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Maybe I should’ve stopped asking questions, but I had to keep them both talking. “So I guess this means you’re not Mrs. Kyle McVee.”
Serena wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Me and that pansy toffer? Fat chance.”
If she thought Kyle was rich and snooty, how in the world did she put up with Martin?
“So what does that make you and Martin?” I asked.
She gri
Her brother? I looked from one to the other. Why hadn’t I seen the resemblance? Both tall, both thin, the wispy blond hair and pale blue eyes, same shape of the head. “I see it now. But Helen never met you before?”
“No, Martin was busy playing the toff, weren’t you, bro? Didn’t want his big sis coming around.” She continued to keep a vigilant eye on her brother, but her gaze had narrowed a bit. “But baby bro ran into a little trouble up here.” She shrugged. “So who ya go
“Big sister,” I said.
“Bingo,” she said, waving the gun at me. “I hopped the train and got here in two hours. I’ve been here all week. Had plenty of time to play housekeeper. That’s how I got those love letters inside Kyle’s room.”
“Love letters?” I asked.
She relaxed her grip on the gun and exhaled heavily, perhaps a
Kyle’s poison-pen letters. I’d forgotten about them until now.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Robin whispered under her breath. “They’re both nuts.”
Luckily, only I heard her and I squeezed her arm in commiseration. Serena saw the move and aimed the gun back at me.
“I thought people in England didn’t use guns,” I said.
Serena’s laugh was harsh. “You haven’t been in my neighborhood, have you?”
Mentioning her neighborhood reminded me of something that had bothered me from the very begi
Serena chuckled malevolently. “I needed a shill. She was in the right place at the right time and bought my sad-widow story, hook, line and sinker.”
“Figures,” I said.
“She has a good heart but not many brain cells,” she added.
Out of the mouths of criminals.
“So, you’re from a bad neighborhood?”
“It was all right,” she said, and tossed her hair in a defensive gesture.
“It’s just that I always thought Martin was wealthy.” She snorted a laugh. “There’s a good one, eh, Martin?”
“But he owns a bookstore.”
She winked. “He’s a clerk. But the owners trust him, let him take care of the business. He wormed his way into their hearts, didn’t you, darling?” She smiled widely. “No, he’s not the toffer, but he knew how to look the part well enough to snag himself a rich bride. And our Helen’s just the girl. Lets him take care of the finances, don’t you, dear? We don’t want to lose her, now, do we?”
She winked and I stared warily at Helen. She looked more than terrified now. She looked furious.
Serena continued to talk, but Martin was the one I watched. He hadn’t loosened his grasp on Helen, whose eyes were completely focused on him. What was she thinking? Was she looking for the right moment to attack him somehow? She had nothing to lose. Martin seemed more than willing to kill her.
“Taking your tools was a piece of cake,” Serena went on. “Martin told me he’s always stealing things at these book fairs because people don’t pay attention.”
“That’s enough, Rena,” Martin said abruptly. “Just shut up and kill them.”
“Me? What about-”
“Now!”
“In a church?” she said, taken aback. “And go to hell?”
Serena had standards all of a sudden?
“Do it!” he shouted.
“Wait,” I cried, frantically stalling for time. “You… you cut our brake line. Um, how did you know we were going for a drive?”
“What?” He stared at me. He seemed to be losing focus. Maybe he was starting to realize the trouble he was in. Or maybe he was just nuts, as Robin had said.
“Are you okay, Martin?” I asked.
“He’s fine,” Serena said heatedly.
I turned to her. “He seems kind of spaced-out.”
“He gets tired. He’s not been well, worrying about things.” Then she flipped her hair back in a contemptuous move. “Besides, what do you care, anyway?”
True. I didn’t care about him at all, except that he was a murderer and was holding Helen at knifepoint. My knifepoint.
Martin shook his head like a wet dog, coming out of whatever daze he’d been in. “Everybody heard you,” he snapped.
I looked at him. “Heard me what?”
“You and your people, making plans to go to Rosslyn Chapel the other night.”
Oh, great. He’d overheard that freaky conversation with Mom and Dad outside the hotel pub, before they went off to do the conga. “So you cut the brakes in Robin’s car yesterday morning.”
“Yeah,” he said.
“I guess it was quite a shock when you found out Helen was in the car, too.”
“I blame you for that,” he said, glaring at me. “She could’ve been killed.”
Yeah, duh. “What happened to Perry?”
He frowned. “Perry saw me coming out of the auto garage, and later, when word got out that you’d crashed, he tried to blackmail me.”
“Yeah,” Serena said offhandedly. “He had to go.”
“So you killed him,” I said flatly.
“We did it together,” Serena said, beaming. The family that kills together. Jeez.
“A shame,” Martin said. “I always liked Perry.”
He would.
“And you broke into my room last night. Why?”
He looked puzzled. “You’re mad.”
Now I was the puzzled one. “Are you saying you didn’t break into my room last night?”
“Hell, no,” he insisted, then looked at Helen. “I wasn’t in her room, I swear.”
The fact that Helen obviously couldn’t care less didn’t faze Martin, but I believed him. But if it wasn’t Martin, then who broke in? Whom did Gabriel chase away from my room last night?
I had another realization. “You followed me to the National Library.”
Martin chuckled. “Now, that was fun. That shelf fell like a big tree, and you never even saw me.”
“Jackass,” I said under my breath.
“I heard that,” Robin whispered. “We need to get out of here.”
“I know.”
Without warning, Helen said, “Kyle was a wonderful lover.”
“Uh-oh,” Robin murmured.
“What?” Serena said in disbelief.
“Shut up!” Martin said, shaking his wife.
“Jesus Christ, Helen,” Serena cried. “What kind of stupid cow are you?”
“Don’t call her a cow!” Martin shouted.
“Easy, bro,” Serena said, holding up both hands in acquiescence.
Robin swore under her breath. I had to agree; this was not going to end well. And where the hell was everybody? The police? The tourists? Was everyone off having tea or something? Had Serena locked the door behind her?
“You killed the only man I ever loved,” Helen said, her voice strained and halting.
“I told you to shut up!” Martin roared.
“And I’ll never do what you say,” Helen said flatly.
Serena stared in disbelief at her sister-in-law, and I couldn’t blame her. What was Helen thinking by taunting Martin? On the other hand, what did she have to lose?
Martin flexed his arm, putting more pressure on Helen’s throat. It must’ve been the last straw, because she bent, then swung her leg and kicked him in the shin.
Martin grunted. “What’re you-”
She kicked him again.
“Stop provoking him.” Serena moved closer, clearly sensing trouble.
The kick didn’t disarm Martin, but it distracted Serena long enough for me to grab the only thing within reach: the four-foot-high wrought-iron candle stand. I whipped it like a light saber at Serena’s stomach and her gun went flying.
I heard the chapel door bang open then. “Yoo-hoo!”
“It’s Mom!” I shouted at Robin. “Don’t let her come in here!”
Robin took off. I went scrambling for the gun and so did Martin, relaxing his grip on Helen, who sprang loose and went after the only target available: Serena. Robin jumped on her back and started pounding the hell out of her.