Twenty-One #3
“Sexist, though, isn’t it? Nobody in the US cares about middle-aged women.
I might as well have been invisible to you and everyone else in the world.
I was always there. I waved at you from my minivan when I had Gordon Allen drugged in the back on the floorboards, but I don’t think you even saw me.
” Tammy seemed to love lording this detail over me.
“And Russo—that two-bit hack—throwing in his sloppy work and trying to make me take the fall for it. And the mayor was such a nice boy. It was all the loose women throwing themselves at him that were the real problem. Whores like you.”
Even if I could make my voice box work, it would be useless to tell Tammy about the evils of slut-shaming.
I tried to get my foot to move toward the footbridge and the koi pond. A stone lantern stood in my way, but if I could just get around it and get to the patio, maybe I could get help.
“I don’t know what the mayor or Russo ever saw in you. But girls like you just waste the attention. You know if you’d just paid attention to the man, he probably wouldn’t have gone off the deep end, poor sap. Girls like you turn even good men bad.”
I realized now with brutal clarity that Russo was simply a crazed stalker, nothing more. He’d been telling the truth. He really wasn’t the Canceled Killer.
“Yet, stupid women like you get all the attention and all the praise, and women, respectable women, like me, society doesn’t value us.
We’re barely noticed. That’s why we’re always sneaking onto planes.
Did you hear about that woman who kept sneaking right through security?
That’s because no one notices us. Men only care if you’re young and beautiful, and women only care if you’re competition.
” She shrugged. “I’m neither, so I’m invisible.
I have this vest in three different neon colors, but still people miss me.
” She shook her head in disapproval. “I’d say I fly under the radar, but as a fifty-five-year-old woman in America, I’m not even near the radar. ”
I got the distinct feeling she had a manifesto hidden in her knitting basket. A koi fish splashed water onto the path. Barry strained at his leash, growling at the fish that was at least twice his size.
“You… sound… like… a feminist,” I managed, my voice getting weaker.
Tammy looked deeply offended. “I’m not one of those ugly bra burners!
Heavens, no. That’s what’s wrong with you.
Sleeping around with any boy who wants to.
Refusing to get married, give your mother grandchildren, and take your place in society.
This is what happens when you give young women too many freedoms. They abuse them. ”
I desperately needed to get help. Each second my limbs felt heavier. My throat was thicker. My diaphragm didn’t want to work.
“You’re a degenerate, a fruit who needs to be cut from the vine, just like that horrible Olga Duncan.
Coming into beautiful Lake Sanguis with her filth?
Tempting men to sin? Just like you. Just like that terrible president of that fake university.
Did you know she had an open marriage? Honestly.
People thought I killed her because she stole all that money, but it was really because she wasn’t honoring her vows to God. ”
I coughed as I tried to suck in a breath.
“Killing… not… very… Christian,” I felt the need to point out.
“I’m doing the Lord’s work,” she added for good measure. “The Lord works with imperfect vessels all the time. Like King David.”
The Church Lady was the Canceled Killer. This would not go over well online.
“Jared?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I pointed you right to him and you went. He was living in sin with his girlfriend, did you know that? He never even planned to marry her.”
Tammy was far worse than I ever thought. I thought her judgments of others were harmless. Boy, was I wrong. I lost feeling in my feet as I clutched the top of the stone lantern. Distantly, I heard sirens. There was Oscar. There was the cavalry.
I wasn’t sure they’d make it in time.
Barry growled at me, but then his attention went to the fish circling in the pond. He barked at some of the colorful tails as they slapped the surface. But the overconfident little dog got too close to the edge and, with a startled yip, fell in. Tammy shrieked.
Now was the time.
I focused all my energy on using my arm to swing my crutch. I connected with the side of her knee, sending Tammy flying to the pebble path. Barry the dog paddled furiously.
“How dare you hit a defenseless old woman?” she said from the ground as she tried to sit up.
I focused all my remaining strength and swung my arm, hitting her again, this time in the face, and she flopped backward, knocked out cold.
“What’s happening out here?” I heard Jude say, dashing out onto the porch, even as the lights of Oscar’s SUV flashed at the gate.
“Succinylcholine!” I told Jude as he ran toward me, praying his doctorate included some pharmaceutical chemistry. “She injected me with… succinyl… cho… line… Muscle relax… ant… for surgery,” I croaked, staggering on my feet.
Jude stretched his arms out to me, but it was too late. I was already falling. I swayed and toppled straight into the koi pond, narrowly missing Barry. The splash of water was the last thing I felt before everything went dark.