45. Cuckoo
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CUCKOO
The air in the room changes, sucked out as if we have left the earth’s atmosphere.
We stand in a suspended silence for what feels like minutes but can only be seconds, and I can see Cassandra trying to figure out whether I am telling the truth.
This is my moment of triumph, and I watch Cassandra in the doorway of this room and finally see a flicker of fear in those devious eyes.
“We took it in turns to stab him.” My attention is entirely focused on Cassandra. “One by one, until he was dead. And then we dumped him in the river. Is that what happened to Goldie, Cassandra? Did you dump her in the river too? What you both did to that other girl so many years ago?”
Cassandra speaks very slowly. “You killed my husband?”
“No,” Crow says, uselessly.
I tell Cassandra exactly what happened, every tiny detail, and Cassandra is taking it in with an expression I cannot read. Her face seems frozen, her mind working frantically underneath.
“You killed him for revenge,” she says finally. “For your friend.”
“For my mother,” I snap. “For the murder of my mother.”
You thought you were the only monster in the room, I want to tell her, but here we are. Our talons are sharp.
And you’re in our nest.
“That’s how we know you moved Goldie’s body,” I say. Now that the truth is out, there’s no point in hiding anything. We came here to kill her; there is no question of it, so we might as well confront her directly. “She died with us, not Hugo. He didn’t kill her.”
Cassandra is almost out of the room now, one hand resting on the doorknob, the other in her pocket.
“Hugo didn’t kill her?” she says.
“Goldie would never have gone near him,” Cuckoo says. “Except to kill him. Which she did with all of us. There was no affair.”
“Then . . .”
“Then you’ve just realized what a predicament you’re in, haven’t you?” Starling says.
“No, that’s not quite right,” Cassandra says.
Starling frowns. “What do you mean?”
“I think you four still haven’t realized the predicament you’re in,” she tells us.
What the hell is she talking about?
“Tell us where Goldie is,” I say. “You’ve moved her. Tell us now.”
Suddenly, she darts out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Before we can do anything, we hear the turn of a key in the lock. I’m there in seconds, pulling on the door, but it’s no use. This is an old, sturdy door, and she has locked it tight.
“Cassandra!” I shout, pounding on the door. “Let us out! What are you doing?”
“That room smells terrible, doesn’t it?” she calls from the other side. “Not of blood, though. No, it’s something else, isn’t it? I was worried it was too overwhelming, that you’d suspect immediately. But you were too focused on your own plans.”
The smell?
“I’ll admit, you surprised me,” she continues. “I did not expect you to tell me you killed my husband. But you’ve simply given me all the more motive to get rid of you.”
The smell . . . the smell of the room. I had thought it myself, without realizing that it didn’t just remind me of it; it really was it.
Gasoline.
She can’t be.
“She’s going to set fire to the room.” Wren gasps. “What do we do?”
Crow has joined me at the door, pounding her fists. “Let us out! Let us out!”
“No chance,” she says. We hear something rustling behind the door. Is she taking out a lighter? A set of matches? Is this it?
We’re going to die here, just like Goldie.
Goldie. Where is she?
“Tell us where Goldie’s body is! Tell us where you buried her, you sick bitch!” I scream. “If you’re going to kill us, just tell us! Please.”
But Cassandra makes some kind of noise, a yelp, and hits against the door on her side.
“Cassandra?” Starling shouts.
She doesn’t reply.
And then there is a sound I know all too well.
A sickening thud, like rocks into dust . . .
It is the sound of a body hitting the floor.