A lump rises in her throat. She’s thinking not about Ingrid Bergman, but about Meredith Heywood. And the others.
Eighteen months ago she set out to learn everything she could about breast cancer. She stumbled across a vibrant online community of women who were living with—and dying from—the disease. Ever the method actress, she was drawn into their world, essentially becoming one of them. She celebrated their triumphs, mourned their losses, and took up their battle cry, immersing herself not just in the emotions, but in the politics.
For eighteen months their world was her world.
Now it’s time now for her to move on.
She takes a deep breath. “I’m grateful to Wesley Baumann for giving me this opportunity, and to my manager, Cory, for believing in me, and to the friends who saw me through the last seven years . . . I couldn’t have done it without you.”
I only wish you could know how much you meant to me—or why I left without saying good-bye.
“Kay . . . who did this to you, Kay?”
Landry’s voice, farther away now.
Was it like this for Meredith? Kay wonders. Could she hear me moving around her bedroom that night as she lay there on the floor? I should have talked to her. I should have told her why I did what I did. That it was out of love for her. I couldn’t bear the thought of her suffering the way Mother had. I knew she couldn’t bear it either . . .
Sick . . . bald . . . dying . . .
When Meredith told her she was terminally ill, something shifted inside Kay.
All those years at the prison, watching criminals march off to the lethal injection chamber, had taken their toll. Killers who had tortured innocent victims to death were allowed to escape their hellish prison existence by the most merciful means imaginable. They were the ones who deserved to suffer. Not their victims.
Not Meredith.
She knew what she had to do. She had to help her friend escape.
Maybe I had selfish reasons, too. Maybe I couldn’t bear the thought of being the first to go. Maybe I needed Meredith to be there, waiting for me, so that I wouldn’t be alone when the time came.
Was it so wrong, really?
When she first came up with the plan, Kay didn’t think so. It made a bizarre kind of sense, and after all, it was going to happen anyway. She even did some reading about euthanasia.
Mother used to talk about that a lot. Dr. Kevorkian had been tried and convicted around the time her own illness began to progress.
“They do lethal injection executions at the prison where you work,” she’d say. “You can get your hands on those drugs, can’t you?”
“No, Mother,” Kay would tell her. “I can’t.”
Yes, she could.
She did.
She kept the deadly liquid in the drawer of her nightstand, just in case Mother’s pain became unbearable.
Kay found herself imagining the heartfelt deathbed apology her mother would make, for withholding her love all those years.
I do love you, Kay, Mother would manage to say. I’ve always loved you, more than anything in the world.
Sick . . . bald . . . dying . . .
And then her mother would beg her to help her, and she would gently inject her with the drugs that would stop her heart and end the suffering at last.
That wasn’t how it happened.
The apology never came, and so . . .
Kay allowed the torture to go on.
She didn’t cause it. She wasn’t evil.
She just didn’t put a stop to it. She let it happen.
Sick . . . bald . . . dying . . .
Dead.
The potassium chloride and SUX didn’t go to waste, though. Kay planned to use the lethal cocktail on herself someday, when the time was right. She even packed it into her bag the day she drove to Cincinnati for Meredith’s funeral, along with a syringe. Just in case . . .
Most of the time, she was at peace with how she’d helped Meredith, but there were moments—moments when her head ached and her thoughts churned and she wasn’t so sure.
Then last weekend, when she met the others in person—Landry and Elena—she realized she wasn’t alone in this world after all. She needed them, yes—but more importantly, they needed her.
From Cincinnati, she drove to Massachusetts. It wasn’t easy—that long drive on busy highways though the Northeast corridor—but she did it. For Elena.
The way Tony Kerwin was tormenting her . . .
All that stress was toxic. She had to do whatever she could to save Elena from a recurrence.
I’ll do anything for my friends, she told the woman on the plane this morning, the one with the rosy future. She meant it.
Roger Lorton—she hadn’t done that for her friends, though. She’d done it for herself. That was a bad morning. She’d gone out for an early walk to try to clear her aching head and tangled thoughts, thinking about Meredith, thinking about Mother . . .
When he asked her for a light—and she saw that cigarette—she couldn’t help it. He got too close, and in her mind’s eye he wasn’t a stranger with a cigarette between his lips, he was Mother. She snapped.
Like a turtle.
He was small, much smaller than her. It was easy to overpower him.
She left him with the guitar pick, just as she left Tony Kerwin with the comb and Meredith with the pendant. Good luck tortoiseshell for all, wishing them Godspeed on their final journey.
When remorse struck, later—only occasionally—she reminded herself that it was all for good reason. Even Roger Lorton, a perfect stranger who had nothing to do with anything, really.
But he was a smoker, like Mother. Polluting his lungs, polluting the air for the rest of the world, not caring if he got cancer or if anyone else did.
Selfish, reckless . . .
Just like Mother.
The doctor had assured Kay, years ago, when questioned, that her own cancer had originated in her breast and not her lung, meaning that it hadn’t come from second-hand smoke exposure. But Kay didn’t buy it.
It doesn’t matter now. Mother is long gone.
She won’t be waiting for Ray. Nor will Paul Collier, the man who impregnated his wife and then left. Never a father, certainly never “Daddy.”
But that doesn’t matter, either. Not anymore.
Kay purchased a round-trip ticket to Alabama so that no one would guess the truth later, but she never had any intention of using the return trip. She came knowing she was going to die in this place, surrounded by friends. Here, where she wouldn’t lie alone and rotting away, undiscovered, in a lonely house for days, weeks, maybe months.
But she couldn’t let them know she’d taken her own life, because then they might figure out that she’d taken Meredith’s.
No one must ever find out about that.
Her friends, and Meredith’s family—they’d never understand. They’d hate her, and she couldn’t bear that. When she’s gone, she wants to be remembered with love, wants her life to have meant something to someone. Until now, there was no chance of that.
No harm, she realized, in letting the others go on believing what they already do: that Meredith was killed in a random break-in, or that a notorious murderess had infiltrated their little circle. How fortuitous the Jenna Coeur connection had turned out to be, popping up to provide an easy answer to all her problems.
That’s why she planted the idea that she’d seen Jenna Coeur in Atlanta that morning; why she hadn’t tried very hard to track down Detective Burns afterward. She was going to let them think the notorious Coldhearted Killer had made it here and killed her. It was going to happen in the middle of the night.
Then the detective called back and told her Jenna Coeur had surfaced in L.A.
Her plan muddled, she wondered whether she should ho
ld off.
But, no—it was time.
She owed it to Meredith—to her family. And it had to look like a murder. No one could ever suspect suicide. Not with her life insurance policy hanging in the balance, along with a hefty estate.
The Heywoods are the beneficiaries in her will.
Thanks to her shrewd lifestyle, some wise investments, and owning a modest house that’s drastically appreciated in value over the years, she is worth quite a bit of money . . . rather, she will be, when the house is sold and the estate is liquidated.
Worth more dead than alive, as Meredith put it. Just as Meredith was—except, as she explained to Kay, her own policy was so modest it wouldn’t go very far anyway.
But her money will.
The Heywoods’ financial troubles will soon be over.
Of course, they don’t know that yet. The windfall will be a pleasant surprise.
Meredith would have been pleased.
Yes, she has worked hard to lay the groundwork for this final, necessary step. Her affairs are in order. Meredith’s family will get their inheritance, along with a sealed letter she left with her lawyer. In it, she simply tells the family how much Meredith meant to her, and how, lacking a family of her own, she chose to help theirs. That was it. No other explanation, nothing that would ever arouse suspicion. She couldn’t bear that.
Earlier in the week she’d discontinued her other blog. Terrapin Terry was going on a yearlong sabbatical to the Galapagos Islands to study the turtles there.
Her laptop, too, is gone. She’d erased the hard drive, then thrown the whole thing into a Dumpster before driving to the airport this morning, covering her tracks.
The knife was packed in her suitcase—the real reason she had to disregard Elena’s advice and check it.
What if it hadn’t made the tight connection?
Then this wouldn’t have happened after all.
She’d have had to wait.
The last thing she ever touched was the tortoiseshell handle . . . for good luck.
Yes. She’d thought of everything.
It was time. She was ready to go, regardless of where Jenna Coeur was—or wasn’t.
Let them think that Jaycee had done it. Or that there had been another random break-in. Let them think anything other than the truth.
I just want them to love me.
I need them to love me.
And this way . . . they do.
They’ll never know.
“Kay . . .” Landry’s voice is fading. Landry is holding her hand, squeezing it. “I’m here with you, Kay. Come on. Hang on . . .”
No. She can’t. It’s time to let go.
She’s ready to find the light, and Meredith . . .
Meredith is somewhere, waiting.
We’ll get together someday, Meredith promised her. One way or another. I just know it.
Kay whirls through time and space, flying backward through the years.
I know it’s difficult to hear news like this, the doctor tells her, but the important thing is that we caught it early. We’re going to discuss your treatment options, and there are many . . .
It’s not better to have loved and lost, Mother rasps in her cigarette voice. If you don’t love, you can’t lose . . .
Kay is a little girl again, all alone, always alone, standing by the edge of a pond on a hot summer’s day, reaching for a rock . . .
Reaching . . .
Slowly . . .
Reaching . . .
Steadily . . .
Kay draws her last breath and spirals into the darkness.
Sitting on the couch with Jordan on her lap, reading him a story, Beck has managed to put the remaining questions surrounding her mother’s e-mail out of her mind for the time being. Losing herself in the silly rhyme and rhythm of Dr. Seuss is just what the doctor ordered—particularly on the heels of several failed attempts to get through Jordan’s first book choice—Robert Munsch’s Love You Forever—without breaking down sobbing.
Mom bought that book for him when he was born, her first grandchild. She used to read it for him sitting in this very spot, cradling him in her lap, even as an infant. He doesn’t remember that, of course, any more than he’ll eventually remember more recent times with her.
We should have taken pictures, Beck thinks, turning a page and pausing the story so that Jordan can absorb the picture first, as he likes to do, tracing the colorful figures with a chubby index finger.
We shouldn’t have just posed for photos on big occasions like Christmas morning and birthdays.
Yes, they should have captured the little things, the everyday moments that feel like a dime a dozen when they’re happening but are priceless when they’re gone.
“Anybody home?” Teddy calls from the kitchen.
Beck breaks off reading long enough to call, “In here!”
Teddy comes in, looking instantly relieved to see them. He must have told Beck half a dozen times to be sure to lock the doors after he and dad left . . .
Even though whoever killed Mom came in through a window.
A random stranger?
The thought is no less chilling two weeks after the fact, and yet . . .
She wants to think that her mother died secure in the love of her family and friends; can’t bear to think that she drew her last breath thinking she’d been betrayed.
That e-mail exchange . . . the one her friend had mentioned . . . doesn’t seem to exist. Either she’d lied about it—why?—or it’s been deleted.
Why? And by whom? By Mom, before she died? By whoever stole her cell phone and laptop?
“Aunt Beck is reading to me, Daddy. Hop . . . Hop . . . Hop on Pop . . .”
“Why don’t you hop right up here on Pop, big guy.” Teddy holds out his arms and his son stands up on the couch and leaps into them.
Watching them hug, Beck smiles wistfully.
Maybe someday she’ll have a child of her own.
After this business with Keith is settled, and she’s had time to regroup, rebuild . . .
Maybe.
“How did everything go?” she asks Teddy, standing up and setting the Dr. Seuss book aside. “With Dad and the paperwork?”
He shrugs. “It could have been better. Louise did her best, but—”
“Louise?”
“From the insurance company.”
Beck stares.
“She doesn’t know what happened, Ted,” Dad says from the doorway. “I didn’t want her to worry. I didn’t want any of you to worry, but . . .” He shrugs. “Too late now.”
I didn’t want her to worry . . .
It’s almost exactly what he’d said about Mom the day Beck ran into him having lunch with Louise.
Louise . . . from the insurance company?
“I had to let Mom’s life insurance policy lapse. I couldn’t afford the premium. I was trying to figure out a payment plan, a way to keep it going—that’s why I met with Louise the day I ran into you in that restaurant. It threw me off, seeing you there, knowing you didn’t know that Mom was sick again . . .”
No wonder. No wonder he’d been so edgy. No wonder she’d thought he was hiding something. To think she assumed the worst about him . . .
“We were in the tail end of the policy’s grace period when she died. It ran out at midnight, but the coroner—” Her father breaks off, takes a deep breath. “The coroner pinpointed her death after twelve. Too late, according to Louise.”
“Oh, Dad.” Beck walks across the room and puts her arms around him. “It’s okay.”
“We’re out of money. I can’t pay the mortgage.”
She shrugs. “Sell the house.”
“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—”
The Perfect Stranger Page 34