It was in her face before she could take another breath. Coating her nose. Being shoved down her throat. She was coughing, choking on it.
“Grace—” Theodore cried. He tried to stagger to his feet but couldn’t.
“It was a sad end to the affair, with a murder-suicide. But at least now there will be no evidence.” Earnest wiped the sweat from his face. He swayed a little.
Then he turned and stabbed Theo again. He was aiming for Theo’s heart, but Theo rolled at the last moment, and the knife hit him instead in the side.
Grace collapsed to the ground.
Copper released his hold on her and stepped over her spasming body.
She folded, trying to clutch her arms to herself. Knowing what was coming next.
Instead, her hand grazed a door stopper.
It was made of iron and shaped like a ship.
Her fingers closed around it.
“How long does strychnine take to be fatal?” Copper asked.
She could see, hazily, through the balustrades. The lights in the Grand Basin shimmered like fireworks.
“She’ll be dead within fifteen minutes,” Earnest replied. He bent down as she was spasming. Tucked Theodore’s written confession into where her handbag had fallen open next to her.
Grace’s hands closed around the door stop.
She whirled around with all of her might and brought it against his head.
It made a sick cracking sound.
“What?” Copper cried in disbelief as Earnest crumpled next to her.
She picked up the doorstop and rose to her feet.
She had brought the strychnine herself, and it was fake. A mixture of flour and powdered sugar. It hadn’t felt good to breathe it in to her nostrils and airways, but it certainly wasn’t a neurotoxin paralyzing her spinal cord.
She heard the distant pounding of footsteps, but it might have been her imagination. She held up the doorstop, preparing. “You can try to fight me,” she said. “But you have a better chance if you run.”
Copper looked at Earnest’s body, knowing that their tidy explanation was no longer an option.
He swallowed, then stepped forward and grabbed Earnest’s knife where it had fallen.
Grace couldn’t help Theo in time and fight off Copper simultaneously. She sank down beside Theodore and tore off pieces of her dress to bandage him. There was so much blood everywhere.
Copper began to approach them, his knife out.
“Don’t you see?” he said, snarling. “I can’t run if there’s still someone left to talk.”
“Please, someone, help us!” Grace screamed.
She bent down as Copper neared, raising the knife. She sobbed, trying to staunch the bleeding from Theo’s leg, his side. It was impossible. She could feel Theo’s pulse flagging, hear the organ notes and the distant cheers of the crowd below. The president must have arrived.
And then the door exploded on its hinges.
“Get down!” someone yelled. The police poured onto the balcony.
Grace held desperate pressure on Theodore’s wounds as someone knelt beside her. “Please. He’s been stabbed, he’s hurt,” she said.
