Henry parked the truck at the end of the drive, not wanting the engine to wake up Natasha, but when we padded up the porch steps and slipped into the dimly lit interior of the farmhouse, a table lamp suddenly clicked on.
Natasha sat awake and alert on the white sofa in the living room, the lamp casting sharp shadows across her already angled features.
Henry, Wes, and I froze by the front door. A sense of impending doom settled over me, but not the intense kind that came with the territory of outing a secret society that was threatening to kill us. No, this felt like being fifteen and getting caught for sneaking back into the house after curfew.
“I brought the boy into the house,” she said by way of greeting. “It was too cold to leave him in the barn.”
“All right,” said Henry. “Is he secure?”
“Secure enough.” She stood up, wrapping her shoulders with a spare blanket from the couch, and approached. “How did it go?”
“We hit a few hiccups,” replied Henry. He peeled the BRS charter from my hands and offered it to Natasha. “But here it is.”
But instead of accepting the charter, Natasha hung her head, hiding her face behind her hands. “Oh, God. You know, I was really hoping you wouldn’t pull it off.”
“Um, excuse you?” I said, confused. Of all people, Natasha should’ve been one of the most relieved. After all, the whole reason she had faked her own death in the first place was to escape from Catherine Flynn’s manic influence.
Natasha placed a hand on the charter, fingering the edges of the leather covering before flipping directly to the page with the burn marks through Anthony Costello’s name. “I can’t let you turn in Catherine Flynn.”
“Why?” demanded all three of us at once. Henry retracted the charter, holding it close to his chest as though afraid Natasha might confiscate it from him.
Natasha took a deep breath. “Because I murdered Catherine Flynn’s husband.”
33
A blanketing silence fell over the foyer of the farmhouse. It was so still and quiet that I could hear the muffled jingling of the dogs’ collars as they wandered in from a side room to investigate who had arrived at the front door. Henry was at a loss for words, gaping at his wife. I took the reins.
“You killed Harrison Flynn?” I asked Natasha.
“In self-defense,” she replied. She spoke solely to me, keeping her eyes on mine. “You asked me yesterday what happened between me and Catherine Flynn. The truth is that I had already told you during our spat in the kitchen. She tried to kill you.”
Details of that conversation floated to the front of my mind. Natasha claimed that she’d handed me over to my aunt in order to keep me safe.
“That wasn’t the whole story,” Natasha went on. “Catherine didn’t come to fetch you herself. She sent her husband, Harrison. He was Anthony’s best friend at Waverly, and I think Catherine knew that I would take it particularly hard if he was the one to murder Anthony’s own daughter.”
She wandered away from the front door and into the living room. Like a moth to flame, I followed her. I needed to hear the rest of her story.
“I knew that Harrison was following me,” Natasha continued as she sat on the edge of the couch and rested her head in her palms. “So when he finally caught up with me, I was prepared. I meant to shoot him through the shoulder or the leg. Some non-vital part of the body.” Her voice broke, and her shoulders began to shake. “But he hesitated. I miscalculated, and the bullet went through his chest instead.”
“That’s why you’ve been in contact with Flynn,” I said, finally understanding. “She’s been blackmailing you, hasn’t she?”
“When I left Harrison, he was still alive,” Natasha said. She wiped her eyes on the blanket, leaving a wet stain on the red and green flannel. “I called 911 and ditched my phone, but that night, I couldn’t help but call the local hospital from a payphone to check on him. A member of the society answered—they have people everywhere—then patched me through to Catherine. She told me that we were square. I had something on her, and she had something on me, and if I ever dared to report Catherine’s business with BRS to any police force, she would turn me in for the murder of her husband.”
I placed the BRS charter on the kitchen counter and walked over to the sofa, leaning over the back of it to rest a comforting hand on Natasha’s shoulder. She held on to my fingers. “It was an accident, Natasha,” I reassured her. “Like you said, it was self-defense. It wouldn’t matter if Flynn turned you in.”
“Well,” interjected Wes as he settled
