Helen’s eyes goggled.
“Stop,” I said frantically. “Threatening her with a knife is not what love’s all about.”
“Shut up,” he said. “You don’t know anything.”
“I know Helen still loves you,” I said, pushing the truth, but desperate to make him reconsider his actions. “She, um, told me. And you told me you loved her, too.”
He swallowed, then shook his head and grumbled, “I said shut up.”
“Okay.”
He didn’t seem to know what to do next. Helen looked utterly terrified.
“So you killed Kyle,” I said slowly, since I wasn’t ready to shut up entirely.
“Yeah,” he snarled. “And good riddance.”
“Why?”
He stretched his neck and shoulders. “He thought he could fuck around with my wife. I warned him to stop, but he just laughed at me.”
“You warned him?”
Helen’s eyes met mine and I knew she was hearing this for the first time, her own husband verifying that he had killed her lover.
“Yeah, and he wouldn’t stop.” Martin waved his knife defensively as he spoke. “Said she was filing for divorce so she’d be free to go with him. Wrong!”
“What did you do, Martin?”
His chuckle was raw and evil. “It was so friggin’ easy. What a posh ass. I got him into that room as easily as I got you to come here.”
“You called his cell while we were at the pub,” I said. “You told him you had Helen.”
He laughed smugly. “Yes, and he came running, didn’t he?”
Robin edged closer to me, obviously as creeped out by him as I was.
“So he must’ve loved Helen very much to go with you,” I reasoned.
“No! He didn’t love her. I love her, and no one else can have her.”
I watched as Helen absorbed the words. Her face crumpled as she began to cry, began to realize that maybe Kyle had loved her, after all. I couldn’t say that he had or hadn’t, but if it helped in the moment to ease some of her pain, then it was worth it to say that yes, he’d loved her.
But oh, God, Angus MacLeod was right: Kyle’s murder wasn’t about a book at all. It was about Martin being insanely jealous of his wife’s relationship with Kyle McVee. Martin had killed the man to get his wife back. I’d always known Martin was emotionally abusive, but I’d never really suspected he could be a killer.
My mistake.
I glanced behind me, considering the possibility of distracting Serena and grabbing Martin’s knife. I turned back and focused on the knife and Martin. That was when I realized he was holding my knife. My French paring knife with its two-inch-wide, flat, square blade. I’d sharpened it finely enough to split a hair, so even if he barely grazed her, he would draw blood.
I had to breathe, had to center my thoughts. Unfortunately, they were racing around in circles. “Why me, Martin? Why did you use my tools?”
“I saw you with him,” he said, his eyes like lasers honing in on me. “On the street. I was following him, trying to trap him, and I saw him grab you. You kissed him. I knew you were a whore bitch.”
Okay, that was getting old. Martin was undoubtedly insane. The signs might’ve been there all along, but I’d never seen them.
“He hates you,” Serena explained.
“I get that,” I muttered.
“He’s not exactly speaking in code,” Robin said, a smart-ass to the end.
“You shut up,” Serena warned Robin. To me, she said smugly, “It was my idea to steal your tools. Martin wanted to make you pay somehow. He’s always hated you, from the time he first met you in Lyon. You were so full of yourself. You tried to talk Helen out of marrying Martin. McVee tried to do the same thing, right, Martin? When you were all in Lyon, right? Seems he wanted Helen for himself, even back then.”
Martin pressed his lips into a thin line, so Serena kept talking. “McVee acted like nothing was going on between him and Helen, even pretending friendship, offering to buy Martin a drink on occasion. He tried that a few nights ago when they first arrived. That was the last straw, wasn’t it, Martin?”
Martin leaned against the vaulted wall, dragging Helen with him. Was he growing tired of all the talk? If he reached the end of his rope, would he let Helen go or would he kill her?
“How’d you get into my room to steal my tools?” I asked, not only to stall for time but because I needed to know.
Serena snorted a laugh, then chirped, “Housekeeping.”
“You,” I said, as realization dawned. “You were that hotel maid. The first day I was here.”
“The girls prefer you call them housekeepers,” she said acerbically.
Whatever. “Yeah, sorry.”
“No wonder I could never get any towels,” Robin murmured. She was acting cool, but her eyes darted back and forth between Serena and me. She wore an expression of both worry and revulsion with some impatience mixed in. Not a good combination.
Maybe I should’ve stopped asking questions, but I had to keep them both talking. “So I guess this means you’re not Mrs. Kyle McVee.”
Serena wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Me and that pansy toffer? Fat chance.”
If she thought Kyle was rich and snooty, how in the world did she put up with Martin?
“So what does that make you and Martin?” I asked.
She grinned at Martin with affection, but he didn’t seem to be paying attention. “He’s my baby bro.”
Her brother? I looked from one to the other. Why hadn’t I seen the resemblance? Both tall, both thin, the wispy blond hair and pale blue eyes, same shape of the head. “I see it now. But Helen never met you before?”
“No, Martin was busy playing the toff, weren’t you, bro? Didn’t want his big sis coming around.” She continued to keep a vigilant eye on her brother, but her gaze had narrowed a bit. “But baby bro ran into a little trouble up here.” She shrugged. “So who ya gonna call?”
“Big sister,” I said.
“Bingo,” she said, waving the gun at me. “I hopped the train and got here in two hours. I’ve been here all week. Had plenty of time to play housekeeper. That’s how I got those love letters inside Kyle’s room.”
“Love letters?” I asked.
She relaxed her grip on the gun and exhaled heavily, perhaps annoyed that I was so dense. “I suppose you’d call them poison-pen letters. Just wanted to pull his chain a bit, you know.”
Kyle’s poison-pen letters. I’d forgotten about them until now.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Robin whispered under her breath. “They’re both nuts.”
Luckily, only I heard her and I squeezed her arm in commiseration. Serena saw the move and aimed the gun back at me.
“I thought people in England didn’t use guns,” I said.
Serena’s laugh was harsh. “You haven’t been in my neighborhood, have you?”
Mentioning her neighborhood reminded me of something that had bothered me from the very beginning. “How do you know Minka?”
Serena chuckled malevolently. “I needed a shill. She was in the right place at the right time and bought my sad-widow story, hook, line and sinker.”
“Figures,” I said.
“She has a good heart but not many brain cells,” she added.
Out of the mouths of criminals.
“So, you’re from a bad neighborhood?”
“It was all right,” she said, and tossed her hair in a defensive gesture.
“It’s just that I always thought Martin was wealthy.” She snorted a laugh. “There’s a good one, eh, Martin?”
“But he owns a bookstore.”
She winked. “He’s a clerk. But the owners trust him, let him take care of the business. He wormed his way into their hearts, didn’t you, darling?” She smiled widely. “No, he’s not the toffer, but he knew how to look the part well enough to snag himself a rich bride. And our Helen’s just the girl. Lets him take care of the finances, don’t you, dear? We don’t want to lose her, now, do we?”