Page 93 of Worse Than Wicked
“I wouldn’t kill anyone,” he says. “Isn’t that the point? To make me do something I wouldn’t do, to prove to you how much I love you?”
“Then who would you kill to prove it?” I ask. “Baron got rid of his pet for me. Who would you get rid of? Someone important to you, so I know you love me as much as he does. Or even more.”
“You want me to say Olive, don’t you?”
“No,” I say, appalled. “She’s a child.” I think about it for a long minute. “I would never ask you to hurt an innocent person. But if I did ask you to, would you do it?”
“You’re sick.” He tries to take his arm from under my head, but I hold onto him, so he can’t.
“I just want to know how far you’d go,” I say. “Even Jane’s death was meaningless to you. I want to know how much you’d sacrifice for me. Who would you give up, who you love, who’s hurt me?”
“Oh,” he says flatly. “You want me to kill Baron.”
twenty-three
Baron Dolce
“There she is,” Mabel says, pointing to a pair of headlights coming up the hill, a smile spreading over her face.
“Are you sure this is going to work?” Duke asks.
“There’s only one way for her to go,” I point out, my gaze moving to the mountain on our right. On our left, the incline is steep, though it’s not a sheer drop. Still, her car would tumble a long way, surely crushed as it bounced down the mountain before coming to a stop. If she has any instinct, she’ll swerve to the right, where there’s no escape.
Duke is supposed to kill her, but came to me and said he couldn’t to it, that Dixie didn’t deserve to die for posting a video, and even if she did, he wasn’t the person to decide that.
I told him I didn’t mind doing it. We can make Mabel think it was his kill easily enough.
And in truth, I like my chances with this one. It might be my perfect kill at last.
Each time, some unforeseen circumstance prevented me from executing the plan as intended. I don’t like admitting weakness, but I have to acknowledge, to myself at least, that each time, the failure was mine.
I almost had Jane, but it was too dark to see her eyes, and I didn’t stay long enough because I was distracted by Mabel’s escape.
I could have had the Darling patriarch, but I lost control, lost my temper, at the thought of him hurting Mabel.
I could have had Mr. Harris, but if we’d followed the plan, that would have been Black Widow’s kill. And since I didn’t, it wasn’t well planned. The knowledge that he’d hurt Mabel so deeply shook me more than she knows, and though the kill was methodical instead of passionate, he was already unconscious, too feeble to struggle if I’d strangled him the way I’ve pictured in my mind so many times.
Dixie presents a new opportunity.
She has no control over Mabel, so she can’t make me lose control. Mabel has even agreed to stay in the car to minimize potential evidence from being left.
My contact with Dixie was more extensive than either of my companions knows, but I have no loyalty to her. I knew her well in high school, probably better than most. She even thought we were friends, though she downplayed her connection to us to serve her own purposes. I understood that it was all part of her game, and though it wasn’t part of mine, I didn’t mind the intercept. Sometimes, we had similar ends in mind, and we coordinated efforts.
But she was a means to an end, but she no longer serves us.
With a grim expression, Duke pulls the car out onto the road behind her. We let her get ahead a few minutes, knowing there’s nowhere for her to turn for quite some time. We catch up with her soon enough. We pull up close behind her, but she doesn’t seem to notice. Our headlights shine through her back window, and we can see her swiveling her neck to a beat, her messy curls knotted on top of her head, bobbing to the rhythm of whatever music she’s listening to.
“Why isn’t she pulling over?” Duke asks, leaning forward over the wheel and peering at her through his glasses. I would never ask such a thing, but Mabel’s too focused on the hunt tonotice his slip. I shoot him a warning glance, but he doesn’t see it, doesn’t look away from the car ahead.
“Maybe she hasn’t noticed us,” Mabel says, leaning forward between the seats in anticipation.
“We’re halfway up her ass,” Duke says. “How can she not notice?”
Dixie waves one hand in the air, and though I can’t tell if she’s waving at us to back off or pass. She can’t pull over. There’s nowhere to go. The narrow road carved into the side of the mountain barely allows two lanes.
“What is she doing?” Mabel asks, her tone impatient.
“She’s dancing,” Duke says.
