was really upset about Les taking advantage of me physically.”
“You were with me in the hallway when I decided to let Les go downstairs for firewood with Mitch and Teddy,” Des recalled.
“I was, that’s right. As soon as you sent me back to my room, I told Jase that now was his chance. He went up to the third floor through his trapdoor and down the staff stairs. When they headed out to the woodshed, he followed them and killed Les.”
“Why didn’t he kill Mitch, too?”
“He likes Mitch. Mitch has been nice to him.”
“That’s my doughboy. Where are Jase’s wet things? His work boots, pants?”
“In the big freezer,” Jory said, glancing over at the walk-in commercial freezer in the new part of the kitchen. “Along with the gloves he had on when he killed Ada. He always keeps an extra pair of jeans and boots in the mudroom in case he needs them. I buy him the same brand of everything-four pairs of jeans at a time whenever they’re on sale, two pairs of boots. He jumped right into identical dry things and went back up to the third floor lickety-split. Finished drying off in Izzy’s bathroom and dropped back down into his room.”
“And now here we are.” Des continued to point her gun at Jory under the table.
“Here we are,” Jory acknowledged, puffing out her cheeks. “It’s too bad, really.”
“What is, Jory?”
“I’m thinking about those damned pills of Norma’s. Les shouldn’t have stolen them when he did. He should have waited until this week, when everyone else was here. If he had, you would never have figured this out.”
“Trust me, you would not have gotten away with this. No chance.”
Jory gazed at her curiously. “Really, why not?”
“Eventually, we would have brought Jase in for routine questioning, and there’s no way he would have held up. Not given how attached he is to you. If we’d played him even a tiny bit, told him that you’d confessed to the whole thing, he’d have caved in a heartbeat.”
Jory said nothing to that, just sat back in her chair with her arms crossed, watching Des.
“Jory, I’m curious about your state of mind right now,” Des said, studying her. “Because I’m getting such a strange vibe off of you. Are you at all sorry? Do you regret any of this?”
“Not one bit.” Jory sounded defiant now. “You try living in my skin for a few days. You’d have no regrets either. You can’t imagine with it’s like being saddled with him, Des. Having to watch over him every single minute of every single day. That boy can’t make up his mind about anything without my help. He’s a total baby. And ever since I was a teenager, he’s been the story of my life twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. No holidays. No vacations. No relief. No life. Not one boy in town would ever go out with me,” she complained, her voice rising. “Not if he was a decent, hardworking boy, a boy who was looking to build a life with somebody. Who’d want to take on me and that skulky, needy brother of mine? The only ones who’ll even look at me are the Spence Sibleys, who figure I’m so lonely and desperate that I’ll give it up, no effort required. So I’ve watched as one after another of those nice boys have hooked up with my girlfriends, gotten serious with them, married them-even though not a one of those girls is as good-looking as I am. I’m a pretty girl, Des. I have a terrific figure, a head on my shoulders, a warm and caring heart. Good things are supposed to happen to a girl like me. I’m supposed to be happy. I deserve to be happy! Do you have any idea what it’s like to wake up one morning and realize that you’re nowhere? Every single friend I’ve ever had is married now except for me. God, how I despise going to the market. I always run into one of them and she always wants to talk about her wonderful baby and the wonderful addition they’re building on to their wonderful house and how they’re going skiing this year in the wonderful White Mountains and… It’s over for me, Des! I don’t get a life. Not Jory. Not me. Uh-uh. I don’t get any of that. You know what I do get? I get to share that dingy cottage with my stupid little brother until the day I die. And I am so sick of it. So sick of sitting up here in this damned castle watching my life just…” She came up for air, her eyes burning at Des across the table. “My life was passing me right on by. That’s what I woke up one day and realized. So when that one chance came along, a chance to make something happen, I reached for it and I grabbed hold, even if it did seem a little wrong. It’s not like Norma had very long to live, you know. She was genuinely sick. We were just helping her along. That’s how I look at it, anyway. Besides, she was a mean old bitch. Treated Jase and me like her personal slaves. Always so patronizing and condescending.”
“I thought she seemed pretty nice.”
“Yeah? Well, you didn’t work for her.”
“Jory, let’s say Les hadn’t turned out to be a two-timing liar. Let’s say this hadn’t all blown up in your face…” Des thought she heard the creak of floorboards in the dining hall. She glanced at the doorway, but there was no one approaching. “Would you have gone through with it?”
“Gone through with what, Des?” asked Jory, frowning at her.
“Would you have married Les?”
“To get Jase out of my life? Oh, absolutely.” Jory seemed quite certain of this. Frighteningly so. “I believe that a really strong case can be made that Jase needs serious long-term care in a residential treatment facility.”
“By that you mean a mental hospital?”
“Well, yeah. And with the financial resources of Astrid’s Castle behind me, I could have done that. Actually put him somewhere. Actually had a life of my own. He’ll never be able to function independently, Des. I swore to my dad on his deathbed that I’d take care of him, and I have. I’ve kept my word. I’ve been a good daughter and a good sister. But, God, when is it my turn? When do I get to take care of me?” She sat there in bitter, angry silence for a moment. “You have no idea what it’s like being stuck with Jase. No idea just how deeply and intensely I hate him. How much I wish he’d never been born. How much I wish-”
A sudden flurry of sound interrupted her.
It was the sound of Mitch getting shoved through the doorway, looking ashen with fright.
Behind him, Jase stood there with a crazed expression on his face and a thirty-eight pointed at the small of Mitch’s back. “You told me you loved me!” he sobbed at his sister, utterly freaked out. “No one else, just me”
“I do love you, sweetie,” Jory gulped, her eyes bugging with panic.
“You’d better put down that gun, Jase,” Des told him quietly, her own weapon still trained on Jory under the table. She did not want to show it to Jase. It might set him off. She did swing it ever so slowly over in his direction. Only, there was a wooden kitchen chair in between them. She had no clear shot at him. Not where he was standing. “Put it down right now. You don’t want to make a bad situation any worse, do you?”
“You lied to me!” he wailed at Jory, ignoring Des completely. “When we were parked together at the station, you said we’d have everything we ever wanted. That it was all for us. And you never meant any of it.”
“I did, too,” Jory swore. “Honest, I did.”
“You hate me! You want to have me locked up! I just heard you.”
“Sweetie, that’s just a story I made up,” Jory said soothingly. “It’s not the real truth, I swear to you.”
“Put down that gun, Jase,” Des repeated, wondering if she’d ever be able to unravel the real truth. Whose idea it was to bump off Norma. What Les had promised Jory for her help. What she had promised him in return. With Les gone, there was no way to know. “Where did he find that thing, anyhow?” she asked Mitch, her voice low and calm.
“Behind the bar in the taproom,” Mitch answered tightly.
“Is everyone okay in there?”
“Everyone’s fine,” Mitch replied, struggling to keep his own voice steady. “No one’s been hurt. Nothing bad has happened. It’s not too late to just put the gun down, Jase. We can sit right here and talk, the four of us. We’re all friends here.”
Jase didn’t respond, didn’t budge. Just stood right where he was, gun in hand, his eyes bulging with rage and hurt and confusion.
Des couldn’t blame him. The only thing he’d been able to count on his whole life was Jory’s love. Now he didn’t have that. Didn’t have anything. “Mitch is right, Jase,” she said. “Listen to Mitch. You trust him, don’t you? Why don’t you sit down with us, and we’ll talk this out.”
“Please sit, sweetie.” Jory managed a coaxing smile, her eyes shining at Jase. “It’s going to be okay. You don’t have to worry. You know I love you. Everything I do is for us. All for us.”
Jase considered Jory’s plea carefully. For a brief instant, Des thought that he was giving in to her. The gun drooped slightly in his hand, and some of the coiled tension eased out of his shoulders. Until, that is, whatever it
