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“I shot him,” said Lilah, dreamily.

“Why did you do that?”

“Calm down,” said Opal. Strangely, she did not feel panicked, which was directly opposite to how she’d felt the last time she found a dead person. Of course this time, someone else had done the killing.

“We were going to let him go!” cried Marina. She buried her head in her hands and began to cry. “This was all going to be over.”

“It’s a change of plan.” Opal touched the barrel of the dueling pistol with the toe of her shoe. “Did you use this?” Lilah nodded. “Is he dead?”

“If he’s not, he’s going to need a lot of plastic surgery.” Opal crouched down beside the other two women. “Marina, try to pull yourself together.”

“I could see his brains,” sobbed Marina. “They were...they were spattered...”

“On the bright side,” said Opal, “I guess we have proof now that Zander did have the equipment to think with something other than his dick.”

“Did I really kill him?”

“You really did.”

“Good,” Lilah said, and tried to stand. Opal held her gently down.

“Marina, I think you and Lilah both need a cup of tea with sugar. Three sugars. Could you make them, please?”

As she suspected, Marina instantly got up and went upstairs, still crying but wiping tears from her face. In times of shock, Opal liked strenuous exercise, but preparing food and drink was Marina’s happy place. It would calm her down.

Opal sat beside Lilah, who eventually seemed to realize she was still holding the pistol and put it down on the concrete floor.

“I did not expect this,” Opal said, mostly to herself.

“He deserved it.”

“I thought you didn’t care about the money.”

“It wasn’t about the money. Is he really dead? Are you sure? Can I see?”

“Yes, I’m sure and no, you can’t see. Not yet.”

Marina came down the stairs with a tray with three mugs. She put it on the floor beside the pistol and sat next to Opal. They each took a mug and blew on it. Opal took a sip. That was more than three sugars, but Marina had stopped being hysterical and Lilah’s eyes looked slightly less glassy.

“What are we going to do?” whispered Marina.

“Before we figure that out, we need to know why Lilah killed Zander.”

They both stared at Lilah, who was very pale.

“I looked at his phone this morning.”

“The phone that we couldn’t find?”

“I had it in my bag. I took it from his jacket. But this was a burner phone, not his personal phone. He seems to have only used it for calls to one person named S. Who happens to be the man who Zachary hired to murder my father.”

Opal let that sink in. “Wow. That is dark.”

“How did you find that out?”

“S called and I answered. I didn’t speak, so he thought I was Zachary, and he kept demanding money. Fifty thousand, and then if it weren’t paid by five o’clock tonight, the price would rise to seventyfive. This was on top of what he said Zachary already paid him. A deposit, I guess? For a contract killing? And then he implied that if Zachary didn’t pay him, that he would murder him. Like he did my father.”

“Why would Zander want your father dead?”

“Maybe because he knew that I listened to my father more than anyone else, including him? Maybe because he’d taken out a life insurance policy. That was actually Zachary’s idea. I thought it was silly because I had plenty of money already, but Zachary said you could never be too careful and also it wouldn’t do any harm.”

“Dark,” repeated Opal.

“Also,” said Lilah, “I just realized. I made a will after I won the lottery, and my father is the main beneficiary. But if I were married to Zachary and my father was dead, then...”

“He wouldn’t.” Marina’s eyes were wide.

“If he’d pay at least a hundred thousand dollars to kill a retired mailman, he probably wasn’t above bumping off a wife or two,” said Opal, grimly.

“I hate him,” said Lilah, her knuckles white on her mug handle. “I’m glad I killed him.”

“I understand,” said Marina.

“I knew you would,” said Lilah. “Is that weird?”

“Everything about this is weird,” said Opal. “It has been weird since day one.”

“Anyway. I did it, I’m responsible, so I’ll go to the police and explain everything.” She tried to stand up again, but this time Marina stopped her.

“No police,” said Opal. “We’ve agreed on that from the beginning, and nothing has changed.”

“But this is murder. I had a good reason, but that doesn’t matter. I should go to prison for the rest of my life for this. I don’t mind. As long as there are books,” she added.

“You wouldn’t last five minutes in prison. In any case, nobody is going to prison. We’ll deal with this.”

“It was my choice, and I’m ready to face the consequences.”

“Fuck the consequences.”

“We’re all responsible,” said Marina. “In some way.”

“Right. You go to jail for kidnap and murder, and Marina and I go to jail for kidnap and accessory. Marina can have some assault charges thrown in. Oh, and possibly owning a gun without a license.”

“Two guns,” said Marina. “I really wasn’t confident that they worked any more though. How did you load it?”

“I looked it up.”

“You didn’t use Google, did you?” said Opal with alarm.

“Of course not! I looked it up in the library. In actual books. Which I reshelved, so no one is any the wiser.”

“Okay. In any case, if we confess or if we’re caught, none of us are going to be seeing Marina’s kids again until they’re grandparents.”

“I’m sorry,” said Lilah. “I had to do it. But I should have thought it through, what would be the implication for the two of you. And your children, Marina. Plus, I’ve made a huge mess of your basement.” She sighed. “I should have waited until we’d set him free, and then pushed him off a cliff.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Marina. “We’re in this together. We have been since the beginning, and even more so now.”

“Which means,” said Opal, “that the three of us have to work together to get the body the hell out of here, and someplace where it won’t be found, as soon as we can.”

“Before my kids get home. It’s Saturday morning, so...we’ve got something less than thirty-six hours. That should be plenty of time, right?”

“This is going to take more than a few baby wipes,” said Opal grimly.

“Oh dear,” said Lilah. “I’m sorry. I should have used poison.”

“If we work together, we can get it done,” said Opal. “The main thing is: we have to work quickly, we have to cover our tracks, and no one else can know anything.”

It was then that the doorbell rang five times in quick succession.