Monty wasn’t playing well at all, maybe because he was growing desperate. Dan was at her house; he would be coming for her, and he would know...

Wouldn’t he?

“I’m sorry! I didn’t study the past as much as I should have,” Katie said. “And honestly, I never seriously connected Allan Pierce with the Axeman. I always felt it was a mystery we’d never get to the bottom of. But I should have read everything out there. It’s hard, though, you know. There’s so much history.”

It was his turn to laugh.

Katie frowned.

“Um—”

“Katie, Katie, Katie. Do you think I really believe all that hogwash?” He leaned closed to her, and she saw he was holding an axe behind his back.

His friendly, bearded, big face was just inches from her own.

“Yes, hogwash, Katie, but it’s amazing. I had a pack of fools doing whatever I asked, because I convinced them that being with me would turn them into super beings and they would become immortal. Then I convinced Bella—oh, not sure if you know that yet or not, but Jennie’s real name was Bella, Bella LaPointe—and that idiot Sonny we’d made a mistake, that Brian and Aubrey were turncoats and traitors and had to be eliminated. Oh, by the way, the real Brian was the one your father knocked around. He was very happy to listen to me about people needing to die and how as one of the six he would be special, and others would die because of him. I had a few problems with him. He wanted to kill your father so badly, and there was no way your dad wouldn’t have recognized him from that confrontation. So, well, I had to send Sonny and Bella instead. Oh, watching you all running around trying to catch your own tails! Priceless!”

Katie shook her head. “You knew who I was when you hired me six years ago. You could have killed me so many times over. Let’s see, you probably arranged for me to have such a bargain on my house, too, right?”

“Ah, guilty as charged!”

She shook her head. “Why?”

“I always wanted to do the Axeman bit!” he said. “The thing about the power is real. And I can’t explain to you what euphoria it is to kill, to watch blood splatter—”

“Why didn’t you kill me years ago?”

“Power of six. I had to do it right. Murders, murders, murders... This! The great finale of this part of the game, anyway. The Axeman back in New Orleans!”

“Did you even know George Calabria?” she asked him.