If Books Could Kill

Chapter 16

“Helen?” I called.

“In here!” she cried. She had to be behind the wide arch. There was nowhere else to hide in here. The place was literally the size of a kid’s playhouse.

I hesitated inside the nave. If this was a trap, I didn’t want to be caught without an escape route. “Helen, the police are on their way.”

“Fuck that!” a man yelled. “Get over here or she’s going to die.”

“Martin?”

I wasn’t surprised. I’d never really believed that fake apology of his. What a snake.

“Move it!” he shouted.

I looked at Robin, who shook her head madly. “Don’t.”

“What else can I do?” I whispered.

“Who’s there with you?” he shouted.

“No one,” I said. “I talk to myself when I’m nervous.”

“She’s lying,” a chirpy voice sang out from behind us.

Serena stood a few feet away, pointing a gun at us.

“Serena?”

“Surprise,” she said.

Serena and Martin, accomplices? Curiouser and curiouser.

“Move it.” She jerked the gun toward the altar, and we took that as a sign to get moving.

Robin grabbed my arm and we approached the altar, which was separated from the nave by a velvet rope extended across the archway. The small altar area was painted white and the ceiling was low and vaulted. I felt as if I were walking inside an igloo. Stained-glass windows illuminated the space, throwing blue and green shards of color across the stone floor. A font of holy water was suspended on the far wall, and covering the altar were layers of elegantly braided and embroidered blue, gold and white silk ru

A body was sprawled under the altar.

“Royce?” I said.

Robin whispered, “Is he dead?”

“Not yet,” Martin said menacingly. “But the day’s not over yet. Now shut up and come over here where I can see you.”

I unhooked the velvet rope and peeked around the arch. Martin had one arm around Helen’s neck in a choke hold and was pressing a knife to her throat with his other hand.

“Martin, what are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m pouring tea, you stupid bitch. What do you think I’m doing?”

“I thought you loved Helen,” I said. “Why are you hurting her?”

Helen squirmed and he struggled to adjust his grip. “This seems to be the only way to get my darling wife to cooperate.”

“Really?” I said. “Because that technique never works for me.”

“That’s because you’re a bitch whore.”

“Well, that explains it,” Robin whispered.

I turned to glower at her but met Serena’s gaze instead. She didn’t look so willowy and wrung-out now. She looked ski

“Helen’s not like you,” Martin said with a sneer, and tightened his hold. Helen began to gag and he let up slightly. “She can be taught to obey.”

“Of course she can,” I said, watching Helen, who stared back at me with wide eyes. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, and I knew she was scared to death. So was I. But to get us out of here, I was going to have to placate a psycho. Been there, done that. Hoped I’d learned something.

“She just needs to remember who’s in charge,” he said, emphasizing each word by jerking his arm against Helen’s throat. “Am I right, Helen? There won’t be any more talk of divorce, will there, Helen?”

Helen’s eyes goggled.

“Stop,” I said frantically. “Threatening her with a knife is not what love’s all about.”

“Shut up,” he said. “You don’t know anything.”

“I know Helen still loves you,” I said, pushing the truth, but desperate to make him reconsider his actions. “She, um, told me. And you told me you loved her, too.”

He swallowed, then shook his head and grumbled, “I said shut up.”

“Okay.”

He didn’t seem to know what to do next. Helen looked utterly terrified.

“So you killed Kyle,” I said slowly, since I wasn’t ready to shut up entirely.

“Yeah,” he snarled. “And good riddance.”

“Why?”

He stretched his neck and shoulders. “He thought he could fuck around with my wife. I warned him to stop, but he just laughed at me.”

“You warned him?”

Helen’s eyes met mine and I knew she was hearing this for the first time, her own husband verifying that he had killed her lover.

“Yeah, and he wouldn’t stop.” Martin waved his knife defensively as he spoke. “Said she was filing for divorce so she’d be free to go with him. Wrong!”

“What did you do, Martin?”

His chuckle was raw and evil. “It was so friggin’ easy. What a posh ass. I got him into that room as easily as I got you to come here.”

“You called his cell while we were at the pub,” I said. “You told him you had Helen.”

He laughed smugly. “Yes, and he came ru

Robin edged closer to me, obviously as creeped out by him as I was.

“So he must’ve loved Helen very much to go with you,” I reasoned.

“No! He didn’t love her. I love her, and no one else can have her.”

I watched as Helen absorbed the words. Her face crumpled as she began to cry, began to realize that maybe Kyle had loved her, after all. I couldn’t say that he had or hadn’t, but if it helped in the moment to ease some of her pain, then it was worth it to say that yes, he’d loved her.

But oh, God, Angus MacLeod was right: Kyle’s murder wasn’t about a book at all. It was about Martin being insanely jealous of his wife’s relationship with Kyle McVee. Martin had killed the man to get his wife back. I’d always known Martin was emotionally abusive, but I’d never really suspected he could be a killer.

My mistake.

I glanced behind me, considering the possibility of distracting Serena and grabbing Martin’s knife. I turned back and focused on the knife and Martin. That was when I realized he was holding my knife. My French paring knife with its two-inch-wide, flat, square blade. I’d sharpened it finely enough to split a hair, so even if he barely grazed her, he would draw blood.

I had to breathe, had to center my thoughts. Unfortunately, they were racing around in circles. “Why me, Martin? Why did you use my tools?”

“I saw you with him,” he said, his eyes like lasers honing in on me. “On the street. I was following him, trying to trap him, and I saw him grab you. You kissed him. I knew you were a whore bitch.”

Okay, that was getting old. Martin was undoubtedly insane. The signs might’ve been there all along, but I’d never seen them.

“He hates you,” Serena explained.

“I get that,” I muttered.

“He’s not exactly speaking in code,” Robin said, a smart-ass to the end.

“You shut up,” Serena warned Robin. To me, she said smugly, “It was my idea to steal your tools. Martin wanted to make you pay somehow. He’s always hated you, from the time he first met you in Lyon. You were so full of yourself. You tried to talk Helen out of marrying Martin. McVee tried to do the same thing, right, Martin? When you were all in Lyon, right? Seems he wanted Helen for himself, even back then.”

Martin pressed his lips into a thin line, so Serena kept talking. “McVee acted like nothing was going on between him and Helen, even pretending friendship, offering to buy Martin a drink on occasion. He tried that a few nights ago when they first arrived. That was the last straw, wasn’t it, Martin?”

Martin leaned against the vaulted wall, dragging Helen with him. Was he growing tired of all the talk? If he reached the end of his rope, would he let Helen go or would he kill her?

“How’d you get into my room to steal my tools?” I asked, not only to stall for time but because I needed to know.

Serena snorted a laugh, then chirped, “Housekeeping.”

“You,” I said, as realization dawned. “You were that hotel maid. The first day I was here.”

“The girls prefer you call them housekeepers,” she said acerbically.

Whatever. “Yeah, sorry.”

“No wonder I could never get any towels,” Robin murmured. She was acting cool, but her eyes darted back and forth between Serena and me. She wore an expression of both worry and revulsion with some impatience mixed in. Not a good combination.