Joey dressed quickly, changing out of her bloody robe into jeans and a sweatshirt. Grabbing her duffel bag, she packed quickly, only taking things that nobody would notice were gone. Everything else, including her purse and all her identification, would stay behind. This wouldn’t work otherwise.
She emptied her lockbox and stuffed her cash, the drugs, and the bricks of hundred dollar bills into her knapsack. Heading to the kitchen, she grabbed a garbage bag, then went back to the living room to pick up Mae’s purse. Everything Mae had brought with her—all the stuff on the floor, including her phone—went into the garbage bag, which Joey would dispose of somewhere far away from here. She took a look around, making sure she hadn’t missed anything, and then placed everything at the top of the stairs. Then she put on her parka and boots.
Once she lit the fire, there would be no time to put her winter gear on.
Drew had always said the fireplace wasn’t up to code, that it was filled with cracks and dangerous gunk. Before he and Simone left for Vancouver, he’d warned Joey again.
“Never, ever make a fire in there unless you want to burn the house down,” he said.
She was going to burn the house down.
There was no firewood, but that was okay. She knew from her time in Maple Sound that her books would burn just fine. One by one, she emptied her bookshelves, tossing paperback after paperback into the hearth until she’d made a stack that approximated the size of a few logs. She didn’t need the fire inside the fireplace to last, she only needed it to start. Then she scattered more books on the floor until they were dotted around the living room like lily pads. She reminded herself that it was just paper. She could replace them. She had done it before.
In the bathroom, she opened the medicine cabinet and took out a bottle of nail polish remover she’d bought at the beauty supply shop a couple of months back. It was 100 percent acetone, and near full. Acetone is flammable; it said so right on the bottle. Reading the fine print on the back, it also said that nail polish remover should never be used anywhere near an open flame, such as a pilot light or any object that sparks, because the vapors could ignite.
It wasn’t so much the liquid. It was the fumes.
She took the matches she used for her candles and stuck them in her pocket, then extracted one of her hand towels from the small rack beside the sink before leaving the bathroom. She opened the nail polish remover and placed it on the floor close to Mae. The odor of the acetone was distinctive, but it was nowhere near enough to cover the smell of blood.
There was only one more thing to do.
Gently, Joey removed Mae’s belly button ring. She also removed Mae’s earrings, watch, and bracelet. Then, reaching behind her own neck, Joey unclasped her necklace.
She looked at the ruby-and-diamond pendant one last time. Maybe this was the reason she’d kept it all these years. Maybe this was why she was compelled to wear it, when she could have easily sold it or thrown it away. Maybe on some level she knew that the thing that had broken her would also be the thing that saved her, allowing her to escape from this life, one that had only ever been filled with violence and trauma and death.
Bending down, she clasped the chain around Mae’s neck. It wasn’t easy. Her fingers were slippery from the blood. After the necklace was fastened, she wiped her hands on the towel and tossed it into the hearth.
“I believe you would tell me that this is okay,” Joey said quietly. “Thank you for being my friend, Mae.”
She heard a small noise and jerked. It was nothing, a creak of the house, but every random sound she heard was Vinny coming back.
It was time to go.
Standing at the fireplace, she took a deep breath, struck a match, and tossed it on top of the books. She did it again, and again, until the fire in the hearth slowly began to grow. Then she moved away, and waited.
There was no way to know if this would work. But if it did, and the whole basement apartment caught fire, then everyone would believe that this was how Joey died. Vinny sure as shit wasn’t going to dispute it. Why would he? The fire would destroy all the evidence that he’d murdered Mae, that he’d ever been here. As sick as it was, she was doing him a favor.
Mae would be presumed missing. There would be nobody to look for her.
And if, for some reason, they figured out it really was Mae’s body in the fire, then they’d know it was Joey who was missing. Other than the Blood Brothers, there would be nobody to look for her, either. That was the chance she’d have to take.
The fire began to gain momentum. And when she saw the bottle of acetone suddenly ignite, the flames shooting up and catching the sofa, and then catching Mae, Joey bolted.