66

“Meyers needs another dose,” Teagan said calmly. “We should wrap this up.”

“I know.” Victoria cupped her chin in her hand, reflecting on the night. Weighed down by fatigue, her shoulders ached, begging for rest and reprieve. “I know. I just . . .”

What? What was she trying to say? The answers weren’t what she wanted to hear, but that was often honesty’s brand. It was bitter and rarely sweet, and if tonight had shown Victoria anything, it was that everyone was capable of doing bad things. People were just people. Good. Bad.

It took monsters to affect change.

Who the monster in this room was, though, she didn’t know.

“Let’s say for a second that I understand why you did what you did. Not that I’m okay with it; it’s going to take some time to forgive.”

“I don’t want or need your forgiveness. You asked for an explanation and I gave it to you. We’re losing the cover of night psychoanalyzing the whys and hows, and trust me, we don’t want the dead body of a police officer on our hands come morning.”

Victoria couldn’t make any decision about Meyers until they’d finished, though.

“You could’ve ended it with Warren’s murder,” Victoria continued. “The investigation would’ve run its course. But you didn’t stop there. You stabbed him repeatedly and cut out his eyes. That’s—that’s not just needing him gone to collect money. That’s rage. Why? More importantly, why invent X?”

“I was protecting you. Same as what happened when Dad died.”

“What does Dad have to do with this?”

Teagan shot her a skeptical glance. “Dad ran on caffeine and adrenaline, sure, but he was a healthy son of a bitch. They thought he’d make a full recovery from the stroke. But he didn’t. One day he was asking for the latest account updates, and the next he’d died in his sleep. I heard the doctors were suspicious.”

Victoria tapped her foot on the floor. “People die all the time.”

“Sure they do,” Teagan agreed. “And sometimes they have help.”

The hospital walls had been blindingly white. From the green chair on the side of the bed, Victoria had studied the beeping machines that night, watching her father’s chest rise and fall.

“Why’d you cut out his eyes?” she whispered.

Teagan sighed at the change of subject. “That was a pain in the ass that I almost regret. You ever tried to scoop out eyeballs with a curved blade? No, clearly not, but it’s not easy, take my word for it. That plague doctor mask was fortuitous but also not the best tool for the job. I knew you’d be a suspect, and I was right. Meyers was looking at you from the get-go, but to be honest, so was I. Not for the murder, obviously, but for what happened leading up to the Gala.”

“How long were you watching?”

“Warren and I set up those cameras months ago. Quite the voyeur, your husband.” Teagan winked, and Victoria’s stomach clenched. “Catching you setting up a room that would essentially wipe away trace evidence, though, that was the most interesting thing we recorded.”

“Wait. Warren saw that?”

“I showed it to him at the Gala. Thought it would be the push he needed to take my side. You clearly had ulterior motives going on in that pretty, newly cropped head of yours. I merely pointed him in the direction I wanted him to look, and he did the rest.” She reached behind the chair and pulled the black duffle bag onto her lap. Shifting the med kit to the side, Teagan withdrew a silky black mask, holding it up like a trophy.

“You were the executioner,” Victoria said. “Oh my god, of course you were.”

“Ding, ding, ding. If I can thank Warren for anything, it’s for his extensive surveillance skills. For someone who resisted social media so hard, he sure knew his way around a camera setup, and I was able to bypass the Mansion’s firewall. Warren wanted to give you a chance to explain. I would’ve been happy with a private conversation, without the theatrics, but the creepy optics were a fortuitous find in the utilities room. Margaret’s got a sick sense of humor when it comes to party games. Too bad her original plan didn’t work out. Looked like she’d planned a Purge. That would’ve been a riot.”

“You expect me to believe the red room was dumb luck?”

“And a dash of quick thinking,” Teagan winked. “It didn’t work, by the way. Warren got good and wasted, which put him at Neanderthal levels of susceptibility. But the sneaking around inspired me. X was the perfect solution. The distraction we needed.”

“Hacking my email, the camera footage, the graffiti—”

“Okay, but that was a nice touch, right? I thought for sure you caught me coming back inside on your way back from the bathroom, but that’s a perk of not having an open floor plan. Plenty of blind spots. Warren got one thing right, at least we can agree on that.”

“Can we?”

“The follow-up text before I called the police was incredibly effective. Had the message queued up on the other phone. A single tap in my pocket, and you were none the wiser.”

“You want a medal? All of that effort to make Meyers look somewhere else ended up making me look guiltier,” Victoria concluded.

“I may have gotten a bit carried away.”

“You think?” Victoria sputtered.

“A delicate balance, not wanting you to get caught but also creating the right level of doubt to keep people guessing. Had to cover my own ass too.”

“Teagan, what about Betty?”

She tucked the mask back into the duffel bag and pushed it to the floor. “What about her? I told you she was blackmailing Warren. I guarantee she was looking for the check when you caught her in his office. People like that can’t be reasoned with or talked down. She was going after you next. Convinced herself that Warren had confided in you, and you were holding out for a better deal.”

“That’s insane.”

“Everyone’s crazy. She was a gross human being, but even Neon Betty knew you were the one to be reckoned with. Not Warren.”

“That’s what she said? Betty wanted to make a deal with me?”

“Would that make what I did easier to accept?” Teagan asked, standing. She grabbed the med kit. “Stroking your ego can wait. Meyers is going to wake up. Percolate on your decision for a minute, Hamlet. I’ll be right back.”

She turned down the hall, ponytail bobbing and syringe raised.

Victoria hustled to the kitchen, settling into her thoughts as she filled a glass at the fridge and drank. The water was cool. Refreshing. She finished it in three gulps and filled it again, chugging quickly and wiping the excess away from her lips.

She couldn’t murder Meyers. She couldn’t trust Teagan not to do it either, but could she trust Teagan at all after today?

“Thirsty?”

Victoria jumped at the sound of Teagan’s voice. “Parched. Long day, you know? Was kind of preoccupied when I got home. Someone tipped off Margaret Connors before the two-hour time limit was up.”

“Whoops. In my defense, I didn’t think she’d turn the video over so quickly. Barnaby moves at a glacial pace in literally every other circumstance and is the very definition of self-preservation. It was supposed to be insurance in case you audibled. I only have one more dose of propofol left, by the way.”

Another countdown.

“The blood was a nice touch,” Victoria said. “Love your flair for the dramatic.”

“Don’t look at me like that,” Teagan said as Victoria’s face contorted in disgust. “Artist, remember? Just a few hazmat bins waiting to be picked up. No one misses those blobs of fat, trust me. I wish I could’ve seen you scrubbing it up, but I had this feeling, you know? A tingling in my spine that started when you left the house. Confidence doesn’t make me immune to panic. Or moments of doubt. I’m a realist.”

“And here I am, homeless.”

Teagan joined her at the counter. By all appearances, they were having a leisurely chat. Tired, drawn. Yet the tension was ramping up again, a thrill running like a current beneath the serenity.

“That place was too big for you anyway. Never understood why you moved there, but I suspect Warren was the driving force. His five-year family plan. And Kent Wood Manor isn’t nice to its single childless women. After we finish, we’ll find you a place that’s perfect. A fresh start.”

Victoria toed at the tile, alternating between the swirled design and the grout lines. Teagan talked like there would be an after—that this night, their actions, wouldn’t be the end. For Teagan, this was a small speedbump. A hurdle, not an insurmountable crisis.

She was missing the finality. Didn’t she feel the apocalyptic dread?

“How is this going to end, Teagan?” she asked.

Teagan looped their elbows together. Victoria’s breath caught, remembering that the last time they’d clung to each other like this was in the snow outside the Mansion.

“It ends with us. Together.”

“I don’t see how that’s possible,” Victoria muttered. “I’m sorry, I don’t see how this ends in anything but death.”

“There has to be death,” she said. “But not for us. Meyers is the enemy, Tor. Not me.”

“X could be the enemy,” Victoria tried. “We blame it on him. The crime goes unsolved. Almost fifty percent of murders went unsolved last year anyway; it wouldn’t even be strange. Warren would be a statistic. A cold case on one of my podcasts five years from now.”

“That won’t work,” Teagan said, shaking her head. “Not with Meyers. This is the only way.”

“You said that about sleeping with Warren too. Perspective matters.”

Teagan grew grave. “Unless you’re willing to cop to a murder, I suggest falling in line behind the one Livingston sister in this room who’s not afraid to act. There are no reservations on my end, but I need something from you first.”

Victoria met Teagan’s eyes. The whites were bloodshot, but her gaze was sharp and alert. “What?”

“Warren’s papers. If I’m going to secure the lease for the new building and finish the transfer, I need them.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Come on, Tor. Don’t make this difficult. The deal was ninety-eight percent done.”

“It was dead in the water; that’s what you said. Warren wasn’t going to go through with it. Signing over that money would ruin everything I’ve been working for. Dragging Livingston out of the shit pile that Warren made will take every cent, and whatever you schemed with my deceased husband is not a top priority. There’s still plenty of other routes you can take to start your own practice. Loans, drawing from your own savings—”

Teagan slammed a fist onto the counter. “I can’t wait that long. Aside from the fact that Glen’s driving me to the edge of sanity, I’ll lose patients, the location, everything I’ve already invested personally at this point. And you want me to sign on for a bank loan? Months of kissing ass with associate degrees in finance with jowls hanging over their Brooks Brothers suits. Vampiric interest rates. You’re out of your damn mind.”

She stomped away. Victoria straightened as Teagan crouched at the bookshelf, throwing open the lid of the box on the bottom shelf. When she stood, Teagan held their father’s hunting knife.

“Teagan,” Victoria said, raising her hands in defense. “Put that back.”

“No,” she said, tightening her grip. “Give me the papers, Vic.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Vic. Warren had called her Vic, and she’d hated it, unable to shake the notion that it was short for victim.

“I’ll ask one more time. Give me the papers, and we’ll forget this ever happened. You’ll have Livingston. If anyone can save it from annihilation, it’s you. Reshape it into your vision; it’ll be better than anything Dad or Warren could ever have produced. It’s the ultimate comeback story.”

“I won’t do it. Warren shouldn’t have agreed to the deal in the first place. You’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way.”

Teagan laughed, an unhinged hyena shriek. “Okay,” she said, lowering her chin and settling into a wide smile. “If you insist. We can do this the old-fashioned way.”

There was no preamble.

Teagan rushed forward, knife aimed at Victoria’s heart.

Victoria remembered thinking so many times in the early days of planning that her problems would be solved once Warren was dead, but nothing could have been further from the truth. Staring at the point of the knife, she realized that, despite their best efforts, people can’t fight who they are.

Victoria Tate was a rainmaker.

Teagan was the monster.