“About what?”
“You and my husband.”
“What?”
She shook her head slowly. “I knew all along. He always thought he was so clever, as if I wouldn’t find out. But I always did. I tracked down each one of them and made sure they got what was coming to them. Now it’s your turn.”
I didn’t understand what she was talking about. The haze in my brain made it hard to think.
“I don’t…” I tried to lift my hand to rub my eyes, but my limbs wouldn’t cooperate.
Without saying anything else, she pinched my upper arm. I felt a prick and a slight stinging.
“What is that?” I asked. “What are you doing?”
She didn’t answer for a moment, then held up a syringe. “It’s insulin.”
“Did you just inject me?”
“That’s right, Penelope. I did. The upside is, it’s almost untraceable. If they found you right away, they’d probably detect the GHB I put in your tea. But I didn’t give you enough to kill you. Cause of death would remain uncertain. Not that they’ll find you.” She paused. “The downside is, it takes a bit of time to drop your blood sugar enough to kill you.”
“But…why?”
“Don’t play stupid with me. They always think the wife doesn’t know. What did he tell you? Did he say he’d leave me for you?”
“Edwin?”
“Of course, Edwin. He was lying, you know. He never would have left me for any of them. You were never special.”
Wait…My brain struggled with what she had said, trying to make sense of it through the haze. She thought I had an affair with her husband?
“No. I didn’t. I never.” I took a breath, trying to make the words come. “I didn’t have an affair. Amanda did.”
“Amanda? My son’s mistress? No, she’s always had her heart set on breaking uphismarriage, not mine.”
“But I didn’t.”
“Why does every one of you deny it? These are your last moments on earth, Penelope. There’s no point in pretending anymore. I told you, I already know. I always knew.”
“No,” I insisted.
“Don’t lie to me,” she said through gritted teeth. “I hate it when people lie to me.”
“I’m not.”
“You don’t know what it’s like. To be married to a man people admire. Especially women. They thought being an artist made him so interesting and sensitive. They’d confide in him, tell him all their dirtiest, darkest secrets. It wasn’t his fault when theystarted throwing themselves at him. What man could resist that sort of attention? He was sensitive, and it made him weak.”
“But I didn’t—”
“My mistake was thinking it would end when we got older. He got gray and fat and they still didn’t care. You didn’t care. Why would a woman who’s young and beautiful let a man like him sweat all over her? What did you think you were going to get from him?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s right. Nothing. That’s all I ever got from him.”
I stared at her as realization washed over me—as the fullness of what she was saying sank in.
“It was you,” I said. “You killed them.”
