Death Before Facebook

with Marguerite. There was real love there, love that had lasted twenty-seven years and survived several murders.
    “I saw her and my life was changed. We should have music at this point, shouldn’t we? It’s too cornball for words.
    “Have you any idea how many men wanted Marguerite then? She’d sing and the love letters would pour in; marriage proposals, every kind of thing. But I swear to God something happened the night we met, and it happened to both of us.
    “After a performance, I’d wait for her. Sometimes I’d sit at the bar, but she’d never join me afterwards. In fact, the way we worked it, she’d join somebody else and I’d sit there smoking, waiting for her to leave, and then a few minutes later I’d follow her out. We’d just about have each other’s clothes off before we got to the corner.”
    Skip asked, “Where was Kit all this time?”
    “Working nights.” He gave Kit a discreet glance. “Don’t worry, dear. We didn’t go back to our apartment. We always got a hotel room—usually the same one, in an old hotel near Camp Street. It’s now been redone, I think. In those days it was quite romantic, with its thin linens and bare light bulb—very Tennessee Williams.
    “Of course, sometimes I wouldn’t even go to hear her. I’d just go to our room and wait. We were good, if I do say so. I don’t think we were ever seen together except the night we met, and then only for five minutes. I caught her hand at the bar and made a date with her. We met in Jackson Square and talked for two hours. We walked everywhere and saw nothing. We were in love within the first three minutes.”
    “What was it?” said Kit. “Why did you fall in love with her?” Her voice held nothing but curiosity, not fear, not anger or loathing, nor even regret. Skip wondered if she was dealing with two lunatics.
    Cole spread his hands, casual as could be, even holding the gun. He turned it sideways while he did it. Skip nearly leapt, but in the end didn’t have enough time. “We were soulmates,” he said.
    “You wouldn’t have a child with me.”
    “It wasn’t right. I knew it wasn’t right. Neetsie was the child I was meant to have. She came when she was ready.” His tone changed, from indulgent parent to professor, lecturing. “You see, Skip, Kit was a great deal more in love with me than I was with her. I thought she might even kill me—or worse, Marguerite. And that was
far
worse. So after she killed Leighton, I didn’t dare leave her. Finally, I got up the nerve, even moving to another state. I had to, to protect Marguerite. But Kit was so obsessed she followed. She kept track of me through any means she could, the most recent being the TOWN. Then she actually moved back here.
    “When Geoff started having flashbacks she knew she was in trouble. You see, she didn’t know he was in the house until after the shooting. All she saw as she was leaving was a scared little boy at the door of his room.
    “He got a good look at her—it was from a distance, but he saw her as well as she saw him. So she had to stop him from remembering.
    “But she was too late. By the time she killed him, he already knew too much. He hadn’t told anybody, but he’d written it in his diary; she had to kill Lenore to get the diary. Right, Kit?”
    “You crazy bastard.”
    “But I figured it out, and so did our detective friend. The only problem is, I got here too late. You’d already killed her.”
    Again, he turned his attention to Skip. “There you were, lying dead on the floor. Kit was just putting the finishing touches on her suicide note—” He held up a piece of paper.
    Kit said, “He made me write it before I started taking the pills.”
    “She was going to kill herself with your gun. I tried to stop her but it was the old story. We struggled; the gun went off….”
    “It’s full of holes. Fire that gun and this place’ll be overrun. This is a hospital—you don’t think anyone’ll notice the noise? You won’t have time to fake a struggle—Kit’ll still be alive, and you’ll have the gun. In fact, you’ll have just killed a cop in front of a witness. It won’t even matter how many other people you’ve killed. You’re dead, Cole. Your only chance is to give me that gun right now. If you don’t kill a cop, you can probably plead insanity, be out in a few years…”
    But not if I have anything to do with it.
    He looked flustered, staring first at Skip, then Kit. “Oh, bullshit. Say