Page 52 of One Last Whisper

She scoffs. "Both of them. Evelyn was a drug addict, too. Horrible. Not to mention she cheated on Lord Edmund. Used to do it with the local dealer for a dime bag of dope or a rock of fentanyl. Don't know if they call 'em rocks like they do with coke, but the point is if you happened to walk by the manor every other Wednesday while his Lordship was at his office in London, you’d find Lady Evelyn on her knees earning her fix.” She shook her head. “I wasn’t surprised at all when I found her dead with that needle in her arm, all covered in vomit.”

I set my fork down, my heart pounding. The disquiet I feel has turned into alarm. I swallow and notice how thick and furry my tongue feels. “You… you said that you… couldn’t find her. When you searched the house. You said she had just disappeared.”

She smiles at me. Her teeth are white and even. They gleam like marble under the brittle diamonds of her eyes. “Did I say that? It's so hard to keep all these stories straight."

I get to my feet, consumed with fright. I lift a trembling hand to her and stumble backwards. “You… you…”

“Are you all right there, Mary?” she says with a lilt in her voice. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

The world spins around me, and the last thing I see before darkness takes me is the gleam of Theresa’s stony smile.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

The first sensation I’m aware of is a coppery scent. It’s tangy and unpleasantly sweet, and it sticks to the roof of my mouth, leaving a metallic residue that curdles my stomach.

I turn my head, and my next sensation is a cold and hard object pressed against the back of my head. Or rather, my head is pressed against something hard and cold. More touch comes to me, and I feel something equally cold and hard gripping my wrist. My shoulders ache, and there’s an unpleasant stretch in my side, almost as though I’m hanging from a—

My eyes fly open, and alertness returns to me in the worst possible way. I look around wildly, willing myself to see anything other than what I’m seeing. I squeeze my eyes shut and open them again, hoping to drive this nightmare away.

But I don’t drive it away. The nightmare is still here. And it’s no dream.

I’m shackled to the wall in Lord Edmund’s torture room. There’s a dim light from the platform across the way, just enough to confirm to me that my worst fears have come true. Only it wasn’t Lord Edmund’s room after all, was it?

Fear slithers up my spine and overwhelms my will. I take a deep breath and shriek, “Help! Help me! Someone help me! Oh God. Help!”

I hear a low rumble and fall silent. A moment after that, I hear footsteps and realize that the low rumble I’ve heard is the sound of the bookcase in Lord Edmund’s library opening.

The footsteps approach and panic takes hold of me again. “Help! Help me! Please!”

I struggle to pull myself free. It’s a useless thing, I know, but fear has overridden my sanity. “Help!”

A shadow falls over the door, and I shriek when my murderer walks in a moment later.

“Won’t do you no good to scream, Mary,” Theresa says. “There’s no one left to hear you but me.”

“You… you… you’re…”

She grins. “Me.”

She chuckles and pulls a cigarette from her pocket. I stare at her in shock, and she says, “A bit hypocritical, I suppose, given me speech about drugs and alcohol, but I’ve never gotten on my knees for a pack of cigarettes, and I’ve never driven drunk and killed an innocent person. So”—she takes a drag—“can’t really say it’s the same thing, can you? Oh.” She offers me one. “Want one? Don’t worry, I’ll help you smoke it. No need for me to be especially rude, is there?”

She laughs, and that laugh sends a wave of anger through me. I try to kick her, only to find that my feet are chained to massive steel balls.

"Cannonballs," she informs me. "Sixty-four-pounders. Not common to find, but with the troubles with the French, some English lords opted to defend their keeps with the biggest guns they could have. Lord Michael Blackwood was one of them." Her brow furrows. "Or was it Lord Henry?" She shrugs. "Point is, I figured you'd try to fight me. You've got spirit in you."

“So you killed them,” I say. “All of them.”

“All of them,” she confirms. “Someone had to. Don’t mean to be rude, but they were all deserving of it. Weak, pathetic little creatures.”

I can’t believe the creature I’m staring at. How could I have missed this? How could I have so easily been taken in by her wholesomeness? I fancy myself a good judge of people, but I don’t see anything in Theresa to warn me that she is so evil.

Yet here I am, utterly at her mercy. Utterly under the control of a serial killer.

My stomach turns. In the past, I’ve dealt with crimes of passion, single murders by people who have allowed their selfishness to overcome them in one brief moment of rage. This is the first time I’ve dealt with someone who kills as a pastime.

That’s why she so easily fools me. She’s shrewd. She’s learned how to protect herself. She realized I was a threat, and she kept her distance from me while at the same time keeping me close. I’ve been made a fool of.

I still don’t understand, though. “Why?” I ask her. “Why did you kill all of them? What do you gain from it?”

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