Ник Сайнт - Purrfectly Deadly

She set a tray of cups and saucers down on the coffee table.

“Last month?” she asked, suddenly feeling a little out of her depth.

Bryony gave a tight smile. “Johnny wanted to relaunch his career. He’d had an offer to join the jury on the Australian version of The X Factor . He figured it would give him some much-needed exposure so I went to talk to the producers about his involvement.” She absentmindedly brushed a strand of hair from her brow. “In spite of the divorce Johnny insisted I represent him. I don’t know why, as he was casting me aside for Jasper, but then Jasper was always more like a glorified butler than a genuine manager.”

Odelia swallowed. “You… didn’t like Jasper?”

Bryony swept up her hand. “You can drop the charade now, Miss Poole. We both know perfectly well why you’re here. I don’t know how, but you discovered my little secret, didn’t you? You discovered I killed Johnny.”

“No, I…” But then she noticed the small revolver in Bryony’s hand.

“How did you find out? Was it something I said?” Her eyes quickly cut to the picture. “I should never have left that out in the open.”

“You got the venom when you were over there,” she said.

“Yes. It wasn’t hard. They gave me a tour of one of those reptile parks, and showed me where they kept the venom they collect to create anti-venom. It wasn’t difficult for me to grab some and bring it back to the States.”

“You do know that spider venom isn’t lethal when ingested?”

Bryony stared at her. “What are you talking about? It killed Johnny, didn’t it?”

“Only because he had a preexisting heart condition. If he’d been healthy he would have survived.”

Bryony gave an annoyed shrug. “Who cares? He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“But why?” she asked. “Why would you want to kill your husband?”

“Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know,” said Bryony. “I’m sure you figured it all out before you set foot in here. What I don’t understand is why you didn’t bring your uncle along this time, to place me under arrest. Or perhaps you weren’t entirely sure and decided to confront me first?” She waved the gun. “Bad idea, Miss Poole. Very bad idea.”

“You’re not going to kill me, are you?” she asked, frozen to the spot.

“Move over to the window,” Bryony said.

Odelia did as she was told, and saw that a blue tarp was placed between the couch and the window. Oh, God. Bryony was going to kill her.

“The painters are coming in tomorrow,” Bryony explained. “But they’ll just have to find themselves another piece of plastic, won’t they?”

“But why?” she asked, tears springing to her eyes.

“Isn’t it obvious? You’re here to arrest me. And I can’t have that.”

“I can’t arrest you. I’m not a cop.”

“You sure act like one. And your uncle seems to consider you his deputy. Did you tell him about me?”

She shook her head, living through this entire scene like a dream. She’d never been threatened before, and definitely not been on the verge of being shot before, and her preservation instincts were decidedly slow to respond to this crisis. “I honestly didn’t know you killed Johnny,” she said now.

Bryony shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. You know now, so I can’t let you live.”

“But why did you kill him?”

“And here I thought you were so smart. The man was going to divorce me. After all those years he was going to leave me and marry that fool Jasper. After I spent a fortune and my entire life turning him into a star he was going to give me a measly annuity. Not even a lump sum but a paltry allowance.”

“You could have gotten a lawyer and gotten a better deal.”

“I couldn’t. We signed a prenup.”

“In Johnny’s favor? I thought he was the pauper and you the rich girl?”

Bryony shifted the gun to her other hand. “Nicely put. And you’re right. I was rich and Johnny was poor, which is exactly why my father demanded we sign a prenup. Unfortunately I neglected to include a clause that would grant me a portion of moneys earned during our marriage, only that we’d both get back what we’d put in.”

“Which for you was your entire fortune, right?”

“Wrong. I never invested anything. My father did, on my request. Upon divorce, I get back exactly what I put in: nothing. And Johnny gets to keep what he made throughout our marriage. Very unfair, but there you have it.”

“So he was going to leave you with an annuity? That seems harsh.”

“It was. Since his career was in decline—or in a state of rigor mortis, to be exact—and he spent every cent he owned on his very expensive hobbies, his fortune had dwindled. He’d effectively blown most of my money and his.”

“So these songs he’d recorded—”

“Were for his comeback record. Which he hoped would put him back on top. There was still a nice chunk of change left, but he was keeping it.”

“And so you decided you needed to kill him now or lose out forever.”

She smiled. “You are a great reporter, Miss Poole. Yes, Johnny called me to the house a couple of weeks ago, and said he wanted to marry Jasper. Make things official between them. He wanted a divorce. He said he’d always take care of me, and offered me the annuity scheme.” She shook her head. “I was livid. After spending the best years of my life and my family’s fortune on this man, he was going to fob me off with a few alms? No way. So I decided to get rid of him before the divorce, and salvage what I could from this mess.”

“And get rid of Jasper in the process.”

“Of course. I never liked that horrid little man. Jail is too good for him.”

“So how did you do it?” She needed to buy time. Time to find a solution.

“Well, I thought long and hard about a way to kill the bastard. It’s not easy to kill a person and get away with it if you’ve never done it before.” She sounded bemused now, as if the entire murder proposition had been nothing but an intriguing puzzle to her. “I thought about an overdose, which would have looked plausible, but Johnny was always very careful about his dope. The idea came to me when I was in Australia. Some news segment about a boy who’d been bitten by the world’s deadliest spider. As luck would have it, they invited me to visit the reptile center and that’s where I got the venom.”

“But how did you get Jasper’s fingerprint on the vial?”

She waved a hand. “I’d seen that on a crime show. I used a piece of tape to lift Jasper’s prints from a wine glass when I was over at Johnny’s house, and attach them to the vial. It was actually a lot easier than I thought.”

“Clever,” said Odelia.

“Yes, the plan was very straightforward and easy,” said Bryony, “which told me it was the right thing to do. Now all I need to do is get rid of you.”

“My uncle will come looking. He’ll know what you did.”

“I don’t think so, hon. I’ll just get rid of your car and the body and your uncle will simply think you skedaddled.”

“I would never do that.”

“Well, you’re going to.” She raised the gun. “Please lie down, Miss Poole. I don’t want any blood on my curtains. I like my murders nice and tidy.”

Chapter 28

Bryony took careful aim, and it was obvious she knew how to handle a gun. Odelia had done as instructed and was now lying on the tarp, awaiting the end. She thought about rushing the woman and slapping that gun from her hand, but Bryony was no fool. She kept her distance. Besides, chances were that the moment she made a move the woman would shoot anyway.

“Don’t do this, Bryony,” she said. “You’re going to get caught. You may have gotten away with Johnny’s murder, but you won’t get away with this.”