“I hear you got a pretty penny for it,” Millie says. “Triple what you paid.”
Shit. Was this Stu’s revenge? He was still upset about the Porter place, so he was going to dangle the delicious treat of Millie’s land in front of Dawn, after he’d poisoned it?
“Not triple,” Dawn says. “And I did a lot of work on it. The Porters’ daughter needed the money, and I made sure she got it. I undertook the work.”
“And what about Kenny Turpin?”
Now Dawn’s heart stutters.
“What about him?” she says carefully.
“Old man was as fit as an ox until you took an interest in his property. Then, suddenly…” She slams down the knife. “Drops dead of a heart attack.”
Dawn swallows the tremor in her voice and says, “If that’s a joke, it’s in very poor taste, ma’am.”
“Oh, I’m teasing. I’m sure Kenny had a bum ticker. All those years eating the way he did.” She shakes her head. “My husband and I knew him and Gertie, back in the day. Man put so much butter on his bread there was no room left for jam.”
“I didn’t know him well, but I do know he was a regular at Stu’s, and if I keep eating there, I’m going to have a heart attack of my own before I’m forty.”
“Too much grease and too much salt,” Millie says as she chops the venison. “I keep telling him to buy younger cows. Like my deer here. I know exactly the right age to harvest them. Enough to have some bulk on their bones, but not so old that the meat’s gone stringy.”
Millie puts the pieces aside. Then she heads for the other leg piece. When she tugs the rope, though, it doesn’t move. A few more tugs, then a frustrated grunt.
“Would you be a dear and grab that stool,” Millie says.
Dawn looks around. She spots the ancient folding stool leaning against the cabin.
Mental note: buy Millie a new stool.
Dawn heads over. She’s bending to pick it up when a shadow moves behind her. She turns just in time to see Millie swinging a bat at her head. Before she can even yelp in surprise, the bat slams into her temple, and the world goes dark.
Dawnwakes in Millie’s cabin, and her first thought is that she’s read this scene before—she does love her mysteries. The victim always rises in confusion. Where am I? What’s going on?
There’s no confusion. Dawn knows exactly where she is and exactly what’s happening. She’s seen this scene too, in horror movies, and she curses herself, remembering how she’d laughed coming through the woods.
Following the witch to her cabin in the woods. Ha-ha-ha.
Except it wasn’t that kind of story. No candy house here. Just one with pieces of goddamn meat hanging everywhere. Flyblown, unidentifiable chunks of meat.
Huh, that doesn’t look like deer.
She pushes to her feet. Or she tries to. When she stumbles, she immediately tugs her legs, expecting to find them bound. They aren’t but…
There’s something wrong with her legs.
No, there’s somethingonthem. The cabin is nearly dark, but she can make out her lower legs, except they’re covered in something. Wrapped in something almost like…sausage skins? Lumpy and pales with blue and red streaks. Some kind of compress to tenderize the meat?
Dawn chokes back a hysterical laugh.
Don’t panic. She’s awake, and she’s not bound in any way, and this old lady is about to discover Dawn’s a whole lot more than a cut-throat realtor. Kenny did indeed have a little help tohis death bed, and he wasn’t the only one. Old Millie might be a crazy bush lady cannibal, but she’s met her match.
Dawn reaches down to pull the compresses off her legs, but when she touches them, she feels skin. And what the hell is wrong with her hand? It’s pale and pudgy, the joints thick, aching as she moves them.
“You’re awake,” says a voice. Only it’s not Millie’s voice. It’s…
A figure steps forward and lights a lantern, and in the glow of it, Dawn sees a mirror. A full length mirror, reflecting herself back.
Then the “her” in the mirror steps forward, lifting the lantern.
