But he reached around and slammed both doors shut behind me, bolted them, then yanked the curtains closed. I started to ask him what he’d seen, but he pushed me up against the door, just firmly enough to make my stomach flip.
I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and laced my fingers through his hair. He lifted me up to him, his arms like steel around my torso. I let out a barely audible moan, and that was it. The next thing I knew, we were on the bed, the regrettable T-shirt and pajama pants gone, his shirt too and then anything else that could possibly keep us from doing what we wanted.
KITTEN
—FROM CHAPTER 19
The thing that had spoken was hidden in the shadows halfway up the wide staircase, shivering and gripping the banister with two red-slicked fists.
Outside, the clouds must have pushed east, because a thick shaft of light from one of the upper windows fell across the thing, and Fay could see the side of its head. Its scalp hung in ribbons over its ear. Round eyes blinked out from the red, glistening mask.
With a shock, Fay recognized the shape of Carl Cormley’s close-set eyes and covered her mouth with her hand. He lifted his face toward her, beseeching.
“I stayed behind,” he rasped. “I hid. I wanted to make her confess.” Blood burbled somewhere in the depths of his throat.
Fay couldn’t move forward. She took several steps back. She felt dizzy, light-headed.
Her back hit the massive front door, and she felt for the doorknob. When at last her fingers found it, she gripped it, twisted, and pulled. The knob turned but the door wouldn’t budge. She pulled again with no luck. The door was locked. Her hands flew up to the bolt for the key that always hung there. It was gone. Someone had taken it. Taken it and locked the door from the outside.
And then she smelled the smoke.
Ashley, Frances. Kitten. New York: Drake, Richards and Weems, 1976. Print.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
I woke, dry-mouthed and disoriented. Strange light slanted in from between the curtains—afternoon light, I realized, when I squinted at the time on my phone. Past one.
And then I remembered.
Koa’s kisses. The way they had propelled me across the room. His skin on mine in the sheets, his mouth. His body.
He was gone. He must’ve left sometime in the early morning. I remembered the pressure of him against me during the night. His breath caressing the skin of my shoulder. That had been nice too. Better than nice.
But what if last night had just been a diversion? A strategy to throw me off balance? Koa hadn’t exactly been forthcoming about his background or why he’d come to Ambletern. Maybe he thought I’d be too starry-eyed after last night to ask any more questions. He may be right, I thought. The details from last night were filtering back to me, giving me shivers. As nervous as the whole thing made me, I wanted more.
I clicked on my voice mail and listened to a message from Aurora. She was boarding her parents’ private plane for a Mother’s Day getaway, screaming over the engine roar. She yelled that she’d gotten my email, that she supported me no matter what, and that if I found myself homeless in the near future, I’d always have a room at her place. She signed off with noisy kisses.
There was no message from Asa. No missed calls. I dialed his number, and his voice mail chirped.
“Asa,” I sighed. “I’m still waiting for pages, and I . . . there’s something I need to talk to you about. Call me, okay?”
I threw the phone on the bed, then collapsed back on the twisted bedclothes.
Fuck. Where was he? And why wasn’t he returning my calls?
I was dying for coffee but didn’t relish venturing out and running into Frances. Then memories of last night—the part at Billy’s—sliced through me. I looked down at my arm. A large, angry green-and-purple bruise bloomed around my bicep where Billy had grabbed me. I touched it.
Doro said she’d lied about her father being dead because he was mentally unstable, even dangerous, which I could confirm from my encounter with him. The guy was a five-star paranoiac for sure, obsessing over his grown daughter and my safety. And maybe had even gone so far as to hide a murder weapon so his hotel could benefit financially. Regardless, at this point, if I kept my distance, he was a nonissue.
Right now I needed to focus on Susan Doucette’s theories. If she was right—if Billy had hidden the murder weapon on the island or handed it over to Frances—that changed everything. And if I could actually find it? My tell-all would rocket into the stratosphere.
So my next task was to find the rock—or whatever had killed Kimmy Baker. Although I’d been to her cabin, I hadn’t exactly searched the place. And I hadn’t had a chance to investigate the ruins or the middens, either.
And I had to consider it might not be a rock that I should be searching for. The Cultists—Susan included—were convinced that was the murder weapon, or maybe it was an ashtray, like the one described in the book. But what color was it? And how big? Besides that, if Frances had killed Kimmy, would she really have been reckless enough to describe the actual murder weapon in her book? The reality was, the thing I was looking for could be something no one had thought of.
I knew it was probably a million-to-one chance, but maybe if I was able to find the rock or ashtray or hammer—whatever the thing was—there might be a way to match Kimmy’s injuries to the shape of the weapon. And possibly some of the victim’s DNA. But not the killer’s—that was probably too much of a stretch. I didn’t know how, exactly, but maybe the police could use it to peg the real killer. Either Vera Baker, Billy Kitchens, or Frances.
Or Doro. I guess I had to keep her in the running.
On the other hand, I got most of my ideas of how these things worked from reruns of Law & Order, so I was probably living in a dreamworld. But, even though all of this seemed like a reach, I had to believe having the murder weapon would be better than not having it.
Then, of course, there was Susan’s other theory: that Billy had given the rock to Frances in exchange for money. Now that I really considered it, the idea seemed extraordinarily far-fetched. Frances had never liked getting her hands dirty—not for any reason. I couldn’t see her willingly incriminating herself by stashing a murder weapon. She was too goddamn committed to preserving her own precious hide. If she’d killed Kimmy and gotten a hold of the rock again, she definitely would’ve gotten rid of it.