Vicious Minds (Children of Vice #4)(28)

She’s fucking evil.

The woman, not getting it, opened the wrappers, and sure enough they were the same shape and color as the one Calliope called the ‘antidote.’

“I don’t understand…” the woman whispered. “The poison—”

“Poison?” Calliope frowned, biting into the mint. “What poison?”

“You threw poison on my face—”

“Poison? Me? It was salt,” Calliope said, faking confusion. “The script said throw salt at you, not poison.”

What? What script?

“Huh? Script?” the woman whispered.

Calliope nodded and looked over to me. “For his movie? Aren’t you auditioning too?”

I’m fucking lost.

“Auditioning?” The woman was just as lost as I fucking was.

“Yeah…where is the other guy?” Calliope asked, walking around her and moving to the bathroom. “Hey, dude, scene’s over, come on out.”

She knocked.

“Hello?” She peeked inside and then screamed. She screamed so loud I flinched. She ran back to the leather-clad woman. “What did you do? You killed him!”

“You…I…you told me to!”

“It was just an audition, what have you done?” Calliope’s eyes filled with tears as she stepped back. “You killed him.”

“No…no….”

“You killed him!” Calliope pointed to her before reaching for the phone, and the woman grabbed her arm.

“It was your gun!”

This is an epic clusterfuck, I thought, watching this foolishness.

“We need to call the police, it was an accident—”

“NO! I SAID NO!” The woman screamed, picking up the gun again and pointing it at Calliope.

Does she really not realize she’s out of bullets?

“Okay,” Calliope whispered, holding her hands up. “You escape from the balcony. I’ll stay. I’ll explain….”

The woman relaxed and looked over to me. I just stared back at her.

“Don’t worry, he’s deaf, he still thinks this is part of the script,” Calliope added for the woman, who seemed to be having a mental breakdown.

“Go, now!”

“I’ll go through the front—”

“The cameras! You’re covered in blood! We aren’t that far up, just jump!” Calliope told her.

This was the sixth floor.

“Thank you!” The woman said and rushed to balcony, still dressed in her dominatrix getup. I watched as she climbed over the railing and jumped.

“OH MY GOD!”

“CALL FOR HELP!”

“OH NO!”

The screams from below rang out as we heard the heavy thud and the sound of shattering glass. Calliope spun back to me, her face cringing in disgust. “This mint tastes so bad…but I can’t spit it out anywhere here, ugh.”

Frowning as she came towards me, she used my shirt she was wearing to turn the door handle before stepping into the hall. As we walked towards the stairs she paused, looking into one of the open rooms. I looked too, only to see the same maid who had given her the key laying on the ground. Calliope walked inside and patted the woman’s chest before reaching inside the top of the woman’s uniform.

“It’s always the bra,” she told me, taking her wad of cash back and stepping back in the hall with me. It was only when we reached the stairs did she look to the cameras on the floor, holding her cell phone to them as if it was a remote.

“Was all of this necessary?” I asked her as she moved to the stairs. “You could have just killed them both.”

“I could have, but then the police would investigate it as a double homicide, that investigation would then go to my sister, and they would discover she knew he had been cheating but did nothing. They wouldn’t believe she just let it go…it would have gotten messy. Now it simply looks like woman high on cocaine murdered her lover and threw herself off the balcony. Could I have set the stage without the acting? Maybe, but where would the fun be in that?” She winked at me and walked down the stairs causally.

“When did you think this over?” I asked her as I followed her down the stairs.

“Didn’t really think it through this time,” she unfolded the money and put it in her purse. “I saw the salt and mints in the maid cart and took them. I brought the gun to frame them…and just added to the plan. Luckily, she was a bit high. I gained her trust quickly and she jumped when I said to.”

I pretended to sulk when we got to the bottom. “You just cost me two customers.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Are you fucking serious right now?”

“Definitely can’t be Mrs. Callahan,” I muttered and the look on her face made the corner of my lips turn up.

“Fuck you,” she grumbled as we entered the main lobby. Guests were milling about, shocked and speaking in low tones about what they just witnessed. Meanwhile, the murderer was still grimacing about the flavor in her mouth.

“Lunch?” I asked her, gesturing to the café in the lobby.

“Yes, please.” She took my arm and followed me inside. Everyone was looking out the windows while we sat ourselves.

“Did your sister ask you to do this?” I poured water from the pitcher into her glass before filling my own.