I spun around to face Millie. “We’ve got to get Peter—I mean, Officer Flint! They’ve arrested the wrong guy!”
I frowned as I took in the scene. Millie pointed her wand at me, her expression wan.
Chills crept up my spine—something was very wrong here.
She curled her lip back. “You’re not going anywhere.”
35
IRONIC
“Heyyy, Millie.” I slowly raised my palms.
She kept her wand leveled at my chest. “Where’s your wand?”
I gulped as my pulse pounded in my ears. This was bad—very bad. I now had the creeping suspicion that I’d placed my trust in the wrong person, and was, perhaps, alone in this dark office building with the killer.
I glanced out the dusty windows to my left. A few stories down below, the street bustled with passersby. Would they hear me if I started screaming?
“Where’s your wand?!”
I jumped, and Millie raised her brows at me. The light from the neon sign I’d just flipped on cast her face in planes of red and blue. I struggled for breath, my chest tight.
“I, uh—I don’t have a wand.” My hands trembled as adrenaline coursed through me.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Please.” She scoffed and held out her free hand, palm up. “Hand it over.”
I gave a little shake of my head. “I really don’t have one.” I mean, I did, tucked up in that box in my closet, but it was of no use to me anymore. I’d lost my powers—why bother hauling it around? I raised my brows and plastered on a smile that felt more like a wince.
“Could I borrow yours?” I let out a hollow chuckle.
Millie glared at me.
Hoo boy. She wasn’t one for nervous, ’bout-to-die humor, I guess. My hands trembled where I held them up by my shoulders. I tried to swallow but my mouth had gone desert dry.
Without powers, Millie had all the advantage of me. I could maybe outrun her, but I stood in the middle of the large office with only a couple of desks to hide behind. And I couldn’t throw her off by turning out the lights—she stood beside the switch to the neon sign outside.
Maybe if I could get to the secretary’s desk behind me, I could let the parakeet out and send it to get help. My face fell. Who was I kidding? That bird would probably swoop into the first bar outside and get trapped flying around the ceiling. Not to mention, I was the only one who could speak to it, so not sure how giving it a message would help.
The tip of Millie’s wand glowed bright red, and my stomach clenched at the thought of what lethal spell she was conjuring up. My mad, panicked brain could only think to stall her—to delay what now appeared to be my inevitable death.
A heavy blanket of depression settled on my chest. If my life flashed before my eyes now, all I could imagine thinking was, well that sucked.
But in the interest of extending the suckiness for as long as possible, I tried to engage Millie.
“It was you, wasn’t it? You killed Bim and Zozanna.” I rolled my eyes at myself. Way to state the obvious, Captain Dur.
But to my surprise, she answered me. “Yes. And I’m going to kill you, too.”
Urp. Not the response I’d been hoping for. The tip of the wand glowed brighter as Millie’s expression darkened with deep concentration.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I shook my head. “I mean, I get why you killed Zo—she was sleeping with your husband.” I gulped. “The floozie!” Hopefully I was endearing myself to her through my faux outrage. I gave a little shake of one fist.
Millie shot me a flat look.
Yeah. This was not my best work. I cleared my throat, and my gaze darted to the neon sign outside. I recalled my previous theory.
“I was right—wasn’t I? I mean, kind of. I thought the courier mistook Bim for Zo, but it was you, wasn’t it? You were blinded by the light and killed Bim by accident.”
A flash of pain crossed Millie’s face, but it passed, and she sneered at me. Her curlers and robe lent the whole situation a macabre sort of levity. “How dare you.” She bared her teeth, and I realized my mistake.
I waved my hands. “Wait! I mean… it’s totally understandable. No one would blame you for wanting Zozanna dead.” I gulped, my heart thundering in my chest. “You were in such a humiliating situation.”
“Humiliating?” Millie scoffed, her red-tipped wand still pointed squarely at me. “Why should I be humiliated because of something my stupid piece of detritus husband did?”
“If you came here to kill Zo, you must have known about the signal, right?” My breaths came in short pants. “You thought she’d be here when you saw the sign go on. You didn’t know she’d left and that Bim was using the office for the night while her studio was being treated for pests.”
Millie pinched her mouth shut tight, but her chest heaved.
I pressed on, hoping to get her to break down and stop… or at least stay distracted from killing me for a little while longer. “You had to get away from your husband—you had to keep him from meeting Zo that night.” I nodded as pieces fit into place. “The tea—it was you.”
Millie sneered. “I drugged him. Snatched the leaves from Martin Shaw’s shop while he was distracted baby-talking one of his plants.” She rolled her eyes. “Men! Anyway, a little makes you sleep…”
Her expression darkened, and I shuddered.
“A lot makes you sleep forever.”
Okay, someone had officially gone off the deep end. “So the tea that poisoned Zozanna—you sent it?”
She nodded, and my breath caught. I remembered where I’d smelled the tea before—not just at Martin Shaw’s shop, but on Turk the night Bim was killed. He’d reeked of it.
Millie’s hand trembled. “You don’t know what it’s like! Cheating on me—right under my nose!” Her face, even in the shifting neon light from the sign, glowed red,
