Born to Bite (35 page)

“Yes. Well, no friendship is perfect,” Agnes said with a shrug.

Eshe snorted at that with amusement and then said, “So you hacked off Althea’s head and started her room on fire.”

“And then I went back to the rooms we’d let. Unfortunately, Johnny had returned by then, and while intoxicated when I first entered, seemed to sober up quite quickly when he saw my bloody state.” She grimaced with disgust at the memory. “I confessed all, of course; to killing Susanna as well as Althea.”

“He didn’t know about Susanna by then?” Eshe asked with surprise.

“Did you think I’d tell him?” she asked with surprise of her own. “Good Lord, no. I thought he’d hate me.”

“And did he? When you told him after killing Althea?”

Agnes considered that and then shook her head. “No. He mostly felt guilty, I think. My attack on Susanna had been a direct result of his attack on me. Not that he wasn’t angry. I mean, he did stomp around shouting a bit, but then he just went out and found another drunk to bite and we never spoke of it again…until he killed Rosamund. And then it was all ‘It’s all your fault I had to do it. If you hadn’t killed Susanna and Althea…’”

“Yada yada yada?” Eshe suggested when Agnes’s voice trailed off.

Agnes gave a dry laugh. “Yes. Basically…We’re here now,” she added, turning into the driveway of a modern ranch farmhouse not dissimilar to the one they lived in.

Much to Eshe’s relief, she spotted John’s black van and Armand’s pickup at once. They were at the right place.

“Stay behind me when we go in,” Agnes instructed, shutting off the engine and reaching into the backseat for something. “I don’t want you to get hurt. Enough people have been hurt by Johnny and me.”

Eshe didn’t remind her she was an enforcer and trained for battle, she simply eyed the huge purse Agnes pulled from the backseat, and then quickly scrambled out of the car when Agnes did.

“All right, so Agnes killed Susanna and Althea,” Armand said slowly, “But why did you kill Rosamund? She welcomed you as family. She used to have the two of you over for dinner all the time. She was never mean to either of you.”

“But she started asking questions about Susanna and Althea’s deaths,” Johnny said impatiently. “It only made me a little nervous at first. I felt sure there was nothing for her to discover, but then Rosamund came to the house one night asking when exactly we’d returned from Europe. Had it been before Althea’s death?”

“Why would she ask that?” Armand asked with surprise. “Everyone thought you’d been in Europe until well after Althea’s death.”

“Yes, well, it seems Althea’s mother told her that Althea thought she’d seen Agnes as they rode into Toronto that night, and it sent Rosamund’s little mind churning.” He scowled and said, “I had to kill her then. She was getting too close. I killed her on the spot, then loaded her in the wagon and drove to a point about halfway between your farm and town and tried to make it look an accident. Then I tried to set the wagon on fire, but it was pouring rain and wouldn’t catch properly, so I had to leave it and hope that everyone would believe the metal slat had decapitated her…Fortunately, they did.”

“Yes,” Armand murmured, thinking of poor, sweet Rosamund. She had been inquisitive, and that had gotten her killed.

“And then almost fifty years later Nicholas’s Annie came snooping around with the same damned questions. I hoped that killing her would put an end to it at last, but I stuck around to watch Nicholas for a while, and when I realized his grief was passing enough that he was starting to wonder what Annie had wanted to tell him…Well…” He shrugged. “I had to act. He was an enforcer. He would have hunted down every lead, every hint and clue, and Agnes and I both would have been staked and baked.”

“How did you get Nicholas from the hospital parking lot to his house?” Armand asked grimly.

“Heavy-duty animal tranquilizers,” Johnny answered. “I shot him in the neck from my truck. There was a mortal woman passing him at the time and she stopped to see if he was all right when he collapsed. I walked over to them, hefted him over my shoulder, took control of her, and took them both to his place to set it up so it looked like he’d killed her.” His lips twisted unhappily, and he explained, “I didn’t think another accident so soon would be believed. I thought it would be better if he was found guilty of murder and executed. I was trying to figure out how to get someone over there to discover Nicholas with the dead woman when Decker started pounding at the door. That was pure good luck for me,” he added with a faint smile.

Armand stared at him with disbelief. “Nicholas is your nephew. He’s Susanna’s son. How could you so cold-bloodedly arrange for him to be thought a murderer and executed?”

“I felt bad about it,” Johnny assured him solemnly. “But it was better him than me.”

“And better me than you too? Right. And who else?” he asked bitterly. “How many more will you murder?”

“Mary Harcourt,” Johnny answered at once, and then assured him, “She should be the last. If I’d killed her after Rosamund, Annie wouldn’t have had to die. I just never thought that anyone else would come snooping, so I hadn’t bothered.”

“And why didn’t you kill her after Annie?” Armand asked quietly, too weary and in too much pain to be angry anymore.

Johnny shrugged. “Annie’s talking to her was purely accidental. It’s not like she sought her out to question her. They met by accident on your doorstep. It seemed a fluke. Besides, I do dislike killing. It’s unpleasant work with little reward.”

“Except for saving your neck,” Armand said dryly.

“There is that,” Johnny agreed.

Armand scowled at him. “And the shed fire, Mrs. Ramsey attacking Eshe, and my house going up in flames today? You, I presume?”

Johnny nodded. “I was up the first time Bricker and Eshe came to the door. I didn’t know who they were and was a bit taken aback when I looked out to see two people all in black with helmets on. I read them, or at least Eshe. As a new life mate she was the easier to read. Once I knew they were there to investigate the deaths I decided I definitely wasn’t answering the door. And then I set about trying to get rid of her.” He hesitated and then added apologetically, “I am sorry about including you in the two fires, but you two were always together when I came around, and then today when I set the fire I thought it couldn’t hurt to get rid of the four of you together. Then there’d be no one to investigate.”

“Of course there would,” Armand said with disgust. “A whole ton of people know something is going on now and won’t rest until they figure it out. Lucian certainly wouldn’t, and he has an army of enforcers to sic on you,” he pointed out, thinking Johnny was an idiot and that Agnes had definitely wasted a turn on him.

Thinking of Agnes reminded him of the fact that Johnny hadn’t told Agnes about Annie and Nicholas and he asked, “If you told Agnes about Rosamund, why did you never tell her about killing Annie and framing Nicholas?”

Johnny looked at him with disbelief. “Are you kidding? I know she seems sweet and cuddly, but Agnes has one hell of a temper.” He shook his head. “She loves Nicholas to death, and she took to Annie right away. She’d kill me if she ever found out what I did to them.”

“You’re damned right I would.”

Armand looked toward the door at that grim comment, and then glanced to John, noting his surprise and horror when Agnes walked in. It about matched his own when Armand glanced back to the door and saw Eshe enter right behind her. His one hope as he’d listened to Johnny had been that at least Eshe was safely away at Cedrick’s, but she was here, and now they were both going to die.

Eshe peered over Agnes’s shoulder as she followed her into the back room of the basement, the one the voices had been coming from. Much to her relief she spotted Armand at once. He was still alive…not looking so hot, maybe, she acknowledged, taking in the dent in his head and the blood covering his face and upper chest. But he was upright, and his eyes were open.

Her eyes slid to John then, noting the antique sword leaning against the wall and the can of gasoline at his side. The plans he’d had for Armand seemed pretty obvious, but he was now staring at Agnes, his mouth working and nothing coming out.

Agnes wasn’t having the same problem. Clutching her purse, she crossed the room to stand in front of him and glared straight up his nose as she barked, “How could you? I mean, seriously, John, killing Rosamund was one thing, but little Annie? And to frame Nicholas, your own nephew! What were you thinking? And I suppose you planned to kill Armand too, after all he’s done for us!”

“I—You—It’s all your fault!” Johnny snapped finally. “If you hadn’t killed Susanna and Althea none of this would be necessary! You’re the one to blame for this! You’re the one who will bear this on your soul. Not me. I’ve only been trying to protect you. But you…”

Eshe’s gaze shifted to Agnes as Johnny continued to rant. The other woman turned, a see-what-I-mean? expression on her face, and then turned back, and let her purse drop to reveal a very large and wicked-looking knife that she abruptly plunged into Johnny’s chest. It brought an immediate end to his rant.

Eshe watched him peer in horror from the knife in his chest to his sister, shock and wonder on his face, and began to sidle toward Armand.

“It’s time to take a little responsibility, John,” Agnes said almost gently. “I made my choices and you made yours, but we can’t keep hurting people this way.”

Agnes withdrew the knife and Johnny sank to his knees, still looking rather stunned. Leaving him there, she moved to pick up the gas can. As she undid the lid, she said calmly, “You’d better get Armand out of here now, Eshe. I wouldn’t want either of you to get hurt.”

Eshe hesitated, but when Armand started to stand and then swayed weakly, she hurried to his side, snapped the rope binding his hands, and drew his arm over her shoulder for support. But then she paused to look at Agnes as she began to splash the gasoline around the room and over herself and Johnny.

“Agnes,” she began, uncertain what she was going to say. But the other woman looked up and smiled.

“It’s okay. Go on. Go tell them everything and get Nicholas his life back. Maybe he’ll find another life mate someday and find it in his heart to forgive us.”

“He already has found another life mate,” Eshe told her.

That made Agnes pause. “Really?”

“Her name’s Josephine Willan. She goes by Jo.” She hesitated and then added, “She seems nice.”

“Oh, I wish I could have met her.” Agnes sagged briefly at the thought that she wouldn’t, and then glanced to Johnny when he groaned and tried to get up. Sighing, she dropped the can, letting what was left of the liquid run out where it would and pulled out a Zippo lighter. Holding it in one hand, she then took up Johnny’s sword before glancing to them again. “Get going now. And give Nicholas my love.”

Eshe debated setting Armand down, knocking out Agnes and John, and taking them both in, but it seemed a ridiculous idea. While she found she actually liked Agnes, it didn’t change the fact that she was a murderer, and the Council would simply order their execution anyway. Letting out a sad sigh, she turned Armand toward the door and half walked and half dragged him to it.

They’d barely slid through the door when a “whoosh” sounded behind them and heat radiated at their back. Eshe glanced back to see the brother and sister surrounded by a circle of flame that was running toward them, and then hurried Armand along a little faster.

They’d reached the stairs when Johnny began to scream. By the time they got to the top, he’d stopped, and Eshe recalled Agnes picking up the sword and suspected she’d beheaded him rather than make him suffer being burned alive. She couldn’t behead herself, however, and yet there was not a sound from Agnes. Eshe couldn’t help but admire her for that as she and Armand staggered from the house.

By the time Eshe and Armand stumbled over to lean against the pickup, flames were beginning to lick out of the first floor windows of the house. Eshe glanced back at it, but then leaned into the back of the pickup and opened the cooler there, relieved to find several bags inside. She grabbed all of them and gave them to Armand one at a time as they watched the house burn.

“Better?” she asked as he finished the last one.

“Sort of,” he ground out, and she knew that while he would no longer be cramping from lack of blood, the healing would be taking place and he probably had one hell of a headache. She doubted he’d be on his feet long.

“Let’s get you back to Cedrick’s,” she said, helping him to the passenger side of the truck. She got him inside and then moved around to the driver’s side to get in, not surprised to see him slumped against the door, unconscious, by the time she slid behind the steering wheel. He’d probably be in and out of consciousness for the next twenty-four hours. More out than in, since she planned to keep the man drugged. There was no need for him to suffer the healing.

“I love you, Armand Argeneau,” she whispered, and then gave a start when his eyes slid open.

“I love you too, Eshe,” he growled and then his eyes closed again and he slid off the seat to rest crumpled in the small space between the seat and the dashboard.

Eshe started to move to lift him back up into the seat, but when she touched him, he moaned, and she decided to just leave him where he was and get him to Cedrick’s.

Sighing, Eshe turned and glanced at the steering column, relieved to see his keys dangling there. She gave them a twist and started the engine, and then began to back away from the now fully aflame house.

Epilogue

“Isn’t that mutt finished yet?” Lucian asked with
disgust. “Everyone is waiting.”

“He isn’t a mutt,” Armand said firmly, peering down at the pale puppy at his feet, a gift from Eshe. “He’s a golden retriever and his name is Lucky.”

“We named him after you, Lucian,” Eshe said with a goading grin. “But we’re calling him Lucky for short.”

Lucian’s response was a grunt of disgust as he whirled back into the house and slammed the door behind him.