I took another step back as the train raced into the station. I knew I wouldn’t kill myself. As scared as I was to do what had to be done, I had to see the situation through. The doors whooshed open and the platform flooded again with people. I drew in a deep breath. I couldn’t procrastinate any longer.
I didn’t have to use my phone to find the house this time. My brain had memorized the route and my feet led me there without hesitating. The click of the side gate seemed noisy and I flinched, but there was no one on the street to hear. The TV was on so loud in the house next door, I doubted the neighbors could even hear themselves think, let alone any sound I made. I heard the beeping chimes counting down to the BBC news.
I stepped lightly along the path. The air smelled like the lavender plants that lined both sides of the paver stones. I paused when I reached the end of the house. The garden beyond was overgrown; an ivy plant had gone crazy and taken over huge swaths of the yard. A teak wooden table with four chairs was tucked off to the side, and I could make out a large striped umbrella leaning against the far fence. At the very back I could just see in the moonlight where a vegetable garden had been laid out. Perhaps Nicki’s great-grandparents had planted it as a victory garden, doing their part for the war effort. Carrots and potatoes to crush Hitler. If so, they’d be shocked to see the garden now. Tall weeds had taken over, lacy plants that reached for the sky.
The light above the back door was out, the way Nicki had promised. I crept up to the house, half expecting someone inside to fling the door open, demanding to know what I was doing. But nothing happened. If Nicki or her mom had fixed the lock, I wouldn’t be able to get in and everything might be over before it even began. The brass knob was cool and I twisted it, holding my breath. The door clicked open, swinging in with a faint squeak.
I stood in a small mudroom leading to the kitchen. It was just large enough to fit a tiny bench where you could slip off your shoes. I took mine off, but instead of lining them up next to the pairs of Nikes and black rubber Hunter boots, I put my shoes into my messenger bag. If I needed to leave in a hurry, I didn’t want to go searching for them, but I also wanted to be as quiet as possible. I picked up an envelope and noted the name it was addressed to before putting it back down next to discarded real estate flyers. The name didn’t mean much to me, though, since Nicki’s name was fake and I didn’t know her last name.
I pulled out the knife from the bottom of my bag. Its weight surprised me. It looked as if it should have been heavy, but it was light. I’d snatched it that afternoon from the kitchen at Metford. I’d wanted to find something bigger, like a giant carving knife, but the only one that had been sitting out on the counter was this one. It was small, meant for deboning fish, but it would work for my purposes.
I passed through the kitchen, sliding along the floor in my socks. The counter was piled with dishes and there was a sour smell in the air. Something in the garbage was off. At the base of the stairs I peeked into the living room. I wasn’t sure what I expected, but it looked ordinary. There was a book on the sofa—a Ruth Ware mystery—and a nearly empty glass on the side table with a sticky clot of red wine left at the bottom.
I counted to five hundred while I listened to the house. I wanted to make sure I was alone. Nicki shouldn’t have been home—there was no point to any of this if she hadn’t arranged an alibi—but I didn’t trust her, either. Maybe she wanted to stick around to make sure I would go through with it. Or maybe she was the kind of person who wanted to watch.
I didn’t hear anything. The place seemed empty. A giggle started to burble up and I had to bite down hard on my lip to stop myself. The irony if I’d finally gotten up the guts to do this and Nicki’s mom wasn’t even home was almost too absurd not to consider.
As I crept up the stairs, I remembered to avoid the creaky third step. At the top, I counted two doors to the right. Part of me was tempted to try to find Nicki’s room first. If I rummaged through her belongings, perhaps I could find a clue as to how her brain worked. Was her bedroom still stuck in childhood, with a stuffed teddy named Oliver on the bed, a dancing ballerina jewelry box on the dresser, a pink floral duvet? Or had she redone the décor: dark colors, muted throw pillows, stripped of anything personal? Maybe instead of posters of a cute boy band, there would be photos of famous serial killers. That would certainly be a giveaway. I hesitated, but if I wasn’t careful with the sounds I made, Nicki’s mom would wake up. I could imagine kneeling next to Nicki’s bed to look underneath and having her mom stumble in, her bathrobe open and flapping behind her. There was no amount of explaining that would make my presence okay.
I caught myself a split second before I tapped on her mom’s bedroom door to ask if I could come in. Habits die hard. My mom hated it when I barged in without knocking. This door wasn’t latched shut, just pulled most of the way closed. I gave it a light shove and it swung open silently.
The room wasn’t huge. The large bay window I’d seen from the street was directly across from me with long white curtains pulled shut. They moved in and out, as if they were breathing in tandem with the breeze. The walls were painted white, and the bit of moonlight creeping through the cracks in the curtains lit things up enough that I wouldn’t stumble around. Nicki’s mom lay in the center of the bed, her mouth open, her breathing heavy. A thin blanket was tangled up around her legs, as if she’d been cycling through it.
I reached out for her. My hand wasn’t shaking the way I’d expected. Now that I was here, I was calm. Focused, every sense on high alert. I could hear everything: the tick of the clock from downstairs, the faint hum of the fridge in the kitchen, and the very muffled sound of the TV from next door through the wall. Even in the weak light I could make out everything. The tiny print of pink forget-me-nots on her cotton pajama gown, the loose change on her dresser, and the pattern on the floor made by the light from a passing car. I’d never felt more alive in my entire life.
I leaned forward again and tapped her on the shoulder with one hand. Her eyes opened and then widened when she realized she wasn’t alone. I was ready. I slapped my hand down over her mouth, her lips feeling dry and hot on my palm, like snakeskin. She tried to pull back when she saw the knife, but there was nowhere to go; she was pressed against the mattress.
“Shhh,” I whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you, but you have to be quiet.” A tear slipped from her eye and ran down her face. “Do you understand?”
She nodded frantically. I hesitated before pulling my hand away. I was counting on the sight of the knife to make her comply, but if she started screaming, I didn’t have a plan B. Once my hand was gone, she sucked in a shallow breath that turned into a strangled sob.
“You have to listen to me. What I’m going to tell you is important.” My voice was low but steady and calm. I felt a rush of pride, a tingling that ran down my spine and then into my arms and legs.
“I have a bit of money in the top drawer,” Nicki’s mom said. “There’s maybe some more in my purse downstairs, and my credit cards.” Her words tumbled over one another, racing out of her mouth. “I don’t have much jewelry. I don’t—”
“I’m not here to steal from you,” I cut her off. I sniffed the air, trying to tell if she’d been drinking. She didn’t sound confused or drunk, just terrified.
She swallowed. “Okay.” Her eyes darted around the room as if she thought there might be someone else here. “What do you want?”
“I’ve been sent here. To kill you.”
Her eyes shot back to mine. She whimpered, seemingly trying to pull herself deeper into the mattress. “Please . . .”
I shook my head. “I’m not going to do it. But you have to listen to me. We need to call the police together.” I fumbled for my phone, not taking my eyes off her in case she lunged at me. I dropped it onto the blanket.
Her eyebrows shot up. “You want me to call the police?”
I could tell she didn’t believe what I was saying. “Yes. We’re going to talk to them together.”
She didn’t pick up the phone—maybe she thought I was messing with her, that I would stab her if she reached for it. “I don’t understand.”
Nicki’s mom glanced behind me and I was suddenly certain that Nicki was standing there with a weapon. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a flicker of movement. My heart shot into overdrive.
I whirled around, the knife in front of me, while at the same time throwing myself to the left, but there was no one there. The curtains billowed with the breeze. Nicki’s mom scrambled for the far end of the bed, like an insect scurrying for safety. I poked the knife in her direction and she froze.
“Don’t move,” I said. If she ran away, then this was all going to fall apart. She’d seen my face. She could identify me. “Find the phone.”
Her hands rummaged through the covers and then she held up the device. “Here it is.”
“We’re going to call the police. I’m doing this to help you. I’m here because of Nicki. She wants you dead. She’s blackmailing me, telling me I should murder you. If I go to the cops on my own, they’re not going to believe me, but they will if we go together.” I wanted to explain how brilliant this plan was—it completely backed Nicki into a corner. If I went to the police with her mom, it changed everything.
Nicki’s mom looked confused. I was counting on the fact that in her heart she would know there was something off about her daughter. How could she live with that creature and not know? I had to convince her. “I know Nicki isn’t her real name, but I haven’t found out what it is. It’s your daughter. She hates your drinking. She blames you for not letting her live with her dad.”
“Her dad?”
“Yes. But I think it’s really about the money. She wants this house. Nicki thinks you’re blowing through the money her grandparents left. She feels it belongs to her. You may not want to believe me, but you have to. Think about it. How else would I know all of this? I’m telling you: She wants you dead so she can move to Vancouver to live with her dad. Or maybe she just wants the money—I don’t know.”
Nicki’s mom shook her head. She didn’t want to believe me. I couldn’t blame her. Who would want to acknowledge they’d given birth to something like Nicki? That your own daughter would hate you enough to want you dead? I had to drill through the mom’s defenses, make her realize this wasn’t a horrible joke.
“I’m not making this up. Nicki told me everything. How your husband left and moved to Vancouver.”
“How do you know—”
“I know he’s started a new family. She told me all about her grandfather, your dad. How they had a place in Scotland and how he had a telescope.”
Nicki’s mom held up a hand to stop me. “You have this all wrong—”
“I don’t,” I insisted. “You have to believe me. I’ve tried to think of every single option. If I don’t kill you, she’s going to hurt my family. Nicki already tried to kill someone I care about. She’s capable of it—she murdered my ex-boyfriend just to make sure I had no way out of this. I can’t kill you and I can’t not kill you. That’s when I realized this was my only option. We have to go to the police together.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Nicki’s mom said. “I don’t have a daughter.”