“Don’t worry, I’ll find the key.”

Maggie turned to start the hunt and screamed. Facing her was Emily Butler. She had a Crozat kitchen knife in her hand. Maggie recognized it as one of the sharpest.

“I don’t think you’ll be finding that key,” Emily said in a whisper. “But I’m guessing you did find the stupid drawing of the knight that my stupid husband made.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Emily poked Maggie with the knife and motioned for her to move into the living room. “I don’t want your grandmother to hear my voice,” Emily said in a venomous whisper. “She could identify me. Tell her you’ll be back when you find the key.”

With a knife jabbing painfully into her stomach, Maggie did as she was told.

“Thank you, dear,” Gran’ said from the closet. “And if you could hurry, that would be wonderful. It’s a bit stuffy in here.”

Emily prodded Maggie into a far corner of the living room, away from the windows. “So did you find it?” She stuck her with the point of the knife so sharply that Maggie felt it draw blood. “The sketch with the knight and his crest that Shane was supposed to throw away. Did you find it? Did you?”

“Yes,” Maggie said quietly.

“That idiot,” Emily said through clenched teeth.

Maggie winced as the knife’s point pocked her skin. The screw was now painfully on the other foot. “So thanks to him,” Emily continued, her tone aggrieved, “I had to figure out a way to fix this. Which, being a problem solver, I’m proud to say I’ve done.”

“Congratulations,” Maggie said. “Any chance it doesn’t involve my death?”

“Ha, ha. Nope. Now, step one—leave your cell phone on the table. And hand over the doodle.”

“That sounded kind of funny.”

“Do it,” Emily hissed with fury.

“And that didn’t.”

Maggie took the balled-up scratch paper and her phone out of her back pocket and placed both on the desk. Emily stuffed the paper into the front pocket of her pants and then took out a dog leash and attached it to Maggie’s belt loop. “This is to make sure you don’t run away.” She secured the leash and then used her weapon to steer Maggie down the shotgun’s long hallway. “Now let’s go out the back door into the woods.”

Maggie had always welcomed the shotgun’s slight isolation, but now she cursed it. The back door opened into the no man’s land of Crozat, a dense area of woods and thicket rarely ventured into by family or guests. “Please,” she said to Emily, “whatever you’re going to do with me, all I ask is that you don’t hurt my grandmother.”

“No worries. You’re a threat; she’s harmless. If she’s lucky, someone will find her before she suffocates in that closet. If not, well, she’s old. She had her life.”

Emily and her knife stayed so close to Maggie as they entered the woods that she could feel the girl’s warm breath on her neck. Twigs snapped and scraped her feet. She’d picked the wrong day to wear flip-flops. Then again, she hadn’t foreseen being the prisoner of a lunatic.

Her heart thumped so loudly that she could hear it. She needed to calm herself so she could think rationally. “It’s interesting how the mind works,” she said, keeping her tone as calm as possible. “My dad and I were talking about keeping secrets and it reminded me of something, but I couldn’t remember what. When I was looking at Shane’s sketch, it came to me. How he said at the Clabbers’ funeral that Mrs. C hadn’t even told Mr. C she’d lived here before. That’s a huge secret. Why would you not share that with your husband but tell a complete stranger? Unless the person you told wasn’t a stranger.”

“Shut up and keep walking,” Emily snapped. Maggie was encouraged by the undercurrent of nervousness in her captor’s rough tone. A vulnerable head case might be more malleable than a confident one.

“That’s why you were always in your room, wasn’t it?” she said. “You were planning the murders.”

“A little. And then we’d have sex. The planning got us hot.”

“Ugh, gross!”

“God, be a prude why don’t you?” Emily said with a smirk.

Maggie silently cursed herself. She’d shown an emotion and now it was advantage, Emily. “Whatever,” she said, resuming her casual tone. “By the way, nice move bringing up how the poison could have been planted earlier. Even when they found the old box of arsenic from the plantation store, that thought was still on people’s minds.”

“Thanks, but I really can’t take credit for that one. That moron Jan gave me a gift with her speech about how ‘no one here is a murderer.’ Which made it hilarious when the cops thought she was.”

“Hilarious. Not exactly a word I’d use in the situation.”

“Jesus, get a sense of humor.”

Maggie and Emily continued to trudge through the woods, but their psychotic chitchat had given Maggie time to think. She slowed down, forcing Emily to slow with her. “You know, there are snakes out here,” she told her captor, hoping to scare her. “Poisonous ones.”

“If you see one, let me know so I can push you on it. Having you die from a snake bite would save me a lot of trouble.”

Well, that was an epic fail, Maggie thought. “What exactly is your plan for me?”

“I wanted to surprise you,” Emily said, sounding more like she was talking about a birthday party than a murder. “But what the hell. The plan is stab you, then push you in the bayou. By the time anyone finds your body, Shane and I’ll be long gone.”

“Okay, first of all, the definition of bayou is ‘a slow-moving stream,’ so don’t count on my body being quickly carried away to oblivion. And second, Shane’s already gone. I saw him pull out this morning.”

Maggie hoped this news would upset and distract Emily, but instead she just smirked. “Sorry, but he just went to town. He’s being the wonderful husband who wants to buy some last-minute gifts for his poor wife who got the shock of her life when she discovered a fellow guest’s lifeless body. Nobody’ll suspect us for a minute.”

“Unless they wonder why the same person found two dead bodies—Debbie’s and potentially mine.”

“Hmmm. Good point.” Emily pondered this potential dilemma, and Maggie congratulated herself on derailing the girl’s master plan. “Oooh, I know. We’ll have Shane find your body instead of me. I told you I was a problem solver.”

“Yeah, you’re brilliant,” Maggie shot at Emily. She was frustrated to find herself thwarted again. “Why did you kill Debbie, anyway? I know you did it. You can tell me; I’m going to be dead soon so it’s not like I’ll turn you in.”

“She heard something she shouldn’t have. She told us she’d never tell and actually knew a way to make it work to both our advantages. She wanted to tie our castles into this secret plan she had for the Cuties. You know, create a Castle Cuties group that she could develop and market the same way she planned on capitalizing on the whole Cajun Cutie thing. But she was screwing her own friends, so I didn’t exactly trust her.”

“Nice move stealing and hiding the scarf to implicate Jan in Debbie’s murder.”

“You know, you’re awfully chatty for someone who’s going to die in a few minutes.”

“I’ve never been in this position before,” Maggie said. “To be honest, I think maybe I’m in shock.”

“I looked up the symptoms of shock when I had to pretend I was in shock after killing Debbie. The way you’re acting wasn’t on the list. Maybe you still think you’re going to live.” Emily stopped, threw her hand over Maggie’s mouth, and gave the knife the deepest thrust yet. Maggie let out a muffled cry. A few tears even escaped, despite her determination to hide her fear and pain. Emily pulled her hand away from Maggie’s mouth and smiled. “That’s better. Now walk.”

The two women trudged through the dense foliage in silence. Sweat dripped into Maggie’s eyes and burned them. “You know,” she said after a few minutes, “there are alligators this way.”

Emily stopped and Maggie sensed she’d finally struck a nerve. “You’re lying,” Emily said.