Sandra had made her choice, turning the gun on herself. It’d given little more than a hollow click before she threw it back onto the table.
Now it was back in Joshua’s hand, and everyone fell silent in awful anticipation. For the moment he stared at it in silence, it began to look as though this time he might take the bullet himself. But Joshua had more ambitious plans.
“Make your move,” Wendell said, her voice laced with impatience.
Joshua picked up the revolver, sighed, then aimed it right at her face.
Wendell’s arm came up in a flash, aiming her Colt at his chest. “If you decide to shoot that thing, you better pray the next chamber is full.”
Mason watched in shocked silence. He’s risking all of our lives.
Joshua’s hand rattled as beads of sweat pooled on his forehead, dripping onto the rotting table. “You’re messed up in the head,” he said, his voice cracking. And then he squeezed the trigger.
Click.
His finger automatically tightened to try again, but there was less than a second of hesitation before Wendell shot him dead. The first bullet penetrated Joshua’s chest, but it wasn’t enough. She fired another, and another, and his body twisted with the force of the impact as dark red pools of blood grew across his shirt. Finally, his body jerked in a couple of violet spasms and then fell still.
“I warned him.” Wendell leaned over Sandra, whose mouth hung open in shock, and took the revolver from the table. “Guys, I’m so sorry he ruined the game for us all. We’ll have to start over. Mason, would you be so kind?” She opened the cylinder and once more spun it into position.
She slid it across the table, and Mason stopped it with his hand, watching Wendell return to the wall. “You really don’t care if you live or die, do you? You gave him the chance to shoot you.”
Wendell shrugged. “You’ve taken everything from me. I don’t believe anybody really wants to die. I’m simply impartial.”
Keep her talking, Mason thought, now the gun was in his own hand. He glanced over at Sandra, now sobbing uncontrollably, trying to look away from her dead boyfriend. He looked back at Wendell. “You’ve gone to extreme lengths to hurt me. Why not just kill me and have it done?”
“Wouldn’t that be so simple?” She pushed away from the wall and took slow, careful steps forward, circling the table and shifting her aim from one person to the next. “It’s not enough that you die. I want you to feel what I’ve felt.”
Mason’s body tensed. If she mentioned now that he’d killed Marvin Wendell—the Lullaby Killer—it would all be over for him. But he felt that he just had to push his luck. It was the only way to draw a confession out of her. “So, you punish me by killing random people? Did Johnny Walker deserve to die by your hand?”
“Johnny Walker? Please—he only carried a message for me.”
That’s it, keep going. Mason glanced at Luke, who seemed the bravest of them all. His hands were in his lap as he stared at the floor without expression. “And you thought killing him would, what, suddenly make me feel bad about the things I’ve done?”
Wendell shook her head, a smile forming at the corner of her mouth. “You must think I’m so stupid.” She walked over to Luke, lifted his shirt as he fought against her, and lowered her mouth to the police microphone. “But I don’t give a shit if the whole world knows it. I killed those people. I killed everyone who had your name on their body. I murdered them. And it was really fucking fun!”
Yes! Mason was both stunned and excited as he heard her announce her crimes. Any moment now, the police would swoop in and help them all. If he could only keep hold of the gun for that long. He was vaguely aware of Evie squeezing his arm.
But then Alison Wendell’s smirk turned into a huge, wide grin. “And you know why I did it, don’t you, Mason?” She ripped the device from her son’s chest, stood up straight, and held it to her mouth. “Because you, Mason Black, murdered Marvin Wendell.”