We skedaddled, glancing over our shoulders the entire way to the point where my legs got tangled in a dog walker’s leash web. I managed to extricate myself without stepping on any paws or slipping on a puddle of beagle slobber (nowthatwould be an obituary thePostwould love) and make it into the coffee shop without further incident. Both Vienna and I faced the door. “There’s a back exit, it looks like, if we need to run,” I said, but I’d let myself relax a little. He wouldn’t come here, into this crowded coffee shop, with a mask on his head, to finish the job.
We were both jittery enough without adding coffee into the mix, thank you very much, so we ordered a sampling of baked goods. They were dry, or maybe that was just my mouth. I tried to distract myself by thinking about ways I could improve them—piping a fruity jam filling that would moisten one of these too-flaky croissants?—but I was too jittery, too occupied with watching the door.
Fortunately, it wasn’t long before the police showed up. They met us at the coffee shop, because I was Pomona Afton. “Are you ready?” asked the older one, a man whose name I’d already forgotten.
I paused a moment for dramatic tension, then nodded. “Let’s nab him.” The other cop rolled her eyes, but I ignored her. She clearly had no instinct for the stage.
We backtracked the few blocks to our building, me and Vienna recounting our tale of woe the whole walk. Well, mostly me—Vienna seemed to have gotten laryngitis upon being in the presence of the police, and couldn’t let out more than a few croaks affirming things I said. Luckily, I can talk enough for two people.
We’d almost finished by the time we approached the building.I took a deep breath, my stomach dancing either with nerves or with the flakes of the coffee shop’s mediocre croissants. “Okay. Let’s see who this guy is.” If we were lucky, he’d be the murderer, and we’d kill two birds with one princess-cut, five-carat, precious stone, which Gabe would promptly then use to propose to me.
CHAPTER
Sixteen
We were not lucky. (On either count, but who’s counting?) As soon as we got close to the town house, I realized something was amiss, but didn’t realize what it actually was until the officers were climbing up the stairs. “Oh. That door.” I gestured at the servants’ basement door, which was down a flight of stairs and usually shut tight. I’d never actually seen what it looked like open.
Now I did: a yawning black hole. My stomach plummeted to my feet. “Oh no.”
“Oh no,” Vienna echoed, staring at it with dismay.
The officers did their search, but came out alone, which was what I’d expected as soon as I’d seen that open door. “He must have gone out that way,” the younger one said. I hoped it wasn’t my pause for dramatic tension that had given the intruder the crucial moment to escape. “We can check if any of the surrounding homes have cameras so we can see which way he went. He must have removed his mask at some point. Maybe we could get a glimpse of his face.”
I’d seen enoughWANTEDposters featuring photos from those cameras, all blurry and half-formed snatches of forehead or cheek, to know how that would probably go. Still, I nodded, because who knew?
The police left. I called my car. As we waited for it on the sidewalk, our backs up against the side of a stoop so that nobody could swoop in and stab us from behind, I asked Vienna, “You didn’t recognize his voice, did you?”
“It sounded vaguely familiar,” she said. “But I couldn’t pinpoint it.”
I thought back. The sound of his voice was already fading from my memory, but I could swear I’d heard it before too. From someone at the gala? I imagined myself walking around in my gown, smiling and nodding. What would that voice have sounded like telling me how impressed they were by all I’d done?
It was no use. Not to recognize the voice, and not to will any nights like that back in the future: I was so hoping the attacker would still be there not just because he’d already tried to hurt us and might do it again, but because his capture could bring this whole nightmare to an end. But no. My nonprofit and all the kids it was supposed to help were still in jeopardy.
The black car pulled up, and we piled in after only a brief hesitation to make sure my driver’s voice wasn’t the same as the intruder’s. Once safely locked into the back seat, a bottle of sparkling Balian water in my hand, I let myself exhale. “Why would somebody want to kill us?”
Vienna was silent for a moment. “You’ve been investigating again, haven’t you?”
I wasn’t going to lie to my best friend. “Yeah.”
She was silent for a moment. “It has to be connected. It must mean you’re getting close.”
“I was going to look into Bibi next, but that obviously wasn’t Bibi,” I said. “Still, everything you told me was suspicious. And she could’ve hired someone to come after us.”
Vienna was silent for another moment. “You know, there was one thing she said. I didn’t think it was relevant if you weren’t investigating, but… I did tell the police.” She snorted, rolling her eyes. “Not like they can do very much without a confession orher blood under his fingernails. She has so many lawyers running interference.”
I nodded, understanding. Of course the police would’ve questioned Bibi, like they questioned most of my family members after my grandma’s murder. But that was where it stopped unless they had cold, hard evidence to take it further, because mistakenly arresting an Afton or a Phlume could have dire consequences for them.
Vienna continued, “I thought she was on the phone while we were passing each other going in and out of the bathroom, but she might have been talking to herself. All I know is that she said, ‘I can’t believe tonight is going to be the last time I see him.’ I didn’t think anything of it at the time. But, obviously, after Conrad’s murder…”
“She knew he was going to die,” I said slowly. At least, probably. I didn’t entirely discount the idea that she could’ve been talking about another “him.” But it was awfully convenient that she said something like that after having a fight with her husband and then her husband went and died. “She knew.”
“She knew,” Vienna confirmed. We sat there in silence, letting the words roll around our heads, until the car dropped her off.
At home, I relayed the whole thing to Gabe, who’d just gotten home from a tutoring session. As soon as I got to the break-in, he leaped up from where he was sitting on the couch, disturbing Squeaky from where he’d been rubbing against his leg. “What?” His fists were clenched as if he were about to punch someone, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen his face darken with fury like this. Not going to lie, it was kind of hot. If the intruder were here right now, I’d bet Gabe would riphiminto pieces.
But, as quickly as the anger had taken over, Gabe wilted, shaking his head, clenching his jaw with frustration. “I should’ve been there. What if…” He couldn’t even finish the thought.
“Nothing happened to me. I’m okay,” I said. Yes, it was traumatizing that someone had tried to kill me. Yes, it was even more traumatizing that they’d probably be back. But I’d already contacted private security firms for me and, just in case, for Vienna. Armed guards following us around should dissuade any future people trying to cut us to pieces.
