The Perfect Stranger (Social Media #2)(23)

Beck had to break off to compose herself before she could go on with the story.

Now, her mother’s wry words echo in her head: These days, Beck, I’m lucky if I can remember the phone number forward—forget backward. And by the time I’m Gram’s age, I won’t know my own name.

They laughed together, and Mom later mentioned the incident in a funny blog she wrote about getting senile.

But she must have known even then, Beck realizes, that she wasn’t going to live to be a little old lady.

Swallowing a lump in her throat, Beck clicks the Sign in tab on her mother’s blog, then enters the user name—meredithheywood—and the password she’d guessed the other day.

Whoever has Mom’s laptop and phone can access the account . . .

But so can I.

Maybe there’s some clue there. Something the police wouldn’t have picked up on.

She logs in and is about to start searching when she remembers the e-mail account.

She should check that, too.

She switches over to the Web site for the e-mail service her mother uses, enters the address, then tries the password that worked for the blog account.

No luck.

She tries another combination of the same letters and numbers—forward, backward. She substitutes the @ symbol for an A, the $ sign for an S . . .

Nope.

This, she realizes, might take a while—thanks to her own brilliant advice about coming up with a word you wouldn’t find in the dictionary; something no one would ever guess . . .

Including me.

There must be very few people on this earth who after taking someone’s life wouldn’t spend the immediate aftermath, at least, endlessly replaying the scenario.

But even now, days later, the events of Saturday night are inescapable; a relentless mental movie set on a continuous play loop.

Crickets chirping.

Silver sliver of moon.

Aching legs, after all this time crouched in the bushes clutching the cast iron pan wrapped in a towel. It’s a small pan, but it weighs enough, brought down with enough force, to crush a skull.

A bag, stashed nearby, contains a couple of new pillows and an orange and yellow bedspread identical to the one Meredith wrote about on her blog, conveniently including a photo and mentioning that she’d bought it at Macy’s.

All the lights in the house extinguish one by one until everything is dark except a pair of bedroom windows.

It seems safe, after a reasonable wait, to make a move and slip into the kitchen. Safer than waiting outside, where someone from a neighboring house might spot the shadowy figure in the yard and call the police.

Get inside. Go. It’s time.

Open the folding knife, the one with the tortoiseshell handle.

Slice through the screen.

Crawl through the window.

Tiptoe, tiptoe, across the linoleum, one measured step at a time.

No turning back now.

But wait!

Footsteps overhead.

Creaking stairs.

Move back toward the window to escape.

Don’t run. Slow and steady, slow and steady.

The footsteps have stopped.

Meredith has paused halfway down the stairs. Why? Does she sense something?

Wait . . .

Wait . . .

Footsteps again, descending.

Meredith comes into the kitchen, turns on the light above the sink, opens cupboards . . .

Don’t move. Don’t breathe.

Stay in the shadowy corner of the room, hiding in plain sight, a turtle lurking beneath its shell on a rocky landscape.

Wait . . .

Wait . . .

Meredith turns.

But she doesn’t see. She isn’t wearing her glasses.

She goes back up the stairs.

Wait . . .

Wait . . .

At last, there hasn’t been any movement overhead for at least an hour, probably longer.

Only then is it safe to creep up the stairs clutching the towel-wrapped cast iron pan, a weapon chosen after careful research because it would have been, should have been, merciful.

Not as merciful, generally speaking, as an injection that would simply stop her heart from beating, but that would be needlessly cruel. Meredith hates needles.

Not as merciful, either, as a simple gunshot to the head, but . . .

I don’t have a gun. And I can’t get one—legally or illegally—without involving someone else.

And so, in the grand scheme of things, this was the best choice. An everyday household object as a weapon.

Flashlight beam swings across the shadowy bedroom.

Meredith, lying in her bed with her eyes closed.

She appears to be sleeping . . .

I thought she was sleeping! Really, I did! But she surprised me—again.

Meredith’s eyes open.

Only for a fleeting second, perhaps just long enough to see a human shadow standing over her, but . . .

There’s a chance that she saw me. That she knew.

Even if she saw, though, there would have been no time for her to comprehend.

It’s over in the next second.

The towel swishes over her head, her face . . .

Not for the purpose of covering her eyes, but to contain the inevitable spatters caused by the pan crashing down on her skull.

Blunt force trauma to the head.

She isn’t dead yet. Just unconscious. She has a faint pulse when she’s moved to the floor.