LITMIR.BIZ

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tell me briefly about your childhood, I’ll be on my way.”

      Staynor didn’t invite Rhona to come further or to sit down. In a low voice he said, “Did you ever read J.M. Barrie? He wrote Peter Pan. Well, he also said the only thing to motivate anyone to return from beyond would be the wish of a mother who had died young to return and reassure herself about the fate of her child. My mother died young; I’m hoping she never returned.”

      “How old were you when she died?”

      “Ten.”

      “What happened then?”

      “We buried her.”

      “Did your father remarry.”

      “Eventually.”

      “Where were you living when your mother died?”

      “Windsor.”

      “Do you remember much from those years.”

      Two big tears rolled slowly down Staynor’s cheeks as he shook his head.

      “I am sorry. I will have to talk to you again, but that’s it for today.”

      Wordlessly, Staynor opened the door and showed her out.

      Four thirty. Did she have time to drive to the station and speak to Ms Cardwell again?

      Nineteen

      A dusty cloth covered her head and swirled around her as it was pulled tight.

      “What the hell? What are you doing? Let me go.” Hollis coughed, choked and fought panic.

      Knox responded by twisting the material more tightly.

      She flailed, twisted and tried to scramble to her feet.

      “I’m claustrophobic. I can’t bear this. Let me out. I can’t breathe.” She sobbed and sucked in dusty air. Her legs sagged and gave way. She fell forward, with nothing to break her fall.

      Everything went black.

      A kick in the ribs.

      “Goddamn it, don’t pass out. I have to move you downstairs to the car.” Another kick.

      “Uncover my head,” she whispered before another spasm of coughing took her breath away.

      Silence. Knox shoved her around, pulling and tugging at whatever he’d thrown over her. He yanked the fabric back. Her glasses flew off her nose. Her skull snapped forward and her face banged against the floor.

      Pain. Her nose felt like it was broken.

      Knox pushed her hard and worked to tie her arms to her sides. Somehow he pinned her left arm behind her.

      “Knox, stop. Why, why are you doing this?”

      He strained to flip her from one side to the other.

      “Roll over.”

      Hollis turned her head and regarded his distorted face. “Take it easy. What’s the problem? Let me help with whatever’s wrong. Please give me my glasses.”

      Knox stepped away. With his eyes on her face, he lifted his foot and crashed it down on her glasses. “You know very well what’s wrong. And where you’re going, you won’t need your glasses.” Knox spoke in a level, unemotional voice.

      “Knox, I haven’t any idea why you’ve done this. Please, please, if this is some kind of sick joke, stop right now.”

      “You are going to receive what your dear . . .” His voice altered. She heard the hatred.

      The penny dropped.

      Knox—innocuous, fervent, boring Knox, had killed Paul and planned to kill her.

      She screamed. “Help, someone help.”

      Knox grabbed a large white linen napkin from the half-open drawer, stuffed it in her mouth and tied it behind her head. He continued as if she hadn’t interrupted him. “Receive what your dear husband did, and good riddance to both of you.”

      The same frightening unemotional tone.

      “You thought you’d pick up where he left off, didn’t you?” His voice changed—it menaced and threatened before his kick inflicted real pain.

      Assimilating the knowledge that Knox had murdered Paul and intended to murder her, she absorbed the blow soundlessly. Ideas flipped and flashed through her mind like landed fish frantically seeking escape. She tried to talk around the gag and tell him he had it all wrong—she had no idea why he’d killed Paul.

      “Are you going to scream?”

      When she shook her head, he loosened the napkin.

      Before he changed his mind and tightened it, she said, “Let me go, and we’ll forget tonight ever happened.”

      “Very funny. You’d bleed me dry. As it is, your dear . . . your dear husband drained me of almost four thousand dollars.”

      “Paul blackmailed you?”

      “As if you didn’t know. Wednesday, at the visitation, you told us you’d be continuing his work. You said you knew everything he’d done. Right then I decided to give you a scare, to warn you I was serious, and then to drop a letter on your door step informing you that you had one chance to stop, to warn you, you’d get what Paul got if you continued.”

      “Wrong, wrong, wrong. Think about it—it’s simple. I didn’t respond to your threats or the letter because I didn’t know anything. I didn’t know anything. I still don’t.”

      “I’d like to believe you. But, even if I did, it’s too late. I’ve told you I killed Paul, I have to kill you too.” He sounded resigned, but sure of his course. “Rationally, Hollis, you have to face the fact—it’s impossible. You’d go to the police, and I’d be finished. No, I’m sorry, but you have to die.”

      The reasonable tone of his speech terrified her. Clearly, he saw no alternative. Rhona Simpson’s face flashed into her mind. What time was it? When Simpson arrived at eight and she wasn’t there, would she wait or come here? Time—she needed time.

      Somewhere she’d read criminals loved to gloat and relate the details of a successful crime. Might an appeal to Knox’s vanity, a request for him to share the details of his clever scheme buy her minutes and improve the odds that Simpson would arrive?

      “Knox, how did you organize it? Why don’t you tell me.”

      “You’re stalling, but it doesn’t matter. Linda’s taken the kids to her sister’s overnight. I have hours. Once you’re dead, I’ll never be able to tell anyone else.”

      Once she was dead. If Detective Simpson didn’t arrive . . .

      “I devised the plan months ago, when Paul said he wanted higher payments. Impossible to raise more money without Linda catching on—Paul forced me to act and, if I do say so myself, I worked out the perfect plot.”

      She shuddered at the complacency and pride in Knox’s voice but suppressed her revulsion. “Tell me how you did it.”

      “I decided if I dressed like everyone else at the marathon, no one would notice one more runner. I practiced bending down to tie my shoe and then straightening up, lurching a little, and driving in the knife. I’m a zoologist and very good with knives.” Knox’s voice had lost its tonelessness. He spoke quickly and with animation in a self-congratulatory tone.

      Hollis pictured her body slashed, chopped in small pieces and stuffed in green garbage bags but resolutely pushed the image away. “Weren’t you afraid someone would recognize you?”

      “Oh no. Runners resemble one another. I wore one of my son’s baseball caps, dark glasses and, what was most important—I shaved off my beard. I’ve worn it ten years, and I look very different

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