Page 4 of Final Cost

He followed me to Europe. I never suspected a thing, as he well knew, and he couldn’t wait to throw my naiveté in my face once he decided he’d had enough of me. And suddenly the whole improbable chain of events leading to our summer romance became painfully clear.

It went something like this:

He saw me at the airport. He wanted me. So he followed me to Europe. Stalked me, as a matter of fact. Because it was all a game for him. Instead of doing the normal, non-shady thing like asking me for a drink when we both got back to the city after our separate trips.

I was never a person with her own life and feelings as far as he was concerned. I was only a trinket he wanted to collect, the same as a blue Fabergé egg he might have bought at an auction and then sold at the next auction when he got tired of looking at it and decided he wanted a gold one instead.

Maybe I’m selling myself short. I was pretty enough to catch his attention, I suppose, and lucky enough to catch him on a day when he was bored enough to follow me. I guess he wanted to see how quickly he could seduce me. How tightly he could wrap me around his little finger. How deeply he could pull me into his twisted world. The thing that really sickens me is that I made it all so easy for him. I couldn’t have made it easier. He twinkled his eyes at me and I was a goner. Now here I am, damaged. Hell, most days I feel ruined. But I still have my pride.

And Mrs. Hooper is still watching me.

“I’m fine. Really.” I hoist a smile back onto my lips. It takes a great deal of exhaustive effort. Then I catch myself reaching for the little necklace with the car pendant he gave me to remind me of my father, a car mechanic, remember I took it off and swore to myself I’d never wear it again, and drop my hand. “I know you’re right. I had a summer adventure, but it’s over now. And I’m getting ready for a new job, new apartment and making new friends. I’m excited about all that.”

“And dating new men, honey. Don’t forget about that.”

A new man. Right. I fight back a grimace. I want to jump back into the dating world the way a double amputee wants to take another stab at climbing that ladder with his running chainsaw. Still, I play along.

“Yep. You and your friends don’t have to worry about me,” I say. “I mean it. Lucien is out of my life. I’ll never see him again.”

She looks dubious. “You sure, honey?”

“I’m positive.”

This part is true. It came to me at zero dark thirty last night, after I’d run out of another batch of tears just before I fell asleep. The best thing I can do for myself is to keep busy. To focus on putting him out of my head. To pretend he’s dead to me. I’m tough. I can do it. I will not ask anyone about him or cyber-stalk him. I will stay in my own lane and focus on my own life. I will?—

My gaze suddenly and unwillingly snags on the TV over Mrs. Hooper’s shoulder. They’re showing an aerial view of an estate that looks —oh, my God— that looks like Ackerley.

Lucien’s estate.

“Hang on,” I say, getting up and lunging for the remote at the other end of the counter. And that’s when I see it: the breaking news banner crawling across the bottom of the screen.

Mystery deepens as Ravenna Winter found dead. Investigation ongoing.

Wait, what? Ravenna is dead?

“Oh, my God.” The information hits me hard, knocking out my breath and making my knees weak enough that I need to plant my palms on the counter for support to keep myself from dropping to the floor.“Oh, my God.”

“What’s this?” Mrs. Hooper cries, pressing her hand to her heart. “Oh, my God. That poor woman. She just came back from the dead, and now this? And poor Lucien, losing her again so soon after she came back to him. Life is so cruel, isn’t it, honey?”

I don’t bother trying to answer. My spinning thoughts refuse to settle on anything, much less a succinct explanation for everything that’s happened in the last few days. I didn’t tell Mrs. Hooper about Ravenna trying to kill me. Nor did the news ever hit the papers, other than a small online piece about how there’d been a fire at the guest cottage at Ackerley. I suppose that’s how rich people like Lucien do it. They hire PR teams and people to, I don’t know, bribe the cops and the press to keep nasty little things like their arsonist wives out of the news.

Even so, now is not the moment for me to tell Mrs. Hooper how ambivalent I feel about Ravenna’s death. Why? For one thing, part of me refuses to believe that Ravenna could ever really die. What’s that saying about Satan protecting his own? Surely all that spite and malice provides some sort of force field through which death can’t quite reach Ravenna. I can’t imagine her beauty and vitality being gone from this earth. It’s inconceivable. And now, for the first time, I truly understand how Lucien spent years refusing to believe that she was dead following her boating accident. There’s just no way an energy forcefield like that could ever be snuffed out.

On the other hand…the bitch is dead, they say?

Good.

That’s the best news I’ve heard in a while. Not that I’m proud of myself for thinking it.

“Oh, my goodness,” Mrs. Hooper says. “This is unbelievable. What is happening? How can this be? It just doesn’t make any sense, does it?”

Her running commentary continues all through the field reporter’s story, but I catch a few key phrases. Police statement… Continuing investigation… Cause of death undetermined thus far… Lucien Winter requests privacy at this difficult time.

“You know what this means, Tam,” Mrs. Hooper says when the report ends, the familiar, scandalized glow of fresh gossip lighting up her face and energizing her voice. “This must’ve been a murder or suicide. We’ve both watched enoughLaw & Orderto know that. And if it’s not suicide, then —”

“Lucien’s the main suspect,” I supply dully, the room swooping in and out of focus.

That’s when the dueling voices start up in my head.

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