Chapter Four #2
Just like the woman who’s been staying there, it’s painfully neat.
Her bed is made, from the fuchsia tartan throw arranged just so at the foot of the bed to the décor pillows; her clothes hang neatly in the open wardrobe; and her typewriter sits, untouched, on the corner of the desk, the full stack of pastel-pink paper tucked neatly beneath, like it’s just another piece of decoration. An afterthought.
Millie was going to search for the suitcase, but there’s no need.
Jaxon’s white pages are right there, on the dresser, filled with lines of neat black type.
“I knew it!” she says triumphantly as Priscilla and Cate arrive.
Cate gasps and recoils from Priscilla, whose face blooms in mock confusion.
“No. . . . no. This is not . . .” For once, she is well and truly flustered. “Someone must have put them . . .”
Cate shakes her head, backing away as a familiar shade of blue catches Millie’s eye.
A sheet of paper sticks out from under the pillows on the bed. Millie rushes forward, flinging the cushion aside to reveal her pages.
The ones she delivered to the cottage yesterday.
Priscilla’s eyes widen in a different way. Gone is the confusion. This—this is guilt.
She’s a thief, a plagiarist—and a murderer.
A cold-blooded killer wrapped in shades of warm-blooded pink.
“I should have known,” hisses Millie.
Priscilla shakes her head. “Calm down,” she says, taking that condescending tone. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
Priscilla starts toward her. Millie scrambles back, searching for something to protect herself with. The decorations in each bedroom are eclectic, but luckily they all seem to feature weapons. A sword over the bed, a pair of daggers by the desk. A decorative mace, a half step to Millie’s right.
She wrenches it off the wall and plants her feet, like a heroine ready for battle. Priscilla lets out a nervous sound, halfway to a laugh, but Millie doesn’t find it funny.
She puts herself between Priscilla and the door. In a voice that shakes only a little bit, she tells Cate, “Go get Kenzo. Now.”
Cate wavers, unsure, then looks at Priscilla, who’s slowly backing toward the desk. “Do what she says.”
And for some reason, Cate listens to her. Even now.
Unbelievable, thinks Millie, fingers flexing on the mace as Cate hurries out. She has no intention of using it, of course—she’s not a murderer—but the weight in her hands is reassuring.
She knows she feels a lot—jack-in-the-box, her boyfriend said, what an asshole, she really should have left him then and there—but Millie Mitchell has never been an angry person.
Frustrated, sure, bitter, overwhelmed, but not angry.
A lot of the time she wishes she could feel that unfiltered rage she often gave her female leads.
It always seemed simple, pure.
But the way Priscilla is looking at her now, lips pursed, that narrow crease between her brow, makes Millie furious.
Because she’s so clearly not afraid.
Even though Millie is standing here, holding a goddamn mace.
She is so fucking tired of not being taken seriously.
And there’s that little voice again, Freya’s voice, so high and mighty as it points out that it’s what you get for always putting on a show, what did you expect, you can’t have it both ways, why don’t you GROW THE FUCK UP?
Millie grits her teeth and grips the mace more tightly.
Priscilla doesn’t even flinch. Cool as a fucking cucumber. Cold as ice. All the clichés, wrapped up in one pastel package. But Millie’s not falling for it now.
She is done being manipulated. By her parents, who spent eighteen years telling her she’d go to hell if she so much as looked at the wrong book.
By her author friends, who smiled to her face and spread rumors behind her back.
By her two-faced editor, who promised that her new series would be lead title, only to give the slot to a vampire book at the last minute, as if the market really needs another one of those.
Priscilla puts her hands out, palms up. “Millie, I need you to listen to me.”
How dare she treat her like a naughty child, or a misbehaving pet? “Put the weapon down,” Priscilla says firmly.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“I just don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
“You know what I think?”
The air slides between Priscilla’s teeth. “What?”
“I think you never went to the cottage to seduce Rufus. I think you’re the reason he disappeared.”
Priscilla shakes her head. “That’s not—”
“You were the last person to see him,” says Millie, gaining steam. “And then we all just took your word for it when you said he stole the boat and left, but maybe he didn’t. Maybe you killed him, and dumped his body on the yacht, and—”
“Why would I do that,” asks Priscilla, still maddeningly calm, “if I’m trying to win too?”
Millie falters. No, there’s a reason. There has to be a reason. It’s like a plot problem, a tricky bit she needs to wrap her mind around, and then she’ll get it. “Just—just let me think.”
“Go on, Millie, tell me,” presses Priscilla. “Why would I do it?”
“Just stop,” she snaps. “You think you’re so much smarter than everyone else. You think I’m so dumb.”
“I don’t think you’re dumb, Millie. In fact, I think you’re an excellent writer.”
Hollow praise. That’s all it is. And yet she feels a small traitorous flutter. How pathetic.
“I did read your pages,” Priscilla admits. “You have a gift for urgency, for emotion, and—”
“Shut up!” demands Millie. “Just shut up shut up shut up!”
Priscilla’s mouth tightens.
“Okay, you’re right, you didn’t have anything to gain by killing Rufus.
But you sure took advantage of his absence.
Did you really think you could get away with it?
That he and Eleanor would come back to a house full of dead bodies and be like, Oh well, you’re the only one left, so I guess that makes you the winner? ”
Priscilla takes a deep breath. “Think about it, Millie. I was still downstairs when Sienna fell. I came out of the kitchen when you screamed. And you saw Malcolm die with your own eyes. I wasn’t there, was I?
And Jaxon . . . well, I don’t know who did that, but I promise you it wasn’t me. I didn’t steal his pages.”
“But you stole mine.”
Priscilla hesitates. “I didn’t steal them.” She glances toward the door. “Put the mace down, and I’ll explain.”
“No!” Millie snaps, hating that she sounds like a petulant toddler.
“Put. It. Down,” orders Priscilla, as if she’s still the one in charge, and Millie has had enough.
“You know what, Priscilla?” she says, stepping forward. “I am sick to death of you telling me what to do.” Priscilla finally steps back, only to find the desk blocking her retreat.
“Also! Just because I write young adult, that does NOT mean I’m still a child! I am a grown-ass woman with serious grown-ass thoughts! So don’t you dare patronize me—”
Priscilla’s expression finally cracks, her composure splintering.
And there it is, in her eyes.
Fear.
“STOP!” she yells, throwing up her hands, and Millie actually does, slams to a halt, confused by the sudden turn, until she realizes, too late, that Priscilla’s not talking to her. Her attention is locked on something, or someone, behind her.
Millie sees a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye.
She starts to turn and sees a massive glinting object rushing toward her, a flash of gold, followed by a wet crunch, a sound that somehow echoes in her ears, her eyes, her heart, and before she can make sense of it the room is tipping, her vision blurring into streaks of light and shades of pink, and green, and red, before giving way to her least favorite color.
Black.