“That figures.” Kellen took a bite, chewed, swallowed and put down her pizza. “Wait. You couldn’t read.”

“Before I started school, my father read to me.”

“You had a father who read to you? Sounds like a nice guy.” Which made Mara’s idiosyncrasies all the more bizarre.

“My father taught English composition at an elite school, Heatherwood Academy outside of Leeds, England. To him, the only thing that mattered was literature.” Mara rolled out the word like a royal red carpet over castle steps. “He taught me the importance of proper behavior, of making the right friends, and to appreciate the grandeur of the English language.”

“But not to read.” That didn’t add up.

“Shut up.”

Mara’s voice was so vicious, Kellen took another bite of the pizza, chewed carefully and changed the subject. “You drugged Dylan.”

Mara shrugged.

“You sent him to kill Jamie.”

“Someone needed to. That woman was annoying.”

“So are you. No one’s managed to off you yet, although God knows you deserve it.” Kellen ladled out justice, and waited to see how Mara would respond.

“I deserve nothing except what I work for. You, too. You know that.”

That was fair. “Where’s her body?”

Mara seemed genuinely confused. “Whose?”

“Jamie’s!”

“Why would I know? I didn’t help Dylan kill her. I didn’t watch to see what he did with her. I merely set events in motion.”

“She deserves a resting place.” Surely that woman who worshipped the natural world should be interred in the good earth.

“Not my problem. Listen, we’re off subject. Here’s the way today is going to play out.”

No more talking. No more gathering her strength. Kellen ate pizza, and listened.

“You’ll take off running, and after thirty minutes, I’ll follow. I’ll chase you like a dog that deserves to be put down, and I’ll kill you.”

Kellen had been expecting something like this. How could she not? Rational people who wanted to rid themselves of a pest…would have just killed it. But Mara wanted to prolong the agony.

Calmly, Kellen drank her milk—she needed the calcium—and her water—for hydration—and took another slice of pizza. “This chasing me down thing. That’s a cliché. Didn’t your father teach you the importance of creativity?”

“Yes, he did.” Mara stabbed a tomato with her fork. “He gave me personal lessons in the creativity of suffering.”

Uh-oh. So there was more to the father story than Kellen first thought.

Mara stared as red oozed down the tines of her fork. “A cliché is if I shoot you right now.”

“What made you think of killing Rae? She’s a child. She’s never done anything in her whole life that could make her deserve death.”

Mara’s leaned across the table and shouted into Kellen’s face. “I didn’t kill her!”