“She … he … dead!”
“Dead? Who’s dead?” Jesus. What the hell did she take last night? The last time she’d had drug-induced delusions had been three years ago. That one night of chaos had been enough for a lifetime.
She pointed toward her bedroom. “There. Her. H—” Her chin trembled. “They’re … they’re…I need your help.”
“No. No, no. That’s not happening, Monica. I’m not …entertainingyour guests. That’s gross. Really—”
Her bony fingers snapped around my wrist, and then my mother dragged me down the hall to her room.
“Hey!” I tried to pull away. “Ouch.”
“You have to … oh, Laiky, you have to help me.”
I knew when I was being manipulated because she used the nickname I detested.
Monica stopped inside the doorway and released me in order to jab her finger in the direction of the bed. I rubbed the spot where her claws had dug in but didn’t move.
“I’m not going in there,” I insisted.
“You have to.” She shoved me forward. “You have to help me.”
I stumbled into the room, my gaze snagged by the woman in the bed.
“Oh, my God.” My hand went to my mouth, and I backed up a step as though that might help.
It wouldn’t.
“Is she…?”
“Dead,” my mother bit out. “Yes.”
I glanced at Monica, taking in her disheveled appearance, the black smudges under her eyes, the rest of her makeup smeared. She was wearing a red silk robe, which hung loosely on her too-thin frame. Her eyes were crazed, her skin far too pale.
“What happened?” I demanded when I took in her swollen lip, puffy eye, and the jagged scratch mark on her cheek.
“I … I … I had to.”
Had to? Had to what? Kill the woman?
Maybe Monica was wrong, and the woman was just … I don’t know. Out of it.
Figuring there was only one way to find out, I took a step toward the bed, then another until I stood at the edge, close enough to see the woman’s blank stare. Her chest wasn’t moving, and her lips were tinged blue. Still, I attempted to find a pulse at her neck.
Nothing. The woman—whoever she was—was naked in my mother’s bed, and not for as long as I live would I ever get that image out of my head.
“I didn’t do this, Laiky,” my mother said. “Youhaveto believe me. I didn’t do it.”
“No?” I laughed, and it rang with hysteria. “Then who did?”
I moved back to the door, not wanting to be close to the dead woman.
“Hedid,” she said, her gaze swinging to the far side of the bed.
He, who? Was she seeing people now?
“There’s no one else here,” I said, keeping my voice as calm as I could.
My mother shoved me again, this time toward the windowed wall. I peeked around the end of the footboard and looked down at the floor between the bed and the wall.
