Had I dodged left, I wouldn’t have gotten cut, but I also wouldn’t have had a weapon to deflect the next blow. I grabbed the umbrella from the stand, just in time to hold it up above my head as the knife came down again, high enough to see the look of hate contorting the woman’s features into a mask I knew all too well, down to her curly hair and bright-red-painted lips.
Our Sally Alexander was trying to kill me.
My brain recklessly tried to piece everything together, when I should have been more focused on the shift of her arm as she stabbed at me, which meant I got cut again, this time on my hip. I didn’t feel the cut, but a quick glance showed blood blooming through the slice in my jeans.
Nothing too serious, I told myself, holding the umbrella up again. At least she was attacking in patterns. In a moment of inspiration, I noticed she was left handed, and I released the left-hand side of my umbrella shield just as she sliced down, using her impact to spin my umbrella around and slam down on her hand with a satisfying crack. She dropped the knife. I stepped down on the blade and, like I’d practiced with Sherlock, kicked it away. But with all the rubble on the floor, it didn’t go near far enough.
Sally lunged for it, but the crook of my umbrella was just coming around and connected cleanly with her face, which sent her staggering back. I pushed it against her neck before she could recover and pinned her to the banister.
She glared at me and hissed, “This is your fault. You should have just admitted what you’d done.”
“Is that your son?” I asked, gesturing toward the picture affixed to our door.
“No one cared about my Mickey. Son of a whore. Lost while I was out with my tricks. No one cared but our sergeant.”
“And then he found the killer.”
“No. I found him and killed him. And Sergeant found me. Papers said there weren’t justice, but I got my justice. I got to stand over the body of that animal and spit on it for my Mickey.”
I huffed out a laugh. “Fine, then. So you think my father is innocent. Why in the world would you come after me?”
Her eyes narrowed to slits and her lip twitched. “You killed all those people in the park.”
“I didn’t.”
“You killed them and blamed him!” She reached her hands for me, her nails extended like she wanted to tear me apart. But I pressed my weapon against her neck until she gave up.
I loosened my hold a little, to make sure she could breathe. “I didn’t kill anyone. You have it all wrong.”
Mrs. Greeves’s voice was thin and tight when she said, “You were seen. Connie told me she saw you—”
“I was hiding the weapon from my father! I was trying to stop him.”
“No! You threatened him too! I saw that with my own eyes.”
“What are you talking about?” I loosened the crook from her neck just a little bit more, hoping she’d calm down now that we were talking. But I still held it against her skin in warning.
“I came here the night they took him away,” she pointed toward the kitchen. “I saw you through the window, standing in that room there, holding a knife to Sergeant’s throat.”
“You don’t know what you saw.” I shook my head and looked around at the room. All that rage and damage over nothing. I’d wasted all that time trying to figure out who she was for nothing—for what amounted to the misinformed rantings of the neighborhood gossip and her misdirected loyalty. She’d killed the man who killed her son and this is what she’d turned into all these years later. Is this what Lock was afraid I’d become? “I was trying to make him stop killing people.”
“Liar.”
“I wanted him to leave London. I was going to pay him money to leave so I could protect my brothers.”
“Liar!”
Mrs. Greeves knocked the umbrella aside, and in the next moment we were on the floor, shards of glass cutting through my shirt to embed in the skin of my back. She pushed up to face me only to punch me as hard as she could and fall on top of me again, pressing the glass still deeper into my back. “And then you killed Charlie!”
I grabbed her wrists to keep her from hitting me again, but there was already blood in my mouth when I said, “I didn’t. I didn’t kill anybody.”
“You killed him and cut him up! But I found the piece you left. I found his hand and put it where the coppers would find it.” She ripped an arm from my grip and hit me over and over as she screamed, “Why didn’t they lock you up!”
I managed to deflect only half the blows, and the one that smacked against my temple made me dizzy. She suddenly stopped hitting me, staring at me through her hateful mask, her cheeks wet with tears.
“Do you know how lost Connie was without her Lord Charles? You didn’t have to kill him. He was on your side—said Sergeant killed your friend. But I knew better. Then I found his hand.”