Matchpoint (31 page)

“Yes.”

I gulped. I thought of being stabbed in the eye, of having my face cut off. None of it was any good.
I should have had dessert at dinner
, I thought.
Why didn’t I get one of Herbie’s pies?

“Is that when Holly arrived? After you stabbed him in the eye?” I asked.

“No,” Nathan said, taking a seat. “She came in when I was cutting off his face. He kept staring at me. And it was my face. He didn’t deserve to have my face.”

“He was a crappy dad.”

“Yeah.”

“So, you got Holly to stash the face for you and what
else … give you an alibi? Give you an injury that couldn’t possibly be self-inflicted?”

“Hey, you’re smart,” Nathan said. “You figured it all out. I heard your grandmother was a witch. Are you a witch, too?”

I wished I was a witch. I would have turned him into a frog, or woken up Spencer, or given myself perfectly flat abs.

Spencer’s cellphone went off. I willed Spencer to wake up, but the gas was doing its job. He didn’t stir. Just as soon as the phone stopped, it rang again.

“Should we get that?” I asked Nathan. “It could be an emergency.”

“I don’t care.”

“What I can’t understand is why Holly went through with it,” I said. “The fact that Dr. Dulur wasn’t a nice guy isn’t enough of a reason. Unless …,” I said.

I stood up and wagged my finger in the air, like I was excited by my idea. “You knew about the embezzling, and you threatened her with it. You forced her hand.”

“And then she changed her mind,” he said. “Said she didn’t care if she went to jail, that I was crazy and needed to be stopped. Crazy! Can you believe that?”

I could believe that very easily. Nathan Smith was nuttier than a fruitcake. “No, of course I don’t believe you’re crazy,” I said. I bunched up my skirt in my hands, raising up the dress from the floor ever so slightly.

“She tried to hide out with the cult, but I found her.”

“And you shot her,” I said.

“I almost shot you, too. When I saw you two together, I thought, ‘This is too good. I can get two busybodies at once,’ but I couldn’t get a clear shot at you after I took Holly down.”

I swallowed. “I could go for some water,” I said.

“You’ll be dead soon. You won’t be thirsty then.”

Nathan was nothing if not pragmatic. He was getting
very good at killing people. “If you think I’m a busybody, why did you come to my house that night with the face?”

“To scare you. To get you to stop sticking your nose in. Besides, it started to smell. The cop was a surprise.” A tear rolled down Nathan’s cheek. “He didn’t love me.”

Spencer’s cellphone went off again. “Would you like a tissue?” I asked Nathan. I bent down to get a Kleenex and then I was off, running down the hallway for all I was worth. Suddenly the lights went out. I dropped to the ground and crawled into Dr. Dulur’s office.

“Where are you going, Gladie?” Nathan called. His voice drew nearer. “Why are you making this hard? I have to kill you. I knew you had it figured out. You’ve got your grandmother’s gift. That’s why I brought you the face. I figured you could do something with it, maybe change him. You know what I mean?”

I heard him shuffle into the office. I heard a click and then the beam of a flashlight illuminated the room. I crouched in a corner.

“I can kill you in here if you prefer,” he said. “I have a knife. I’m going to slit your throat. It will probably cut like butter. I got a lot of practice from Simon’s face.”

What a lousy way to die
, I thought, crouching in the corner of the office, the tulle of Calamity’s dress billowing up around me. And what about Spencer? Would Nathan kill him, too? That would be my fault, because he came to Bliss Dental to be with me and I got him killed. I started to cry.

I didn’t want Spencer to die, and I didn’t want to die. Not even from old age. I wanted to live forever. Like
Fame
.

Nathan approached me, shining the light in my face. I could make out the long knife in one of his hands.
That will be the knife that kills me
, I thought.

“I know the truth,” I said. “The murder was premeditated. You planned it out way before you confronted him.
If
you confronted him.”

Nathan grew agitated. “That’s not true.”

“You sent Belinda on a wild-goose chase to get that flower. You knew Holly would be at the bar, and you took something from her—her phone or her keys or something—so she would have to come back. And me, well, I was a surprise, but the gas fixed that, and it was good to have a witness to prove your innocence.”

“I spent my life in the system. You can’t imagine what I lived through,” he said.

“I’m sorry.”

“And then I found out my father was living in the lap of luxury the whole time.”

“And he was a bastard to boot,” I said.

“A sadistic bastard!”

“So you planned it all.”

Nathan nodded. “It took months to plan it.”

“And you took his face,” I said.

“That was just for fun.”

I shivered. Nathan was bonkers, a crazy, twisted loon who could give Jeffrey Dahmer a run for his money in the nutso department.

“And you always planned to kill Holly eventually.”

Nathan gestured with the knife. “I’m going to kill her at the hospital as soon as I’m done with you and the cop. You got in my way last night.”

“The night you came over with the scarecrow, did you plan to kill me that night?”

“Nah, I liked playing with you. You’re fun.” Nathan scratched his nose with the back of his hand. “But I’m done playing with you,” he said. “I’ve got to finish this up.”

I tried to think quickly for a way out, but Nathan and
his big knife were in the way. I whimpered, sure in the knowledge that I was about to die.

And then there was a loud explosion as the front door of Bliss Dental was thrown open and ear-splitting screams pierced the quiet of the building.

“We’re here! We’re here! We’ll save you!”

“Darlin’, I will not get through killin’ that psychopathic looney tunes killer!”

Bridget and Lucy ran through the waiting room with flashlights blazing and stopped short when they saw Nathan with the knife.

“Stand back!” shouted Bridget. “I’m trained in the art of Krav Maga!”

“Somebody get the lights!” I yelled.

“I’m on it!” Lucy called out, and ran for the breaker box.

“If you move, I will kill her,” Nathan told Bridget.

“No, you won’t. I have lightning-fast reflexes,” she said. “Krav Maga is all about kill or be killed, and you’re going down, little man.”

Her face was set in stone. I hadn’t seen her so serious and focused since the Planned Parenthood rally during the summer.

The lights came on, and Lucy ran back into the room.

She held a gun in one hand.

“Look what I found!” she announced.

“That’s Dr. Dulur’s weapon,” Nathan said. “It’s not loaded.”

“Oh,” Lucy said, disappointed. She threw it down on the floor, and it went off, shooting Nathan in the leg. He dropped to the floor, writhing in agony. Bridget sat on him and told him to shut up while she called the police on her phone.

“Is that the art of Krav Maga?” I asked her. “Where did you learn that?”

“Yes, two lessons at the rec center,” Bridget said. “It came in handy, right?”

I hugged Lucy. “Good shooting, Annie Oakley,” I told her. “Oh my God, Spencer!”

I ran into the other room and took the gas mask off Spencer. I was pleased to see that his bleeding had stopped. “Wake up, Spencer!” I called. He stirred, and his eyes opened.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re okay,” I said. I gave him some water and told him all about Nathan being the killer and how he had used Holly to give him an alibi. Spencer stared at me without saying anything.

“Are you okay? Can you speak? Do you have a concussion?” I asked him.

“What?” he said finally. “I didn’t hear a word you said. Your boob popped out of your dress ten minutes ago.”

MIRACULOUSLY, SPENCER didn’t even need a stitch. “It’s a good thing you have such a hard head,” I told him.

After a checkup at the hospital, and hours at the station filling out reports, he was allowed to drive himself home.

Bridget, Lucy, and I gave the police our statements. Bridget and Lucy explained that they had seen Belinda at Herbie’s, and she told them the replacement dentist hadn’t arrived yet. Lucy and Bridget put two and two together and came to my rescue.

Besides the boob incident, my dress came out unscathed. It must have been made of some supersecret material developed by NASA or the CIA, I guessed. Bridget and Lucy drove me to my grandma’s house, and since it was nearly sunrise, we decided to keep me in the dress until the wedding was finished mid-morning. Meanwhile, we made a big breakfast and told Grandma all about our adventures.

Bridget regaled her about her Krav Maga skills, and Lucy described her shooting ability as if they were the Green Hornet and Kato at the O.K. Corral. I enjoyed the company at Grandma’s table. I was happy and content, despite all the upheaval in my life.

IT WAS good to feel safe again. Nathan Smith was spending the first of many nights at a psych ward in San Diego. After the hospital in Cannes treated him for his leg wound, he went off in such detail about cutting off his father’s face, they decided he needed to be hooked up to a Thorazine drip in a rubber room somewhere.

“Here’s to a mouth without cavities,” I said, lifting up my coffee mug. “That’s the one piece of good news from last night.”

“To oral hygiene,” Lucy said, and clinked her mug against mine.

I drove out to Trouble Weiss’s house for Calamity’s wedding. Cannes looked like it had been hit by a nuclear explosion. Papers littered the streets, and there was a post-apocalyptic feel to the place. I stopped at Tea Time to fortify myself with one of Ruth’s lattes. I was bone tired from staying up all night, more exhausted still in the aftermath of all that adrenaline from the night before.

Tea Time was back to normal. No more naked people, or color-coded people. No whispers of “the Arrival”
as I entered. Ruth stood behind the counter, wiping it down, her familiar scowl on her face.

“The usual?” she asked me.

“No argument for me today, Ruth? No lecture on the depravity of drinking coffee?”

“I figure you got enough problems, considering your wardrobe and all,” she said, pointing at my dress. I had been wearing it for so long, I had almost forgotten I had it on. It would be a relief to get it off, though. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a pair of scissors and cut it off in one swipe.

“I appreciate it. I’m maid of honor in Calamity’s wedding.”

“Lucky you. I’d rather have my eyes eaten by wild dogs than go anywhere near Trouble Weiss. No more vile woman has ever existed.” Ruth handed me my latte. “But she makes good chocolate, I’ll give her that.”

“Hey, no cult this morning, I see.”

“Gone,” Ruth said. “They filed out of town in the early morning, around sunrise. Just packed up their yurts and went on their way.”

“Did the aliens come? Is it the end of the world?” I wouldn’t have been surprised if either or both had happened. It had been a very strange week.

“I don’t give a damn either way,” Ruth said. “Just glad I’ve got my shop back. I’d even prefer coffee drinkers to those freaks.”

Outside, the street sweepers had been called in. They motored down Main Street sucking up the papers and washing away the dirt and debris from five days of battle between cultists and townspeople.

I sipped my latte and enjoyed the fresh air. Autumn was coming fast. Apple season was around the corner, the time Cannes did best. Just the thought of it made me feel cozy. Soon the days would be filled with apple-themed events and the nights filled with hot apple cider
and bonfires. Life was pretty good. Sure, Holden had left town, but I had good friends, and my second real match under my belt.

Maybe there was another hideous maid-of-honor dress in my future, maybe for Belinda’s wedding.

I got back in my car as the stores began to reopen. Shell-shocked store owners opened their doors with a last look around, as if they expected alien lovers to drop down from the sky. But the cult had definitely left, and it was just a matter of time before the town shook off the last vestiges of the alien invasion and got back to their small-town way of life.

I started up my engine with a roar, just as Meryl the librarian stopped by me on the sidewalk and stuck her head in through my open window.