“She’s been after you all this time, sending threats and calling in tips to the police. You said it’s been her all along.”
But if Alice was Y, that had to mean she killed Constance, which didn’t make sense. “Did you kill Constance? And leave her on our stoop?!”
Alice seemed proud of herself as she explained, “Mallory already knew someone was after you. He would never believe you’d leave a body on your own stoop. I was giving him proof of what he already believed and getting rid of a statement that might have buried you. I did it for you!”
“Stop saying that!” I regretted yelling as soon as I did it. My head started to throb again with a steady rhythm. I sighed and dropped the card. There were a few smudges of dried blood on the back. The artist’s, of course. It had to be. She’d killed Charles Ross before he could finish drawing my third sin. She killed his wife for daring to medicate herself. And she finished off Mrs. Greeves. Alice was a serial killer, just like my dad. And she was taking care of my brothers while I was locked in a cell in her horse barn.
That thought seemed to clear my head in a way hours of rest might not have been able.
“How did you find out about Constance and the drawings?”
“From one of my marks, of course. Or . . . ex-marks. I’m sorry to say he’s no longer among us. You’ve met part of him, though.”
Because his hand was in my rubbish bin. “Charles Ross was a mark.”
Alice ran a hand across the bars. “He was the one who saw your father killing that girl in the park. He knew who the real killer was but didn’t think he needed to get involved as a witness because your father was already in jail. But he couldn’t convince Clara Greeves that your father was the true killer. And Clara had Crazy Constance all in an uproar, trying to force her to go to the police with what she knew about the sword. So Charles Ross came to me, hoping desperately to save his wife from having an episode.”
“You killed them both?”
Alice shrugged. “I’m not normally a killer. I’m a player. Why actually do the deed when you can just move all the pieces into place and watch the game play out on its own? But this time I had to make an exception.”
“People are not wooden pawns. ?You can’t predict—”
“And yet, they are so very predictable. Aren’t they?” She smiled and I remembered a time when I thought her smile was genuine. Now I wondered if it had ever been. “You, for instance. I didn’t need to know where you were as long as I knew where Sherlock was.”
Sherlock. I’d never reached the bandstand. He probably thought I’d refused him again. “He didn’t help you. He wouldn’t tell you anything.”
Alice looked at the floor. “No, but we followed him to the park and that’s when I noticed he was just staring at his phone, like he was watching something. I sent one of my boys in to ask him a question, and he saw the app on his phone. A tracking app.”
“My GPS.” I closed my eyes as my heart sank. He’d turned my GPS back on before he left the hotel room so he could watch to see whether I was coming for him or not.
“I thought you’d outwitted me when it was turned off the night before. But then all of a sudden, there you were again, and you were walking right toward us.”
“Right into your trap.” But if my GPS was on, that meant he could track me still.
A shred of hope must have somehow shone through my expression just then, because Alice smirked.
“We destroyed your phone,” she said, her mockery returning in full force. “It was for your own good. Well, for my good. It gets you out of my way.”
The fuzzy memory of my phone being stripped from my hand and crushed on the ground returned. I was so empty, every breath I took felt like it gusted through the dark cave that was my center. Every inhale was so loud. He couldn’t stand to wait for me—couldn’t take the not knowing. So he’d turned on my GPS to watch and see what I’d do. I wondered what Lock thought when he saw my stops and starts on the bridge, when he saw me finally coming toward him only to stop short and disappear. He’d think that was my decision.
One of my breaths snagged on a laugh that had no joy in it. Then another. Soon, I was laughing darkly to myself and holding my head in a vain attempt to keep the pain at bay.
“If only I’d actually walked away. Imagine that.”
Alice’s smile fell and she looked at me with a creepy sort of interest. Almost as if she was studying my reactions again.
“So you captured me,” I said. “To what end? Why am I here?”
“Because you’re nothing like your mother.” Alice held the bars and leaned back like a little kid at a playground. “This wasn’t in the original plan, of course. I was going to make you my partner, the way I’d been for your mom. I even tried to teach you. But, sadly, you aren’t like Emily.” She blew her bangs up off her forehead and pulled herself upright again.