Matters of the Heart

“She gets pregnant, so her future is assured, at least until she has the child. She’s an heiress, and her father gets kidnapped later in the book.” Hope smiled. It already sounded complicated to her. “As it turns out, she and her brother have been stealing money from their father for years. Her husband finds out and blackmails her, and asks her for ten million dollars. She talks to her brother, and they decide to call his bluff. They don’t give him the money,” he said, with a small evil smile at Hope, and then he kissed her neck.

“Then what?” she asked, with an odd chill running down her spine from his kiss.

“He kills her,” Finn says with a look of pleasure. “First he kills her. Then the baby.” She shivered as he said it.

“That’s awful. How can you write that?” She gave him a disapproving look, and Finn seemed amused. “How does he kill her, or do I want to know?” Some of his books had been gory and perverted beyond belief. They were strong stories, but some of the details made her sick. They were always thoroughly researched.

“It’s pretty clean. He uses an undetectable poison. And he inherits the entire fortune. Or her half anyway, then he kills the brother. And when their father is kidnapped later, the hero doesn’t pay the ransom, because he’s been a shit to him. So he lets the kidnappers kill him. One by one, he kills the entire family, and winds up with all their money. Pretty cool for a poor boy from Marseilles, don’t you think? He even buys himself a title that comes with the château.” It sounded like Finn’s fantasy to her, and some of his earlier lies about the house.

“And he winds up alone?” Hope asked innocently. The plot sounded pretty sick to her, but very Finn.

“Of course not. He marries a young girl from the village, who he was in love with in the first place. She’s twenty-one, and he’s fifty at the end of the story. So what do you think?” He looked pleased with himself.

“Pretty scary.” She smiled, thinking of the twists and turns he described. “I think killing the pregnant wife is a little much and may upset your readers. Most people have sensibilities about those things.”

“She didn’t pay him the money,” Finn said, looking straight at her, deep into her eyes. “The brother would have, but she convinced him not to. And in the end, he got the money anyway, all of it, not just her share, and far more than he originally asked for. The moral of the story is that they should have paid him when they could, before he killed them all.” He was good at complicated, layered stories of psychological terror, and frightening murders of retribution.

Hope asked, looking him in the eye, “And that seems fair to you?”

“Completely. She had all the money, why should she get everything and he has nothing? And in the end, he’s avenged, and the poor boy gets everything.”

“And a lot of dead bodies in the basement.”

“Oh no,” he said, looking offended. “They all had proper burials. Even the police never figure out they were murdered. They suspect it, but they can never prove it. There’s a very clever French inspector, and in the end, François kills him too. François is my hero. The inspector’s name is Robert. He buries him in the woods, and no one ever finds him.” And as he said the inspector’s name, the story clicked for Hope. It was no accident that the rich wife was killed, the poor boy wins, and the inspector had the name of the lawyer Finn had found on the piece of paper in her purse when she first came from Dublin. All the puzzle parts fit together seamlessly, and the threat to her was clear.

She looked straight at Finn then. “Is there a message there for me?” She didn’t flinch as their eyes met, nor did he. He shrugged his shoulders and laughed.

“Why would you say a thing like that?”

“Some of the story seems a little close to home.”

“All writers inspire themselves somewhat from real life, even if they don’t admit it. And there are differences. The wife he kills is pregnant. You’re not. You don’t have a brother. Or a father. You’re all alone. That would be a lot more scary. But very boring for the reader. You need layers, subplots, and more people to make a story work. I just found it interesting what happens to her when she won’t give him the money. It proves that trying to hang on to it doesn’t pay. You can’t take your money to the grave.” What he was saying to her was frightening, given their situation, but he said it with a smile, and he was clearly mocking her. But his message to her was clear. Pay up or die.