42

I listened to the assholes cursing, stumbling in the dark.

That gave me time to close the window, collapse the baton, and hide the baton in the back of my pants. It wouldn’t hold up to scrutiny, but I hoped Average Man was too pissed to realize his beating stick had gone missing.

I crawled over to Ariella. “My nails might be sharp enough to unpeel the edge of your bindings. Let’s give it a shot.”

But before I could put my plan into action, the door slammed open. “You fucking bitches broke the generator.” This was Plastic Guy, practically spitting in his rage. I prayed they hadn’t noticed the soup splattered down the side of the house.

He stormed in and kicked me, then aimed for Ariella. My stitches popped as I tumbled over, pain spiking in my chest, but he only booted Ariella once before I got my body between them. I covered her as best I could, taking one kick to the thigh, another in the ribs. When that didn’t satisfy him, he swung an arm and slammed a fist into the side of my head. It snapped back and I bit my tongue, blood in my throat.

I blacked out briefly as he hit me more, roused only when the other man finally dragged Plastic Guy out of the room. “For fuck’s sake, you’ll get us both killed if she dies before Durst gets here! Think for a second.”

“Thanks to them, we’re squatting in the dark. I don’t like this, Yar—”

“Shut up,” Average Man hissed. “No real names. Do I have to remind you what’s at stake? We’ll find some candles, light a lamp. It will be fine.”

He dragged his comrade out, the latter cussing ferociously in a language I didn’t speak. They slammed the door, leaving me in a heap on the floor, one huge, throbbing bruise from head to toe. For a few seconds I could hardly think, let alone breathe, and I was still bleeding sluggishly from the chest.

“Marlie.” Ariella crept toward me and lifted me so I could rest against her shoulder. “You shouldn’t have done that. It would’ve been better to split the whooping.”

Blearily I shook my head. “Old habits die hard. Used to do the same thing when—”

“I remember,” she cut in. “Mama’s men never laid a hand on me if you could help it.”

“Dee did the same for me when she was around. I believe in paying it forward.” I was too dizzy to think. Food and I hadn’t been close friends since Michael had me poisoned, and I was so thirsty that my mouth and throat hurt.

I tried my plan with our bindings, but I couldn’t find the right angle and all I did was scrape away my fingernails until they broke off into the quick and bled. Finally I gave up with a shaky sigh. “I’m sorry. I can’t do it. We need something sharp.”

“You’re bleeding,” she whispered.

Waving away her concern, I considered what to try next. They’d left us with the tin mugs, plastic cups, and metal tray, along with the hidden baton. “Let’s see if we can break the plastic cup. If we get a sharp piece, we might be able to saw through the layers of tape. Not quickly, but …” It wasn’t like we had a better idea.

Ariella took her cup, put it beneath her ass, and bounced on it. Not what I would’ve done, but when I heard the quiet crack, I gave her two thumbs-up. Banging it on the wall would’ve drawn the guards for sure.

I reached down and picked up a broken piece, a nice jagged fracture. “This might work, if they leave us alone long enough.”

The cutting didn’t require as much precision as peeling, and we took turns, spelling each other when our arms started to hurt. Finally the bonds popped, ragged threads fraying from the tape as we pulled free. I raised my arms and rolled my shoulders as Ariella moaned in relief.

“That feels so much better. What now?”

“We’ll need to replace these soon. Just wrap them so it looks like we’re still tied up.”

She nodded. “So they don’t realize we got free.”

“Once they open the door, run if you can. Don’t look back. Run until you find the nearest house and beg to use their phone.”

I heard the reluctance in her soft, backcountry voice. “Promise me this ain’t some big sacrifice? ’Cause you feel bad about leaving us, so you’re determined to die a hero.”

With a half smile, I shook my head. “That’s not my style. Trust me and go.”

After we stretched, we replaced the tape, but it wasn’t solid anymore. When we applied pressure, it would pop off. The surprise factor wasn’t much of an advantage against three armed men, but it was all we had.

Countless tense hours passed; we cuddled up together and dozed. I roused to the sound of a purring engine and tires rolling over gravel. Michael’s here.

Our lives hung on the next few minutes.

Because Plastic Guy was probably still pissed, Average Man came for us. The smell of kerosene intensified, drifting in from the front room. Everything was flickering shadows, so that his too-careful coif looked immense, the ghost of Elvis come to drag us to his Nether-Graceland. I didn’t move, and Ariella whispered a plea for mercy.

He grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and hauled me to the front room, then went back for Ariella. I stayed where he threw me, feigning a near stupor. They think we’re drugged and trussed for Michael’s pleasure. He’ll start here and finish up in the other room. I wondered if he’d ever murdered anyone with such brutal intimacy before.

I made him escalate. I could take a sick sort of pride in that.

Average Man pushed Ariella to the floor, where we lay before Michael Durst. His clothes were dirty and sweat-stained, hair greasy and disheveled, and his eyes glittered with a febrile light that had to have come from something he’d snorted. He paced before us, movements abrupt and jittery, and I could smell the rage even in the sourness of his sweat.

This man was homicide incarnate.

“Go,” he snapped. “Get out.” He flung a white envelope at Plastic Guy, who managed to catch it. “We’re done. You don’t get to stay for the final act.”

As the henchman left, Michael aimed a kick at my chest. I tipped sideways, trying to make it look more accidental than a coordinated dodge. He couldn’t discover how alert I was before I heard the men’s car drive away. Once they went, my odds against him would improve significantly.

“You had so much to say at the precinct,” he spat. “But you’re so fucking quiet now. I did everything for you!”

I tuned out his ranting and took the first kick in the back. Bruises are good. Bruises are evidence of violence. Thanks to the brutes he’d hired, I had plenty.

When I couldn’t hear the car engine anymore, I rolled over in time to avoid a vicious stomp. Quickly, I signaled Ariella, who broke her bonds and scrambled toward the door. He snatched at her hair, dragging her back, and she screamed, high and agonized. Her hair came out in a bloody hank but she didn’t hesitate, thank God. I popped the tape and dove, wrapping both arms around his ankles.

He slammed into the floor as she flung the door open, running as I’d begged her to do. Get help, I silently urged her.

“She left you to die,” he taunted. “How does it feel? You need to. They all did. Dirty, worthless bitches.”

My chest blazed with a pain fierce enough to steal my breath. No time to worry about it. He aimed a kick at my head, and I barely avoided the full force. It probably would’ve cracked my skull. I let go of him and rolled away, fumbling for the baton I’d hidden. Michael was jacked up on whatever he’d snorted, all rage as he ran at me.

I had no grace, only desperation, as I dove over the flimsy, pasteboard coffee table. I kicked it at him, and Michael flinched reflexively. That gave me the space I needed to pull the baton out of my pants. I snapped it to full length and waited for him to rush me.

“You think I’m afraid of that little stick?” He was too angry, too enraged, to consider it even slightly. He was Michael Durst. Invincible. Untouchable. It was impossible that a girl from Kentucky could break him step by step. But here we were.

And I was hurting like hell, no question. But if I died, I was taking him with me. I had no intention of wrestling with him over the baton.

As he grabbed for my arm, I stumbled to one side, then smashed the kerosene lantern onto the floor, directly in his path.

Small room, burning carpet. While he screamed and tried to put out the fire that was licking up his pants leg, I slammed the baton against his head as hard as I could. When he dropped, I did it again for good measure.

I went around the house, tipping candles and breaking lamps until the fire grew brighter, burning, burning—

He’ll never get up.

Some people just need killing.

My husband thinks I’m one of them, and maybe he’s right. His first wife didn’t make it out alive. Neither did his second.

I’m the exception.

The flames are everywhere. It’s getting hard to breathe.

We’ll see who dies today.

Smoke filled my lungs, but I stumbled forward, feeling for the door, a window, anything. I can’t see. I can’t breathe.

Michael crawled toward me. Hand on my ankle. “You’ll die with me. We’ll burn together.”

I hit him again. Again. Until his fingers uncurled, limp on the floor. Blood dripped from a cut on my head. My blood on his hands.

How fitting.

Then I dropped to my knees, crawling toward the front window. I was nearly there when a lamp smashed into me from behind, glass shards in my neck and shoulders. Darkness flickered in my head—he almost got you—but no, fuck that. Ariella’s waiting. So are Jenny and Vin.

Gritting my teeth, I held on and rolled into the pain. He was bloody-faced, a beast from my nightmares. With the roaring inferno behind him, Michael didn’t look remotely human anymore. My fingers fluttered on the floor and I came up with a glass shard that cut my hands. No hesitation. As he swung at me again, I sliced one leg, then the other, as deep and hard as I could. His shriek as he fell sounded like a dying pig—and I’d often heard them they were slaughtered, back in the day. When he hit the floor next to me, I stabbed deep into his thigh meat, then pulled the shard out. His blood spattered over me, and he didn’t move as I hauled myself to my feet, using the windowsill for leverage.

With bloody, trembling hands, I smashed the window and dove through it because I feared I would pass out before I could unlatch it. I’m bleeding. God knew from how many wounds, but once I hit the ground outside, the pain reminded me I was alive.

Shivering, I pulled myself to my feet and watched the house burn. He’s dead. Finally. If he tried to get out, I’d push him back into the fire. Michael Durst would burn in the hell he’d made.

The cabin was completely engulfed in flames when the squad car pulled up, an eternity later. Ariella stumbled out even before the policeman, and she hugged me, feeling me up and down. Her hands came away stained with blood.

Mine.

“What happened here?” one officer said. These were local cops who’d responded to the 911 call.

“Nobody could have survived that,” his partner said, staring at the fiery inferno.

Luckily, the police had believed Ariella’s story about my wicked husband and his terrible henchmen. They wrapped us in blankets and took our statements, corroborated by phone calls to Detectives Wilson and Hunter in New York.

Soon I was in the back of an ambulance with EMTs treating my various injuries. Ariella sat next to me, intermittently crying and cussing me out.

“That was your plan? You’re insane.”

“Probably. But I’m still here, as promised, and so are you.”

“Thank you, Marlie.”

I didn’t ask what for; I knew. Closing my eyes, I let myself drift and woke to more hospital treatment, somewhere in Pennsylvania. I bet I’ll see the detectives soon.

Sure enough, they arrived by late morning, wearing apologetic smiles. Detective Wilson said, “I’m so sorry. The prosecutor pushed for no bail, but the judge didn’t see it that way.”

“I’m alive,” I answered.

It felt like a boast rather than a statement, a verbal way of spitting on Michael’s grave.

“The coroner has identified Durst’s charred remains from dental records. No open casket for him,” Detective Hunter joked.

I smiled. He’ll hate that. “I intend to have his ashes scattered. And not in a good place.”

She nodded. “After what you’ve been through, I don’t blame you. I can guess what happened, but I need to take your statement. For the record?”

See that, Michael? The winner decides what is fact and what is fiction.

I told them. How he abducted my sister as bait and I went to meet his minions to save her. How he tried to murder both of us in that terrible cabin and how in the subsequent struggle, Ariella got away. He beat me. Again. In his wild rage, he knocked over a kerosene lamp. I pushed him and ran. He nearly kept me from escaping when he broke a glass lamp on my head.

I almost died in the fire, after all. Glass slices on my front and back, bruises all over my back. Split lip, knot on my head where his hired goon had punched me. Damaged palms from self-defense.

“I hate cases like this,” Detective Wilson muttered. “I’m sorry he nearly got to finish what he started.”

“I’ll heal,” I said softly. Then I asked, “Did you ever find out anything about the person he hired to shoot me?”

Detective Hunter sighed. “Apparently he’s some impossible-to-catch hit man, goes by the name of Ghost. There are at least five cases where he pops up, but nobody’s even gotten him on camera.”

“He’s never let a target live before either,” Wilson added.

I pleated the white sheet with my fingers, regarding them with the wide eyes that photographers—and Michael Durst—used to love. “Dextrocardia. Dumb luck.”

I did this for revenge. I did it for money. Who says you can’t have your cake and eat it too?

Outside, it was noisy as hell. The reporters had found me. I can only imagine what the papers say. Something like SOCIALITE HOSPITALIZED AFTER HUSBAND FAILS TO KILL HER FOR THE SECOND TIME.

Idly, I wondered if Joanna had completed the takeover. She must be pleased with how things had turned out. I should send her a flower basket, I mused, perhaps a nice selection of cheese and wine. There was no card for this occasion.

“You look tired,” Wilson said. “We’ll be in touch, but this looks like a pretty clear-cut case of self-defense.”

“I’ll make sure they leave a couple of officers on the door for a day or two at least,” Hunter added. “You need time and space to recover.”

The pain is worth it. Even the scars will fade. This triumph never will. Fuck Michael Durst and his prenup. I wonder how much I can squeeze from his estate.

I offered my hand to Detective Hunter, who took it with a warm smile. She must have gotten over me investigating Vin’s disappearance without her. “Thank you so much for everything,” I said. “I couldn’t have made it without your help.”

“Our pleasure.”

The cops left and I switched on the news, discovering that I was the top story in this little town. A pretty brunette with a page-boy cut gave the play-by-play of my story, the abridged version.

I wonder if I can sell movie rights? Smiling, I leaned back against the pillows.

I’d stalked Michael Durst for months before I met Del Morton. I learned Durst’s preferences and became that girl, one in need of Svengali’s touch. Then I plotted his downfall, and now …

Michael Durst was a smoldering mass of ash and bone.

Now that it was finally over, I contemplated one final, burning question: was it still murder if someone really needed killing?