Almost Dead (Lizzy Gardner #5)(87)

Not too far up the road, she saw two more cars pull to the curb. Lizzy Gardner climbed out of one of the vehicles and led a pack of uniformed officers her way. The street had been blocked off. Strobe lights swirled everywhere she looked.

An officer came forward, handcuffed Jenny, and put her in the back of his vehicle.

Lizzy looked at the officer, and he dipped his chin, allowing her one moment with Jenny before he shut the door.

“It took some work,” Lizzy told her, leaning in so no one else could hear, “but it looks like you weren’t as clever as you told me you were.”

“Are we being taped?”

“No.”

“All but one is dead, but I’m afraid you have the wrong person. They won’t be locking me up anytime soon.”

“What do you mean ‘all but one is dead’? Chelsea Webster was found in a motel room with a bullet in her head.”

Jenny rocked back in the seat. “You cannot be serious.” She couldn’t have planned it better if she’d tried. “Did she leave a suicide note?”

Lizzy gave her a dubious look. “Are you trying to tell me you didn’t kill her?”

“I absolutely did not kill Chelsea Webster. Like I said before, you have the wrong person.”

Lizzy stepped away and shut the door.




From behind tinted glass, Lizzy watched as the investigators took turns interrogating Jenny Pickett. It was late, and she found herself wishing Detective Chase was the person doing the interrogating. The investigator asking all the questions didn’t have half of Chase’s intimidation factor working for him.

The investigator pointed to a video showing a blurry image of a redhead walking away from an apartment complex. “It all started here, didn’t it? You knew Terri Kramer.”

“I already told you. Terri Kramer and I were college friends. I was devastated when I heard about what happened to her.”

He read off a list of names, members of the Ambassador Club. “Do any of those names mean anything to you?”

She shook her head. “I recognize a few from high school. Is this why I’m here? Did something happen to them?”

His mouth tightened. “We’ll sit here through the night if we have to, Ms. Pickett.”

“You have no grounds on which to keep me here. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Chelsea Webster, your last kill, named you personally in the note we found next to her body.”

“That’s ridiculous. That woman made my high school life a living hell, but I never once considered doing her harm. You have the wrong person. This has gone on long enough. I would like to call my lawyer.”

Lizzy heard a small commotion behind her as the detective she was sitting with was called out of the room. When he returned, he said, “Looks like she gets to go home.”

“How? Why?”

“They searched Pickett’s home and came up empty. There’s nothing there. She doesn’t even keep insecticides or rat poison in her garage. And that’s not all. We got a call from a guy named Adam Lamont, Chelsea Webster’s boyfriend. Apparently he was on the phone with her when she blew her head off. He said nobody else was in the motel room with her. Nobody made her do it.”

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Lizzy said. “What about all those other people?”

“Chelsea’s boyfriend found a bag in their bedroom closet. It was filled with shoes, wigs, bloody clothes—enough evidence to put the woman away for a very long time. Apparently she couldn’t live with the guilt. So first she killed the rest of the Ambassador Club members, and then she took care of herself.”

Lizzy couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Jenny Pickett had thought of everything.

He headed inside the interrogation room.

She watched him unlock the cuffs from Jenny’s wrists and tell her she was free to go. By the time Jenny Pickett was allowed to leave the interrogation room, Lizzy was standing by the door waiting for her.

Their gazes locked.

The self-satisfied look on Jenny’s face would’ve been bad enough. But as she walked down the hall, she looked back over her shoulder and said to Lizzy, “There is justice in the world, isn’t there?”





CHAPTER 63

“I’m here at the house now,” Jessica said into her phone as she pulled up to the front of Kitally’s house. “We’ll be on our way in five minutes.” She clicked off, cut the engine, and jogged to the front door.

Kitally answered the door.

Jessica stepped past her. “Where’s Lizzy?”

“She’s upstairs. First bedroom on the left. What’s going on?”

Jessica ran upstairs. She found Lizzy sitting on a mountain of fluffy bedding, papers strewn and covering the entire mattress.

Lizzy looked up, her eyes sunken and tired. “What is it, Jessica?”

“They found her.”

“Shelby?”

Jessica nodded. “You were right. It took him some time, but Ben, her boyfriend, thought he knew what she was trying to say in the letter. Shelby taught him to sing ‘Joy to the World’ when Shelby vacationed with him and his family. She would sing every time she heard the croak of a frog. Shelby and Ben took a lot of hikes when they were there. Ben and his parents led us to the place. It’s near Auburn. It didn’t take them long to find them. It was right there—a tiny cabin—off the beaten path near Two-Face Rock.”