Page 38 of The Woman Who Couldn't Scream
No to the assignation. No to the Cipres residing here. No to the whole scene.
From the kitchen, another voice spoke, a feminine, high-class Baltimore, superior/nasty voice. With an indignation to match Cipre’s, the woman said, “My God, what kind of disgusting spectacle have I walked into?”
Merida’s and Benedict’s heads swiveled in that direction.
The woman continued to complain. “I should never have made a reservation in a bed-and-breakfast. So… common.”
Merida couldn’t believe her bad luck. Lilith Palmer.Lilith Palmer.Kateri’s sister, the one who had locked them in the basement. Merida and Kateri believed she had hoped to kill them.
She had met Lilith again, too, at some boring charity function she had attended as Nauplius Brassard’s wife.
But… but Merida looked very different now. Different from her teen years. Different from those years of suited and high-heeled bondage.
Yet Lilith’s Botoxed forehead almost wrinkled. “Do I know you?” She sounded scornful, but puzzled, too.
Merida shook her head.No. You don’t know me.
Sean Weston stepped into the doorway. “Merida, do you need assistance?”
No. None of you know me.
Dawkins Cipre. Elsa Cipre. Officer Sean Weston. Lilith Palmer. And most horribly, Benedict Howard. Why were they here? Now? In Merida’s refuge? To her, it seemed as if predator birds circled overhead, waiting for the moment of weakness when they would swoop down and tear her to pieces. She rubbed her forehead with her fingertips.
Benedict touched her arm. “Merida?”
She flung him away. Her hands moved violently and her lips moved, too. “Leave me alone!” She turned to the door of her rooms, fumbled with the key. Her hands shook.
Everyone was looking at her. She couldfeelthem looking at her. She tried the key again. That lock was open. She touched the right sequence of numbers on the keypad.
She was in! She stepped over the threshold, slammed the door behind her—and saw Susie, looking horrified and guilty, the open laptop on the table before her… the laptop Merida had so carefully hidden an hour before.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Susie’s fingers were on the keyboard.
Merida grew cold with fear. She signed, “What are you doing?”
“Nothing, miss!” Susie answered as if she could read sign language. “That is… I thought you’d be longer. At dinner.” She saw Merida looking at her hands and slammed the laptop shut.
“Where did you get that?”
Again Susie answered as if she could read Merida’s hands. “I… I… I… found it when I went to get a new tablecloth for your parlor.” She picked up the computer and offered it.
Merida advanced on her, took it, backed away.
“I didn’t mean nothing by it, miss! My boys need a new computer for school. I don’t know nothin’ about them and I was just wonderin’ whether this kind would do.”
Merida stared at the woman with new eyes. Susie still looked thin, she still looked careworn, but her eyes held intelligence and cunning. And lies?
“Please don’t tell Miss Phoebe, ma’am, she’ll fire me for sure and I need this job. My husband will beat me if I don’t bring home the money! He drinks, you know, and when he does that, he beats the kids. I put myself between ’em until he tires out. Please don’t tell her!”
Merida nodded. Susie’s story was all possible. Even probable. But Susie’s use of a country accent had intensified. Maybe from nerves. Maybe to disarm her. As Merida observed her with more care, she saw a box knife connected to Susie’s belt and a kitchen knife and a screwdriver in her carry caddy. Those weren’t standard supplies for a cleaning woman, at least not one she had ever met.
“I’m almost done, miss. All I have to do is change that tablecloth”—she put her hand on the folded linen on the table beside her—“and dust in here. Then I have to go upstairs to the attic, up to clean for them Cipres.”
Merida pointed up at the ceiling.They were above her?
“Yes, and that woman—she is the very devil for being fussy.” For one moment, Susie looked dangerously peeved. “Can I finish with you now?”
