“…ruin it all…” she hears him say. “Nosy bitches…” Each time she blinks, she is amazed that her eyes open again, that her body is still fighting.
Blink.
Roger is moving across to the pipe at the center of the room.
Blink.
He is holding the shears, the ones Elsie used to cut Enid’s wrists free.
Blink.
He lets them dangle at his side as he inspects her.
Blink.
Is it pity she sees in his eyes?
“You should have realized, Bev, that no one knows how to think more like a criminal than a cop.”
Blink.
He stands at his full height and takes the handles of the shears, opening the arm-length blades and waving them close to her neck.This is it, then, is it? This is how she dies, her neck severed like one of the sunflowers in the garden?
There is a noise coming from somewhere else in the room, but Beverley cannot locate it. Her thoughts are drifting—to sunshine, to flowers, to air.
There is a bang, a loud one, and Beverley wonders if it’s that, a bang, and not angels’ singing, or children’s laughter, that one hears when one dies.
It comes again, like a car backfiring. She can still see Roger above her. She can see his face, the cold shock upon it. He looks down at his chest. There is a black spot there, opening and opening and blooming red. He turns his head slowly. Beverley’s gaze follows his.
There is someone standing at the foot of the basement steps.
Enid.
She is holding a gun—presumably Roger’s. She must have known where to find it, Beverley realizes with her last breath—under their bed, in the top drawer of his desk, in a safe in the living room…
As Roger crumples to the ground, Enid speaks, the words rattling but strong enough.
“And you should have realized, Roger, that no one knows how to think more like a cop than his wife.”
Forty-Nine
“Two liters ofblood? You never did like to do anything by halves, did you, Bev?”
The hospital room is stark and sterile. A whir is in the air, caused by the workings of unidentifiable machines along the walls. The space smells of ammonia, disinfectant and Margot’s woody Diorissimo perfume. Lingering on the peripheries: the scent of hospital dinners—boiled potatoes and apple pie.
Beverley is half propped up, she realizes, several pillows stacked behind her back. Her mind is foggy. Needles are in her arm. Everything is bruised. Everything is fiery and sore. Her hair, she can feel, is matted to her forehead, her skin sweaty. Her mother would be horrified.
But they are there, the three of them. They survived it. Beverley wonders, with a beat of hope, of guilt, if Enid is in one of the neighboring rooms.
“Elsie!” Beverley calls suddenly, alarmed, the words hoarse in her throat. “Your head.”
“No real damage done.” Elsie moves a hand to the bandage. “It’s you we’re worried about. Do you want water? More pain relief? I can call the nurse.”
Beverley blinks slowly, takes a moment. Then warm tears spill over, winding their way down the sides of her nose.
“Oh, quit that,” Margot soothes. “People who catch killers don’t have time for tears—too busy saving the day.”
“How’d you get out?” Beverley asks them. “Are you both okay?”
