The Perfect Stranger (Social Media #2)(112)

“I’m going to have to. But even then . . .”

“It’s okay, Dad.”

Money . . . a house . . . even people, and memories . . .

Things you have. Things you lose, no matter how hard you try to hold on.

“It’s not okay.” He shakes his head. “She wouldn’t have wanted this. I let her down.”

“No, you didn’t. You didn’t let her down. Dad, you loved her. She knew that. We all knew that.”

In the end, that’s the thing, the only thing, that matters. The only thing that lasts forever, if you’re lucky enough to find it. The love.

Jordan might not remember Mom, but her love is his legacy, and Beck knows it will live on forever, through him, through all of them.

Kay is gone.

Holding her hand, Landry felt her go; felt the muscles unclench, felt the life evaporate from her flesh.

Shaken, she stands and backs away, toward the doorway, then remembers . . .

Whoever did this is lurking somewhere out there.

She’s better off in here, locked in, until help gets here. The 911 operator assured her they’re on the way.

She presses the button in the doorknob and moves back across the room to the bed. Sinking onto the edge of the mattress, she thinks of Elena.

If she did it, then she’s not vulnerable.

But what if it was someone else? Jenna, or Jaycee, or Bruce . . .

Then I need to warn Elena.

Her gaze falls on a cell phone—Kay’s cell phone—sitting on the bedside table.

Kay used it to call Detective Burns, to let her know about Jenna Coeur in the airport, and now . . .

Now it’s too late.

The detective needs to know what’s going on, Landry realizes.

She hits Redial.

The phone rings . . . rings . . . rings . . . rings . . .

And goes into voice mail. “You’ve reached Detective Crystal Burns. Please leave me a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. If this is an urgent matter, please call my cell phone at—”

Wait a minute.

This is supposed to be her cell phone.

Landry lowers the phone and looks at the screen to see which number she just dialed.

It’s not the one Detective Burns gave her on that card, the one she’d committed to memory. The one Kay swore she’d called.

Why would she lie?

Does it matter? She’s dead. It’s not as if she killed herself, much less Meredith, or Tony Kerwin . . .

There’s no evidence, even, that Tony was murdered.

She replays everything Bruce told her about that. He said it would be possible, that certain drugs mimic a heart attack and wouldn’t be detected in an autopsy if— “Oh my God.”

Stunned, she remembers exactly what he was saying when she was on the phone with him earlier, right before she thought she heard someone on the stairs.

“There are very few places where those drugs would even be found. Succinylcholine alone—SUX—is used in anesthesiology and it’s used along with liquid potassium chloride for lethal injection executions.”

Those last three words were lost on her at the time.

Now . . .

She turns around to stare at Kay, lying on the floor, remembering . . .

Remembering how she’d posted about her brush with fame: having worked at the federal prison where the Oklahoma City Bomber was executed over a decade ago.

But why would she want Tony Kerwin dead?

Because Elena hated him?

Because . . .

Because of the stress he was causing?

Dangerous stress. Stress that could cause a recurrence.

And what about Meredith? Why would Kay ever want Meredith dead? She loved her; everyone loved her. She was truly shaken up at her funeral; you can’t fake that kind of emotion.

Landry can hear sirens in the distance.

They’re coming. Thank God, they’re coming.

She and Kay had talked about the dying process the night of Meredith’s funeral. About the so-called blessing that their friend hadn’t suffered a long, lingering death; hadn’t wasted away like Kay’s mother, or Whoa Nellie, or so many of the others . . .

Kay had agreed with Elena, that it was better to go quickly—to never know what hit you. She agreed that only dying was to be dreaded, not death itself . . .

The sirens are closer.

Landry walks over to the window and peers out, watching until the red domed lights appear, rotating on the top of the first police car.

Then she unlocks the door and slowly goes down the stairs to greet them, no longer frightened that a murderer lurks somewhere in the house.

Later—much, much later, after the investigators confirmed that Kay’s fatal knife wound did, indeed, appear to be self-inflicted, though further tests are needed to confirm it; after Landry has repeatedly reassured her children, via telephone, that she’s all right; after Rob has boarded a flight home from North Carolina—she sits outside on the back porch with Elena, watching fireflies in the dusk.

There are still several police officers inside the house, wrapping up the investigation. Bruce is there, too. Earlier, Landry heard him and one of the cops discussing last week’s three-game series between the Braves and the Reds.

This is merely a day’s work for them. They’ve seen it all.

But for Landry . . . for Elena . . .

“I keep wondering if Meredith knew what was happening,” Landry says quietly. “If she knew . . . you know.”