“Put that brick in and I’ll shoot you right in the head!”
Genevieve’s muscles gave, and she sagged against the wall.
Joe!
How had he known to come here?
“The switch!” Barbara yelled.
“No!” Joe shouted out.
But Barbara made a leap for the wall, and the single light in the basement went out just as a bullet exploded in the night, followed by the thuds and grunts of hand-to-hand combat.
Genevieve was powerless to help in any way. She wrenched desperately at her chains and with the help of a surge of adrenaline, freed one hand. She pressed at the bricks, trying to topple the wall of her makeshift prison, but they wouldn’t give.
And then the light went back on.
With her limited field of vision, she could see Joe and Albee rolling across the floor, locked in a deadly struggle for life or death.
Genevieve stretched out as far as she could, found a brick and threw it.
Hard.
Barbara screamed and crashed to her knees.
Gen heard a sickening thud, and Albee screamed. He rose above Joe for a minute, then jumped back down on Joe in what looked like a wrestler’s savage slam, but with one key difference.
Albee Bennet was dead from a bullet to the heart.
“Joe!” Genevieve gasped.
“I’m all right. He’s just…heavy.”
He shoved the body off, and as he staggered to his feet, she could see that he was torn and bleeding. And then, in the distance, she heard the blessed sound of sirens.
Joe tore down the wall Albee had built, then jerked the second chain from the wall, lifted her and held her close.
He didn’t pull away until a dozen policemen hurried down to the basement. Even then, he didn’t go far.
“How did you find me?” she whispered.
He looked into her eyes. Offered her a crooked grin. “‘The TellTale Heart’?” he suggested. “My heart is your heart, so I heard it from a distance?” His smile faded. “Matt told me,” he said. “Matt brought me to you.”
She leaned against him. “Leslie and Lori were here,” she told him, then smiled. Dirty and disheveled, he smiled in return.
EPILOGUE
As I said, it’s not easy being a ghost.
But it does get better.
The why of it, though, is something I’m just beginning to understand.
One of the reasons we stayed behind, Matt and I—one I see so clearly now—was so we could help uncover the Poe Killer—or Killers, as it turned out. Joe put the last pieces together when he remembered how hard Albee Bennet had clapped when Barbara Hirshorn had given her reading at Thorne Bigelow’s funeral, a hint that that the man evidently had a crush on her. What he hadn’t realized at the time was just how mutual and serious those feelings were, or how far they would go on each other’s behalf.
The couple that kills together stays together?
They’re not together now, though I suppose they may be in the future. I was there when Albee Bennet left this world, and, I assure you, he didn’t go anywhere pleasant, with soft white clouds and harp music floating on a gentle breeze. Something came for him, something swift and oozing that reeked of brimstone and charred flesh.
Barbara Hirshorn, on the other hand, did not die that night. She’s locked up now, and I expect she will be for quite some time.
As for Lori, though she did extremely well during her first outing as a ghost, she chose to leave us. That light is hard to resist. I hope she’s finally gotten star billing. She deserves it.
Sam Latham made a full recovery and went home.
Sorting out some of the other details proved a more complex task. Apparently Barbara took a few days off from the library now and then, days that coincided with the Bigelows’ travel schedule. It was easy enough for her to slip away to be with her secret lover. And for all that she adored and admired him, she would never have admitted to the affair, too afraid of what her fellow board members would say. A librarian was one thing. A librarian involved with a butler? She was certain she would have been ousted.
She encouraged Albee to kill William Morton, helped him with his costume and drove him around. The police believe now that Barbara was the one to lure Bradley Hicks to his death. It was easy enough to arrange a meeting in the cemetery, and from there…
Sarah was lucky she wasn’t seen, or she, too, might have been found in a tomb. Hopefully no one will ever tell her that.
Barbara had extracted the arsenic that killed Thorne from rat poison. As a librarian, she had Internet access and lots of time to read, and the method wasn’t hard to come by.
Larry Levine finally wrote a book. It was on the Poe Killings, and it was published by Brook Avery, in his first venture into book publishing. It was not only well-reviewed, it was a bestseller.