I shake my head, not knowing the answer.
“He left me out of his will,” she spits. “Do you know how hard it was to pretend to enjoy riding his gross dick? Or what it felt like to have to give him head on demand?”
Seeing that she wants me to respond, I shake my head again. “No.”
“It was awful,” she says, her voice stony. “I gave myself up for money and in the end, I got none. My mom suggested I move back to this dump and find another sucker. It wasn’t a bad plan. It’s tourist season, and I should have been able to work my way into one of the mansions on the good side of town by now.”
Stopping, she lets out a frustrated scream. Startled, I take another step back. “I said don’t move!” she shrieks.
I stop, putting up my hands in supplication. “I won’t do it again.”
“See that you don’t.”
Bringing the hand with the knife up, she traces it over my jaw. She’s not rough about it but she’s not careful, either. I hiss when she nicks me, my fear ratcheting up another level.
“I had what I needed to make living in this town easy as pie,” she says as she drops her hand back to her side. “All anyone had to do was stay out of my way. It was working until you came along and ruined it. Because of you, Tyler and his piece of shit sidekick Ben decided to confront me and that’s when things turned bad.”
The look on her face when she mentions Tyler and Ben is chilling. Seeing my reaction, she smiles.
“Ah, yes. Benjamin Gates. I’ve got a little something up my sleeve for him, too. Once I take care of you, his little crush is next. By the time I leave tonight, this town will be in ruins.”
“So you’re…” I swallow, unable to get a full sentence out. Taking a breath, I try again. “You’re going to what? Kill me? Kill Meghan? You won’t get away with it. You aren’t a murderer, Rita. Yes, you’re angry and yes, you want to lash out, but I don’t believe for a minute that you’re a killer. You don’t want to go to jail.”
“You sound so certain that I’m not a murderer,” she says, her tone thoughtful. “Today you’re going to learn that people are capable of things you’d never expect. This isn’t my first rodeo, A-cup.”
I’m dimly aware that blood is dripping down my neck from where she nicked me but right now I’m so busy staring at her in astonishment that I can’t be bothered to lift my hand and wipe at it.
“Your first rodeo?”
“I was through with Ronald. Done with his gross pubes, the stench of Paco Rabanne, and the way he insisted on leaving the door open when he took a shit. Animals have better manners than that pig. I wanted to keep the money but be rid of him. It seemed so easy… I should’ve remembered to make sure I was in his will. If I had, everything would’ve been perfect. He was allergic to peanuts. Fucking peanuts, for chrissakes. It was almost too easy to slip a little powdered peanut butter into the shitty, full-of-sugar-and-calories milkshake mix he used every afternoon at work,” she boasts, smiling at the memory.
“I made sure his Epi pens got left behind when I sent him off for the day,” she says, her tone prideful. “The plan was perfect, but there was still risk. How was I to know he was fucking around with an intern? He died while she was on her knees under his desk blowing him while he drank his shake. His business partners made the scandal of a partner going at it with a twenty-year-old intern from the wrong side of the tracks go away, which suited me just fine. No one ever asked why he didn’t have his epi pen. They didn’t ask where he got the shake from. In the end, it was like taking candy from a baby. I literally got away with murder.”
I’m appalled and terrified but also blazingly angry. “You won’t get away with it this time,” I tell her. “No one is going to clean up after you, accidentally or otherwise. Tyler and Ben will hunt you down and when they do, you’ll spend the rest of your life in prison.”
“We’ll see,” she says, laughing darkly.
As she laughs, I hear something in the distance. It takes a few seconds for me to place that it is the sound of a police siren being switched off.
Tyler is coming. I can feel it. I keep my expression neutral, hoping that she didn’t hear it too. When she doesn’t react, I know she didn’t. All I need to do is stall her long enough for him to get here.