I pulled up outside the white vinyl facade, which was offset by a massive front lawn, and cut my engine. Perhaps a call to announce my arrival would have been in order, but I didn’t want to risk Mr. Fulton finding out I was headed here before I at least had a chance to warn Diane about the dangers that lurked right in her very own broken home.
Marching right up to the front door with far more confidence than I felt, I tried the handle without first ringing the doorbell to announce myself. Of course, since this was small-town Maine, the door stood unlocked. I let myself in, hoping that I wasn’t too late to make a difference.
Inside, the house was dark as dusk settled over the land.
“Hello? Diane?” I called, groping about for a light switch but coming up short.
I padded toward the living room but turned abruptly when I heard the sound of a floorboard creak from a few paces behind me. There, within the pale light of the large bay window, a tall shadowy figure stood with its arms stretched high overhead.
“Diane?” I asked, squinting at the figure and praying it was my friend rather than her husband. I didn’t have long to puzzle it out, though, because…
CRACK!
A tremendous pain radiated from my forehead, and before I had the chance to figure out what was going on, I crumpled to the floor, having once again lost consciousness.
When I came to, every inch of my body screamed with pain. I looked to my left and saw a massive fire roaring in the fireplace less than a foot away. It was too close. My skin had already begun to turn red from the excessive warmth. Struggling to move out of its range, I realized then that both my hands and my feet had been bound together in front of me.
“You think you can just break into somebody’s home?” my captor rasped, moving into the light. I fully expected to see Mr. Fulton standing before me, but no. It wasn’t him at all.
It was Diane, my friend. My attacker? What?
“Diane,” I wheezed. “It’s me, Angie. We need to get out of here.”
“I know who you are. What I don’t know is why you couldn’t leave well enough alone.” The contempt that filled her eyes as they combed over me was so blatant I could hardly recognize the kindly woman I’d come to consider a friend.
My head pulsed with pain, making it hard to think straight. Why was she acting like this? Had Mr. Fulton lied to her about everything? Did she somehow think I was to blame for all of this?
None of this was adding up.
“Ethel was murdered!” I screamed at her. My throat ached just like the rest of me, but I didn’t care. “We have to tell someone.”
Diane groaned and paced the room in search of something. “Keep quiet,” she warned. Maybe this was all an act. Maybe she was scared, too, and trying to convince Mr. Fulton she was on his side so that he wouldn’t harm her.
“Let me go,” I pleaded. “It’s not too late. We can go to the police, and—”
She rushed back toward me and stooped down so we were at eye level. “Nobody’s going to the police,” she said in an eerie whisper before slapping me right across my face.
As this new pain stung my cheek, I finally saw the truth that stood right before me. Mr. Fulton had never been guilty—not of murder, not of this.
“It was you the whole time,” I spat.
She smiled a wicked grin and rolled her eyes. “Obviously. Don’t act like you didn’t know. I couldn’t believe my dumb luck when you woke up at the will reading talking about a murder. I’ve heard about psychics before, but I had no idea you were one of them.”
“You think I’m a psychic?” I hissed. Everything hurt, but most of all my heart. I’d been so naive, blindly trusting Diane because we liked the same TV shows. Now this oversight could very well cost me my life.
“How else would you explain your inexplicable knowledge of Ethel’s murder? At first I thought maybe you were playing some kind of joke and had just accidentally blurted out something true without even knowing it, but then you kept turning up everywhere.”
I shook my head and struggled against my bonds to no avail. It made sense that Diane thought I had psychic powers. In a way I did, just not in the way she’d assumed.
“The viewing, Ethel’s house…” Diane continued, kicking me back when she saw that I was trying to untie my feet.
“Oh, don’t look so shocked. Of course Anne told me about that. The one thing I couldn’t piece together is why you hadn’t gone to the police to turn me in. But then when you tried to break into my house, I realized you actually planned to take me out yourself. Well, great job, you did.” She laughed an evil villain laugh that seemed so at odds with the sweater-set-wearing, pearl clutching housewife I knew.
“But why? Why would you kill Ethel?” I choked out. As much as I wanted to hear the answer, I needed to keep her talking until I could figure out a way to escape. For all I knew, she planned to kill me after our little talk here. Clearly this madwoman was capable of anything.
Diane snarled like a wild animal, baring her teeth and sending another chill straight to my gut. “Didn’t you figure that part out when you helped my philandering oaf of a husband serve me with a petition for divorce today?”
I gasped, a response she clearly appreciated.
“So he was sleeping with Bethany!” I said, playing it up to keep her talking as long as possible. I’d been wrong about our killer, but right about the affair. Whether or not the bra belonged to Bethany, she was still guilty.
“Sleeping with her?” Diane curled her nose in disgust and pushed off the floor back to a standing position.
My phone vibrated in my hip pocket, which gave me an idea. If I could just find a way to FaceTime Octo-Cat, he could get Nan and she could get the police. I needed to distract Diane enough that she wouldn’t see me reaching into my pocket. It would be hard to be sly with my hands bound together, but I at least had to try.
“So he wasn’t?” I asked curiously.
“I should hope not, seeing as she’s his daughter. Then again, Richard’s illegitimate child is the least of my problems right now.” She moved fast, muttering to herself on occasion before speaking more to me.
How had she hidden so much of her true self? How had I never seen through the pleasant house wife act? Did Mr. Fulton know? Is that why he was leaving her? I wanted to know so much more, but first, I needed to get away from the crazy murderess who now paced the floor in front of me.
“And you wanted all of Ethel’s money for yourself,” I said, hoping it was enough of a prompt to get her to fly into another monologue about her motives.
“Who wouldn’t want the money? It’s not like the old lady was long for this world anyway. I gave her an easy death which, if you ask me, was far better than she deserved.”
As she talked, I inched my hands closer to my pocket. Luckily, my phone was on the opposite side of the fire, which gave me some shadows to help disguise my movements.
“You’re already rich,” I murmured, happy she wasn’t looking at me anymore.
Diane had now returned to her frantic search of the room. I prayed it wasn’t a gun she was hoping to find. I may be able to think fast, but I didn’t think I’d be able to act fast enough to dodge a speeding bullet aimed straight at me, especially considering my recent head injury.
She laughed bitterly. “Already rich as Mrs. Fulton. What do you think will happen to me after the divorce, though?” Luckily, this was a rhetorical question as she kept talking without waiting to see what I had to say. “I thought I had more time. Richard was supposed to inherit everything from his aunt, then I’d get half if I could just keep him happy long enough for the will to go through. I got sick of waiting for the old lady to kick the bucket, so I helped her along. I couldn’t believe my rotten luck when we found out she’d recently changed her will to leave almost everything to that stupid cat!”