by Jenna Ryan
“He didn’t kill Anthea.” Aidan rejoined them, his eyes flicking from shadow to shadow.
“I know, Anthea said Mary did it, but I still think it’s possible that Dorian Hart’s grandson might have been involved.”
Margaret’s eyes widened in alarm. “You met Jimmy?”
“I bumped into him at the cemetery today. He’s nice-looking in a cool sort of way.”
“No Hart was ever cool,” Margaret said fervently. “Ruthless perhaps, but there’s a great deal of passion in that family. That’s why Frank and I left—Was that you?” she broke off to ask Aidan.
“Was what me?”
“That creak.”
He stopped moving. So did Sam. She’d heard the sound as clearly as a rifle crack. It had not come from Aidan’s direction.
Feet glued to the carpet, Sam whispered to Margaret, “Where’s your husband?”
“Frank? He’s visiting a trusted friend of ours. I told him to go, that I’d be fine. He doesn’t know…” Another creak halted her. Inching closer to Sam, she found and clasped her hand.
“Don’t move,” Aidan instructed.
Sam had no intention of it. Not until she had determined the source of the creaks. One thing penetrated, however; Margaret and Frank Durwald were still married. Mary must have wanted her to track Margaret down through Frank. Then again, Mary had provided numerous routes by which she could conceivably have located Margaret One, apparently, being the name Helen Murdoch.
God knew Mary was an extremely clever woman. But had she followed them here? Or come on her own perhaps? With a start, Sam recalled that she’d given Mary this address on Calvera Boulevard.
The lights gave a barely perceptible flicker, then settled. The rain made a plopping sound where it landed in the flower beds. The seconds crawled by, until finally, Margaret released a strained breath.
“It must have been the house shifting. It does from time to time.”
“Maybe.” Aidan touched Sam’s cheek in passing, a casual, loving gesture that brought a lump of emotion to her throat.
Which was precisely where it solidified three seconds later.
The quicksilver shadow could have been caused by a gust of wind through an open window. It could have been a cat or the rain coming down at a different angle. It could have been many things, but somehow, instinctively, Sam knew it wasn’t She suspended her breathing as Mary, not bothering with melodrama, hobbled out of the shadows and into the lighted hallway, a black .38 caliber gun held fast in her gloved hand.
“Hello, Margaret,” she greeted, her tone nothing short of gleeful. “Hello, Sam and Aidan. Hello, one and all. I’ve been waiting for this moment for more than forty years.”
Hazel eyes glinting in the glow of rain-washed light, she raised the gun and cocked the hammer with her thumbs. “Hello, goodbye, Margaret Truesdale. It’s time to meet your ultimate Fate.”
SAM WAS THE FIRST to react. “Mary, don’t!” she screamed, then jumped as the gun turned in her direction. “You’ll—uh…” She glanced at Aidan, who was torn between tackling her and strangling her. She moistened her lips. “If you kill Margaret, who will you have left to hate?”
“No one,” Mary chortled. “It’ll be delicious. Oh, good Lord, do get that wooden expression off your face, Margaret. You’re as spontaneous as a coat of paint. Do you see?” she demanded, waving the gun in agitation. “Do you see what I had to spend my entire career playing second fiddle to? A third-rate stage actress from—” she stuck out a contemptuous tongue “—Duluth. A farmer’s daughter. A pig farmer at that. My parents were of bold military stock. My first words were ‘Yes, sir’ not ‘Here, suey, suey.’” She swung the gun abruptly in Aidan’s direction. “Touch that poker, buster, and they’ll be scraping your remains off the wall.”
Margaret swallowed shakily. “Gangland Grace, nineteen forty-nine. You played Bedelia Grace.”
“And you played Angelina Grace, opposite Thurman. He only took that part to get back at me, you know. All because my baby didn’t also happen to be his baby. Men are such egotistical jackasses.”
“Can’t imagine why,” Aidan muttered in an undertone. ?”Sam.” He motioned to her, relieved when she gave a quick terrified nod. He was less worried about having his remains scraped off the wall than he was about losing Sam to this raving lunatic. Mary was only watching him peripherally. She wanted to see Margaret suffer. Shooting Sam would fit that ill perfectly. First the granddaughter, then quickly him, then Margaret. From her knees up, he suspected, with the process drawn out as painfully as possible.
He tried to work his way in front of Sam, but she was having none of it. The little idiot. Didn’t she realize that he oved her? Maybe, he thought grimly, gnashing his back teeth, he should have mentioned it before now. He absorbed the icy shaft of guilt that stabbed him midchest. Maybe he should have acknowledged the truth himself. Mary made one valid point. Men really could be egotistical jackasses.
Mary bared her teeth, spewing daggers from her eyes. “I couldn’t even have a healthy baby. You had to beat me in that, as well, didn’t you, Margaret?”
“I gave my child up for adoption,” Margaret reminded her n a choked voice. “How can you consider that a victory for me?”
“Because you had a choice, that’s why. No pasty-faced doc-or came in and told you your kid had been stillborn. You lidn’t have to go to its father and tell him you’d failed.”
Sam slid an apprehensive glance in Aidan’s direction. ‘Who was the father, Mary? Stan Hollister?”
“No. And not Thurman, either.” Her expression grew smug. “So I guess I’ve one-upped old Margie in at least one shing. I have a secret to take to the grave. She’ll have nothing out the grave itself. Cold and empty and dull as mud.”
Without removing his gaze from her, Aidan edged sideways oward the bookshelves. He was a dead aim with a cricket ball. A paperweight shouldn’t be all that different.
Catching the movement, Sam moved to Margaret’s other side, drawing Mary’s attention as she did. “You stole the film canisters of The Three Fates, didn’t you? Why?”
Mary gave a rusty laugh. “Because I wanted them. Actually, Tobias did the dirty deed. He does have his good points.”
Like a witch’s familiar, Aidan reflected darkly. Seven feel to go.
“Why would you want an incomplete movie?” Margaret asked steadily, but she seemed to recognize Aidan’s intent and did her best to keep Mary diverted.
Mary’s mouth trembled. “Because then I could give it the ending I chose, the ending that should have been, and would have if that idiot writer and all the other idiots in power at the studio hadn’t nixed the idea of you dying in the final scene.”
“Really? Margaret was really supposed to die?” Sam sounded genuinely surprised. Jittery but surprised. “Guido said that, but I thought it was just studio hype.”
“That’s exactly what it turned out to be,” Mary snapped, “But it had been fact at the start I have a copy of the original script Margaret was to die and I was to ‘replace’ her, so to speak. Didn’t you watch the last clip that traitor Tobias sent you?”
“Tobias sent the videos?” Shock replaced surprise as Sam drew Margaret farther to the left. “I don’t…why?”
“You said it yourself. A warning. You had to see the last clip to understand. I realized you were right when I looked at that piece. All the others made sense then.”
“It was the part where you impersonated me in front of ou lawyer, wasn’t it?” Margaret said softly.
Mary made a face. “You always were sharp as a tack after the fact. Tobias was trying to tell them, in a roundabout way, of course, that I was impersonating you. The man’s as subtle as a brick wall, but give him credit, he took his best shot. He was never more than half a step ahead of me, even when he enlisted that cocksure grandson of his to deter you.”
“Alistair?” Sam exclaimed weakly. “He’s your butler’s grandson?”
Aidan continued to edge toward the paperweight
.
“Lucky Tobias, huh?” Mary made an impatient gesture “But forget them. I handled that problem. I couldn’t get a damned thing through the heads of those studio nitwits. The Three Fates was supposed to end with the ultimate impersonation. I was going to become my sister, take her place, her name and all her power. That’s how it should have been. But no, Margaret couldn’t die. That wouldn’t work. And God knows, I could never take her place.”
A wicked smile appeared on her lips, giving her the look of a spiteful goblin. “That’s where I got my idea for this masquerade originally. It came to me years ago, but preparation takes time. First I had to pick up Delores’s trail, then Sam’s. Then I had to lay a trail of my own for her to follow—several of them, actually. I didn’t care how you found Margaret, only that I didn’t get ‘made’ in the process. So I started with the name Helen Murdoch. I weaseled it out of Thurman on one of his visits. I had to get him drunk to do it, mind you, but he’s always been a sucker for the bottle.”
Margaret, playing for time, cleared her throat. “I sensed that Thurman knew the name Helen Murdoch. That’s why I changed it to Irene Heiden. I don’t understand how he got it, though. I only ever gave that name to Leo.”
“Who kept it on file and more than once sitting plain as you please on his writing desk. During a party, too,” Mary tutted. “Thurman had no trouble finding it. Of course, you couldn’t know that poor Leo’s mind was going to slip away, could you? One day sharp, the next day fuzzy. Soon they all knew about Helen Murdoch. I trust you were a bit more circumspect about Irene Heiden. Only told Freddie?” she speculated.
“She’d been with Leo for a long time. We’d also been friends. I knew I could trust her.”
Mary’s eyes flashed, gold and loathing. “Trust or not, Margaret, I’ve got you now. You and your so-beautiful granddaughter who looks like you and whom I just know you do not want to see die. Well, tough luck, baby, because that’s exactly what you’re going to do. See her die. Followed by the man she loves. Followed finally, pleasurably, by you.”
Her muscles trembled visibly. Whether from anticipation or the strain of standing for so long, Aidan couldn’t be sure. He was sure that the paperweight was mere inches out of reach.
“Hello, over there. Are you home, ma’am?” A feeble voice crackled over the wall intercom.
Margaret jumped and spun. Her eyes locked on Aidan within range of the bookcase. She said nothing, simply raised the gun and pointed the barrel at his face. No fool, Aidan let his hand fall away.
“Who’s that?” Mary demanded of her old rival.
Margaret’s fingers bit into Sam’s arm. “It’s Jenny. My maid. Please, Mary, she’s old and unwell. She lives in the cottage behind—”
“Tell her to go to bed.”
At Sam’s nod of encouragement, Margaret steadied herself and, while Mary held the call button down, said, “Yes, it’s me, Jenny. Everything’s fine. Go to bed.”
“Are you sure, ma’am?”
“Positive. Don’t fret. Just go to bed. Frank—Frank and I want to be alone tonight.”
Mary made an unpleasant sound as she released the button. “You stayed with that loser, Frank, all these years? My God, what a martyr you are. Although I have to admit I was pleased that my little introduction to Dorian Hart should actually cause the pair of you to drop out of sight Maybe they wouldn’t let me take over from you, but at least you were out of my face.” She grunted, stomping an angry foot. “If you move one more muscle, Aidan Brodie, I’ll plug you. Or…no.” The gun whipped from his face to Sam’s. “I’ll plug her instead. That ought to keep the pair of you in line. Get away from her, Margaret.”
To Aidan’s astonishment, Margaret’s body tensed. He saw the frustration clearly, coupled with the sudden need to retaliate. He doubted that Mary saw much of anything right then.
Swearing to himself, he snatched up the paperweight. “Move, Sam,” he shouted.
Yet even as he did, Margaret was snarling, “You won’t shoot her, Mary. Not my granddaughter!” and rushing toward her enemy.
The gun went off. Rain hammered the roof, muffling the sound. Mary looked at once outraged, shocked and resolute. The paperweight struck her outstretched arm hard, but as if fixed with glue the gun stuck fast in her hands.
Aidan had heard of cases where crazy people displayed incredible bursts of strength, but he’d never heard anything like Mary in the next instant. The growl that emerged from her throat could only be termed feral, and her eyes, those large, impassioned eyes of hers, took on a sheen that transformed them from flashing hazel to fiery red in the space of a single second.
She fired once, then again, and again. Aidan dove for Sam who was clawing frantically at Margaret’s hand.
“Margaret, no,” she pleaded, but Margaret was already sinking to her knees.
A blast of wind pummeled the walls and had tree branches slapping the windowpanes.
Pain ricocheted through Aidan’s head where it impacted on the edge of the coffee table to his shoulder where it slammed into the floor. A prisoner beneath him, Sam twined her fingers around the ends of his hair and breathed, “Don’t move, Bro-die.”
A delighted cackle started low then rose to a hysterical crescendo. “I did it!” Mary exclaimed, exultant “I got ‘em all. Every last one of them.”
What the hell was going on? Was Sam hurt? Was Margaret? Was he? Through half closed eyes, Aidan watched Mary scurry over and nudge Margaret’s unmoving shoulder with her toe.
“Dead as a doornail.” She stopped suddenly and stared down at the three of them, close together on the rose colored carpet. “Dead as three doornails. Just like that. Just like…” Her triumphant words slowed. Her body began to quiver. A light of fury appeared in her eyes. She seemed not to notice that the lights had dimmed, throwing the entire room into shadow. The sagging skin around her throat shimmered, and her face crumpled as she rasped, “I didn’t want it like this. It’s no fun. She’s dead. They’re all dead, and I didn’t get to savor the moment.” She gave Aidan’s leg a vicious kick. “It’s no fun!”
Sam’s fingers tightened on his jacket. Her breathing, though, fast, seemed strong enough. And hard as it was now to see, he thought, he felt certain he’d seen Margaret’s head shift
Infuriated, Mary stomped both feet on the carpet. “I had it all planned. The music boxes, the names, the adoption papers. All according to plan. I even found Anthea.” Bending with difficulty, she shook Margaret’s shadow-swathed shoulder. “I killed her, Margaret. I was going to send you—well, me, but they thought I was you—a picture of the three of us, from The Three Fates. I put an X through Anthea to show you I’d killed her. Just like I was supposed to kill her in the movie. Except that Tobias got into my last package—the music box that played “The Funeral March’—and he took the picture out. I think he must have sent it to Sam with that last videotape. He wanted to stop me from killing you, but I wouldn’t let him. I had to get you. You know I did. But I wanted Sam to go first. Every time I looked at her, I saw you. Every damned time. She even sounded like you.”
She shook Margaret again, harder. The silhouette on the carpet remained limp and lifeless. “I don’t know how Dorian got wind of my plan. Didn’t your idiot husband ever pay him back? My God, how much stupid pride can one man have? Margaret? Margaret!”
Unable to lie still and watch her wrench Margaret’s arm from its socket, Aidan started to rise. Sam made no attempt to stop him at first, then, “Aidan!” she whispered. Her fingernails dug into his wrist. “It’s Tobias.”
He snapped his eyes around. From the deeper shadows near the staircase the man they’d known as Theo Larkin emerged and walked to where Mary knelt, head downbent. With a motion to Aidan and Sam not to move, he took Mary by the arms and drew her kindly to her feet.
“I did it, Tobias,” she croaked brokenly. “I killed them all.”
“Yes, you did.” Sadness threaded his voice.
“They knew who Sam was, all of them—Stan, Leo, Thur
-man. But they didn’t know what to do about it. They’re ostriches, every last one of them. Except maybe Stan.”
“Yes, he might have said something eventually,” Tobias agreed.
Mary’s face lit up in triumph. “That’s why I hired his handyman to lock them in the garage. I had to divert their attention, stall for time, shake them up.” Her squawk of laughter reverberated through the darkened living room. “That’s the ironic part of it, Tobias. At first you wanted your grandson to scare them away, but then it occurred to me that I should be doing that. I, Mary, not I, Margaret. Mary would have wanted them off the scent, so I did things to try and deter them. Not anything that actually would deter them, but…things.”
“You did what you’ve wanted to do for close to fifty years,” Tobias said somberly. “You should be happy now.”
“Damned right” She stared numbly up at him. Rain streaming down the window seemed to wash all the vibrancy from her body. “It’s over, Tobias, I know it is. I beat you and them and her.” She hesitated, then in a raw tremulous whisper, asked, “What do I do now?”
Chapter Seventeen
Sam couldn’t have explained why that pathetic last question affected her so deeply. She only knew it did, despite the fact that she had no real idea what had just happened or why Margaret had signaled her to play dead.
Well, no, the play dead part was clear, as was Mary’s state of mental deterioration. Wresting herself from Tobias’s grip, she went to her knees in the spreading shadows and began shaking her three “dead” victims. Weakly at first, then as her energy returned, with greater force.
“No, no, no!” she declared, and poked Aidan hard with her knobby fingers. “You did it wrong, all of you. Get up, Brodie. You, too, Samantha.” She jiggled Sam’s shoulder. “Margaret, for heaven’s sake, you stupid woman. You missed your cue completely. You were supposed to die after Sam. My pleasure was in your pain when she went down. Brodie’s pain was in seeing his lover shot like a dog. Can’t anyone take direction anymore?” Her head came up and twisted around. “Lights up,” she ordered. “Can’t film in the damned dark. Get away from the camera, Tobias. Retake. Retake! Stan, get everyone back to their marks…”