Almost Dead (Lizzy Gardner #5)(85)

“Thank you.”

Lizzy stepped inside and quickly locked the door behind her. She didn’t hear the woman walk away, but she couldn’t worry about that. She opened the toilet seat and threw up everything she’d eaten that day. After two flushes, she splashed her face with water from the sink and washed her hands.

She took another minute to collect herself before she headed out. The room she had to walk through to get back to the kitchen was one of the strangest-looking bedrooms she’d ever seen. The mirror on the wall was cracked and framed with bird feathers and rocks. The dresser was covered with old playing cards and lined with glass jars, the kind with screw-on lids. Inside the biggest jar was a china doll. Something wriggled its way out of the doll’s porcelain eye.

“Are you OK?”

Lizzy jumped.

“Didn’t mean to scare you.” Mrs. Pickett stood in the doorway fiddling with her dirty rag, but she didn’t seem to be using it for anything. “I meant to ask you what the Ambassador Club did. I know kids join all sorts of clubs these days, but the Ambassador Club is an odd name. What did they do?”

“They were mean kids,” Lizzy said.

“So they picked on other kids?”

Lizzy nodded. “Do you know if anyone ever picked on Jenny when she was in high school?”

“Nobody ever picked on Jenny. She wasn’t the most popular girl in school, but she had friends. She was always ahead of her class. I never ever had to worry about Jenny.”

“So, she did have friends?”

“Well, she didn’t bring any of them over, but that was mostly because we’re so far out here in the boonies.”

Lizzy looked back at the doll in the jar and shivered.

“Jenny loved books. She liked to read. One year, she read four hundred books.”

“That’s impressive. So she never came home crying or upset?”

“No. Never. She was always happy.”

Behind her, her hatchet-faced husband appeared. “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people,” he intoned, “but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”

“That’s enough, Jim.” She looked at Lizzy. “He likes to memorize verses from the Bible.”

“Why is Mindy here?” he asked again.

Mrs. Pickett ignored her husband. “I’m sorry I can’t be of more help to you.”

“You’ve been a big help,” Lizzy assured her as she followed Mr. and Mrs. Pickett back to the kitchen.

Ophelia sat her husband in the same chair where Lizzy had sat earlier. “You sit right there and I’ll get you a cookie.” She smiled at Lizzy. “Our daughter comes home for dinner quite often and always brings us homemade cookies.”

Lizzy watched her go to the freezer and pull out a Tupperware container filled with cookies identical to the ones Lizzy had sent to the lab for testing. “I know I said I wasn’t hungry,” Lizzy told her, “but those do look delicious. Mind if I take one for the ride home?”

Ophelia Pickett placed a cookie in a napkin and handed it to her.

Lizzy walked over to where she’d left her purse on the table. She had to lean low over the table to reach it. Mr. Pickett grabbed the purse strap and wouldn’t let her have it. “You shouldn’t be here, Mindy,” Mr. Pickett said. “We don’t like bullies.”





CHAPTER 61

Jenny had one more thing to do. She had gathered the wigs, gloves, shoes, anything that might incriminate her if it were ever found in her house, including the bloody sweater and the hammer, and put it all inside a garbage bag.

Then she put everything in the trunk of her car and went for a drive.

So much had changed in such a short period of time.

She felt like a newly blossoming bud. A beautiful flower. A butterfly that had just metamorphosed. Corny but true.

Ten minutes later, she parked as close as she could get to the apartment complex in Orangevale and realized this might not be as easy as breaking into a house. As far as apartment buildings go, there appeared to be a good amount of people coming and going. It didn’t help matters that for the first time, she wore no disguise.

She felt vulnerable, and she didn’t like it.

But she had to do what she had to do. She climbed out of her car, gathered the bag from the trunk, and headed for the main door.

Confidence, Jenny, confidence. She straightened her spine as she stepped inside the building. The place was decent enough, well kept. The actual apartment she needed to visit was on the fourth floor. She took the steps, passed a young couple carrying bikes over their heads on the stairwell. They smiled. She said, “Hi.”

No big deal.

Once she was on the second floor, the only floor without a camera, she hit the alarms and then waited for the chaos to begin.

It didn’t take long. She made her way up two more floors, weaving her way through fleeing residents, concerned expressions on their faces as they left their belongings behind them. One man, the man she’d hoped to see, was helping a woman who was having a difficult time getting three small children down the stairwell.

On the fourth floor, her gloved hand on the doorknob, she smiled when the door opened.

Two minutes later, she was rushing down the stairs with the rest of them, even helped an elderly woman when she tripped in her haste and almost fell.