The Perfect Stranger (Social Media #2)(110)

Roger Lorton—she hadn’t done that for her friends, though. She’d done it for herself. That was a bad morning. She’d gone out for an early walk to try to clear her aching head and tangled thoughts, thinking about Meredith, thinking about Mother . . .

When he asked her for a light—and she saw that cigarette—she couldn’t help it. He got too close, and in her mind’s eye he wasn’t a stranger with a cigarette between his lips, he was Mother. She snapped.

Like a turtle.

He was small, much smaller than her. It was easy to overpower him.

She left him with the guitar pick, just as she left Tony Kerwin with the comb and Meredith with the pendant. Good luck tortoiseshell for all, wishing them Godspeed on their final journey.

When remorse struck, later—only occasionally—she reminded herself that it was all for good reason. Even Roger Lorton, a perfect stranger who had nothing to do with anything, really.

But he was a smoker, like Mother. Polluting his lungs, polluting the air for the rest of the world, not caring if he got cancer or if anyone else did.

Selfish, reckless . . .

Just like Mother.

The doctor had assured Kay, years ago, when questioned, that her own cancer had originated in her breast and not her lung, meaning that it hadn’t come from second-hand smoke exposure. But Kay didn’t buy it.

It doesn’t matter now. Mother is long gone.

She won’t be waiting for Ray. Nor will Paul Collier, the man who impregnated his wife and then left. Never a father, certainly never “Daddy.”

But that doesn’t matter, either. Not anymore.

Kay purchased a round-trip ticket to Alabama so that no one would guess the truth later, but she never had any intention of using the return trip. She came knowing she was going to die in this place, surrounded by friends. Here, where she wouldn’t lie alone and rotting away, undiscovered, in a lonely house for days, weeks, maybe months.

But she couldn’t let them know she’d taken her own life, because then they might figure out that she’d taken Meredith’s.

No one must ever find out about that.

Her friends, and Meredith’s family—they’d never understand. They’d hate her, and she couldn’t bear that. When she’s gone, she wants to be remembered with love, wants her life to have meant something to someone. Until now, there was no chance of that.

No harm, she realized, in letting the others go on believing what they already do: that Meredith was killed in a random breakin, or that a notorious murderess had infiltrated their little circle. How fortuitous the Jenna Coeur connection had turned out to be, popping up to provide an easy answer to all her problems.

That’s why she planted the idea that she’d seen Jenna Coeur in Atlanta that morning; why she hadn’t tried very hard to track down Detective Burns afterward. She was going to let them think the notorious Coldhearted Killer had made it here and killed her. It was going to happen in the middle of the night.

Then the detective called back and told her Jenna Coeur had surfaced in L.A.

Her plan muddled, she wondered whether she should hold off.

But, no—it was time.

She owed it to Meredith—to her family. And it had to look like a murder. No one could ever suspect suicide. Not with her life insurance policy hanging in the balance, along with a hefty estate.

The Heywoods are the beneficiaries in her will.

Thanks to her shrewd lifestyle, some wise investments, and owning a modest house that’s drastically appreciated in value over the years, she is worth quite a bit of money . . . rather, she will be, when the house is sold and the estate is liquidated.

Worth more dead than alive, as Meredith put it. Just as Meredith was—except, as she explained to Kay, her own policy was so modest it wouldn’t go very far anyway.

But her money will.

The Heywoods’ financial troubles will soon be over.

Of course, they don’t know that yet. The windfall will be a pleasant surprise.

Meredith would have been pleased.

Yes, she has worked hard to lay the groundwork for this final, necessary step. Her affairs are in order. Meredith’s family will get their inheritance, along with a sealed letter she left with her lawyer. In it, she simply tells the family how much Meredith meant to her, and how, lacking a family of her own, she chose to help theirs. That was it. No other explanation, nothing that would ever arouse suspicion. She couldn’t bear that.

Earlier in the week she’d discontinued her other blog. Terrapin Terry was going on a yearlong sabbatical to the Galapagos Islands to study the turtles there.

Her laptop, too, is gone. She’d erased the hard drive, then thrown the whole thing into a Dumpster before driving to the airport this morning, covering her tracks.

The knife was packed in her suitcase—the real reason she had to disregard Elena’s advice and check it.

What if it hadn’t made the tight connection?

Then this wouldn’t have happened after all.

She’d have had to wait.

The last thing she ever touched was the tortoiseshell handle . . . for good luck.

Yes. She’d thought of everything.

It was time. She was ready to go, regardless of where Jenna Coeur was—or wasn’t.

Let them think that Jaycee had done it. Or that there had been another random breakin. Let them think anything other than the truth.

I just want them to love me.