” He started sobbing, rocking. “I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t just leave her there, and I was too scared to tell anyone. But I couldn’t dump her in the lake, either. So I tied her up, took the lockbox. I thought sooner or later Aurelia would go swimming like she always did, find the body.”
He looked up at Eddie. “I put the lockbox with the others. You have everything back, you’ll have all of it—”
“What are these lockboxes?” Marco said. “What’s he talking about? Eddie, the deal was everything on this island—everything conveyed in the sale, even the contents of the mansion. So if you were hiding something away that you’re trying to take off now, you’d better—”
“Watch it, Marco,” Cormac said. “Talk like that got Joey killed. Sure, Joey was a lot wilier than I gave him credit for. While we were searching for Rosita, he got away from me, out of sight. Even in winter it’s impossible to see through the thick brambles. Followed Liam, saw he was moving goods. Later, Joey said we should take a walk early Saturday morning. Told me that he knew about the goods, and he wouldn’t say anything to Marco, avoid a confrontation that could get ugly and lead to worse back home, so long as I’d agree to help him set up a heist of the boxes. We could fence it later, split the profits.”
Marco looked outraged. So stupidly ambitious, so naïve of Joey to think he could pull off such a thing, could trust Cormac.
Cormac shrugged. “Asking me to betray my boss. I wasn’t having it. He was a loose cannon. So I reached in for a handshake with one hand, and with the other, got out my knife—” He grabbed it from his belt sheath. It glinted in the light from the coal oil lanterns, the flickering candles.
Surprise and fear arose on everyone’s faces except Liam’s. He still looked torn up with emotion from his confession. Nor Eddie’s face. He had a small smile as if he knew what was coming.
“And I slit his throat.” Swiftly, Cormac moved behind Liam, held the knife to his throat.
Maxine exclaimed, as Rosita cried out, “No!”
And for a moment she looked panged. But she had to know what would happen to the person who’d thought he’d killed her once the truth came out. And sure enough, there it was, a flicker of a smile. She was enjoying this drama.
But Eddie gave a little shake of his head.
For a second I thought, senator’s son. Even in vengeance, Eddie would not allow Cormac to harm a senator’s son.
In the next instant, Eddie grabbed Rosita, pulled her up by the arm, shoved her away, at the same time that Cormac leapt aside.
Liam didn’t move.
He just closed his eyes, knowing what was coming.
Eddie shot him in the forehead.