Page 262 of Sinister

“I can’t.” He holds her tighter in his arms. His voice is broken and rough. “How can she be gone . . .” he whispers. “She was fine just moments ago. Both her and the baby. And now . . .” He breaks into a harsh sob. “They can’t be gone.”

“Sinclair, I’m sorry for your loss. But we must move along.”

“No,” he states resolutely. Still holding her in his arms, he rises to his feet and starts walking toward the house.

Sin’s lips are flattened into a thin line of concern as he nods for me to come to him. He also grabs what’s left of Snowden’s body and the gun and carries them toward the house.

“Why . . .”

“You will see,” he merely answers.

Once we enter the house, there’s a trail of blood that leads toward the hallway. We make our way carefully there, and instead of finding other victims of Snowden, we encounter Arnoult holding a bloody knife in his hand.

Leah is carefully seated on a chair. And on the floor, one of the servants is bleeding profusely.

“What the hell, Sinclair?” Sin demands.

“I can’t leave her. Not again. I’m taking her with me,” he replies mechanically.

“What is this for then?”

Sin dumps the body of Snowden to the ground next to the dead servant.

“You wanted to arrange the scene. Be my guest. I’m leaving,” Arnoult adds.

Pocketing his knife, he takes Leah again in his arms and leaves.

Both Sin and I stare at each other in shock.

“Now what?” I whisper.

“We arrange the scene, I suppose.”

“Uhm, in case you did not realize, one person is stabbed, and the other is missing the better part of the skull. No matter how much you arrange it, there will be concerns.”

“Not if they consider it a murder-suicide.”

“Sin. He’s missing his brain!” I point out, trying to forget I was the one who did that damage in the first place.

He purses his lips, then sighs. “A little harder to achieve but not impossible.”

“What do you want to do?”

He disappears in the blink of an eye, then appears with a canister. The smell reaches me immediately—kerosene.

“A fire it is, I suppose.” He doesn’t seem too thrilled at the prospect.

“And how will anyone infer that it was a murder-suicide from a fire?” I roll my eyes at him.

“The butler. He must be still sleeping. I will find him.”

“And—”

“Pay him.” He shrugs.

Then he disappears again. I don’t see him for minutes on end while he is no doubt bribing the butler and dousing the house in kerosene.

I let out a weary sigh. I am tired, and angry, and as I look down at the dead bodies, a little disgusted.