Almost Dead (Lizzy Gardner #5)(17)

Jenny picked up the knife and fork in front of her and took a bite of perfectly cooked chicken, chewing as she listened to the rest of the report.

Three of Stephen’s friends had minor injuries, but they would be OK. Bully for them. She had no intention of hurting anyone who was not on her list. But accidents did happen and could not always be avoided.

Stephen was dead. She set her fork down, picked up the pen, and drew a straight black line through his name.

Her thoughts turned to Terri Kramer. She still hadn’t seen anything on the news about her death. It was a little annoying. Surely word would’ve gotten out if her body had been discovered.

Let her rot.

Jenny shrugged. She supposed it wouldn’t hurt for whatever evidence she might’ve left behind to degrade a bit.

As she looked over her list, she took another bite of savory chicken, making sure to chew at least twenty-five times before swallowing.

Rachel Elliott was up next on her list.

What about Debi Murray and Gavin Murdock? Why are their names crossed off the list?

“Where have you been? Easy smeasy.” The minute Jenny had discovered that Debi drove an old car, she’d parked next to Debi’s heap in the lot at her workplace, then pretended to be fixing a tire when really she was cutting into Debi’s brake line. Just a small leak, mind you. Although Jenny wasn’t sure if the idea was based on old Hollywood fantasy, she figured it was worth a shot. The accident was in the paper the other day. The poor woman had taken the highway home and went right over the side of the road. Died instantly.

Clever.

To say the least, Jenny thought. As for Gavin Murdock, he was a football coach for a bunch of peewee third graders. Built up a whale of a thirst, she noticed, and wasn’t too careful about where he set down his Gatorade. Next game, she’d swapped his for one laced with antifreeze. Terrible thing. First he’d seemed drunk on the sweet stuff. Really made quite a scene. Parents were already shepherding their precious boys away from him when he started vomiting. And then the heart failure. She’d read his obituary the other morning. The paper had been gentle about it, glossing over his obvious drinking problem and focusing on the heart attack angle. “Doesn’t get much easier than that,” she said with a smile.

Don’t get cocky. You still have Rachel to worry about.

According to Rachel’s Facebook page, she liked to run after work. Jenny had already driven through Rachel’s Folsom neighborhood on three different occasions and confirmed that this wasn’t just Facebook showboating. Rachel was serious about her exercise. Every night, like clockwork, she exited her house and then jogged past her neighbors’ homes before turning off a private trail that led to Folsom Lake.

Jenny sipped her water and tried to come up with another perfect murder.

There’s no such thing. You’re not exactly a criminal mastermind.

True. She was new at this. Fingerprints used to be the big deal. A murderer who didn’t use gloves was an idiot. Now she had other things to worry about, like tire tracks, ballistics, mobile phones, blood, hair; you name it. Most criminals got caught because they didn’t strategize. Bodies turned up eventually, which was why she planned to make sure Brandon’s body decayed at a rapid pace. She usually had dinner with her parents once a month. Next time she visited, she intended to take some lime. Dead animal burials on the farm used to be covered with hydrated lime for pathogen reduction. With all the rain that was expected in the coming days, she worried that Brandon’s body might eventually float to the surface. She also needed to worry about rats, coyotes, and dogs carrying off a foot or a bone.

Brandon is old news. What about Rachel? What are you going to do, trip her while she’s running?

She swallowed another bite of chicken and nearly choked from excitement. Trip her! That’s exactly what she would do. She would make a spear, a wood spear—plenty of them, just to be sure. She would rub the ends with aconite, also known as monkshood or wolfsbane. Back in the day, before the nineteenth century, Aconitum napellus was thought to have some toxicological importance. In her line of work, research chemists often used the plant for drug testing and treatment, regardless of the fact that there were much safer herbs and medicines to experiment with.

She could barely contain her excitement.

Rachel usually took her runs right before dark. There were plenty of trees on both sides of the trail. Jenny could tie a vine, camouflaged by nature, from one tree to the other. Rachel would trip and fall on the poisonous tips of tiny wooden spears protruding from the soil.

She had her work cut out for her, but Brandon was right. Standing up for herself was the best thing she’d ever done. Sure, she’d experienced misgivings at first, but that was in the past. She’d come to terms with what needed to be done. She was sleeping better than ever, refreshed, ready to begin each new day. For the first time in her life, she was finally taking control. And she liked it.

Out of the corner of her eye, a picture on the television screen caught her attention. Her next breath hitched in her throat. Oh, my God! They finally found her.

Terri Kramer, famed research chemist, found dead.

Jenny stopped laughing when the news station showed the video, then showed it again. A woman crossing the street near Terri Kramer’s apartment building. The ten seconds of video was out of focus, but there was no mistaking the red wig and pleated skirt.

You dumb bitch.