Who is Maud Dixon?(83)

“Amira must have heard that,” Florence said. “She’s probably calling the police right now.”

“I sent her home.”

Fuck.

It was time to show her cards. “Well, I called the police,” Florence said. “Before lunch. They’re on their way as we speak.”

Helen paused. “Bullshit.”

“It’s true. Call Dan Massey at the embassy. Ask him.”

“No, you’re lying. I can tell when you’re lying. I’m going to stay right here, Florence, and wait for you to come out. You will have to come out eventually, you know.”

Florence shut her eyes tightly. Idrissi would be here soon. Then he’d find her being held hostage with a gun. Everything would be clear.

“You staged the crash,” Florence finally said. “So I would die and you could steal my identity.”

“Oh, bravo,” said Helen.

Florence realized, absurdly, that her feelings were hurt. All she’d wanted these past few weeks was for Helen to like her. And instead Helen had tried to kill her. That was not generally something people do to people they like.

“How?”

“Jesus, Florence, haven’t you ever seen a movie? I drugged you; I put the car in neutral; I pushed. Fin. Well, no, not fin. That was the problem, wasn’t it? That fucking fisherman. What was he even doing out at ten at night?”

“But why didn’t you just let me be Helen Wilcox?” Florence asked. “If you knew that that was what I was doing anyway? Why’d you come back at all?”

“The money, of course.”

“What money?”

“My money. I made you the beneficiary of my estate. Helen Wilcox has to die for Florence Darrow—that’s me now, remember—to get the money.”

Florence begrudgingly admired the elegance of the plan. Helen could live as Florence Darrow and still get her money through standard legal channels.

“But why did you involve me at all? Couldn’t you have just bought a fake passport or something?”

“Where do you do that, Florence? At the fake passport store? Do they sell social security numbers too? And credit histories? I haven’t a clue where people get false papers.”

“You were really just going to kill me?” Florence asked in a quiet voice. “No qualms whatsoever?”

A sigh. “Florence, I thought I’d been clear with you. We’re all in this alone. We just do what we can to survive.”

Florence said nothing. It was true; Helen had been clear.

Helen’s voice softened somewhat. “In the beginning I wasn’t necessarily going to kill you. If six months had passed and Jenny’s body had decomposed, I would have just fired you and gone on with my life. But after that visit from Detective Ledowski, I had to presume it was all going to come out. We had to get out of the country. And then I watched them find the body on my Nest cam, and I knew I needed to put the plan in motion.”

“Your what?”

“My security system. There are cameras all over the property. The police discovered the corpse the day after we got to Semat.”

“Why are we even in Semat, by the way? It’s obviously not to research your new book, which is just a Paul Bowles rip-off.”

“You caught that, did you? Well, you couldn’t expect me to write a whole new novel just for you to have something to type up. Anyway, we came to Semat for Rue Badr. Google ‘most dangerous roads in Morocco.’ It’s the first one listed.”

Florence remembered the manuscript she’d recovered from Helen’s computer. Iris had checked and rechecked the route to Dar Amal—via Rue Badr—on her phone. “I found your new novel,” she said. “The real one. The Morocco Exchange.”

“It’s good, isn’t it?” The pride in Helen’s voice was unmistakable.

Florence ignored the question. “I finally understand. You don’t write fiction. You probably can’t write fiction. Every word of Mississippi Foxtrot was true—you killed that man and let Jenny go to jail for it even though she’d done nothing.”

“She hadn’t done nothing. She was there. Her job was to get him drunk, which she did. We were just going to fuck with him a little…but I couldn’t stop. I just couldn’t stop. It was the best feeling I’d ever had.”

“And to write another book, you need another story.”

“I’ll admit it, yes, I needed new material. But killing you also happened to be the most efficient way to clean up the mess Jenny had dropped at my doorstep. Besides, I was ready to leave that life behind. I was bored.” Helen’s voice dropped an octave. “And I think you understand, Florence—that desire to become someone new. Life is so varied. There are so many ways to experience it. What a shame to taste only one—especially the lives you and I were born into. I could sense that wandering soul in you the first time I saw you. It’s part of the reason I chose you. I knew you could cast off your old life like you were shrugging off a coat.”

“Chose me?”

“Chose you as my new coat.”

In that moment, Florence saw it all. It hadn’t been sheer luck that Helen had hired her as her assistant; Helen had sought her out. There’s no way Florence could have been the most qualified candidate—she’d just been fired for stalking her boss’s family. What Helen needed wasn’t a talented assistant; it was a new identity.