Priscilla takes a deep breath. “Think about it, Millie. I was still downstairs when Sienna fell. I came out of the kitchen when you screamed. And you saw Malcolm die with your own eyes. I wasn’t there, was I? And Jaxon... well, I don’t know who did that, but I promise you it wasn’t me. I didn’t steal his pages.”
“But you stolemine.”
Priscilla hesitates. “I didn’t steal them.” She glances toward the door. “Put the mace down, and I’ll explain.”
“No!” Millie snaps, hating that she sounds like a petulant toddler.
“Put. It.Down,” orders Priscilla, as if she’s still the one in charge, and Millie has hadenough.
“You know what, Priscilla?” she says, stepping forward. “I am sick todeathof you telling me what to do.” Priscilla finally steps back, only to find the desk blocking her retreat.
“Also! Just because I write young adult, that does NOT mean I’m still a child! I am a grown-ass woman with serious grown-ass thoughts! So don’t you dare patronize me—”
Priscilla’s expression finally cracks, her composure splintering.
And there it is, in her eyes.
Fear.
“STOP!” she yells, throwing up her hands, and Millie actually does, slams to a halt, confused by the sudden turn, until she realizes, too late, that Priscilla’s not talking to her. Her attention is locked on something, or someone,behindher.
Millie sees a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye. She starts to turn and sees a massive glinting object rushing toward her, a flash of gold, followed by a wetcrunch, a sound that somehow echoes in her ears, her eyes, her heart, and before she can make sense of it the room is tipping, her vision blurring into streaks of light and shades of pink, and green, and red, before giving way to her least favorite color.
Black.
“Priscilla”
Chapter One
SHE COULD HAVE GONE HER WHOLEGOD-GIVENlife without hearing the sound of metal meeting skull. Of bone giving way. Of dead weight hitting the rug.
Millie goes down hard, the mace falling from her hand as she collapses to the floor.
Priscilla—whose real name is of course not Priscilla but Ava, though she’s been thinking of herself as Priscilla all weekend, to make the image stick—watches, frozen with horror, as Cate lifts the massive block, and brings it down a second time with a horrible, heavy crunch, even though Ava can clearly see that Millie isn’t getting back up.
She opens her mouth, unsure what will come out, a string of curses or the mouthful of pasta she stole while Kenzo was taking Jaxon his tray, or a bloodcurdling scream, but what she manages is, “Cate, I think that’s enough.”
The girl stops and straightens, cheeks flushed, clearly winded from the effort. She looks from the weapon in her hands to the body and then to Ava, and the question, the sheer what-the-fuck of it, must be written on her face, because Cate says, “She was coming at you with a mace. I saw her. She was going to... I mean...” She looks back down, as if noticing for the first time that blood has splashed against her cardigan. Stained her hands. A few flecks have even reached her face, dotting her pale skin like freckles. “I thought she was going to...”
She trails off, as if losing steam, and here’s the thing. If Cate had hit Millie only one time, Ava might have believed it was a desperate, primal act, or a poorly considered attempt at heroism.
But Cate hit her again.
And now that she’s stopped, Ava notices two things.
The first is that the object she used to bludgeon Millie Mitchell is in fact abook. Not just a book, butthebook. The one made entirely of gold. The one she honestly did not believe existed, because even for Arthur Fletch, it seemed a bit much.
The second thing she notices is that Cate Newhouse does not look upset.
Annoyed. A little jumpy. But not like a girl who’s just committed murder for the first time. Too late, Ava realizes why.
Because it’snotthe first time.
She feels the smallest spike of vindication, because from the moment she met Cate, something’s rubbed her the wrong way. No, if she’s being honest, she hasn’t liked Cate since well before they met, when Eleanor insisted on adding her newest author’s name to the list of contenders, insisting that she wasspecial—a word agents too often used when what they meant wasgreen.
See, she thinks as Cate pushes her dark hair out of her face, leaving a smudge of blood along one cheek,this is why you listen to your gut.
But the validation doesn’t erase the fact that she’s now here, in a room, with a body on the floor, and the killer blocking the door.
