47

Alison shivered. Ivy had her cornered. She was tired, so tired, of being the cowering, trapped little mouse. Her fingers encountered a small round object stuck in her pocket.

“Your ensemble becomes you, Ivy.” Alison’s voice sounded oily even to her own ears. “But aren’t you missing an accessory?”

Ivy narrowed her eyes.

She cautiously, so as not to alarm Ivy, put a shaky hand to her throat.

Ivy put her own hand to the lacy white chemise shirt under her traveling jacket. “My locket,” she whispered.

“I found it. Would you like it back?”

She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed extended an imperious hand. “Give it to me.”

Alison pointed to her pocket. “Shall I get it? Or do you want to get it yourself?” If Ivy insisted on retrieving it herself, she wanted to be ready to make a grab for the gun.

She’d read that security experts advised to rid oneself of the notion of getting hurt. Survivors did whatever it took to get out of their situation, even if it meant getting shot in the process. Shot was not necessarily dead.

At this point—on a two-story balcony with no other options—she was willing to play the odds.

Ivy took a step forward and stopped. “No. You get it and hand it to me. Slowly.”

Disappointed, she bent her head to fish out the silver locket. “Quite a collection you have here. Like trophy scalps.” She hoped to irritate Ivy into a mistake. Stalling, she opened the macabre piece.

“I recognize Natalie’s black do. I think I remember Leo’s as salt and pepper.” She cocked her head, gauging Ivy’s reaction.

Pride warred with impatience.

Good.

“The ginger I assume is Ginny’s. The red one I know matches Frank.”

“I told you I don’t want to talk about Frank.” Impatience was winning. Ivy frowned. “Frank accidentally found out about my connection to Leo, and he put two and two together.” Ivy reached for the locket Alison held just beyond her grasp.

“The white strands?”

Another smile creased Ivy’s face, gargoyle-ish in the white-hot brilliance of another lightning flash. “Doris Dandridge, another snooty Weathersby cousin of mine. All her life, so easy, so carefree. Her husband was my ticket to the inner circle of Weathersby. I was only too eager to play nursemaid to his ailing wife.”

“The MS and the Alzheimer’s?”

Ivy sniffed. “The MS was real. But if there was anything I learned from my mother, the Weathersby drudge, plants, even ones with medicinal purposes, if overdosed can prove fatal.”

“The baclofen.”

“Prescribed for Doris’s MS,” said Ivy. “But if given too often or in sufficiently large quantities can mimic symptoms of dementia.”

“Which further drove a grieving Professor Dandridge into your waiting arms,” she deduced. “And no one thought to request an autopsy.”

Ivy smiled again. “Why would they? And now like Jasper, dear Henry has about outlived his usefulness.” She waved the gun.

Time was running out, Alison sensed. Ivy was ready to move on with the next stage of her plan.

With her free hand, Ivy fumbled in the small reticule, which hung from one arm. She withdrew a pair of embroidery scissors shaped like the head of a crane.

As Ivy tossed them on the floor, Alison’s bare toes scrunched back self-protectively. The scissors landed on point inches away.

“No sense in waiting till that silver bird’s nest you call hair is bloody. Pick up the scissors and kindly cut a lock of your hair. Place it next to the others in the locket.”

At her incredulous look, Ivy pointed the gun. “Or not. Either way, I’ll get it eventually.”

Never taking her eyes off Ivy, she slowly lowered herself to the floor. She laid the locket down. With a twist, she pulled the scissors from the wooden floorboards. Rising again just as slowly, she grabbed a small hunk of hair where the ends brushed her jawline.

“I was thinking I needed a new style, anyway.” She opened the scissors and closed them, slicing quickly. The snippet came free into her hand.

Holding both hands up, she squatted down once more to retrieve the locket. There was a creak from the staircase. Intent, Ivy didn’t seem to notice.

“Slide the scissors over. Don’t try anything funny,” Ivy warned.

Alison complied, skidding the scissors across the floor to rest at Ivy’s laced, black-booted foot. She placed her own hair with the others, and as she closed the locket, she vowed to not allow their deaths to have been in vain. She stood to her feet, all five foot nine inches of her.

She wasn’t going to go quietly into the night. Not her. Not this time.

“Give it to me.”

Alison dangled the locket over the edge of the railing out of Ivy’s reach. Ivy stretched for it, but just as it seemed Ivy would grab hold of it, Alison drew it farther away knocking Ivy off balance.

“Perhaps I’ll let it fall to the ground.”

“No!” screamed Ivy and lunged for it with both hands.

This was her moment. Surrendering the locket to Ivy’s eager grasp, without pausing to think, she karate-chopped Ivy’s arm, causing the gun to fall from her fingers to the ground two stories below, where it settled on the porch with a crash.

“You—” shrieked Ivy, mad with rage. Seizing Alison by the throat, the locket looped around one wrist, Ivy pushed the top portion of Alison’s body backward over the balustrade.

She hung on for dear life, kicking off her flip-flops, wrapping her bare feet like a monkey’s tail around the spindles. She tried to pry Ivy’s bony fingers from her throat.

Ivy tightened her hold. Alison fought madly, praying she wouldn’t lose consciousness. She was done for, if she did. Despite Ivy’s diminutive size and Alison’s superior stature, Ivy’s maniacal strength was winning the day.

She could hear gurgling attempts from her closed throat as it sought desperately for air, her body slipping.

A dark streak launched itself from the shadows to land with claws extended into Ivy’s back.

With a screech of animal-like pain, Ivy dropped her hold on Alison, frantic to free herself from Miss Patty’s hissing and spitting. Alison grabbed for the railing to keep from plunging over.

The cat wrapped herself around to Ivy’s face and seized onto the white lacy front of Ivy’s throat. Miss Patty slashed at Ivy’s face with one paw, leaving streaks of blood. Ivy screamed and cursed.

Taking great heaving gulps of air, Alison leaned over the balustrade, clutching her throat. The melee behind her was high-pitched and deafening. Down below, the welcome sight of bobbing flashlights emerged from the gap in the yew trees.

“Here!” she called, her throat scratchy and her eyes burning. “Up here!” A coughing fit seized her as she rasped, “Hurry.”

But, it was too late. Too late for Ivy.

With one mighty swoop, Miss Patty managed to yank the locket free of Ivy’s grasp, breaking the silver chain and leaving a long, scraping, four-claw furrow down Ivy’s hand. The cat jumped nimbly to the top of the railing and over.

“My locket!” screamed Ivy, her hat askew, her face a bloody mess.

Her hand outstretched, Ivy dived over the railing after Miss Patty. A look of panic crossed her face when she realized what she’d done. Ivy reached for Alison, but she had no time to react. In an instant, Ivy was gone, the insane, unearthly shrieking silenced as her body hit the ground.

She leaned over as far as she dared. Ivy lay sprawled, her legs and arms at strange angles, a pool of blood seeping into the Weathersby ground she’d so longed to possess. Miss Patty lay curled in a ball on the bottom step licking her paws. The locket lay beside her, glittering in a flash of lightning.

“You take care of your friends, don’t you, Miss Patty?” she whispered.

A beam of light shone up to her perch.

“Alison?” Winnie sounded a touch hysterical.

“Alison? Are you okay?” called Robert.

Mike rushed past them to the porch and kicked in the door. His feet pounded up the staircase.

She sagged to her knees with sweet relief. Mike.

“Yes,” she called. “I’m okay.” She looked at the raging sky overhead. “It’s over, Frank,” she whispered. “It’s over.”

And that was how Mike found her. One final boom of thunder and the rain, pent up too long, burst forth from its dam in the sky, soaking her and Mike to the skin, cleansing the ground once and for all of Ivy’s blood.