“You’re crazy. You’re both crazy,” Jane finally sputtered. “Your whole family is crazy.”
“Well, as we used to say as kids, it takes one to know one.” Pris patted the covers over the patient’s legs. The blanket stopped short of her bandaged feet. “Now Dante over there is perfectly sane. Should we let him talk?”
Dante grunted and watched them skeptically as he propped his injured foot on the bed rail. “Miss Lawson, we know your parents died of cyanide poisoning from a mattress company fire that you barely escaped as a teen. We’ve also seen the fire department’s report on the arson that caused that fire. We could ask the sheriff to open your juvenile record from that period. We’d rather not.”
Evie chuckled. “Muddy red in her first chakra and a scary yellow in her third. You did well, Dr. Watson. She’s both scaredandangry.”
For Dante to have spoken that much—he had to have “seen” something on the objects he touched. Pris’s stomach clenched. Jane had accidentally killed her parents. Had she been driven to kill again?
“I was just a kid and didn’t know better!” Jane protested. She glanced frantically at the nightstand as if searching for a weapon, but they had her surrounded. “It was cold in that warehouse.”
Pris had read the history. Jane’s parents had been reported to social services on several occasions for abuse. People damned well ought to be licensed before allowed to have children. After the fire, Jane had ended in foster care and therapy. No one ever proved that the fire she’d started to keep warm had been intentionally set to burn down the factory with her parents inside.
Pris removed the cell phone on the stand and handed it to Evie, then pushed the landline out of reach. “We really aren’t interested in your juvenile record, although if you continue slandering me, it may get mentioned to appropriate persons.”
They’d only guessed about the cause of the bistro’s kitchen fire, but for Dante to use a veiled threat, he must haveseenenough on some object to confirm her guilt. That still wasn’t evidence.
Evie’s schoolteacher sister read mysteries and claimed that detectives in stories insisted confession was easier than hunting evidence. Pris could see why. Only she didn’t have a persuasive bone in her.
“What has us curious iswhyyou would set fire to the bistro.” Evie twirled the flower she’d removed from the vase. “You are a person who acts out her anger with words. If, instead, youburnedout everyone you hated, you’d have done more damage by now than General Sherman.”
Good line. Pris admired Evie’s glibness, while attempting to focus on Jane’s mental reactions. She hated doing this. The bigot’s mind was a cluttered labyrinth of fear and negativity. But when it came to herself, Jane was quite clear.
“I didn’t do anything,” the blogger protested.
“She thinks Rhonda knows more than she’s saying,” Pris reported.
“About KK’s death? The money? The fire?” Evie asked looking like a playful genie with her orange curls brushing the shoulders of her bright yellow sweatshirt.
No one had introduced Evie, but Jane apparently recognized her. She scowled and didn’t reply.
“I’m seeing jewelry.” Puzzled, Pris tried to work out Jane’s convoluted fears.
“That’s what I thought I saw,” Dante said in surprise. “But it’s an ancient pendant, so I thought it was just me.” He studied Jane. “If you saw what I’m seeing, and it’s genuine, it’s worth a fortune on the black market. Are you trading in stolen artifacts? Were you trying to frighten Rhonda?”
The expression of shock on Jane’s face made this whole painful exercise worth every second.
“It’s okay, Janey,” Evie said reassuringly. “All we want is KK’s killer. Tell us what you know, and we’ll go away, and you’ll never see us again.”
The police might, but Jane’s fear won over common sense.
“All I wanted was an interview with Lady Katherine. I went down to Myrtle Beach when she opened that store.” With a sigh, Jane reached for her water glass. Her bandaged fingers made it difficult. Pris held the glass for her to sip at the straw.
Satisfied, Jane pushed the glass aside. “No one would talk to me. My blog and my column in the paper have an enormous audience, but I wasn’timportantenough. At the time, I thought the store was Italian, and I wanted the dirt on the foreigners.”
Which proved Kit-Kat might have been smarter than anyone thought—if she kept the columnist out because she recognized her bigotry. But Pris accepted that Jane’s version was probably right. With her self-cut hair and camouflage attire, Jane always looked like a frumpy homeless person. KK and company were snobs.
The blogger looked self-righteous as she added, “I found a back door to the boutique.”
Pris winced at Dante’s mental contempt over breaking and entering.
Unfazed, Evie patted the patient encouragingly. “Good investigative reporting. Did you go through the trash?”
Jane nodded. “And then I heard them arguing about a necklace Lady Katherine was wearing. I didn’t know who she was at the time, but it was that stuck-up clerk, Rhonda, who said they needed the cash for inventory, not to go around her neck. That snotknewsomething. I thought I could force her into talking. The door into the boutique shouldn’t have been locked.”
Excellent reason to start a fire, right. How often had the insane blogger used that technique to make people talk? When Jane grew silent, Pris held out the cup for her to sip again.
“You saw the necklace?” Evie continued as if they were just gossiping, but her eyes seemed to be following an agitated ghost.
