Page 31 of A Dark and Stormy Night

Too late. He tugged.

The sconce exploded in his face.

He flew backward, broken, blasted . . .

One split second of horror.

Then the wiring in the house sizzled and sparked. The chandelier blew off the ceiling in a thousand glass shards.

Gwen looked up and saw her doom descending.

The heavy pendant and wide arms slammed to the floor . . .

Cecily ran out of the pantry, around the corner, and leaned over the railing.

Cousin Mario had been hit by the full force of the explosion. Cousin Gwen had been standing directly under the chandelier.

They were dead, gone, extinguished in an instant.

Lifting her arms, Cecily shrieked, "Take that, you bastards!"

Down the hall, she heard the door slam. Landon came running out of the bedroom, dressed and ready to go to "work." He looked around at the bodies, at the flames that licked the wall where the sconce had been, at the smoke that oozed from every outlet and every light fixture. "What have you done?" he shouted.

"I killed them. I killed them!" Cecily danced a sort of flamenco, slamming her stiletto heels on their precious restored hardwood floor. "They insulted me. They laughed at me. And I killed them!"

"Are you crazy? You're crazy." Landon turned on her. "The police are going to take you away!"

She stalked him like a giant cat with sharp claws and long fangs. "The police are not going to take me away. I don't know anything about electricity. I'm not the one who blew the wiring in that house last week. I'm not the one Cousin Mario fired."

Landon fell back, step by step, along the railing toward the bedroom. "But . . . you do. You know wiring. You know as much as I do!"

"Do I?" She took another step. Another.

"And I don't hold a grudge against Mario!" Landon stumbled on a piece of broken glass. He righted himself, grabbed the handrail and backed up some more.

"Who's going to believe you?"

She acted as if she had tasted blood and wanted more. "But I didn't do anything here. To this house." The handrail ended at the stairway. He whirled and ran a few steps, then turned and shouted, "You're . . . you're lying!"

"This place is out in the wilderness, and it's going to burn. By the time anyone sees the smoke, it will be ashes. All the evidence will be destroyed." She paused at the top of the stairs and like a merciless triumphant goddess, she lifted the briefcase in her hand. "I moved money out of their accounts into ours. Yesterday, Cousin Gwen left her desk open. I found cash and credit cards, and I've got them in here." She gestured down the stairs. "You can come with me or you can stay here and wait for the cops . . . or to be burned alive."

"But you killed Mario and Gwen." He gestured toward the living room. Didn't she understand? "You killed them!"

"They deserved it. Talking about me like that. Calling me like a bloodsucker." She whirled in a circle. "I made them pay. I made them—Ugh!" She tripped on a hunk of blue glass. Her heel slipped off the top stair tread. Her eyes grew so wide he could see the whites all the way around. Her arms windmilled wildly, the briefcase slapping the air.

Landon lunged for her.

Too late. Wide-eyed and screaming, she tumbled backward down the stairs.

With a harsh crack, her neck met the edge of the tread. She went limp, landing facedown and catawampus across the last three steps.

The briefcase tumbled, edge over edge, to the bottom.

Landon raced after her. Then, two steps above her and with a sudden onset of caution, he stopped. "Cecily?"

She didn't grab for him. Her hand rested still and limp.

"Cecily? Are you okay?"

---