Page 115 of The Unknown

She had become her.

“It wasn’t your fault,” I say, trying to convince myself as much as her.

Violet grips the edge of the sink. “I killed him, Marin. It wasentirelymy fault.”

“No, it was Daisy’s fault. She did this. You were just a means to an end.”

“No one is going to believe me.”

I lean against the counter, my mind racing. “They will if you tell the police it was self-defense.”

“Was it?” Violet asks, searching my face for signs of reassurance. “I wasn’t aware of anything. It was like I was in a coma. I don’t know what happened. I can’t remember a thing.”

I don’t have the heart to tell her it wasn’t self-defense. From where I stood, watching the ice pick plunge into Ronan’s stomach again and again and again, it clearly looked like cold-blooded murder. Violet must see it in my eyes because she begins to sob.

“Oh, God,” she says, sinking to the floor. “What am I going to do?

I replay the séance in my head. Every aspect of her had changed so thoroughly that she was barely recognizable. Violet, but also…not. Literally a woman possessed.

Then there’s the way she instantly snapped back to her old self. I was watching closely when it happened. I saw her reaction to the sight of Ronan bleeding out on the floor, the ice pick in his stomach, the realization of what she’d done. There was a moment of dazed confusion, followed by a flash of pure terror.

“I’ll vouch for you,” I say. “I’ll tell the police everything I saw.”

“Which was murder,” Violet sobs. “You saw someone who looked exactly like me murder Ronan Peters. But it wasn’t me, Marin. I swear. Yet no one is going to believe that.”

I know. We are women and Ronan was a man, and those are never good odds. Especially because Ronan was famous. Not as famous as Violet, though, a fact that might work in her favor.

But me?

I have nothing going for me, which is why I say, “I know what we need to do.”

And an hour later, it’s over.

It’s shocking how little time it takes to get the job done.

Violet and I work without speaking, first carrying Ronan’s body from the parlor and out the side door in the kitchen. He’s surprisingly light, which goes against everything I’d learned from mystery novels. How heavy the dead can be. But Ronan proves to be no problem at all. Perhaps Violet and I are stronger than we look. More likely, shock and adrenaline do all the heavy lifting, in the same way you hear about people picking up a car when someone is trapped beneath it. In this case, we’re the trapped ones, doing whatever we can to set ourselves free.

Once outside, we drag Ronan to the edge of the cliff.

Within seconds, he’s at the bottom.

It should look like an accident, with the impact from the fall hopefully covering his true cause of death.

I stare at the sky as I let go of his body, waiting for the inevitable sound of it hitting the rocks below before I look down. In that moment, I don’t think about my actions, don’t feel remorse, don’t wonder if the horrible things in his past justify his death tonight.

Those thoughts I’ll save for later.

After we thoroughly wash the ice pick and drop it in a drawer.

After we return to the parlor and sop up the blood with towels.

After we burn those same towels in the kitchen stove, along with our bloodstained dresses.

After we check the entire house for any blood spatter we might have missed.

After I go to the parlor and retrieve the camcorder, the silent witness to our crimes. We carry it out to the cliff, where Violet tosses it into the dark lake below. I tell her to return to the house, collect her things, and meet me at the dock, where we’ll call Loretta to pick us up in the boat.

I go to my cottage, where all the bad thoughts I’ve kept at bay come screaming back at me. Overwhelmed, I collapse onto the bed, suddenly sick.