Chapter Forty-Two
FORTY-TWO
The killer approaches Noah as my fingers close round the tiny doll’s head that was once part of a bracelet.
Once I realized the last victim had been gender swapped, I started thinking about why a killer would make such a dramatic switch in their victims so late in the process, and now I see the red flags stacking up—the shoplifting, the drugs, the project allowing strangers to objectify and deface her as a form of art.
Scarlett.
“I know you’re in here,” she singsongs, stopping in front of the camera.
She adjusts the position, pointing it at Noah and bending down to look through the viewfinder as she continues talking.
“Impressive use of an attack alarm, by the way. I suppose you’ve found some way to get the police here too. Well, I’d like to be gone by then.”
She presses the camera button and a loud snap echoes through the room, followed by the whirring sound of a print being ejected.
She removes it and walks toward Noah, where she bends down and dips the Polaroid in the container filled with his blood before taking it over to the final portrait and placing it reverently on the easel.
For the first time I notice that each of The Four have been supplemented with a shining red photograph.
I’m glad I can’t see the distorted images from here.
“All done,” she calls without turning round. “You can come out now, Fliss.”
“Sorry to wreck your plans, Scarlett,” I say, stepping forward just far enough so she can see me. “You knew it was me?”
She turns, a slow, creeping smile splitting her face. Her breathy, Earth Mother demeanor is nowhere to be seen now; even her usual bohemian clothing has been replaced with a hooded black top and trousers.
“Oh, please, I’ve never met anyone as nosy as you. I knew you’d started poking around as soon as you told us about finding Helen.” She busies herself moving the tripod away from the scene as I try to think of how to reply. I need to keep her talking—killers love doing that, don’t they?
“Helen’s murder wasn’t planned, was it?”
“No.” Scarlett cocks her head, amused. “It wasn’t. But that first night, when the self-portrait was put on display, it was a sign that I was meant to begin. I mean, it’s been missing for generations and it appears when I’m in Blackwood? It was so obvious that it had appeared just for me.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, absorbing the details of the scene. Her hair is slicked back in a low bun, and she’s wearing clear medical gloves. She even has shoe covers on. Apart from the doll’s head I found on the stairs, she’s covered her tracks. I wonder if she knows she left one behind.
“The artist killed those women because he wanted to live, to become immortal,” she explains casually, not as though she’s telling me why she’s on a killing spree.
“One of my art classes at college was all about The Four, and I was fascinated by the painter behind the portraits, so I did my own research on him. There’s a diary in a library in London, you know, in the Waite collection.
He was so much more interesting than his subjects—they were all talentless nobodies who wouldn’t have survived in New York anyway. ”
“That’s not true,” I spit, realizing too late I’m rising to her bait.
“No? He did them a favor. He did it to save himself because he was sick with tuberculosis, and he found a ritual that he thought would cure him, maybe even make him immortal. That’s why he collected their blood and hair, something about taking their life force to save himself.
It obviously didn’t work, but his legacy lived on, even if he didn’t. Art is powerful like that.”
There’s a look in her eyes that frightens me more than anything else in the room. “And that’s what you want to do?” I ask, edging closer to Noah. “Create a legacy? Is that why you’re doing this?”
“I’m sure the press will think so! I can’t tell you how much I’ve loved all the attention my art has been getting.
” She thinks murdering human beings is art?
Jesus. She really is deranged. She giggles, a sound that makes my blood run cold as she leans in, like she’s telling me a secret.
“There are different types of immortality, especially these days.”
“You want to be famous,” I say flatly, unable to hide the disgust in my voice.
I think about Helen, about Jen, and how Alessandra was dead and bound to that chair.
Kind, generous Alessandra. I want to charge at Scarlett, but I need to keep a cool head.
I need to undermine her. “That’s what all this has been about? ”
“I want my art to be famous.” She sweeps an arm around the setup. “A modern interpretation of The Four that will be splashed over every news outlet in the world. The New Four should feel honored. They might have died in body, but their spirits will live for eternity.”
“But no one will know who you are, you’ve hidden your tracks so well.” I need to dent her ego, to make her question herself so I can distract her. “Doesn’t it bother you that other people could come forward and claim your work as their own?”
Scarlett’s smile fades. “No, because they won’t.”
“Of course they will,” I say, sliding closer to the exit.
My ears prick at what sounds like distant sirens.
Izzy must have managed to alert the police.
I just need to keep Scarlett talking and then get out to the balcony when they arrive.
“There will be some guy who doesn’t have the balls to do what you did claiming he’s the killer.
The press will be all over him! Nobody will know it was you, and your legacy will be lost forever.
” I pause before I deliver the kill shot with a smile.
“I mean, it will be more believable that a man was behind this.”
That really pisses her off.
“As if I’d let a fucking man take credit for my art. Do you know how much planning went into this?” Scarlett hisses, gesturing to the scene.
“Actually, I do. This scene is exactly how I know Helen’s murder wasn’t planned. And I know that Jen wasn’t supposed to be your second victim. You drugged the sangria so you could target Izzy. You thought you’d have more time for that one, but I saved Izzy before you could get your claws into her.”
“It was supposed to be you, actually,” Scarlett replies so casually I don’t register what she says for a second, until my hands start to shake.
“I didn’t know you’d be Little Miss Sober.
I roofied both your glasses so I could take my time bleeding and posing you after everyone went home, but you stopped drinking as soon as I did.
I thought I might have some time with Izzy once you were asleep, but you kicked up such a fuss when you found her that we all had to go home.
I even left you one of the little paper flowers I put in Jen’s hair as a souvenir of what could have been.
” My stomach drops and she clocks the look on my face.
“Oh, boo-hoo, you thought it was from lover boy, didn’t you?
Nope, all me!” She walks behind the portraits and picks up something from the floor.
It glints in the candlelight. “Anyway, when it didn’t go to plan with you and Izzy, I settled for poor old Jen.
She tried to put up a fight when she came round and realized I’d tied her up, but I used an old trick of mine to shut her up.
It’s the same one I used on the agency waitress. Too easy.”
“Helen,” I rasp. “Her name was Helen.”
“Whatever.”
Scarlett walks back around toward Noah, who is still slumped in his chair.
I have no idea if he’s awake as she closes in on him.
“You learn a lot about life and death living on a farm. For example”—she points to a spot on her own throat so I can see the curved blade she’s holding—“did you know that if you go in right here, you can kill someone instantly?”
“No.” I force the word out past the bile rising in my throat. I can’t let her near Noah with that thing. “That’s another reason I assumed it was a man at first. I thought they would need to be strong to overpower the victims.”
“Nope.” Scarlett shrugs happily, like she’s just been told she’s exceeded my expectations.
“They were all so trusting! Helen was the hardest. I didn’t have time to drug her, but like I said”—she mimics flicking the knife through an artery—“two seconds. Easy. I had my camera in my bag and the coat was just hanging there, so I took the belt from it and bound her up. It took me less than a minute to get a photo, and then all I had to do was wear that coat to cover the blood spatter on my clothes and I was on my merry way. Nobody noticed a thing. It was the start of something beautiful.” A menacing smile crosses her face.
“Jen was a little harder, because I had to reassess my original plan, but I managed to convince Jake to go home. Then I got her to go for a drink with me. I slipped in a little something extra when she wasn’t looking, and she was very…
compliant. Mostly. As was your friend downstairs.
Once I told her I knew you, Alessandra agreed to see me for some ‘career advice’ this evening.
” My stomach clenches at this. Scarlett has used me as a part of her plan every single step of the way.
“I bumped into Noah searching for something on the green and he was desperate for company, so I brought him in with me. She was a great host and made us tea, so I had the idea to kill two birds with one stone. I drugged both their mugs and set to work creating the last two portraits at the same time.”
“You’re crazy,” Noah croaks, and I close my eyes.
We were so close.
“Is there a reason you’re not dead yet?” Scarlett sighs. “Alessandra bled out much faster than you. I suppose that’s what I get for taking my time.” Scarlett’s eyes blaze as she grabs a handful of Noah’s hair and pulls his head back.
The motion jerks Noah’s arm and the loose tape dislodges, making the needle and tube fall to the ground. Scarlett lets out a low growl.
I panic, wondering if I should charge in Scarlett’s direction, but instead I remember what I promised to do if it really came down to saving Noah’s life.
I fumble with the safety cap on the paint thinner in my pocket as Scarlett brings her knife-wielding hand around to Noah’s throat.
I wriggle my shoulders and let my jacket drop, allowing the contents of the bottle to seep into the fabric.
I eye the candles surrounding Scarlett. I don’t need a lighter after all. No, this is much better.
“Sorry, Dad,” I say.
And then I throw the jacket at her.
“What are you doing!” Scarlett’s voice is muffled as the soaking denim hits her face. She tears it away, flinging it to the ground close to the candles.
She doesn’t see the paint thinner go up in flames until it’s too late.
“No!” Scarlett screams, throwing herself at the paintings and dropping the knife as she does. I dive toward Noah.
“The knife!” he shouts.
I kick it in his direction, away from the jacket, which is now burning so intensely the candles around it are melting, their wicks catching, flaring.
I keep one eye on Scarlett as I run to cut Noah free, but she’s distracted, trying to gather up her macabre Polaroids before the flames devour them.
Fire is starting to lick at her clothes, but I can’t stop; I have to concentrate on Noah.
I don’t think when I pick up the knife, and it takes a split second before I feel the heat from the metal handle searing into my hand as it glides through his bindings.
I scream in pain and drop it as the smell of burning flesh fills the air.
Noah stares at me in horror, but I shake my head.
“I’m fine. Can you walk?”
“I think so,” he says, and I duck my head under his arm, trying not to look at the charred skin on the knife handle.
Scarlett is nowhere to be seen, and I don’t know if she has run for the stairwell or if she’s looking for something to put out the flames, but the fire has fully engulfed the paintings.
We pass them and I feel the heavy weight of guilt in my stomach for ruining the priceless artwork that means so much to so many people, including my dad.
We make it out onto the balcony and have almost reached the stairwell when the door bursts open and several officers swarm us. I hold up my hands on instinct, pain searing through me as the air hits the open wound on my palm. I bite back the pain and point toward the gallery. “She’s in there.”
The officers stop as one. “She? There’s another victim?”
“No, she is the killer!” I yell in frustration, but my voice is drowned out by an inhuman scream that erupts from the gallery, a sound that curdles the blood in my veins.
Scarlett appears in the doorway as a tower of flame and lunges onto the balcony, her blond hair blazing around her head as she stretches out her arms. Frozen to the spot, I watch in horror as she hurtles toward me, her burning hands almost reaching my throat when a strong arm pulls me out of the way, and I fall to the floor.
The inferno soars past me, close enough to scorch my skin as I scrabble away from her.
Scarlett’s body hits the waist-high glass of the balcony instead of me, but that doesn’t stop her, and her feet leave the floor as the momentum carries her over the top.
Arms wrap round my shoulders and I bury my head as a strangled scream fills the air, followed by the sickening slap of Scarlett hitting the tiled foyer two stories below.
I break into loud, racking sobs as the arms tighten around me.
“I’ve got you, Fliss,” Izzy whispers in my ear. “I’ve got you.”