Page 13

The Turner library was as cold as a mausoleum, hemmed in by towering built-ins stacked with leather-bound books and gleaming collectibles. Several turn-of-the-century accent chairs sat clustered before an unlit fireplace, their end tables stacked with medical journals. Vivienne surged in ahead of Thomas and the reporter and took a seat on the edge of a tufted chaise. She looked restless. Uneasy. Like she was seconds away from bursting into flight.

Outside, the storm had picked up in intensity. Whipped sideways by the wind, the rain drilled against the wide oriel windows. It cast Vivienne in an odd, rippling light, so that she looked as though she was underwater. In the dark, her eyes were black all the way through. Her skin was as pearlescent as a siren’s. She hadn’t looked at him. Not once.

“It’s Walsh, right?” asked Shaw, taking up a spot against the fireplace.

“That’s right.” Thomas tried and failed to catch Vivienne’s attention. She stared dead ahead, her hands fisted in her skirts, her knuckles white.

“So how does this work?” pressed Shaw. “I ask you a question, and you feed it to her?”

“You can ask Miss Farrow directly.” It came out with more vehemence than he’d meant for it to. Vivienne’s eyes flicked to his. He cleared his throat and added, “I’ll translate her responses.”

“Sounds straightforward enough.” Shaw reached into his pocket and pried loose a thin metal device, setting it on the mantel. “She doesn’t mind if I record, does she?”

On the couch, Vivienne touched a thumb to her chest.

“That’s fine,” said Thomas.

“Great.” A red light blinked up at them like an eye. “Miss Farrow, before we begin, I’d like to start by saying how sincerely sorry I am for your loss. Your father implied you and Bryce Donahue had grown somewhat close. Courting was the word he used—though that’s a bit archaic, isn’t it?”

The pinch of jealousy in Thomas’s chest was tight enough to steal his breath. He knew he had no right to it. Donahue was dead . On the couch, Vivienne held herself with a preternatural stillness. Except for the slight rise and fall of her chest, she might have been a statue. Just another part of the library’s gleaming relics.

“Right,” said Shaw. “Let’s dive in. I don’t want to keep you from your party. You were on the boat, is that correct? The day of Donahue’s passing?”

Vivienne gave a single curt nod.

Shaw frowned but kept going, tugging a notepad from his pocket and jotting down several notations. Tucking his pencil behind his ear, he asked, “Are you aware of the fact that your father recently had a public falling-out with the senior Donahue during a lunch meeting at Higashi’s?”

This time, Vivienne’s response came in a near-indiscernible shake of her head.

With a sigh, Shaw set his notepad onto the mantel. “I understand how upsetting this must be for you, Miss Farrow. It would really help if I could get a quote. Something I can put in print, you know?”

Vivienne pinched her fingers in front of her mouth and then brought her fists together in a delicate circle.

Thomas interpreted: “?‘I didn’t know they had lunch together.’?”

“Perfect,” said Shaw, reclaiming his notepad. “Thank you—that’s all I need. Now, I imagine this will be something of a sensitive topic, but has anyone talked to you about how Bryce Donahue died?”

“?‘He had a heart attack,’” translated Thomas.

Shaw’s smile was sympathetic. “That’s certainly the formal consensus. The coroner’s report says otherwise.”

Rain hissed against the roof. Outside in the hall, laughter trickled past. A door thudded closed. On the chaise, all the blood had drained from Vivienne’s face.

“It was a beast to track down,” said Shaw, “but thankfully I’ve got a buddy at the county office who owes me a favor. As it turns out, there were several toxins present in Bryce Donahue’s blood when he died.”

Vivienne sat as still as a doll. She didn’t blink.

“Where’s the—” Shaw patted at his pockets until he found what he was looking for, prying loose a torn sheet of legal paper. “I have a list. Hold on—let’s see if I can pronounce these correctly. Hyaluronidase. Phospholipase. Histamine. Neurotoxic peptides. Talk about a mouthful. Does any of it mean anything to you?”

Vivienne clipped her fingers together.

“?‘No,’?” said Thomas.

“Me either,” admitted Shaw, tucking the list back into his pocket. “Between you and me, I barely made it through high school chemistry. But I did some research. And do you know what I found? That’s almost the same exact chemical makeup found in scorpion venom.”

On the couch, Vivienne began to count. The way Thomas taught her.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. One. Two. Three …

“A scorpion’s sting isn’t deadly to most adult humans,” added Shaw. “But in greater concentrations it can lead to bradycardia, paralysis, and even death. Don’t you find that just a little bit odd?”

Vivienne continued to count, now in erratic threes.

Onetwothree. Onetwothree.

“Now, here’s where it gets weirder,” continued Shaw. “Even if scorpions were native to Connecticut—which, of course, they’re not—the coroner’s report showed no signs of an entry wound. No lesion, no redness, no visible sting.”

The thin cord of Thomas’s patience snapped. “What are you, the police?”

“ Excuse me?” Shaw glanced over at him in surprise. “Why do I get the sense that wasn’t a direct translation?”

“Because it wasn’t,” said Thomas. “It was all me.”

“Do you have something to say?”

“I do. You need to back off. You’re upsetting her.”

“She should be upset,” said Shaw. “According to the evidence I’ve gathered, there’s very good reason to believe her boyfriend—”

“He wasn’t her boyfriend,” said Thomas without thinking.

“—was poisoned,” Shaw finished. Folding his arms over his chest, he sized Thomas up as though seeing him anew. “How long have you been working with Miss Farrow?”

Thomas could feel Vivienne’s eyes boring a hole into the side of his face.

“Since June,” he said coldly.

“Interesting.” Shaw jotted down another notation. “And do you understand the implication here? We’re not dealing with some ill-timed act of God. This was a murder.”

“A murder ?” Thomas laughed. “That’s insane.”

“You think so? I’m not so sure.” Shaw jabbed a finger into his notepad. “There’s a story here. A goddamned good one. And from the looks of it, my exclusive just got a little more interesting.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Only that jealousy makes for an excellent motive.”

Thomas bristled. “Where the f—”

Without warning, Vivienne flew to her feet. Her elbow clipped a shining brass astrolabe on the end table, bringing it crashing to the floor. The tumult brought all the focus in her direction. Beneath the watery moonlight, she looked radiant with fury, her fingers flying.

Tell him we need a minute.

“What for?”

Tell him.

Thomas blew out a quelling breath. “We need a minute.”

“Take all the time you need,” said Shaw, who’d fallen back to jotting down notes on his infernal pad. “I’m sure you need some time to corroborate your stories. When you get back, I’d love to hear what it was you were doing the afternoon of July thirteenth.”

Thomas opened his mouth to reply, but Vivienne silenced him with a touch, seizing him by the lapels and towing him backward toward the exit. She didn’t release her hold on him until they were well out of earshot, the library doors falling shut behind them with two dull thuds. They stood alone in a well-lit hall, the wainscoting dotted with floppy plants and oversize vases.

“You don’t have to put up with that asshole,” he said at the same time she signed, I want you to leave.

He paused midway through flattening his collar. “What? Why?”

You’re supposed to interpret what I say, as I say it.

“Well, I would, if you’d say anything—”

What you’re doing is u-n-e-t-h-i-c-a-l.

“Unethical?” His laugh came out garroted. “Unethical?”

It’s not funny.

“It’s pretty funny, actually,” he said. “I mean, Jesus , Vivienne. Pissing off some hack journalist is the least unethical thing I’ve done today.”

Her breath caught as though he’d struck her. Pink flushed into her cheeks. He felt the heat of it reflected in his own face, and he immediately regretted saying anything at all. He braced himself and waited for her to hit him back. To make it hurt.

She didn’t. She shut her eyes and sagged against the wall, the fight going out of her. Dwarfed by the scalloped leaves of a houseplant, she looked small and diminished, her features whittled in shadow. He felt suddenly terrible for picking a fight.

“Vivienne,” he pleaded. “I’m sorry, okay?”

She didn’t open her eyes.

“You’re right—I shouldn’t have stepped in like that.”

Her only response was to draw a single, unsteady breath.

He bent his head toward hers. “Will you please look at me?”

A drunken couple stumbled past, rain soaked and whispering, clinging one to the other in a clumsy tangle. He held himself still as they turned the corner, listening as a door clicked shut somewhere out of sight. The moment they were gone, he drew in nearer. So close, he could see the errant flutter of her pulse in the triangle of her throat.

“I won’t say anything else,” he promised. “I’ll keep my mouth shut, if that’s what it takes. I just—I don’t want you in there without me.”

Her eyes flew open. You’re making yourself look guilty.

“Guilty? Guilty of what? What happened to Donahue is horrible, but it was an accident. You know that, Vivienne, you were there. Let him run his story. You think anyone’s going to believe that nutcase? He’s one bad hoax away from writing a tell-all about Bigfoot.”

He’d meant to make her laugh. Instead, she averted her gaze, blinking away tears.

“Hey.” He chucked her gently under the chin. “Let me take you home.”

She shook her head, swiping at a tear just before it could fall.

“No one has to know,” he added. “We can slip out the back. There’s a megalodon movie on tonight. Supreme camp. Really awful acting. If we hurry, I bet we can catch the end.”

The door to the library creaked ajar and Shaw poked his head out. “There you two are. And looking very cozy, I might add. Are we just about done?”

“We need another minute, actually,” said Thomas, but Vivienne was already slipping out from beneath him, heading for the open door. “Wait, you— Vivienne .”

Unthinking, he caught her by the hand. Her skin was ice-cold; her fingers trembled. She tugged herself free, leveling him with a look.

Stay , she signed. I don’t want you to see what comes next.

“What do you mean, you—” The door fell shut in his face. “Great. That’s great.”

For several seconds afterward, he stood outside the library and debated his options. He could go in after her—it’s what Philip expected of him. He could wait outside, try to honor her request. He could quit and go back home. Leave on his own terms, before Philip and Amelia got wind of just how badly he’d screwed everything up and fired him themselves.

None of his choices felt like the right one.

He fell instead to pacing, sweating through his dress shirt. One minute turned into two. Two to three. Then four. Then five. On the other side of the door, there came a series of dull thuds as several heavy somethings went toppling to the ground.

“Fuck it.”

He wrenched open the doors and charged into the library. Vivienne was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Shaw. The astrolabe lay on its side on the floor, its gleaming spheres mirrored in a wide puddle of black. Unease threaded through him.

“Vivienne?”

His voice cast out into darkness. He edged deeper into the room, taking careful stock of his surroundings. The library extended well beyond the first set of shelves, its wide wooden columns disappearing into shadow. His misgivings deepened.

“Vivienne,” he called again. “Make some noise if you hear me.”

On the mantel, the recorder blinked up at him with its steady red eye. He clicked it off, sliding it into his pocket. From his position by the fireplace, he could see now that the puddle of black extended behind the couch. He followed the trail as it turned from tacky footprints to errant spatters, leading out from the room’s polished crux and into the first stack of shelves.

He came upon Isaac Shaw just around the first corner. The reporter knelt on the floor in a pile of books, his jaw slack, his forearm gouged open. His chest gave a violent hitch as he raked at the laceration.

“It was her,” he cried, digging two gore-flecked fingers down to the yellow fat of his arm. “It was her .”

A sound behind Thomas made him freeze. Slowly, he turned.

Vivienne stood frozen at the mouth of the stacks, her mouth thin and flat, her stare vacant. Something in the way she stood—as limp as a doll, her head lolling to the side—sent an ice-cold shiver down his spine.

“Vivienne,” he said. “ Vivienne , hey.”

Her head snapped up at the sound of his voice. A horrible awareness stole across her features. Her hands flew over her face and she staggered back, cracking into the nearest shelf hard enough to send several books tumbling to the floor.

Dread pooled in his stomach as understanding took shape.

“Vivienne,” he said, softer than before. “Look at me.”

“It was her,” cried Shaw. “It was her.”

Thomas ignored him, reaching for Vivienne’s wrists and prying her hands from her face. He was met with a fractured stare, eyes clustered with pupils like black honeycomb.

“Holy shit ,” he breathed.

She flinched back like a struck animal, tearing herself out of his grasp. And then, just like that, she was running. The swell of her skirt turned her nebulous in the moonlight as she darted out from the shelves, there and then gone before he could catch her.

On the floor, Isaac Shaw continued to claw himself open. “It’s under my skin,” he babbled. “It’s in my head. It’s—it’s scratch—it’s scratching at my skull. You have to get it. You have to help. You have to GET IT OUT .”

“I’m really sorry,” said Thomas. “I have to— I’ll send help.”

He took off running after Vivienne, tailed by the pained keening of the reporter. Skidding to a stop before the door, he tore it open and veered out into the hall. He made it around the first bend before slamming directly into a figure exiting an adjacent room. Reed Connolly reared instinctively back, his expression quizzical.

“Is that … blood ?”

“Where is she?” Thomas seethed, snatching him by the shirtfront. “I know you saw her.”

“Hands off the suit, you psychopath.” Reed worked himself free with an elbow. “Jesus, what the hell is your problem?”

“Answer the question.”

“Who are we looking for? Vivienne? Isn’t it, like, your singular job to keep track of her?”

“Don’t screw with me. What the hell are you even doing here?”

“He’s with me” came a third voice. Thomas whipped around to find Hudson Turner propped in the same door Reed had just exited, the buttons undone on his paisley jacket and his tie askew. “Do you have a problem with that?”

Thomas swiped at his brow. His hand left a behind tacky smear. Blood, not his own. He stared down at his hands and found them red and reeking. His stomach turned over.

“Walsh,” snapped Hudson, not for the first time. “Speak.”

“You should call an ambulance,” he said dully. “There’s been an accident in your library.”

“What kind of accident?” demanded Hudson as Reed went visibly pale. Thomas didn’t stick around to explain. He took off down the hall, Hudson’s voice bounding after him as he fell into a jog. “Walsh! What kind of accident? ”

He made his way through the crowded warren of the Turner mansion, his unease deepening with each passing minute. Out in the courtyard, the rain had slowed to a drizzle. It dripped off the trees, gathering in the abandoned champagne flutes in shallow pools. He stood under the cover of an overhang and debated his next move.

If he couldn’t find her, then what?

Lightning flickered in the distance, turning the glass polyhedral of the pool house diamond bright. He made his way toward it on a whim, following the winding flagstone of a garden path. The heat had broken during the storm, and the air was substantially cooler. It chilled the sweat against his skin as he passed beneath the bowed heads of ornamental grasses.

The path spit him out before a lit pool bordered in bullnose tile. The water threw rippling caustics on the surrounding trees so that the whole of the night—and he with it—felt oddly submerged as he entered the pool house.

The interior was full of wide wicker chairs and matching cocktail tables. Several Grecian sculptures lounged beneath hanging baskets of lobelia. The air was thick with humidity, the glass panels gray with condensation. Pillowed by the quiet, Thomas’s footsteps echoed like thunder.

So, too, did the single, disembodied sniffle.

Nearby, a pale crush of tulle peeked out from behind a standing statue of Venus. He edged silently closer, until the tulle gave way to a girl, her bloodied hands held before her, her shoulders racked with sobs.

“One,” he heard her whisper. “Two. Three.”

The sound snatched the air clean out of his lungs. Her voice was startlingly low and a little bit rough, like water tumbled over stone. His surprise quickly gave way to relief.

“Four,” she went on, pinching each fingertip in turn. “Five—”

“Vivienne.”

She froze like a hare, her hands flying over her mouth.

“It’s okay.” He held up his hands. “It’s just me.”

Carefully, she drew up onto her knees. He followed her lead, crouching before her. It should have felt ridiculous—huddling in the corner like children, watched by the gods and draped in ivy. He held himself still as Vivienne assessed him through nervous, darting glances.

You’re okay , she finally signed.

“Me?” He glanced down at himself. “Yeah, I’m all right.”

She looked bewildered, as though she’d expected otherwise. Nothing hurts?

The question caught him so off guard, he laughed. “No,” he said. “Nothing hurts.”

With a quiet sob, she folded in on herself. He caught her as she collapsed, gathering her into his lap.

“It’s going to be okay,” he promised. “You just—you can’t take off on me like that, all right? Not without giving me a second to—to—”

A second to what? To compose himself? To come to terms with what he’d seen? He had no idea what point he was trying to make—no clue which was the right thing to say. He wasn’t sure there was one. He settled for drawing her closer, resting his chin on the crown of her head.

“I’m not going anywhere, Vivienne. Okay? It’s you and me.”

The lights clicked off. Both of them sat up straight as total darkness fell. From the direction of the house came the sound of screams. Vivienne shot to her feet, and Thomas after her.

“It must be the storm,” he said as the screams turned to laughter. Lightning rendered the pool house all in silver, throwing the sculptures into stark relief. “I’m sure it’ll come back on any minute.”

The sky flashed white again. In the stroboscopic flicker, Thomas thought he saw one of the statues take a step.

“I think someone’s in here,” he whispered.

He heard the creak of the floor just before the impact, but it was too late to turn and intercept it. Something hard slammed into the back of his head, sending starlight shooting across his field of vision.

The last thing he heard over the ringing in his ears was the clear, unmistakable sound of Vivienne Farrow’s scream.