“And his fishing gear?”
“Temporarily, but I will take care of it. Thomas isn’t due back from his vacation for another week. No one’s minding the place, so there was no need to hurry. Nor was it possible — I’ve had my hands full, keeping track of Anna.”
“I want you to leave her alone, Marcy.”
“Do you, now? Don’t tell me, you’ve become fond of her!”
There was something creepy about Marcy’s voice — an artificial cheerfulness. Then it darkened. “You foolish old woman, don’t you realize why Anna has come?”
“Because William died.”
“Because William was applying for guardianship of you.
We have discussed this a hundred times. Once he had guardianship, he would have legal control over your money
—”
“I’m not listening to you,” Iris said defiantly.
“Control over where and how you live, control over your health care—”
“I’m not listening!”
“Control over your entire life. And once he did, he and Anna would arrange to have you committed.”
“No!”
“He did it before,” Marcy reminded her. “Or have you forgotten those days with your special, sniffling, filthy- haired friends?”
“William promised he’d take care of me.”
“Of course. Of course he’d take care of you, by shipping you off to an asylum.”
“No! He promised he wouldn’t do that again. He — he swore it.” Aunt Iris’s voice, confident when the argument started, had begun to waver.
“It wouldn’t require much effort,” Marcy continued calmly, “not with his legal power and a bright young niece to support his claims. That’s why you killed him, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t.”
“Tell the truth,” Marcy challenged.
“ I didn’t!” Aunt Iris insisted, but her denial melted to a rough whisper. “At least, I don’t remember doing it.”
“You let it happen,” Marcy replied. “You knew I would try and you let me. Just like you let me kill Joanna.”
I shoved my fist in my mouth to keep any sound from escaping.
“I didn’t want you to,” Iris argued. “I didn’t mean for you to.”
“What else could you have intended? You told me Joanna was using her gift, figuring out how Mick died,” Marcy said.
“It wasn’t a matter of what you didn’t want to happen but, rather, what you wanted more: whatever was best for your little girl. I’ll always be your little girl. You’ll always love me best, Mommy Iris.” Marcy’s childlike lisp turned my skin to gooseflesh. “So, where is Anna?” she asked softly.
“I don’t know.”
“But you know what has to be done, don’t you, Mommy Iris? Perhaps you foresaw it.”
“I can’t stand any more killing!”
“Anna is piecing together our story, and she is not going to give up on it. There’s some family resemblance between her and me. We have the same approach to life’s little challenges, and I have found that unexpectedly enjoyable.
It’s unfortunate that we both can’t survive this.”
“I can’t stand the voices!” Iris cried. “I can’t endure any more ghosts!”
“Close your eyes, Mommy Iris, and you won’t see them.”
“I will always see them,” Iris replied. “Only a — a psychotic, heartless person would not.”
There was a moment of silence, followed by a sound that made my muscles tighten, a soft, fleshy thump.
“Don’t!” Aunt Iris cried. “Don’t!”
I pushed open the trapdoor. Aunt Iris lay sprawled on the ground. Marcy, with her hand still raised, turned quickly.
“Pop goes the weasel.”
“If you’ve hurt her. .,” I warned, starting toward Aunt Iris.
“I find it touching the way you two have bonded.”
The pale skin of Iris’s left cheek was darkening with a bruise, and the corner of her mouth oozed blood. I tried to raise her, but she was dazed, unable to sit up without my arm around her. If I ran for help, I’d have to leave her behind.
“There was no need to come to her rescue,” Marcy told me, resentment seeping into her voice. “I wouldn’t kill my own mother.”
“You killed your father,” I replied. “The image in my mother’s reading referred to you. You were the seed of Mick that produced a snake rather than a flower.”
“He hated me.”
“You killed him in the car accident. The snake was masked. I don’t know how you pulled it off, but his death only appeared to be a heart attack.”
Marcy laughed her bright, tinkly laugh. “Oh, it was a genuine coronary. Mick took heart medicine. I changed his pills for something a bit more exciting.”
She spoke in the same light and informative way as she did when explaining trends in holiday ornaments. Not a hair of her smoothly styled cut was out of place. Her pressed shirt was tucked neatly into casual pants. Did she have a weapon? The night was too warm, I thought, to be wearing that jacket.
“It was so easy,” Marcy went on. “I knew they wouldn’t do an autopsy, not in this backwoods place, not on a man with a serious heart condition whom everyone seemed to like too much to kill. The lack of bleeding after the accident confirmed their belief that he had died of a heart attack just prior to it.”
While talking, she moved herself between the garden exit and Aunt Iris and me, trapping us. I looked back at the house. Marcy must have entered the garden through the large double doors; it appeared that one was open, but it was dark inside. I thought about the way the outside lights were instantly extinguished: Had she cut the electric power?
Did she know how to turn off the security alarm? If I ran through the house, would the front gates open?
“Mick was an interfering old fool,” Marcy continued, “spying on me and telling my parents every little thing I did.
They came to hate me, thanks to him.”
I needed to keep her talking while I sorted out my options.
And I needed to separate myself from Aunt Iris. She could sit up on her own now.
“I don’t see how one employee could make parents hate their child.”
“True enough. My adoptive parents were inclined that way from the beginning — or rather, from the time my brother was born. Once they held in their arms the spitting image of a blond Fairfax, they wanted me out of their lives. They stuck me in a corner with Audrey. And they spoiled my brotherthey gave him things that I should have had.”
“Like what?” I asked, but she didn’t need encouragement.
“Whenever I got the opportunity, I took back. I took my share. Then Mick would go running to them, tattling on me.”
“Maybe he was trying to help,” I said, defending him, baiting her. “You were his child, and he wanted you to grow up right. I think it was Mick’s way of loving.”
