Dead to Her(105)

“But what about the rest of us? Me and Keisha and Jason?” She paused. Quiet subservient Elizabeth had done all this to them. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so terrifying. Elizabeth and her crazy mother. Voodoo queens.

“Ah, the replacement wife—mentally unstable and from a juju background full of secrets. The liar—hiding her colorful past in a box in the ceiling. And finally, the thief—who didn’t even learn his lesson after his father’s death. A perfect cast of characters for Eleanor’s revenge. All shackled to ghosts of the dead: a boy, a husband, a father.”

“You think you know so much about us,” Marcie sneered, angry. “But you don’t.”

“Oh, but I do. As I said, information is my business. I had Keisha’s life investigated for William, and when you arrived on the scene I did the same. I research everyone who comes into my circles. You always find something useful.” She stared at Marcie, and despite the warmth in her eyes, Marcie shivered. “And my, was your past useful.”

“You’re going to let them go to prison for a murder they didn’t commit. And what about me? Why the stupid doll and the disgusting ball?”

“Why does everyone presume voodoo is curses and devils?” Elizabeth said. “So wrong. Some spells curse and bind, and some protect. Good or bad. It’s all karma.”

“Which was mine? Or Keisha’s?”

Elizabeth didn’t answer, but stood up and went to the window. “The police are here,” she said. “They’ll have traced the email to your old high school back to Jason’s office computer. They still don’t know who sent it, but they may well now be thinking that you were a ménage à trois. You were sleeping with both of them after all, and Jason could well have met Keisha when he went to London. He didn’t, by the way. Like I said, information is my magic. But I digress. Now, here’s where you come in. I’m not going to send anyone to jail. You are.”

“What do you mean?” Marcie was so over this shit.

“I’m going to give you a choice. Jason or Keisha?”

Elizabeth turned and smiled. “I can make it so that one of them goes free and one goes to jail for William’s attempted murder.”

“What?”

“Keisha or Jason. Which do you want to save? The errant husband or the flighty girlfriend? Time’s ticking on.”

Marcie looked down at the barely living body in the bed. She felt sick. She felt relieved. She felt like she was stuck in a fever dream. “But what if William dies? That could be the death penalty.” There was noise behind them in the corridor. Detective Anderson and her sidekick arriving.

“Yes,” Elizabeth said pleasantly. “It will be. But it won’t be you facing it.” She winked, and Marcie, just before answering, decided Elizabeth was mad.





66.

As Elizabeth had said they would, the police had taken Marcie in for further questioning after discovering the email to the high school came from Jason’s work computer—a computer that Marcie had plenty of access to.

Marcie hadn’t answered any of their questions this time, as Kate Anderson quizzed her, trying to find out if all three of them, Marcie, Keisha, and Jason, were in it together. It all was just as Elizabeth had said it would be. Marcie hadn’t bothered to try to defend herself. It felt odd putting her faith in Elizabeth that she wouldn’t be charged, but she found that she did. After all, Elizabeth had been pulling their strings for long enough. Instead, as Anderson had talked at her, she’d zoned out while putting the pieces of Elizabeth’s plan together in her head. Thankfully, finally, the detectives were called out, leaving her alone in the room with her thoughts.

It was almost to be respected, how intricate Elizabeth’s plan had been. She’d known all about Keisha before she even arrived in the city. Emmett had been in love with Elizabeth and so no doubt made sure that Jason’s investments weren’t going to pay out in time. Maybe he even encouraged Jason—at Elizabeth’s behest—to invest money he didn’t have. The figure she’d half recognized at the rave—not Zelda but Elizabeth standing behind her mother, serpent in her arms. She must have arranged for their drinks to be drugged to make Keisha more susceptible to the voodoo. The more unstable she was the more unhappy William would be. Also, the drugs made them looser, hotter for each other, and that was how they got the photo. Enough to make William angry that night and want to keep away from the party and tell Noah he wanted a divorce.

Marcie thought about the coolant. Elizabeth had done all the organizing for the new car and no doubt had a spare key. The light came on after she and Keisha had gone to see Julian and Pierre—when they fucked in the car—and Elizabeth had met them there. She could easily have loosened the cap to make it leak. Elizabeth could have been in the kitchen and injected the cartons at any point after she returned to the party. Julian and Pierre had brought their own catering Winnebago for the canapés and parked it around the back.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.” Detectives Anderson and Washington came back into the room, and only then did Marcie realize that her hands were cold and legs numb from sitting still. How long had they been gone? “There’s been a development, which means that you’re free to go.”

Marcie got to her feet, despite the pins and needles running through her calves. “What do you mean?”