“Okay. I take it you plan on killing me, although that’s pretty dumb. They’ll know it’s you.”
“They arrested Sandra Cheever.”
“And you think she’ll go down alone?”
“I’ll call her a liar. She had the motive. She was the one sleeping with Aaron.”
“But she’s in custody now, Mariah. She couldn’t have done this. People will arrive at the Horse Farm. They’ll find all the bodies you left strewn around—and they’ll realize I’m missing.”
“No one saw me. There are dozens of other people who might have done this,” Mariah said.
“You’re crazy. Aaron’s dead. Drew and Sydney are half-dead. Sandra is in custody and—”
“Mason is out there somewhere and, God knows, I’d implicate that crazy old broad at the café.”
“Key words, Mariah—crazy old broad at the café. She’s always working, always surrounded by witnesses. When could she have done any of this? But the point is, if you’re going to kill me... What started all this? Marcus was good to everyone. Why did you kill him?”
“I looked it up, Olivia. My great-great-great-grandfather was born on this land. I’m entitled to it. The Horse Farm had to fail.”
“So you could buy it?” Olivia asked incredulously.
“It’s really my land. I have the right to it. I shouldn’t even have to buy it—but I will.”
“It was Marcus’s family land—that’s how he got it,” Olivia said.
“Yeah, well, I went on one of those ancestry sites. And it led me back a bunch of generations. My great-great-whatever was Marcus’s great-whatever’s brother, which means I have just as much right to the land as he did. And then I wouldn’t have to be a so-so therapist. I’d get to be a great hostess for a haunted bed-and-breakfast, and every night I’d give history and ghost tours.”
“You’re crazy.”
“No.” She shook her head. “It should have been so simple. Everyone should just have said, oh, how sad. Marcus Danby became a heroin-whore again and it proves that the whole therapy thing was a pile of bullshit. It would’ve been simple as hell.”
Simple? The murder had been simple?
“But no...you wouldn’t believe it. You dragged in the law, and then when the law here realized that yes, addicts do fall back, you just had to call your cousin. You know, I was onto you—I knew as soon I saw Mr. Handsome Federal Agent walk in that you’d pulled some strings. Yeah, he needed therapy, my ass!”
“Sandra was in on it, though, right?” Olivia said. “I mean, you needed help, didn’t you?”
“Sandra is an idiot!” Mariah snapped. “She wanted Marcus out of the way because she wanted Aaron running the place. She wanted Marcus’s house, and she wanted Aaron in charge, and she wanted a raise. After that, she wanted the two of them to play house forever and ever. But then, when everything seemed to be coming together once Marcus was dead, it looked like the Horse Farm was going to survive! And Aaron was a jerk—”
“But Sandra just let you kill him?”
Mariah sighed. “Sandra might have been a bad choice as a helper—although she should’ve been good. She can be such a bitch, but she’s really a total coward. And dumb! She actually thought what happened at the stream was an accident! I set up the image of the general so I could get all excited and create a diversion before Aaron was found. She didn’t help me. She didn’t even know. I didn’t count on the ripped-up pieces of that cow being all over—they really did make me scream. And it meant I could leave the picture behind, which made everything that much more convincing.”
Olivia stared at her. It was almost impossible to fathom the complexity of a deranged mind. The old cliché about method in madness occurred to her. “What...what about the darts?” she asked. “How did you come up with that?”
“Olivia, I have to tell you—the dart thing is just great. I make those little suckers myself. I add the tiny feathers and then they fly like a damn. They fall out at the slightest movement, which is another plus, and the concoction I put together is pretty impressive. You’d have to be looking for specific poisons to even hope to find them at autopsy. I learned all that from Drew and Sydney, by the way. They know how to mix stuff up because Marcus insisted they had to be prepared for animal emergencies at all times.”
“Good to hear you’re such a wonderful student,” Olivia told her. “So, Sandra didn’t know you were going to kill Aaron—but she gave you the key to his place, anyway?”
Mariah didn’t answer.
“She didn’t give you the key, did she? You took it and had a copy made.”
“I did that months ago,” Mariah said proudly.