Page 111 of Heidi Lucy Loses Her Mind
His eyes are bugging out of his head as he says, “I have no idea—”
“Shut up!” Elsie screams again.
Except this time I really can’t. “But—how did you kill Carmina?” I say faintly, pointing at Patrice.
“Poison, obviously,” she says with a sniff. “I tried to get her a few months ago at that restaurant, but after she found a bug in her meal and people started looking at the kitchen too closely, Manniford wasn’t willing to try again. Coward,” she scoffs.
“I knew he was sketchy,” Soren says under his breath.
And it occurs to me then that the only reason Patrice is telling us this must be that we’re going to die. That’s how these things happen; if the villain monologues, it’s because the good guys are going to die.
Why don’t I read any detective novels? Why do I only read romances and literary fiction? Nothing in Soren’s books have prepared me for this moment. Nothing in my Regency romances have told me what to do when two insane women are screaming at me.
But then I think of all the scary movies I’ve tried to watch with Eric, and I shiver. No way. I couldn’t even handle Soren wearing a face mask all those years ago when we met; why would I ever read scary books?
“Okay. But—you—” I say, looking now at Elsie. “I thought you were trying to kill Carmina.”
Elsie shrugs. “I was. My weapon was Patrice.”
“And vice versa,” Patrice says, her voice suddenly even and calm. “I’d hoped to eke a bit more blackmail money out of Stanley, but…” She shrugs. “Eventually he just needed to go.”
“All right,” Soren says slowly, and when I look over at him, I can tell he’s just as confused as I am. “So let me get this straight. Carmina was blackmailing Stanley…but then she died.”
Patrice’s brow furrows with her irritation, but she just nods.
“Right,” Soren says. “Okay. So then we found the photos of Stanley and his—uh—his mistress,” he says, “and we gave the photos to Phil and Elsie.”
Patrice and Elsie nod.
“And then we thought, why not try to get some money out of him ourselves?” Elsie says with a shrug. “But Stanley’d had enough, I guess. So Phil and I had to kill him.”
“Ah,” Soren says, and I nod. That timing actually does make sense; it was after Stanley’s death that Phil started looking rough.
“Maybe that’s when he realized he was married to a lunatic,” I say to Soren, and he nods.
And then, before I even register what’s happening, Elsie is lunging at me.
She’s utterly unhinged, madness sparkling in her eyes, the heavy clock raised over her head.
Slow motion.
Soren turns around, pulling me close, shielding me in a matter of milliseconds. The clock comes down on the back of his head, and I scream—though what I say is beyond me. I don’t think there are words; it’s just a stream of terror.
I feel his body shudder; my arms tighten around him as my heart stops completely. But when he remains standing, when he remains cocooned around me, I look up at him, surprised. Then I peer around him at Elsie, who’s holding the clock in her hand, looking peeved and glaring at the back of Soren’s head.
“It hit your man bun,” I say, my eyes wide, my voice faint. “Your man bun cushioned the blow—”
But Elsie lunges again, and I flinch away. And Soren’s arms, which had gone temporarily lax, are too slow to stop me from losing my footing.
I tumble backward, the world spinning around me before I feel a sharp crack of pain on the side of my skull—
And everything goes black.
* * *
I wakeup in a dimly lit room.
I jacknife straight up, my eyes flying open as my racing heart threatens to jump right out of my gaping mouth. My gaze darts here and there, taking in everything I can see, until I realize I’m in a hospital bed.
