Or that’s what I hoped. There was a tiny instant when I wondered if she was right. No. No, she couldn’t be. I shook my head, pushing away the unwelcome intrusion of fear.
But we still needed to wait a few more seconds.
“I don’t understand what’s going on, Shelagh. Why is he doing this?”
“He took some money, a cashbox from an event at Birk’s stables. He saw Louis there, thought maybe Louis saw him, so he’d planned to confront him. But when he learned that Louis worked for me, he came to me instead.”
“To have you pay back the theft?”
“If it were only that simple. No, Delaney, once he learned who I was, about my past, and how much money I had, he began to blackmail me.”
“Blackmail?”
“Aye, he threatened to become the Monster again, but do more harm—steal, maybe even murder.”
“Which is what happened. He’s the New Monster, right?”
She nodded. “I wouldn’t play along. I thought he needed to be taught a lesson. I’d been planning the treasure hunt. I told him I would give him money, but he had to do it my way.” Tears filled her eyes. “I should have just given him the money.”
“When you didn’t, he dressed as the Monster and robbed people. Did he kill Ritchie?”
Shelagh’s eyes filled with tears. “Yes. His own father!”
“Why?”
Shelagh shook her head. “The best I can understand is that Jack has a sister who was at the event too. She told her father that she’d seen Jack take the money. Ritchie knew his son was up to something so he’d been following him. He followed him into Deacon Brodie’s Tavern that day, inserted himself behind the bar. No one questioned him because he’d worked there before. Later, when Ritchie confronted his son about what he thought he was up to, told him to stop, Jack killed him.”
“That’s so horrible,” I said. “Shelagh, the money was paid back the day after it was stolen.”
“Oh, Delaney, it wasn’t even about that, really. When Jack learned who I was it became about my money.”
“Why did you get Birk and me involved?”
“I’d been working on the treasure hunt. I was going to invite you and Birk anyway. I couldn’t go to the police—Jack had threatened that he would cause even more damage if I did, kill me or people I cared about. I needed help. I thought between the two of you you’d figure it out. Birk is so smart, and Brigid said you were smart too. I called him Jacques Underwood. Remember how I showed you the typewriter? The Underwood?”
“Yes.”
“That was a clue. I wanted your help. I was going to tell you more, but the police came for me, and it got so much more complicated after that.”
She was scared. She was old. She had a lively imagination, and perhaps she’d even been bored, but though she hadn’t committed burglary or murder herself, she was responsible for everything that the New Monster had done. I wasn’t going to tell her that, but if she’d only just told the police when they brought her in the first time … Still, Jack had killed his father—he was surely capable of killing again. She was terrified for her own life.
“Why did he bring you here?”
“I think he figured out I was trying to find another way to expose him. Truly, I don’t think he has any idea what to do with me. I don’t think he knows what to do with you either. Though he’s clever and sly, I don’t think he’s thought through anything. He just wanted my money. I’d already come to the conclusion that he was going to have to kill me at some point. I don’t know what he’ll do now.”
“Oh, Shelagh, this really isn’t your fault,” I said, feeling like it was a necessary lie.
“I’m afraid it is.”
I wasn’t going to be able to change her mind right now, and it was time to get going.
I stood. “Come on. We’re getting out of here.”
Shelagh grabbed my arm. “No! The bomb!”
I wrenched my arm out of her grasp. She was just going to have to be scared. I wasn’t going to wait for Tom or Elias. I didn’t want to risk one more moment with someone as unhinged as Jack.
I grabbed the brass lamp from the side table, ripped off the dingy white shade, and quickly unscrewed the bulb. I hurried to the door. There was a chance I could pick the lock if I wanted to spend the time trying, but I had another idea. Shelagh yelled at me to stop as I lifted the lamp. I didn’t stop but swung it at the knob. It took two tries, but the knob finally fell clanking to the floor.
I dropped the lamp and used my finger in the now-exposed mechanism to undo the bolt. I opened the door and looked back at Shelagh. “No bomb.”
She was still sitting on the couch, her eyes even wider and more scared now. Something was wrong. She hadn’t gotten off the couch.
“What’s wrong?”
“I hurt my ankle when he threw me into my secret room,” she said. “I still can’t walk well. Go, go get help.”
There was no way I was leaving her there. I hurried to the couch and hoisted her to her feet.
“I can’t walk,” she repeated.
“Lean on me. We are getting out of here.” Her arm went across my shoulder as I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her along.
It wasn’t easy, and I could tell she was in pain, but we were getting out of that flat, even if I had to drag her the whole way.
THIRTY-TWO
“My ankle can’t do this, Delaney,” Shelagh said as we reached the top of the stairway.
No one seemed to have heard the destruction of the doorknob. At least no one was coming to our aid.
“Is anyone else in this building?”
“No, I own the whole thing, but I kicked everyone out a few months ago. I didn’t think people were taking care of it. I might tend to overreact sometimes, Delaney.”
Another understatement, but again I was going to leave that for a therapist to handle.
“Hop onto my back if you need to. We are out of here, Shelagh.”
“I’ll hang on tight.” She gritted her teeth.
She stayed upright, though just barely. I sighed with relief when we reached the bottom of the stairs.
But I hadn’t considered the other player. I should have. I hadn’t even thought to ask Shelagh about the fourth member of our hunting group.
As we reached the bottom of the stairs, Tricia came through the door that Jack had brought me through less than an hour earlier.
For an instant I was glad to see her, but then I realized I shouldn’t be.
“Tricia?” I said, hoping the question in my voice would be answered with something positive.
It wasn’t. In fact, just the opposite. She pulled a knife from her pocket and pointed it at us. It wasn’t a big knife, but it wasn’t a butter knife either. It could kill.
“Tricia and Jack are together, a couple,” Shelagh said, her voice tired from the effort of making it down the stairs. She nodded upward. “I tried to tell you that you were wrong about no one else being involved.”
“Get back up there. You didn’t believe someone was watching, did you?” Tricia said.
Nope, sure didn’t. But I didn’t say that out loud.
I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.
The bookish voice was from The Madman by Kahlil Gibran. I had no idea what it was trying to tell me, but no matter—it seemed appropriate. I didn’t want to give up my freedom again.
“All right, all right, we’ll go,” Shelagh said as she started to pull backward.
I still held on to her tightly. The door was right behind Tricia. We were that close to our escape. I wasn’t going upstairs again. I didn’t want to get hurt and I didn’t want to hurt Shelagh, but I wasn’t going back up there.
With a speed that seemed both fast and in slow motion, I turned, let Shelagh fall the short distance to lean on the stair railing, and then kicked at the knife in Tricia’s hand.
I hit my mark, and the knife went flying and then clattered to the floor. I kicked again, at Tricia’s stomach, sending her to the floor too, in the other direction from the knife. I grabbed Shelagh and propelled us out the door. We still had to run out of that close, we had to get where Tricia wouldn’t be able to hurt us—hopefully someone would help.
But the close was no longer empty. Two of the most beautiful people I’d ever seen were there; one was a huge man with lots of tattoos over his bare arms and the other was a skinny woman, more appropriately dressed with a winter coat but seemingly struggling with … everything.
We’d come upon a drug transaction. It was a most joyful moment.
“Help us,” I said. “There’s a woman with a knife coming after us.”
The heavily tattooed man blinked, seemed to display some regret with his eyes, but then walked away from his customer and walked toward us.
“You okay?” he asked.
I nodded. “Can you call the police?”
“I’d rather not. Hang on a sec.” He took a step around us just as Tricia burst out of the building, the knife in her hand again.
“Aye?” the man said as he reached into his back waistband and pulled out a bigger knife.
“Out of my way,” Tricia said.
Tattooed man just chuckled once.
“Don’t let her run,” I said.
From behind I could see the tattooed man’s shoulders rise and fall with a heavy sigh. Then, in the flash of an instant, his meaty fist came up and punched away Tricia’s knife. A second later he had her hands zip-tied behind her back. Briefly I wondered where he’d gotten a zip tie, but I didn’t really want to know.
“Good work, young man!” Shelagh cried.
“You’re welcome.” He rubbed his fist and then pulled a mobile from a back pocket, handing it to me. “Not my phone. Use this to call the police, then destroy it.”
“I can do that.” I took the phone and dialed—all kinds of numbers.
The tattooed man and his customer were gone in a flash, and after I’d called everyone, I did exactly as I was instructed: I destroyed the phone.
THIRTY-THREE
The police arrived quickly. Tom, Elias, and Aggie did too. Tom and Elias hadn’t checked their phones for a while. They’d both missed my texts. They answered my calls now, though they hadn’t recognized the number. I was glad everyone’s intuition was back in working order. Tom might never let me out of his sight again.
A paramedic attended to Shelagh, who did have a sprained ankle—as she said, she’d received it the day Jack shoved her into her secret room in her library. Neither of them had had any idea that Edwin and I were at the front door. Jack had put her in the secret room and gagged her before he made the library look as if an abducation and assault had taken place inside it. He was going to call the police himself, but when he spied Edwin and me in the back, he had to redirect. He hit himself in his head and propelled himself out for us to “rescue.”
Still, that part of his plan had mostly worked. It was after Tricia picked him up from the hospital that they went back to Shelagh’s, finding her still gagged and tied in the room. They gave her water and some food before transporting her to the apartment.
The blood on the doorframe was fake blood, from a costume store. The police hadn’t shared that with the public, but of course they’d figured it out quickly. I wished Inspector Winters had told me, but he couldn’t share that much with a civilian, even one who’d become a friend. According to Shelagh, Jack was shocked that I’d neglected to tell the police about the secret room. He’d thought he was done for. But I had forgotten about it, and I might never forgive myself.
Findlay and Winston did now live over by Holyrood Palace. They’d been there a few months. Hamlet had come upon an old address; the same one where Jolie had thought her long-ago ex still lived. My gut was right about it being a little weird that Jack mentioned that the men lived over by Holyrood, but I couldn’t have understood why my intuition was trying to get my attention.
Winston and Findlay had been nothing but sober and cooperative whenever they talked to the police, according to Inspector Winters. I wondered if the drinking issue I’d heard about was really a problem or just another figment of Shelagh’s imagination.
We were in Inspector Winters’s station now, all of us, in a common room big enough to hold a crowd but private enough to allow the police to question us without unwelcome ears listening. I’d never been in this part of the station, but I didn’t point that out to anyone. I did wonder how much more there was to see.
Inspector Winters and I had already talked a long time; I was grateful that he tried to answer some of the questions I still had. After Jack and Tricia were arrested, officers had gone over to speak to Darcy. Yes, she’d seen what she thought was her brother taking money from the event at Birk’s stables. Yes, she’d told her father—and clammed up when he and Mort had come upon her at the event. She was afraid they were about to ask her if her brother was a thief. The police were one hundred percent sure Darcy didn’t know that her brother was the New Monster or the person who’d killed their father. Inspector Winters learned that it had been Darcy and Jack in Ritchie John’s flat the day Mort overheard angry voices. Darcy was angry that Jack had caused their father to quit his job, and she wanted her brother to just return the money, but he told her he had other plans, that it was all going to be okay.
Jack had told his sister he was leaving town for a bit, told the police when they’d tracked him down on his phone that he wasn’t in town. The police had known him as Jacques. They would have figured out eventually that they were the same man, but they hadn’t yet.
When we’d witnessed Darcy embracing a man outside her Roost, the weather had been too much in our way for us to know it was Jack, having returned to take care of Darcy, or that’s what he told her at the time. The betrayal she must have felt hurt my heart.
None of them had known the money had been returned. And no one was admitting to doing so. It was being assumed that Ritchie had done it, but that didn’t ring so true to me. When Inspector Winters told me that part, I’d said, “If Ritchie returned the money, why would he still think Jack was up to something? Why would he follow him?”
Inspector Winters shrugged. “We will never know, I’m afraid.”
I looked at Shelagh over my mug of hot chocolate. We were both wrapped in blankets and had been attended to with cocoa and cookies. Tom sat on one side of me, and Elias and Aggie were on the other, in between me and Shelagh.
“Shelagh,” I said. “The next-to-last clue. The Jekyll and Hyde that wasn’t valuable. That came from The Cracked Spine, didn’t it?”
“Aye, Delaney, it did.” Shelagh smiled. “Louis bought it a few months ago. It was, in fact, that book that gave me the initial spark for the hunt. Before I thought about who to include, long before Jack and Tricia.”
Shelagh was fine. My hair was wild and frizzy; I looked like the one who’d been held captive for several days. Shelagh’s hair had been smoothed back at some point. Her sprained ankle was propped up on a chair as ice was being applied. Though her official statement had been taken, she continued to tell the story to anyone who wanted to hear it; many officers seemed interested.
Again, she began to explain what had happened, how Jack had first approached her. Tricia had joined him after Shelagh told him about the treasure hunt. Shelagh then put the hunt in motion quickly, inviting me and Birk before Jack and Tricia could do much more than go along with it. In a way, it was brilliant, in other ways it was stupid and poorly thought out on Shelagh’s part.
Jack and Tricia had both been arrested only moments after I’d made the calls with the drug dealer’s phone. No one had asked me about the phone I’d used. I was glad; I would never tell on Shelagh’s and my unexpected angels.
Inspector Winters also told me that the only reason Tricia stopped by Tom’s pub was because she thought we’d seen her with the Monster, and she just wanted us to think she happened
to be in the area. In fact, we’d only seen the flap of a coat. She’d confessed to being with him near The Cracked Spine too, when I’d joined Birk in his car and thought I’d heard a growl. Apparently, Tom was correct, Jack and Tricia were following me, in a way, at least when they weren’t with Shelagh. Inspector Winters told me that Jack and Tricia were pretty sure I was either onto them or about to be. They were trying to divert my “nosiness.” It almost worked because I’d almost played right into their hands.
Tricia wasn’t a librarian anywhere, but she had gone to Firrhill High School. A quick call to the school would have exposed her lie, but I didn’t even think about making such a call. I wondered why she didn’t just come along with Birk and me on the hunt if she wanted to keep an eye on me, but she truly was spending a lot of her time watching Shelagh; maybe going with us wouldn’t have fit with her other duties.
Her being the one to bring up Shelagh’s past during the first meeting at Deacon Brodie’s made much more sense now. She thought she was helping Jack set things up.
After he’d forced me into the flat, Jack had gone back to Shelagh’s house to give Winston the keys. That key ring opened many doors in Shelagh’s world, including all the cabinets inside the stable—cabinets that held grooming supplies, medications, even feed. Initially Jack had told Winston to take some time off, that he’d take care of the horses. It was just another way to try to take control of Shelagh’s life, but taking care of horses is a lot of work, much more than Jack had bargained for. He was ready to give the duty and the keys back to Winston—thankfully, we’d had those moments to escape.
Of course, Jack and Tricia were in big trouble. Jack had murdered Ritchie, and that was by far the worst of their crimes. But they’d committed many other offenses too and had almost gotten away with them.
“What was Jack going to do with you?” Aggie asked Shelagh.
I didn’t think Shelagh remembered Aggie yet, but I’d eventually remind her of their past if Aggie didn’t.
“I don’t know. I really don’t think he wanted to hurt me, or Delaney—and he wouldn’t have grabbed Delaney if she hadn’t gotten off the bus. I think he was trying to figure out what to do next and I’m afraid his choices would have all led to more murder.”
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