Kiss Me, Kill Me

His eyes adjusted to the dark, dusty room. He found a light switch, but the bulb was burned out or missing. On the far side was an opening that led to a staircase. He shined his pencil-size flashlight and found another switch. A ceiling light illuminated the stairwell and a door below.

Sean walked down along the edge of the wooden stairs hoping to diminish the sound of creaking steps. He carefully cracked open the door to assess the landing. It was the second floor, near the end of the hall. The many hallway doors were closed. When he was confident there was no one there, he stepped out, quietly closing the door behind him.

He heard a voice on the main floor below. By its panicked and shrill tone, it was Whitney.

His phone vibrated in his pocket. He checked the message.

SWAT is en route, ETA 4 min. I’m 9 min out. Talked to the lieutenant, and cops will secure and hold. Stay put.

Sean ignored the last comment. He pocketed his phone and walked down the carpeted hall to the top of a double-wide curving staircase that led to a marbled foyer below. The voice echoed.

“We could go to an island,” Whitney said, sounding delusional. “Wade, we need time alone. With no one to interfere.”

“Okay,” Wade said. “Let’s go. You and me, right now.”

The voices were coming from almost directly beneath Sean. That meant they weren’t near the front of the house. He sent Suzanne a message to that effect, and started down the stairs. Almost immediately he realized that if he continued, everyone in that room would be able to see him. He got on his knees and looked through the railings. The room was a den with two narrow windows looking out into the side yard and several evergreen trees.

He couldn’t see Lucy or Whitney, but Wade stood next to a sofa where an unconscious older female lay. There was blood on her head.

He silently went back up the stairs, gave Suzanne the information, then checked the rest of the floor for a second staircase. He thought in a house this big there’d be another way down, but there wasn’t.

He would have to take his chances.

THIRTY-THREE

Sean had seen only the art Whitney had drawn on the wall of the den, but Lucy saw that she’d been hard at work. Dozens of drawings were strewn around the room and taped on the walls. They were rough, hurried, and incomplete, without her usual meticulous attention to detail. These had a sharper, almost frantic texture to them. But the subject was still obvious: Wade Barnett.

Wade stood next to his unconscious mother lying on the couch. “Let’s do it, Whitney. Right now,” Wade said. “I have the money. We’ll go to Martha’s Vineyard. My family has a place there.”

Lucy had been watching Whitney carefully. She was using Dennis as a shield of sorts because Dennis was being compliant. She kept one hand on a shoulder, and used the gun to poke him when she wanted to make a point.

Whitney was on edge, but she wasn’t stupid.

“I saw the cops driving by, Wade. I told you not to call them! How could you betray me again? ”

“I didn’t tell the police.”

“I don’t believe your lies anymore!” she screamed. Dennis jumped and she hit him with the gun. He cried, and urine seeped through his pants down to the floor.

Lucy saw the embarrassment and horror on Dennis’s face.

Whitney wrinkled her nose. “What is that smell?”

Dennis mumbled, “I’m sorry I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Denny,” Wade said, taking a step toward his brother before Whitney turned the gun on him.

“Stay right there!”

“Please let him go to his room. He’ll stay there, I promise.”

“Your promises mean shit!” Then her voice and face softened. “It’s going to be okay. I figured out the problem in our relationship. It was because on September thirteenth I told you I didn’t want to go to the Yankees game.”

Wade looked confused, but Lucy remembered the journal entry. It was from seventeen months ago. Whitney still remembered the exact day. Lucy had to get her to keep talking.

“I didn’t even see you in September,” Wade said.

“Yes, you did! No. The year before, remember?”

Wade’s face paled. “Yes, I remember.” Wade wasn’t a good liar. Whitney was going back and forth too fast, from angry to calm. Lucy needed to keep her calm. Dennis was sobbing, and it was clearly grating on Whitney.

Lucy asked, “What happened that day?”

“Wade said, ‘Let’s go to the Yankees game.’ And I said, ‘I don’t want to.’ And he was upset and we did what I wanted, but that’s where I went wrong.” She turned to Wade, suddenly looking the personification of innocence. “I’ll always go to the baseball games with you. That’s why you fucked Alanna, right? Because she liked baseball. But you don’t need her anymore because I love baseball. I know every stat of every player. Try me.”

“Whitney, I don’t-”

“Ask me a question!”

Lucy asked, “How many world series have the Yankees won?”

“Twenty-seven!” Whitney smiled. “The last one was 2009.”

“What number was Babe Ruth?” Lucy asked. She watched the gun in Whitney’s hand. That finger playing with the trigger made Lucy extremely nervous.

“Three!” Whitney said. “It’s retired. And Roger Maris was number nine. Reggie Jackson was forty-four, and-”

Wade interrupted her. “Okay, I believe you.”

Lucy shot him a look of frustration. There would have been nothing better than for Whitney to spend the next twenty minutes reciting baseball statistics.

Whitney frowned. “I’m so sorry.”

“I forgive you.”

“You don’t mean it.”

“Yes, I do,” Wade said, dripping with exaggerated sincerity. “I forgive you for everything. For the baseball game, for killing all those women-”

Lucy tried to cut him off. “Whitney, who’s the manager for the Yankees?”

But Whitney wasn’t listening to her. She said, “Women? You mean those druggy whores who thought they were better than me? They tricked you. You didn’t know better, didn’t realize they were witches casting a spell on you. The only way to break the spell was to get rid of them.”

Whitney said to Lucy, “Get me that bag.” She gestured to a duffel bag on the floor near the door. Lucy hadn’t noticed it before.

Lucy walked slowly over. Out of the corner of one eye she saw a flash of movement down that hall, then nothing. Sean? SWAT?

She bent and picked up the bag. It wasn’t heavy. She returned.

“Empty it out.”

Lucy unzipped the bag. Inside was a collection of mismatched shoes. Her stomach rolled as she turned the bag upside down and the shoes fell to the floor. Two spike heels, one black and one silver; two flip-flops, and a silver flat that matched the shoe on Sierra Hinkle’s foot.

“That’s what’s left of those bitches,” Whitney told Wade. “And you did it to them. You killed them.”

Wade was overcome at the evidence of Whitney’s crimes. “Whitney, what-why? Why did you kill them?”

“To save you.”