Page 58 of The Women of Wild Hill

Do you hear that?” Phoebe asked her daughter.

Sibyl looked up from assembling the mushroom bruschetta. “Hear what?”

Phoebe held a finger up and waited. All she could hear was the blood rushing through her veins. “It just went quiet out there.” She glanced over at the kitchen door. “I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t be gone too long,” Sibyl told her. “I didn’t expect everyone to show up so soon. They’re going to start wondering where all the food is.”

Phoebe removed her apron and left it on the counter. “I’ll just take a peek.” She paused for a moment with one hand on the kitchen door. She could feel its atoms vibrating. Something on the other side was generating waves of powerful energy.

“What is it?” Sibyl inquired.

“Stay here,” she ordered her daughter before pushing through.

The hallway outside the kitchen was empty.

Phoebe followed the sound of a single male voice to the living area.

There, one hundred men stood facing the front of the room with their backs to her.

The portrait of a plump, bespectacled man in judge’s robes glowered at Phoebe from high on the wall.

Fortunately, he was the only one who was watching her.

“Thank you all for gathering here tonight. I know it was short notice, but I think it will soon be clear why all of us needed to be here.”

She knew the voice, but she couldn’t quite place it. Without heels, she wasn’t tall enough to see the speaker. Phoebe circled the back of the room, searching for a line of sight through the crowd.

“Days like today remind us why this coalition is so essential to our individual survival. We may find ourselves rivals in the marketplace, the poll booth, or the courtroom, but we are all beneficiaries of an order that has existed for millennia. An order that has been responsible for mankind’s greatest feats and advancements.

It is this order that we have been called upon to defend against the forces of evil. ”

Dread settled on Phoebe’s shoulders. Each step felt taxing, and she struggled for every breath. No one in the crowd had moved an inch since she’d arrived. Phoebe knew she did not want to see the speaker who held the audience so rapt.

“Three of us have died in the past week,” the same speaker continued.

“All three deaths were due to what they call natural causes. Most assume that a death by natural causes means no human being was responsible. We now have evidence that this is not the case. Apparently, there are those who can call on nature to do their bidding. We have one such person here with us tonight.”

A guest in front of Phoebe shifted and she saw them.

The speaker she recognized as a Supreme Court justice.

A senator stood to his left, a tech mogul to the right.

Liam Geddes was also nearby, with a cabinet secretary at his side.

There were six in all. Five men and one woman—her sister.

Brigid was looking straight at her through the crowd as though she’d known Phoebe was there behind the others.

The message she conveyed could not be mistaken.

Run! Brigid was warning her. They don’t know about you yet.

At that moment, Phoebe saw her sister at thirteen.

It was the day she’d almost been kidnapped and Brigid had just returned to the caretaker’s cottage with an empty hornet’s nest in her hand.

She held it out like a gift but pulled back before Phoebe could grab it, as though her generosity were conditional.

Promise me that the next time you’re in trouble, you’ll be smart and run, Brigid told her. I may not always be able to save you.

Phoebe threw her arms around her sister and squeezed her as tight as she could. She’d never agreed to Brigid’s condition. In her heart, she’d always believed that Brigid would be there for her—and that she would return the favor.

NOW IT WASN’T HER LIFE alone she’d be risking.

And there was one other person who knew she was Brigid’s sister—and Sibyl’s mother.

He was standing just to the right of Brigid, looking straight at Phoebe as though he’d been listening to her thoughts.

Their eyes locked for a moment. Then Liam looked away.

What was happening? she wondered. None of it made any sense.

“Our friend, Senator Rivera, will present the evidence. Before he begins, we owe Liam Geddes a debt of gratitude for bringing these facts to our attention. He’s filling his father’s shoes better than any of us could have imagined.”

Liam beamed as the crowd applauded. The Geddes men had done it again. Phoebe wished she could uproot the entire family tree and set it ablaze.

The justice addressed Brigid. “Before we begin, how do you plead?” he asked.

“Fuck off,” Brigid told him.

A man Phoebe didn’t recognize reached out and slapped Brigid across the face. A blazing-red imprint of his palm appeared on her skin. “Show some respect or we’ll move straight to punishment,” he demanded. “Senator?”

“I’ve just dropped you all a file,” the senator told the crowd. “Please take a moment to review it.”

Everyone in the room pulled out a phone. Phoebe backed into the hall.

“One week ago, at a party thrown at this residence, Senator Josh Jacobs drowned after he was repeatedly stung by jellyfish.”

“They weren’t jellyfish, you moron,” Brigid said.

The sound of another slap made Phoebe wince.

She peeked back into the room in time to see the senator look up from his phone and smile.

“The property’s security cameras were off for the night.

But an environmental organization had positioned a camera just up the beach to monitor a batch of sea turtle eggs.

It captured Senator Jacobs with a female companion.

Both were nude. As you can see from the enhanced image in the file you received, that woman was Brigid Laguerre. ”

“Just because I fucked him doesn’t mean I killed him,” Brigid said.

“And I thought you loved me,” Liam joked. Laughter shook the room.

“Two days later, at the gathering following Senator Jacobs’s funeral, Dan Wallace was killed by a falling branch. The entire event was captured by one of the attendees. In the moments before the tragedy, thirty-six crows came to perch on the same dead limb.”

“Ravens,” Brigid corrected.

“Pardon me. Ravens,” he said. “If you look at the film included in your file, you’ll find a photo that shows Ms. Laguerre standing a few yards away. Of all the people at the memorial, she is the only one with her eyes on the ravens.”

Phoebe knew the picture would show herself walking away from the scene.

“And finally, just yesterday, Vernon Cage succumbed to anaphylactic shock after consuming a cocktail that contained egg whites. As you can see in the third photo provided, Ms. Laguerre was also present at that death.”

“There’s nothing in this file that provides conclusive proof,” said someone. “She was at the scene of each death, but so were several of us.”

The justice stepped in. “You must be new here. We use a different standard than the American justice system. Unless innocence can be proven beyond all doubt, the defendant must be removed as a potential threat.”

“Who is the other woman in the third picture?” someone in the crowd asked.

“The caterer,” the senator replied.

“How did Vernon get his hands on a drink with egg whites? The caterer must have been given a list of allergies,” another man said.

“We should find her!” someone else called out.

Phoebe thought of her daughter, assembling hors d’oeuvres while her fate was being decided by the men in the next room.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. I ordered the cocktail,” Brigid said. “I thought it would be fun to watch him gag on the tongue that’s been talking assholes like you out of trouble for the past thirty years.”

The room went silent. If they’d been expecting their prisoner to cower before them, Brigid refused to provide satisfaction. “Guess what I had in store for that motherfucker?” Phoebe peeked out and saw her point at Liam, who grimaced theatrically before winking back at her.

SOMEONE IN THE CROWD WASN’T amused. “However grateful I am to Liam for bringing this evidence to our attention, does he not bear some guilt of his own? Ms. Laguerre would not have had the opportunity to kill anyone if not for him.”

Wriggle out of that one, you traitor, Phoebe thought.

Then Brigid began to cackle. “You fucking idiots think I needed a man’s help?

” She doubled over, holding her stomach as she howled with laughter.

“You’ve got me wrangling birds and snakes and sea beasts and slipping men deadly drinks and you still think I couldn’t have done it all on my own?

That’s your Achilles’ heel, you know. Why you won’t see it coming when it’s finally your turn.

You’ve bought your own bullshit. You really think you’re superior.

I wish I could see the look on each of your faces when you find out how wrong you are. ”

Brigid had spared the man who had double-crossed her. She could have dragged him down with her, but she hadn’t. She’d saved all three of them—Phoebe and Sibyl, too.

“So you admit your guilt?”

“Admit it? I couldn’t be prouder. I’ve been killing men like you for years. Go ahead and drown me in the fucking ocean. I’ll come back from the dead for the rest of you.”

Phoebe knew then there was nothing to be done. Her sister had seen her own death. Her last act was to take all the blame upon herself.

“Why did you kill them?”

“I killed them because they were parasites, just like you. Sucking the life out of this planet. Taking more than your share. Offering nothing in return. One day, you’ll all be punished.”

“I think we’ve heard enough of her rantings and ravings,” said the justice. “It’s time for Ms. Laguerre to have her accident.”

Two men stepped forward. Each took one of Brigid’s arms and together they dragged her outside to the ocean.