Page 53 of One Last Whisper

She takes a drag from her cigarette and shrugs. “Well, the world gains from it, doesn’t it? That sod from Tarly won’t be dealing more drugs to hook kids on and ruin them, will he?” She notices my shock and laughs. “Oh, that’s right. You don’t know about that one. Yeah, that was my first. My first here, anyway. Didn’t do it here, though. I followed him back to his place in Tarly and beat him to death with a truncheon.”

I am sick to my stomach. She speaks of killing a man as flippantly as I would speak of changing my coat.

“As for the others. Let’s see. Evelyn was a whore. We talked about that. Couldn’t understand how the wife of a lord would sell herself out like that.”

“She could have gotten help,” I tell her. “She could have found a doctor to help her get clean.”

She frowns. “What? Oh!” She throws her head back and laughs. “Oh, that bit about the drugs wasn’t true. That was just Lady Alivia. No, Evelyn wasn’t an addict. Just a whore.” She chuckles. “Why’d I come up with that, anyway? Must have been in me cups a little more than I thought. Now, Alivia, though. She was absolutely an addict.” She shakes her head. “Poor Oliver. Never stood a chance with a mother like that. And to take advantage of Lord Edmund’s generosity the way she did.” She shook her head. “Despicable.”

“But Sarah? Why her?”

"Ah, yes. Sarah. That stupid little cow-faced thief. You wouldn't notice because you haven't been here long, but Lady Cordelia’s missing a fair bit of her jewelry. I caught Sarah wearing it in her room. She begged me not to tell and said she’d put it right back. I told her that she shouldn’t give it right back or Lady Cordelia would notice. I’d show her where to hide it, then put it back when I was able. And I wouldn’t tell a soul that she took it. I kept that promise.”

She meets my eyes. “And now we come to you. Little Miss Hero. Mary Wilcox, the superhero governess who just has to be the detective. How does a woman get to be your age without knowing to mind their own business?”

As frightened as I am, I still feel angry. I can’t stand thinking that Theresa will get away with all of this.

It’s that emotion that informs my response. “How does a woman get to be your age without knowing that murdering people is wrong?”

She wags a finger at me. “You see. That’s where you’ve got it wrong, Mary. I didn’t get to be this age. I’ve just always been like this. I’m really not all that special. Started with animals when I was a lass, just like so many do. Never really knew why I liked hurting them. Just found it fascinating, I guess, how hard they fight for life even when there’s no chance. They can’t understand that it’s over the moment I have them in the trap.”

She finishes her cigarette and lights another one. “Sure you don’t want one, Mary? I really will help you smoke it. You’ve got a hard few days coming, and this might be your last chance to take the edge off.”

I shiver at the implication she makes, but I refuse the cigarette. She shrugs and continues with her horrible life story.

“I’m not a monster. I’m really not. I grew up, realized what I was doing was wrong, and decided I wouldn’t do it anymore.And I didn’t. I got a job in service with Baron Harcourt in Devonshire, and I stayed clean. When I had urges, I just found another way to take the edge off.” She grins and lifts her cigarette. “That’s how I got into these.”

She sighs. “But it wasn’t enough. Of course it isn’t. Once you’ve felt a life struggle for itself inyourhands, felt it fight with everything it has, you know that you’ll never feel anything like it again. There’s nothing beats that rush, Mary: not drugs, not sex, not alcohol, not money, nothing. And when the inevitable happens, and you take that life regardless of its wish not to die… well, that makes you a god, doesn’t it? At least to those few.”

She stares at the wall with a faraway look in her eyes. I look at her face and marvel at how human it looks. How normal. I spent so much time with this woman and could never tell what she was.

After a minute or two, she starts and grins at me. "Where was I? Oh yes. So I knew I couldn't just go around killing everything I saw. I mean, aside from the fact that I'd make it, what, a week or two before I got shot, there's the fact that people aren't animals. They're people with hopes, dreams, and thoughts like you and me. I can't just kill them because I like killing them. So I picked my targets. I picked people who deserved it. Druggies, drunks, violent men, sometimes violent women: people who used their lives to abuse themselves or others.

“Took me a while to figure it out. Had a couple of close calls in Devonshire. One of them came too close. So I took a step back. I figured out that I needed something more than just an opportunity. I needed a plan. I needed a place where no one could see me, a way to dispose of the bodies, and a good cover story so no one would think to suspect me. And wouldn’t you know it, I found all of that here.”

She shakes her head in wonder. “If you could have seen my face when I found this place. It’s as though it were designed forsomeone like me. Probably it was. Those old lords… they knew they were gods, and they acted like it.

“But I only killed those who deserve it. That’s why I’ve only killed four people since coming here. People here are good folk for the most part. There’s not much to do to clean up. Guess that’s the silver lining to the cloud of losing this place.”

She stands and finishes her cigarette. Then she looks at me curiously. With the care of an artist, she presses the cigarette to the upper portion of my breast where the shirt doesn’t cover.

There’s no chance of holding back the scream. The pain is something utterly sharp and unbelievable. She smiles and nods, satisfied. “Oh yes. I’ll have some fun with you.”

She leaves then, shutting the door behind her. I hang from the wall, trembling and shaking with pain and fear and rage.

“Help!” I shriek. “Please help me!”

The only response is Theresa's laughter as she ascends the stairs. I keep screaming until I hear the low rumble of the bookcase returning to its place. Then I burst into tears and wept.

For the first time, I have met my match. There’s no way out. All that’s left for me is to wait for Theresa to grow bored. Then she’ll toss me onto the cliffs, and all that will be left of me is my ghost.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

Annie comes to visit me that night. The room is pitch-black during the night, but I can see her, so I know I'm dreaming. She is, as I remember her, tall and beautiful and full of life. She smiles at me and says, "Hey, sis. Got yourself in a bit of a pickle, huh?"

I laugh, but those laughs turn to sobs. “I’m done for, Annie. She’s beaten me. Sean warned me that one day, I would go too far and get myself into this kind of trouble, and he was right. I’m going to die.”

“No,” she insists. “You won’t. If you keep your wits about you, you’ll survive.”