By the time they parted ways, the others seemed reassured.

Seeing a blue rest stop sign looming through the windshield, Kay puts on her right turn signal. She’s feeling pretty good, but she’s got a long trip ahead and it’s probably a good idea to stop and stretch for a bit.

What a difference a day makes. Now, anything seems possible. Anything at all, as long as she has her friends.

When Landry arrives at the gate for her flight, she sees that there are only a few passengers waiting in the boarding area—and Bruce Mangione is one of them.

He’s sitting reading a newspaper, with empty seats on either side of him. It would be awfully bold of her to walk right over there and take one of them. What if he gets the wrong idea?

He won’t if you tell him about the case.

Her feet are already propelling her toward him, but guilt dogs her when she thinks about Rob. He doesn’t know about the Jenna Coeur twist yet. She was going to tell him when she called home this morning, but the kids were right there, wanting to talk to her, too, and they were all headed for church. By the time they got back, she was having breakfast with Elena and Kay.

She probably could have snuck in a quick call home, but it wasn’t really something she wanted to get into on the phone with limited time. She’ll tell him as soon as she lands, of course.

For now . . .

Maybe she shouldn’t tell this total stranger about it. Even if he is a detective. Even if she did Google his name last night, just to see what came up.

Retired cop, just like he said.

Private investigator and personal security, just like he said. He even has a Web site that lists his credentials, along with his specialties: Missing Persons, Infidelity, Surveillance, Background Checks, Criminal Investigation . . .

Okay. He’s certainly qualified. But it’s not like she’s planning to hire him.

Am I?

Maybe I am.

To do what, exactly, though?

Solve the case?

It’s not as if there isn’t an entire homicide squad working it. But their main concern is solving the murder, and her concern is . . .

Well, she does want the murder solved, of course. But it’s safe to assume that her own personal safety—and thus, that of her family—is probably more consequential to her than it is to Detective Burns.

Plus, she’s seen enough police procedural dramas and read enough thrillers—fiction and non—to know that private investigators don’t have to deal with the tremendous amount of red tape and bureaucracy police detectives face.

Bruce might be able to find out more information about Jenna Coeur and Jaycee; whether there’s a connection between them—and between Jenna and Meredith.

Landry’s bag, rolling around behind her, gets caught on a chair leg. It thumps, and Bruce glances up.

He starts to look down again, then double-takes and recognition dawns. “Writer mom,” he says, pointing a finger at her. “Landry, right?”

“That’s right. How was your family weekend? Are you on the next flight, too?”

“I am. You’re early.”

“So are you.”

“That,” he says, “should be your first clue to just how much I enjoyed my family visit.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It was to be expected. Hope your weekend was better.”

“I was at a funeral, so . . .”

“I’m so sorry. I forgot. Your friend.” He shakes his head. “That must have been rough.”

She nods and tells him, briefly, about the funeral, but that there were other complications.

He raises a dark eyebrow. “What kind of complications?”

Here goes, she thinks, and gestures at the empty seat beside him. “Do you mind if I . . . ?”

“Not at all.” He tucks his newspaper into the bag at his feet. “Sit down.”

“I just want to ask you a couple of questions. Maybe you can help. You said you’re a detective . . . ”

“That’s right.”

“My friend—the one whose funeral this was—she was murdered.”

“I’m sorry. What happened?”

She explains, trying to make the tale as uncomplicated as possible and realizing there’s no way to boil it down to a simple story. But he listens intently, nodding, leaning closer as the seats around them begin to fill up. She keeps her voice down, particularly when she utters the name anyone would recognize.

“Jenna Coeur?” Bruce echoes, frowning. “The actress? The one who—”

“Right.”

“What was she doing there?”

“Nobody seems to know.” She takes a deep breath. “I was hoping you might be able to find out.”

Chin in hand, he simply waits for her to continue.

She tells him the rest—about the possible connection to Jaycee, about Elena having invited her to the reunion next weekend.

“I’m afraid that I might have inadvertently put my family at risk.”

“You can always just cancel this reunion until some other time.”

“But they’ve got plane tickets, and . . . look, I love the two women I met this weekend. There are very few people in this world I can talk to face-to-face about . . . what I’ve been through, with cancer. And now, about Meredith. We’re all facing the same loss. We’re all in the same boat. I really want to see them again. But . . .” She takes a deep breath. “I want to hire you. I’d just feel better if you could check out Elena and Kay and confirm that there are no surprises in their backgrounds. They’re going to be staying under my roof, with my children in the house. And if you could tell me more about Jaycee, and maybe track down Jenna Coeur in the process—that would be even better.”

“Is that it? Find Jenna Coeur? You don’t want me to, I don’t know, maybe find some long lost relatives while I’m at it? Or, I don’t know, find Jimmy Hoffa and Amelia Earhart and maybe Elvis?”

She can’t help but smile. “No, that’ll do. For now.”

He pulls out a notebook and a pen. “I’ll do what I can. Tell me everything you know.”

She nods, feeling relieved. “It might be better if you took out your laptop. I can show you.”

Meredith was supposed to be the first, the last, the only.

Then came that stranger—Roger Lorton, his name turned out to be. The man who popped up in the wrong place at the wrong time, asking for a light.

They wrote about his murder in the newspaper. Said he was mugged, apparently, while out walking his dog.

No one will ever connect that to Meredith’s death . . . or to me.

And this next one . . .

No one is going to connect it, either, because they’re not going to be looking for a murderer at all.

No one will ever suspect it didn’t just happen.

It’s how it should have been, with Meredith.

If only she hadn’t been so afraid of needles.

But I respected that; I had to spare her that final ordeal. I tried to make her death as painless—and as quick—as I possibly could.

Maybe it was the wrong choice. There’s no way of knowing.

You can’t second-guess the past; you can only keep moving ahead.

The same thing will happen with this next target.

It’s a simple process of elimination; a step that might be unpleasant to anticipate and carry out, but is absolutely necessary for the greater good.

The thing that really infuriates Tony Kerwin is that all along he was just trying to do Elena a favor—make that favors—and how did she turn around and treat him?

Yeah. Like crap.

As he scrubs himself in the shower after his early morning gym workout, he runs through the mental list of everything he’s done for her.

She owes him, man. Owes him big-time.

Driving her home on Friday night when she was skunk-drunk—favor number one.

Seeing her safely inside—favor number two.

Granted, maybe he shouldn’t have moved in for a kiss, but he just couldn’t help himself. The chick is hot. He’s been thinking about her ever since he took her out last fall, trying to figure out a way to get her interested in him again. Playing hard to get didn’t do the trick, but he was hoping a good hard kiss might.