Gwen glanced back at Cecily.
Cecily ripped off her headphones and tossed them away. She ran backward toward . . . safety?
And in that split second, all was clear.
Gwen shouted, "Mario, don't touch it!"
Too late. He tugged.
The sconce exploded in his face.
He flew backward, broken, blasted . . .
One split second of horror.
Then the wiring in the house sizzled and sparked. The chandelier blew off the ceiling in a thousand glass shards.
Gwen looked up and saw her doom descending.
The heavy pendant and wide arms slammed to the floor . . .
Cecily ran out of the pantry, around the corner, and leaned over the railing.
Cousin Mario had been hit by the full force of the explosion. Cousin Gwen had been standing directly under the chandelier.
They were dead, gone, extinguished in an instant.
Lifting her arms, Cecily shrieked, "Take that, you bastards!"
Down the hall, she heard the door slam. Landon came running out of the bedroom, dressed and ready to go to "work." He looked around at the bodies, at the flames that licked the wall where the sconce had been, at the smoke that oozed from every outlet and every light fixture. "What have you done?" he shouted.
"I killed them. I killed them!" Cecily danced a sort of flamenco, slamming her stiletto heels on their precious restored hardwood floor. "They insulted me. They laughed at me. And I killed them!"
"Are you crazy? You're crazy." Landon turned on her. "The police are going to take you away!"
She stalked him like a giant cat with sharp claws and long fangs. "The police are not going to take me away. I don't know anything about electricity. I'm not the one who blew the wiring in that house last week. I'm not the one Cousin Mario fired."
Landon fell back, step by step, along the railing toward the bedroom. "But . . . you do. You know wiring. You know as much as I do!"
"Do I?" She took another step. Another.
"And I don't hold a grudge against Mario!" Landon stumbled on a piece of broken glass. He righted himself, grabbed the handrail and backed up some more.
"Who's going to believe you?"
She acted as if she had tasted blood and wanted more. "But I didn't do anything here. To this house." The handrail ended at the stairway. He whirled and ran a few steps, then turned and shouted, "You're . . . you're lying!"
"This place is out in the wilderness, and it's going to burn. By the time anyone sees the smoke, it will be ashes. All the evidence will be destroyed." She paused at the top of the stairs and like a merciless triumphant goddess, she lifted the briefcase in her hand. "I moved money out of their accounts into ours. Yesterday, Cousin Gwen left her desk open. I found cash and credit cards, and I've got them in here." She gestured down the stairs. "You can come with me or you can stay here and wait for the cops . . . or to be burned alive."
"But you killed Mario and Gwen." He gestured toward the living room. Didn't she understand? "You killed them!"
"They deserved it. Talking about me like that. Calling me like a bloodsucker." She whirled in a circle. "I made them pay. I made them—Ugh!" She tripped on a hunk of blue glass. Her heel slipped off the top stair tread. Her eyes grew so wide he could see the whites all the way around. Her arms windmilled wildly, the briefcase slapping the air.
Landon lunged for her.
Too late. Wide-eyed and screaming, she tumbled backward down the stairs.
With a harsh crack, her neck met the edge of the tread. She went limp, landing facedown and catawampus across the last three steps.
The briefcase tumbled, edge over edge, to the bottom.
Landon raced after her. Then, two steps above her and with a sudden onset of caution, he stopped. "Cecily?"
She didn't grab for him. Her hand rested still and limp.
"Cecily? Are you okay?"
She didn't speak.
He shuffled down one step, then another, and with his toe pushed on her shoulder.
She rolled over.
All her viciousness, her triumph, her madness—they were gone. Her jaw was slack, her head crooked at an awkward angle.
She was dead. Cecily was really truly . . . dead.
Aghast, Landon looked across at the graveyard of bodies. "B . . . but Cecily, now the police are really going to believe I did it. I didn't kill them, but you made it look like I did, and now you're dead, and it looks even worse. This is not fair! I didn't do this! I'm innocent!"
Smoke began to ooze out of the return air vents. Heat made the wallboard turn tan where the studs were catching fire. In the attic, he heard a blast; this home ran propane heat. The fireplaces were gas.
Cecily was right. The whole house was going to burn to the ground.
He knelt beside the body of his wife.
But not too close.
He extended his shaking fingers.
But he didn't quite touch. "Cecily, you have to get up. We've got to get out of here. I don't know what you planned, exactly, but whatever it was . . . " He picked up the briefcase. He opened the latch and looked inside. He saw a roll of twenties and a clutter of credit cards. "You stole all this?"
She stared straight up, her eyes wide and glazed.
He dug into the side pocket, pulled out pages of information on the money transfers from the Riccis' accounts to theirs. "I can't believe that you . . . all these years, I didn't realize . . . " He held onto the briefcase, hurried over to Cousin Mario. "I'm sorry. So sorry. I didn't know what she intended. Really. Really I didn't." Poor Cousin Mario. The explosion, at face level, had erased his features, yet Landon knew that in life they had looked alike. So much alike.
A thought came to him. From nowhere. It just came to him.
They did look alike, he and Mario. They really did. If he had Cousin Mario's identification, he could take their car, drive to Seattle, clean out more accounts, and while the fire department and the police were trying to figure out what had happened here, he could get away.
He glanced back at Cecily, half-expecting her to be on her feet and nagging at him.
But she was still dead.
Cousin Mario and Cousin Gwen were still dead.
The house was still on fire.
If Landon stayed in here, he would die, too.
If he stood around outside, he would be arrested for the murder of three people.
If he wanted to live, and live free, he had no choice.
Kneeling beside Cousin Mario's body, he gingerly searched his pockets.
Car keys. Wallet, with driver's license, credit cards and cash.
The smoke was getting thicker. The flames were heating the house. Landon had only a few minutes to make his final decision.
But that was a lie.
He'd made that decision the moment he picked up the briefcase.
***
At three o'clock that afternoon, the border guard at the Peace Arch on Canadian border was suitably impressed when a silver Mercedes E-400 Cabriolet convertible pulled up to his station, top down. "Nice car," Walt Bingham said as he took the proffered ID. "Mr. . . . Mario Ricci."
"Thank you." The gentleman in the driver's seat looked relaxed.
A little too relaxed, to Walt's mind. Most people, no matter how innocent they might be, were nervous when crossing the border.
Mr. Ricci said, "Actually, it's my wife's car, but mine is an electrician's truck so she let me borrow it for the trip."
Walt frowned at the photo on the driver's license, then looked at the guy's face. "Would you take off your sunglasses, please?"
The guy whipped them off.
"This is you?" Walt asked.
"Mario Ricci. Yes."
"You don't look like you're this old."
"Facelift."
Walt didn't like him. Men didn't admit to stuff like that. At least not so readily. "Could I see your registration and insur
ance?"
"Let me see if I can figure out where she stashed it." Mr. Ricci dug around in the console and came up with the papers.
Yep. Car was registered to him and . . . "What's your wife's name?"
"Gwen. Is there a problem?"
Walt shook his head. "No. Everything looks like it's in order. Pop the trunk." He walked to the back and found a duffel bag.
Mr. Ricci appeared at his side. "Want me to open it?" Without waiting for an answer, he unzipped it and showed Walt the contents.
Walt poked around a little more, looking for . . . something. "Why are you visiting Canada?"
"Vacation."
"Without the wife?"
"She's got relatives visiting, so I'm getting out of town."
"I can relate to that." Walt handed back the paperwork, slammed the trunk, followed Mr. Ricci back and waited while he got back into the driver's seat. "How long will you be staying in Canada?"
"Once the relatives leave . . . " Mr. Ricci shrugged. "They said they were going to stay for two days."
Walt waved him through. "Enjoy your stay." He didn't like the feel of the guy, but he couldn't arrest a guy based on nothing more than his instincts.
He watched the car pull away, and accelerate.
All that Mr. Ricci left behind was the faint smell of smoke and the memory of his parting smile.
THE END
Readers' Guide Questions for THE RELATIVES
1. Have you ever welcomed guests (family or otherwise) into your home and regretted it? Describe the situation. Did the incident change your reaction to further guests? Do you believe you are a good houseguest?
2. Have you dabbled in genealogy? If so, has THE RELATIVES changed your approach to the relatives you’ve uncovered?
3. Gwen and Mario have been married for over 22 years. Do you enjoy stories of mature love, or do you prefer to see blossoming relationships? Why?
4. Are you a hospitable person like Gwen and Mario? Do you believe in the inherent goodness of others? Why or why not? How would you have dealt with relatives who used and abused you?
5. Did you underestimate Cecily’s intelligence the way Mario did? Have you ever done so in your life and regretted it? What was the situation, and what did you learn from the experience?
6. Which did you find more off-putting: Cecily’s passive-aggressive digs at Gwen and Mario or Landon’s complete passivity? Why?
7. What were your feelings when Cecily died? Did you see it as poetic justice?
8. After the ending of THE RELATIVES, do you think Landon gets away with the identity switch, or is he found in Canada and extradited to the US to stand trial for the three murders? Or, alternatively, do you think he got involved with another woman like Cecily who would abuse him as she did?
LOVE NEVER DIES
by
Christina Dodd
A murder committed. . .a love lost. . .and a ghost haunted by the past.
Only one woman can right all the wrongs. . .if she can survive the night. . .
Midnight in the oldest park in Virtue Falls, Washington
I've been dead over seventy years and still when I hear a woman scream, I find myself standing, listening, wanting to help and unable to do anything except watch.
Tonight was no exception. Eugene Park was a blur as I moved through the leafy bushes, over a brown, neglected lawn made scraggly with the drought of August. I reached the scene in time to see the killer level the second blow, taking the girl's cheek half-off with a machete.
The pitch of her scream changed from surprise to pain to horror.
This female wasn't yet a woman; she was perhaps sixteen years of age, a girl running away from home or a dumb kid meeting some other dumb kid for a tryst or, from the way she was dressed and the late hour, a young prostitute trolling for a wayward client.
But no matter what her intention, she didn't deserve to die. Not like this.
The killer grasped her hair and twisted, bringing her to her knees. He raised the machete.
I dove at him, desperate to stop the carnage.
I swirled through, as useless in death as I had been in life.
I was still airborne when he scalped her with a wild swipe.
Gore splattered the sidewalks, the fountain, the shrubs. Her screams became whimpers. I could hear her heart slow as it fought to pump the rapidly decreasing supply of blood. I could see her soul struggling to remain within her body.
No one ever made their passage easily.
I hadn't.
A few more cruelly enthusiastic blows and the girl died. Her soul rose from the body. She looked at me reproachfully.
As I watched, she slipped away.
The killer took his time gathering up the body. He tweaked her clothes, ran his hand through the swathe of hair in his hand, took a sickening pleasure in the cooling body. Throwing her over his shoulder, he started up the walk toward the dark corner of the park where the park merged into forest. At the last minute, he turned and looked right at me.
He saw me.
"Interesting, isn't it?" he asked, and, "Are you going to stick around for all the killings?"
***
Eugene Park, unkempt and neglected, was a two square block piece of land on the outskirts of town. As far as I could tell, the park served merely as a tree-laden shelter for the homeless, a place for dogs to relieve themselves, and a shortcut for those in a hurry.
There for days and months and years, I waited, destined to witness events I did not wish to see. I didn't understand what I was doing there. What purpose did I serve? What penance was I enacting? I had died trying to help a young woman under attack. Surely I didn't deserve hell.
Yet my mother always said life wasn't fair, so maybe death was nothing more than a continuation of injustice. Maybe I was paying for my stupidity in leaving Sofia the way I had.
Regrets. Too many regrets. Too many deaths. Too many women's faces dissolving into disbelief, agony and death. I remembered each one.
The leaves turned orange, then brown, then withered and whirled away on the cold wind. Snow covered the rhododendrons; they became elfish mounds. The flakes retreated, then returned, then retreated. Rain came and froze the park into a glossy sheet of ice. The long darkness of the north was upon us, and I was alone. I told myself alone was good, because he was not here with his machete.
Then she came.
It was just past sunset when I felt a vibration not unlike the dramatic, opening chord on a Spanish guitar. A young woman had stepped across the park's boundary into my territory . . . and his. She huddled into her coat, moving from the side of the park near the canyon, taking the short cut toward town. She wore a silly knit hat with tassels dangling from the sides and a matching knit scarf and I could see no more than her upper lip, the tip of her nose and as she passed under each street light, her eyes looked gray.
Yet she glowed like a coal that gave off soft blue warmth on the coldest day.
She reminded me of Sofia.
You probably think every pretty woman reminds me of Sofia. I assure you, that's not true. For one thing, Sofia was not pretty. She was beautiful, the perfect combination of Spanish aristocracy and American Indian. She had long, dark, curly hair, noble cheekbones, generous lips that kissed as only Sofia could kiss. She had a curvaceous figure that has haunted my eternity, yet for all that, it wasn't her beauty or her womanly attributes that made me fall in love with her. It was the laughter that was so a part of her, the kindness, the generosity of spirit.
Sofia had been my perfect mate . . . and I had failed her. She is forever lost to me.
I waited at the center of the park where the two walks intersected in the circle around the old stone fountain. No water ran at this time of year. Summer flowers were brown and broken. Yet this woman's radiance attracted and warmed.
One of the regulars, a homeless man who huddled beneath a tall cedar tree, saw her. Rising, he stalked toward her. For a bulky man, Cleardale w
alked like a ballet dancer, one foot directly in front of the other. On him the gait wasn't graceful, but almost overbalanced; he looked like a tree swaying in a high wind. I recognized his comportment; he was in the grip of his violent griefs and his equally violent rages. He shed flickers of madness as clearly as he shed orange cedar foliage off his shoulders and back.
He lumbered over to the woman and in a pleading voice, he called her by his wife's name. "Tammy . . ."
The girl pulled the scarf away from her mouth. "I'm sorry, I'm not Tammy. I'm Areila."
First mistake. She should have never answered him.
He stared at her, and I could see his confusion, then the gradual growth of his anger. "Don't lie to me. You liar!"
"I'm not Tammy." She pulled off her hat and showed a tumble of black hair held back in a band, a snub nose and a sweet, if nervous smile. "See? We've never met before."
"What have you done with the children?" His voice rose. "Why aren't you home taking care of them?"
She pulled her hat on and glanced behind her as if trying to decide if she should go back. But to reach lights, people, commerce, she needed to go forward. So she stepped out briskly, trying to ignore him.
Cleardale was impossible to ignore. He was big. He was threatening. He jumped in front of her so she had to go around him, then jumped in front of her again. "Did you kill them? Did you neglect them until they died? They're dead, aren't they?"
She cut to the left, taking a sidewalk that would get her out of the park by a shorter route.
He wasn't about to let her get away and I knew — I knew — that when he was like this, he could see me. So I moved closer, stood beside the edge of the walk, and softly I called his name. "Cleardale . . ."
He heard me. Sometimes they didn't, but he jumped and turned, saw me observing him. He froze. He lifted his hands before his face as if to defend himself from me. "Don't!"
"Leave her alone." I spoke gently, fearing if I seemed threatening he would harm her. But I have observed that there is something about the mere presence of a ghost that terrifies those who see it. And to hear the ghost . . . well.