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THE LAST OF the relatives were gone and the staff had cleared away their debris and swept up Except for the stale stink of cigarette sns were left of the recent invasion I made a careful and quiet sweep of the place to ered in some corner, but all was clear and silent In a den off the main hall I found a third of a bottle of whiskey in a liquor cabinet and took it upstairs
The door to Eainst family souvenir hunters The room was undisturbed and both jewel safes in her closet were firmly shut, but I wasn&039;t interested in them I pocketed what I needed and left
I listened for a long time outside Laura&039;s door to be certain that Mrs
Mayfair was gone and that the girl was alone Water ran and splashed; she was having a long shower to steam away the day&039;s troubles The water sound cut off and softer, less distinct ones replaced it as she toweled down and padded barefoot around her room
Her door abruptly opened in ht blue eyes flashed on me in shock and fear She nearly screamed, but didn&039;t The house was empty, no one would hear
She was head to toe in black, her bright blond hair covered by a black scarf
"Going to a funeral?" I asked
Her heart ju her around until she was pressed against the wall Now she did try to scream, a normal reflex to the situation, but I stopped that with one hand and talked quickly, urgently, focusing in hard enough to crack through her terror It eventually worked and she relaxed against the wall and I took oing?" I asked
"The baseet rid of hi surprise At this point I was just being thorough
"Did you try to--did you kill Barrett?"
"Yes"
"Why?"
"He knew--knew--" She was struggling against it and could shake it off if she fought hard enough
"All right, cal smoothed out
"Go back into your room, lock the door, and sit down"
I followed her in She chose to sit at her dressing table on a little satin stool much like the one in Bobbi&039;s roo well clear of the veranda s The stables were at an oblique angle to theht look out and see ainst her curtains It was very important that she appear to be alone now
She was--at least in the mirrors
It was a cheery place, with yelloers bloo covered most of the floor The bath arm and damp from her shower, and that day&039;s black dress was crus herself and hung them over the shower rod to dry
I found a chair and dragged it over to face her In the mirror-covered wall itforand even After an active su, her skin was tanned and healthy She was quite a beautiful girl and her youth attracted me even as it must have attracted Barrett
"Laura, ht?"
She nodded
"I&039; to ask you some questions and you ant to answer them
You can tell ood"
She waited, disinterested and seeing nothing
"Laura, did you kill Maureen Dumont?"
"Who?"
And that threw ht never have heard the name
"Remember the summer of the fire?"
"Yes"
"Reht to see Barrett?"
"Yes"
"Did you kill that woman?"
She&039;d buried it deep and it didn&039;t want to coot short, and for a second, real awareness came back to her eyes I steadied her down and soothed her, keeping my voice low, but pitched so she had to listen I told her it was all right to answer and repeated my question, and then she said yes
I felt nothing looking into her blank eyes Her face ceased to belong to a person and took on the smooth, bland beauty of aand the physical trau from one, and I was empty We mirrored each other now All I had left were questions, and they weren&039;t really mine, but Escott&039;s
"Laura, talk to me Tell me about it Why did you do it?"
She revealed no surprises Escott had been right She was in love with Barrett and had killed to keep him
"Did you kill Violet that summer?"
"No, the fire did"
It was an odd answer and I picked a subtle change in her tone of voice, as though I were talking to a child "Did you set the fire in the house?"
"No"
"How did it start?"
"The la to the lamp cord?"
"I fixed it"
"So that it would start the fire?"
"Yes"
"Then you did kill Violet"
"No, the fire killed her"
I could argue with her, but to no point Her exacting logic was how she could live with herself, by shifting the blame "Why did you kill her?"
For Barrett, all for Barrett She&039;d wanted hi so that air could feed in All she had to do was turn on the la up she went out the door and snuck back to her rooave a little shrug "It was easy"
Fire and ice inside me and now the same sickness I&039;d felt when Banks had died
"How did you kill Maureen?" So my voice
She&039;d read up about vampires that summer She knew more about us than Barrett had ever suspected, and she knehat to do
Being a strong girl, it had been nothing for her to lift Maureen&039;s sht ofShe&039;d filched a sharp stake of wood from Mayfair&039;s work shed and she had a haht, Maureen had died without a sound The only problem for Laura was the blood Her clothes had been soaked with it and she was frightened she&039;d be found out She&039;d spent hours cleaning it up
In a cardboard box scavenged froht now, hardlyit downstairs and out the side door, away fro it into some trees, she used their cover to take it to the ruins of the old house
She&039;d been forbidden to play there, but such rules had never stopped her before There was a broken spot in the floor above the deepest part of the cellar It sagged under her weight, but she was careful tothe box ahead of her Grating against the soot and debris, it barely held together She just e and pushed it in
It had been a rainy summer, but the splash still startled her She hadn&039;t expected the cellar to be so full of water A cautious look over the edge showed only a rippling reflection of the sky behind her head
There was no sign of the box or of Maureen&039;s body She was safe
The parallels of what happened to Maureen and what nearly happened to me were all too clear in h, and inside I was screa for her I stood and backed away fro had died The as still going on between fiery rage and cold justice Neither was canceling the other out, both seeether sos?" I asked, a calrid of the woman&039;s trunk The earth she mixed in with the flower beds, the clothes Laura took to her roo and dancing by herself before the mirrors, as she usually did
The household schedule was unorthodox, but regular The staff did downstairs maintenance until midafternoon, when Emily woke up After her breakfast, the maid was allowed to work upstairs No one paidup on time for meals was all that was expected of her
She and Emily shared supper just before sunset, as usual, then Emily went downstairs to be with Barrett Whenever Emily ith hiether Laura returned to her own rooed into Maureen&039;s clothes, called for a cab, and waited by the phone Both Violet and E her allowance She had over two hundred dollars on hand She took it all, not knowing how o to Port Jefferson
The call caave Mayfair perer noas that Barrett uest and coht the empty trunk safely downstairs and out the front door
Two minutes later she was on her way to Port Jefferson Banks dropped her off near the ferry and drove back to Glen-briar to celebrate his five-dollar tip
"What happened to the trunk?"
"I found stones to put in it and dropped ,t off the end of a dock"
"You take another cab home?"
"Yes"
She had the Port Jefferson driver drop her near the gate, snuck through, and walked back to the house without being caught She listened to her radio and danced before herthat Barrett was her partner
"What did you do with her clothes?"
"I pushed them into the house incinerator Haskell burned them up the next day with the usual trash"
She watched the trucks and crews roll in and begin tearing down the ruins The blackened shards of ere torn away, and the broken glass was removed What was left of the floor was pounded apart and allowed to cave in to the cellar, which gradually filled with the packed debris A few days later rave
All too fitting
I found it difficult to look at her "Then you just went on as before?"
"Yes"
"No questions, no guilt?"
She blinked
"Didn&039;t you feel bad about what you did?"
"Why should I?"
"You killed Youabout"
"Well, I had to"
No guilt, no regret A job finished and a goal achieved Barrett would be hers when the time came
"What about Barrett? When did he start to notice you as a woman?"
She s atand I&039;irl voice was back again
"What about Emily?"
"He wants me, not her"
"But what about her?"
"She&039;s dead"
"I know Did you kill her?"
"I had to"
"Why?"
"She heard us talking"
"About what?"
Barrett had wasted no tiht hoet the truth
She&039;d heard about thequestions about the fire from the house staff The story of Banks and his memorable tip came up She left to find hi a s her car near a gas station with a phone, she called for Banks to come pick her up They drove a little and she talked with his together in hiscoincidence
She asked hi about her and how she&039;d changed She brought the club out of the suitcase and smashed it into the side of his head as hard as she could She hit him several times to make sure, then took his money box to make it look like a robbery
The storm was bad by now, but her car wasn&039;t too far froot out, but before she could get away, another car appeared and she saw the driver talking to Banks She took care of hih the rain to her own vehicle
Breathless, she tuhed to see a third car in line behind the others as she passed The franticat her to stop looked so ridiculous
Once home, she had the bad luck to be spotted by Barrett He&039;d worried that she&039;d been caught out in the rain and they joked about her wet clothes Things weren&039;t so funny to hiht he pressed her for answers and Eoing on; she&039;d only heard the tone of Barrett&039;s voice, and it frightened her
"Silly old woman," said Laura "She should have left me alone It&039;s all her fault"
"What&039;s her fault?"
"She worried all night and then got up early to talk with et it, but then she started talking, so it&039;s her fault"
"Why did he tell you to forget it?"
"I don&039;t know"