“Why not?”

“For one thing, you can’t use over-the-counter potassium chloride pills from a drugstore. You’d have to have a liquid form and inject it. But again . . .”

“You don’t think that’s what happened.”

“I really don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because there are very few places where those drugs would even be found. Succinylcholine alone—SUX—is used in anesthesiology and it’s used along with liquid potassium chloride for—”

Hearing a creaking on the stairs, Landry freezes, and the rest of Bruce’s sentence is lost on her.

She holds her breath, poised, watching the steps, waiting for whomever it is to descend.

But nobody does.

“Landry?” Bruce is saying. “Are you there?”

“I’ll call you right back,” she blurts, and hangs up, eyes still on the vacant stairway.

Maybe it was her imagination.

Or maybe someone is up there spying, eavesdropping.

Who is it? Kay, or Elena, or . . . someone else?

Walking into the police station, Sheri keeps a tight hold on the guitar pick in her hand. She’d wrapped it in plastic, just in case.

You never know.

There might be fingerprints.

Pen in hand, the desk sergeant looks up from whatever he’s working on. Official business, she hopes. Better not be a goddamned Sudoku puzzle when her husband’s murder remains unsolved . . .

“Can I help you?”

She clears her throat. “I’m Sheri Lorton . . .”

He nods.

“Roger Lorton’s wife.”

She waits for recognition.

He waits, utterly clueless.

Okay. He doesn’t know her.

This is a big city. People die—are killed—every day. Cases go unsolved forever.

She shouldn’t take it personally.

But how do you not?

Sheri rests her hands on the desk and leans in. “My husband was murdered last week. Walking our dog. Stabbed in cold blood on the sidewalk. I think I’ve found something that might be relevant to the detectives working on his case.”

He nods, picks up the phone on the desk. “I’ll get someone to help you, Mrs. Lorton. And . . . I’m sorry for your loss.”

Just days ago, shrouded in an opaque veil of anguish, she’d thought it didn’t matter to her—the investigation. Because nothing can bring him back.

Now, though her widowed heart will ache for the rest of her life, she knows that the healing will only begin when the person who stole her husband is found—and punished.

Slow and steady . . .

Slow and steady . . .

That’s the key, though impulse decrees the polar opposite approach.

Hurry!

Do it quickly!

Just get it over with!

No.

No, that would be dangerous. Now is not the time to make a mistake.

Slow . . .

Take out the knife, the one with the tortoiseshell handle.

Think about that long ago day by the pond, when a plain old rock turned out to be a ferocious snapping turtle.

Steady . . .

Open the blade.

Slow . . .

Think about where it has to go.

Steady . . .

Think about cause and effect.

Slow . . .

But it’s time. Now. It’s time.

Steady . . .

Raise the knife . . .

Do it.

Do it!

At last . . . it’s done.

“You really believe that Elena killed Tony?” Bruce asks as Landry clutches the phone to her ear. She’s sitting inside her car in the garage, suffocatingly hot with the doors closed and the windows rolled up. But it’s the only place she could think to continue this conversation without possibly being overheard.

She did briefly consider opening the garage door so she can turn on the engine and the air-conditioning without asphyxiating herself—but her guests would hear the door go up and come to investigate.

She even considered driving away but couldn’t bring herself to leave Kay alone here with a murderer.

Elena.

Elena?

One moment the idea seems preposterous to Landry; the next it makes perfect, chilling sense.

“You said yourself that it’s possible Tony was murdered with poison that made his death look like a heart attack,” she reminds Bruce. “Who else could possibly have had such a strong motive? She wanted him out of her life.”

“There could be other people who felt the same way.”

“Other people who just came from the funeral of a friend whose murder is unsolved?”

“It could be a coincidence.”

“It could be, but . . .”

Landry keeps playing and replaying her last conversation with Elena at the airport on Sunday. She said she couldn’t stand the thought of going back home to face him, and the next day he was dead.

Coincidence?

Really?

“I checked her out,” Bruce tells her, “and there’s nothing in her past to suggest that she’s capable of cold-blooded murder.”

Cold-blooded.

Coldhearted.

Jenna Coeur in the airport . . .

What does that even matter if Elena was the one who killed Meredith?

Anyway, Bruce said Jenna didn’t get off the plane. She isn’t here.

Is she really trying to get here?

Was Kay mistaken about seeing her in Atlanta?

Can first grade teacher and party girl Elena really be hiding a sinister self?

Nothing makes sense.

Bruce . . .

How do I even know he’s for real? He was just a stranger on a plane, handing me a business card . . .

He might not be an investigator at all. That could have been a dummy Web site.

Her thoughts are spinning, spinning, spinning . . .

“Does Kay know?” Bruce is asking.

“No.”

“You might want to go tell her what you’re thinking. If you’re right about this, then the two of you need to get out of there before . . .”

Bruce doesn’t finish his sentence.

He doesn’t have to.

Landry disconnects the call, opens the car door and steps out into the garage.

It’s quiet. Deserted . . . or so it seems.

But there are shadowy corners where someone could be concealed, watching her.

Someone . . . even Bruce.

He told her he’s at the airport waiting for Jaycee to get off a plane, but what if he’s making her think he’s her protector when really . . .

The call is coming from inside the house.

The line from an old slasher movie barges into her brain.

Her legs wobble as she starts moving across the floor, expecting someone to jump out at her with every step she takes.

Bruce . . . Elena . . . Jaycee . . . or Jenna . . . whoever the hell killed Meredith.

Heart racing, Elena slips through the back door, crosses the porch where they all ate lunch just a short time ago, and begins running through the yard.

It’s pouring out. Jagged yellow lightning slices the gray-black sky.

Get away, get away . . .

She slips on the wet grass as she runs. She throws her arms in front of her to break the fall and her hands land in the mud at the edge of the garden.

Heart racing, she gets to her feet and starts running again, looking back over her shoulder to make sure no one is coming after her.

Get away, get away . . .

She turns right when she reaches the waterside path, heading north.

There’s no one out here now.

No one behind her. No one to see her stop, at last, to rest for a moment and let the rain wash the mud—and the blood, not her own—from her hands.

Addison’s bedroom door is ajar.

Landry hesitates, wondering if she should push it open and walk right in. Tucker’s closed door is just down the hall; behind it, Elena might be able to hear her if she called out to Kay or knocked.

Then again, the rain is falling hard on the roof, and the thunder might be loud enough to drown out noises from the hall. She waits until the next clap and knocks, calling softly, “Kay? Kay?”

No reply.

She’s probably sleeping. She looked exhausted, poor thing. Exhausted, and sick.