Cyril and Martha were due to come home tomorrow, and it wouldn’t be a minute too soon for me. I missed them both, more than I’d ever imagined.
I watched until the cat had eaten about half of the food, and refilled the water bowl with fresh water.
“See you later, His Nibs,” I whispered, and picking up my pocketbook, I let myself out. I locked the door and turned around to see Ardine Smalls standing in the semidarkness.
“Hi, Daisy.”
I tried to swallow in order to be able to speak, but I couldn’t.
She grinned, showing those horse-like teeth. “Marge called. Said you were poking around, asking all kinds of questions about me.”
Shock loosened the wedge in my throat. “Marge? But she seemed so . . .”
“Like your best friend, right?” She stepped over a grappling hook and came closer. “Yeah, Marge is anybody’s best friend for the right price. We have a real sweet deal going on. She sends me patients, and I give her a cut of the commission.”
Ardine wrinkled her nose as she looked around. “It should be easy enough to hide a body somewhere in this pile of junk,” she murmured, as if to herself.
She took a long syringe out of her old-fashioned purse. God knows what was in it. All I knew was that if I let her get close enough to stick me with that thing, I was toast.
My heart bounced. “You killed Harriet and Sophie.” It didn’t seem worth beating around the bush.
“Yep, and now I’m going to get rid of you, too.”
There was only one clear path up to the trailer among the piles of miscellaneous salvage, and she was standing in it.
To my right were stacks of oil drums and the cap to a pickup truck, and to the left was an avalanche of iron bed frames, bathtubs, and stacks of wooden shutters. If I tried climbing over that lot, I’d be a slow, easy target.
Going back into the trailer wouldn’t work either. It would take too much time to unlock the door.
I stared into her eyes and realized how completely crazy she was. But how could she kill me? We’d become friends, sort of.
“Why, for the love of God?” My breath was coming in short puffs, but I tried to keep my expression calm.
Ardine waved the syringe in the air. “Harriet and I were best friends once. Bestest friends. But when she met that bitch, Sophie Rosenthal, she discarded me like a used prophylactic. I couldn’t believe it. So I took Sophie down. I thought once she was out of the picture, things would go back to the way they were, but Harriet still wanted nothing to do with me.”
I glanced up the lane that led to the salvage yard. Even if I somehow got past her, I’d never make it to the main road. Ardine was an ungainly runner, but she was used to running, and much younger than me.
“So you snuck into Sophie’s house, paired up the second remote—”
“While she was in the shower, and then I climbed out the window. Instead of shutting it all the way, I left it open a crack so she’d notice the cold air and shut and lock it from the inside.”
“You’re so clever,” I said.
It’s often the guys who are too nice, too helpful, that you need to consider. Serrano’s words came back to haunt me. Hadn’t she been such a great help the day we found the stuff at Harriet’s house?
“Don’t patronize me, Daisy.” Ardine’s voice was frigid, completely missing its usual nerdy tone. “I realized you were getting close. Too close to figuring things out.”