CHAPTER NINETEEN
A few days later, I awoke in the mid-dle of the night to a sharp scratch-ing sen-sa-tion on my neck, and I knew.
The ap-ple tree out-side Aber-nathy scraped at the win-dow again. I flicked on my bed-side lamp, dread curl-ing through my lungs like whorls of cig-a-rette smoke. As I stum-bled over to the mir-ror nailed to the wall, my worst fears were con-firmed.
It was on the other side of my throat, per-fectly sym-met-ri-cal with the first. A few mil-lime-ters longer, per-haps, though I didn’t take a tape mea-sure to it.
This one was no sim-ple de-ter-rent. I hadn’t been near the gallery since the night of Or-lagh’s death. I hadn’t in-ves-ti-gated for a sin-gle mo-ment. There was noth-ing to warn me against.
No, this wound was not carved with the in-ten-tion of de-ter-ring me.
It was for sport, plain and sim-ple. A cat toy-ing with its prey, rel-ish-ing the mo-ments be-fore the killing blow.
Then—some-thing ap-peared in the mir-ror.
A set of eyes. Arc-tic blue. Cold as glaciers.
Davina’s eyes.
They van-ished as quickly as they’d ap-peared, and I rubbed at my own eyes fiercely, try-ing to shift the un-set-tling im-age.
Was I hal-lu-ci-nat-ing again, the way I had imag-ined the dark-ened sil-hou-ette in Drum-mond?
Did it even mat-ter, when my very life was in dan-ger?
Fore-head pressed to the cool glass of the mir-ror, I be-gan to weigh my op-tions in earnest.
Was it worth call-ing my mother’s bluff and go-ing to the po-lice any-way?
Would she re-ally fol-low through on her threat? Would her life re-ally not be worth liv-ing if the world knew her se-cret?
Could I live with my-self if she died over this?
I still hated her. Ev-ery time I thought about that mo-ment with Aunt Polly in the kitchen, I wanted to smash some-thing. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs and never stop. I wanted to claw my own skin off, tear away the need to be loved so that her words and ac-tions no longer hurt so much.
And yet when I pic-tured my-self stand-ing grave-side at her fu-neral, know-ing be-yond all doubt that it was my fault she was in the ground …
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t take that risk.
As I lay awake for the rest of the night, I started to re-al-ize that con-fronting Davina—mak-ing amends once and for all—was the only way to keep my-self safe. Neu-tral-iz-ing the threat. Beg-ging her for-give-ness. Pray-ing, be-yond all prayer, that she was not the cruel mon-ster I be-lieved her to be. That she had the ca-pac-ity to for-give.
Un-for-tu-nately, Davina fell off the face of the earth for two whole weeks af-ter Or-lagh’s body was found.
She wasn’t in sem-i-nars, learn-ing about re-search for per-for-mance with Catalina’s en-thu-si-as-tic com-men-tary, nor was she prac-tic-ing di-alects with Pro-fes-sor ó Broin. She wasn’t in re-hearsals for Mac-beth, of course, nor was she seen talk-ing to Maisie about me in dark-ened al-coves. Her ab-sence filled me with a pro-found fore-bod-ing. I didn’t know ex-actly what it could mean for me, but I doubted it was any-thing good.
It made me think of how, in hor-ror movies, the Big Evil was more ter-ri-fy-ing be-fore you saw or un-der-stood it. That sense of the un-known, a shadow where there should be none. Con-stant glances over your shoul-der. The fear of fall-ing asleep.
The days crunched on in fits of mind-bend-ing cold and hunger and ex-haus-tion, un-til Davina fi-nally re-emerged.
Con-tent that we had all mas-tered the art of stand-ing still, Pro-fes-sor Lawrie ar-ranged a first-year field trip to Ed-in-burgh Zoo. We’d all been sent mys-te-ri-ous en-velopes with a pur-ple wax seal, hand-de-liv-ered to our flats with only our names on the front. In-side each was a sin-gle word—an an-i-mal we’d been as-signed to “em-body” for the rest of the se-mes-ter. We were sup-posed to study it, ob-serve it, be-come it.
I had been as-signed a taran-tula, which was fan-tas-tic news for an arachno-phobe, but the thought of watch-ing a spi-der move for hours on end was not the worst part. It was that I al-ready felt mor-ti-fied at the idea of crawl-ing around on the floor in front of my peers. Shame smeared my cheeks when-ever I re-mem-bered I’d have to do it. But Catalina, Maisie and Fraser—a frog, a chimp and a meerkat, re-spec-tively—seemed to find it hi-lar-i-ous, not hu-mil-i-at-ing. Maybe they were made of stronger stuff.
In any case, Davina fi-nally showed up just as the bus was about to de-part from Do-rian. She wore a black beanie hat, blood-red lip-stick, black leather jacket and skinny jeans. Over her bal-let flats she wore thick knit-ted leg-warm-ers, and her legs above the fluffy ma-te-rial were twig-thin, with del-i-cate cords of mus-cle around the calves. It made me twinge with envy—or at least some-thing with a sim-i-lar tex-ture to jeal-ousy.
She and Maisie talked in hushed voices the whole way there, and while I’d been hop-ing to chat to Catalina, she was read-ing a post-grad-u-ate re-search pa-per with a fur-rowed ex-pres-sion on her face. I plugged in my head-phones and lis-tened to Phoebe Bridgers as the coun-try-side rolled into cityscape.
The zoo was far qui-eter than it had been the last time I came with Aunt Polly and Pippa. It was a week-day in mid-Oc-to-ber, so tourist sea-son was very much in its twi-light for the year, and there were no shriek-ing schoolkids to be seen. A light, pat-ter-ing rain fell in half-hearted sheets as we en-tered the grounds and dis-persed to per-form our stud-ies.
The taran-tu-las lived in a dark hot-house for in-sects and rep-tiles. They crawled too slowly over the moss and dirt in their tanks, like the dis-em-bod-ied hands of mind-less zom-bies. And yet the more I ob-served them, the more keenly I felt a sense of sol-i-dar-ity with them, with the way they shrank shyly away from the glass sep-a-rat-ing us as though the weight of be-ing per-ceived were too much to bear. I was un-used to be-ing on this side of that par-tic-u-lar power dy-namic, and some-how it felt just as wrong as the re-verse. The urge came over me to avert my gaze, to lend the poor crea-tures some pri-vacy.
It was hot and hu-mid in-side the in-sect house, but I still felt chilled to my bones, as though I’d been left out-side in the snow as a baby and never quite re-cov-ered.
Just as I was won-der-ing how I might ex-e-cute my plan with Davina, she wan-dered into the in-sect house alone. With a jolt, I ini-tially pan-icked that she was here to con-front me, to in-tim-i-date me, but there was an aim-less-ness to her gait that made me think oth-er-wise. A kind of deep, lonely bore-dom.
An op-por-tu-nity had just been handed to me on a plate.
She didn’t see me, at first. The spi-ders were around a slight bend from the en-trance, and the house was dark and blurred with shad-ows. Her spiky hair and all-black out-fit dis-ap-peared into the gloom, leav-ing her ghost-white face float-ing through thin air.
Swal-low-ing the nerves climb-ing up my gul-let like fire ants, I stepped out from be-hind the cor-ner and ap-proached.
“Davina,” I said, and the word came out as a ques-tion.
If she was sur-prised to hear my voice, she didn’t show it, and it struck me that maybe she had come in here to see me. Maybe the care-less stroll was all an act.
Still, she didn’t re-spond, just looked over at me dis-dain-fully.
Did she spend an ex-tra sec-ond study-ing my ex-posed neck? Or was I imag-in-ing it?
I steeled my-self, grow-ing ar-mor like a bee-tle. “We need to talk.”
A mus-cle rip-pled on her jaw. “No, we don’t.”
“I want to make things right be-tween us.” I tried not to be-tray my fear—tried to be gen-uine, rather than apolo-getic for the sake of sav-ing my own skin. “I’m re-ally sorry for what hap-pened. What I did with the black-mail. It was a mis-take.”
She said noth-ing, but there was the slight-est quirk at the cor-ner of her mouth.
She was en-joy-ing this. She knew I was afraid, and she liked it. She fed on it like a leech, a par-a-site.
“What can I do to fix it?” I asked. “I can give you back the lead. Stand down from the whole pro-duc-tion.” It would be a small price to pay to re-move the tar-get on my back.
“Dam-age is done.” Her words were stone-cold. “Dr-ever wouldn’t risk giv-ing it back to me.”
I swal-lowed. “Have you told him yet? That it was me?”
I re-mem-bered what she told Maisie: You have to play your cards at the right time, you know? Same with Penny’s re-venge. It’s all very well hav-ing pocket aces, but they be-come a lot more pow-er-ful if a third ap-pears in the river.
She shrugged. “Not yet.”
What was she wait-ing for? The knowl-edge that she kept this card close was deeply un-set-tling. It made me think she had some grand fi-nale in mind—that the cuts on my throat were just a warm-up.
“Okay.” My voice sounded much calmer than I felt. “So what do I have to do to get you to stop?”
“Stop what?” Her eyes were fixed on the elec-tric-blue frogs in-side the near-est tank. They hopped mo-rosely, like cir-cus an-i-mals per-form-ing a jovi-al-ity they didn’t truly feel.
“The cuts. Please, Davina. Please stop.”
But Davina just stared into the tank—or per-haps at the half re-flec-tion of her own face in the glass. As I stepped closer, I no-ticed her lips were chapped. Her pos-ture was rod-straight, but un-nat-u-rally so. Strained, like she’d been tied to a lamp-post.
Frus-tra-tion be-gan to creep in at her ut-ter lack of re-sponse. This spine-less plead-ing wasn’t work-ing.
Time to stop pulling punches. To let her know that I knew. To show her that I had as many cards to use against her as she did me.
I black-mailed her out of the lead. Maybe I could black-mail her into ceas-ing fire.
“Davina, I know about Or-lagh,” I said, ur-gency creep-ing into my tone. “I know what you did.”
She turned to face me, and I shiv-ered in-vol-un-tar-ily. Meet-ing eyes with Davina was like star-ing into the abyss and hav-ing the abyss stare back—with bared teeth.
Still she said noth-ing. And I hated it, this sub-tle ex-er-cise in con-trol over the sit-u-a-tion. The way it made me want to shake her and shake her un-til she fi-nally spoke.
“What were you and Dr-ever do-ing in his of-fice af-ter hours?” I pressed on. “The Rolodex was flipped open on his num-ber. She found out, didn’t she?”
A kind of wicked grin spread across her face, her lips so dark they were al-most pur-ple. I re-mem-bered how car-nal she had looked in Or-lagh’s of-fice, the way Dr-ever’s shirt was loose and rum-pled.
I sighed and dropped my balled-up hands to my side. “Why Dr-ever? You could have any-one in the world, yet you threw your fu-ture away for him.”
Some-thing shifted be-hind her eyes, and fi-nally she spoke. “I could have any-one in the world?”
“You know what I mean.” Heat prick-led across my cheeks at the in-sin-u-a-tion.
She snorted. “Don’t worry. My fu-ture is far from thrown away.” With her hand curled into a pan-ther-like claw, she ex-am-ined her fin-ger-nails. “He’s been pulling strings for me, to make up for drop-ping me from Mac-beth. I’ve had a bunch of real-life au-di-tions in the last week that I wouldn’t have got-ten with-out his con-tacts. I’m down to the last two for a re-cur-ring role in a soap.”
Anger sim-mered in me like a hot spring. Or was it jeal-ousy, that she was al-ready mak-ing head-way to-ward act-ing fame? While I toiled away on a stu-dent pro-duc-tion that was never go-ing to be a big break? Ev-ery-thing about her made me feel so small, so pa-thetic.
“I could go to the po-lice, you know.” Rage was caus-ing my vi-sion to vi-gnette at the edges. “With the pic-ture of you and him. How it links to Or-lagh.”
“So why haven’t you? Be-cause you know it proves noth-ing?” Her voice was stac-cato, like gun-fire. “Yeah. Good luck fram-ing me over this.”
I frowned. “Fram-ing you? It’s not fram-ing if you did it.”
“Leave me the fuck alone, Penny.” The curse car-ried an em-phatic weight. “Don’t make this worse for your-self. You do not want me as your en-emy.”
“I know.” I tried to lower my tem-per, to re-mind my-self why I’d ap-proached her in the first place. “Be-lieve it or not, I wasn’t try-ing to make things worse.”
“Okay, so what ex-actly was the pur-pose of throw-ing around ridicu-lous ac-cu-sa-tions?”
I frowned in-wardly. I was so sure Davina was the killer, but she was re-fut-ing the ac-cu-sa-tions pretty staunchly. Most nor-mal peo-ple would do such a thing, in case I was record-ing the con-ver-sa-tion, but Davina didn’t op-er-ate like nor-mal peo-ple. The Davina I knew would’ve found a way to throw a slanted con-fes-sion into her re-but-tals, to max-i-mize my fear, to re-in-force that she could kill me in a heart-beat, if she so chose to. That she was not above wound-ing and maim-ing me to keep me silent and com-plicit.
Yet she was do-ing none of that.
But still … who else would want Or-lagh dead and want to hurt me at the same time?
How could I fig-ure out for cer-tain that it re-ally was her?
My mind whirring, I re-al-ized that in or-der for her to fea-si-bly be the killer, she had to know about the gallery. And for her to know about the gallery, she had to have been painted her-self.
An idea came to me, then. It would not yield proof, as such, but it would be a thick notch in the guilty col-umn.
“I’m sorry, Davina,” I said, soft-en-ing my voice into some-thing al-most af-fec-tion-ate. Ro-man-tic, even, with a sul-try gaze. I’d seen my mum do it, and it was in-tox-i-cat-ing. The Pax-ton mask at full force. “I want to make it up to you.”
I took a care-ful step to-ward her, then an-other.
When we were just inches apart, she leaned to-ward me the small-est sliver. The gen-tlest of tilts. A sub-tle di-la-tion of her pupils. An al-most im-per-cep-ti-ble shift in the power dy-namic, the scales tip-ping ever so slightly in my fa-vor. The Pax-ton su-per-power work-ing on her at last.
And with a deep, vis-ceral thrill, I knew I had her.
Be-fore she could re-act, be-fore I could talk my-self out of it, I grabbed the raw hem of her black jumper and yanked it up-ward.
Snatch-ing her clothes away from me, Davina took a livid step back-ward. “What the fuck—”
But she wasn’t fast enough.
I saw it.
Right there on her rib: a small, fresh cut, re-cently scabbed over.
She planted her palms on my col-lar-bones and shoved back. Hard.
I stum-bled but didn’t fall, reel-ing from the con-fir-ma-tion that she too hung in the Gallery of the Ex-quis-ite.
I was right. It was her. It had to be.
“Don’t you ever fuck-ing touch me again,” she hissed, and this time the venom in her voice was real; a coiled viper ready to spring. And the lick of fear in my throat was real too.
She breathed raggedly, fists clench-ing and un-clench-ing at her sides. I held up my palms like a crim-i-nal sur-ren-der-ing.
Then a third fig-ure ap-peared in the door-way in a plaid pink coat.
Maisie’s voice was a jar-ring trill as she sur-veyed the scene.
“Is Penny both-er-ing you?” she sniped, glar-ing at me.
“No,” replied Davina, with-out even turn-ing around. Her eyes still fixed un-re-lent-in-gly on me, her chest ris-ing and fall-ing un-evenly. “You can go.”
Maisie was vis-i-bly wounded by the dis-missal, but she didn’t turn to leave. In-stead she said, “What-ever. I just came to tell you the news.”
She held up her phone on a bold black head-line.
At the sight of the head-line, fear bleached the world white:
Di-vorced Ac-tors Celia Van Der Beek and Lyle Barr Found Dead in Sep-a-rate Homes
Van Der Beek and Barr, who met as stu-dents at Do-rian Drama Acad-emy and mar-ried soon af-ter, were found dead hun-dreds of miles apart …
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The ground pitched be-low me.
Two more faces from the Gallery of the Ex-quis-ite were dead.
Which meant Or-lagh was not a one-off, a lone wolf act-ing on a per-sonal grudge.
Three deaths made this a se-rial killer.