CHAPTER 7
Jenny Pickett returned home from work, parked in the garage, and walked through the laundry room to her study. As a senior research chemist, she did consulting work for various health-care, pharmaceutical, and food manufacturers, helping both small and large companies with product development and testing. Depending on which company she was working for, five days a week, usually from eight to four, she could almost always be found in a lab, wearing goggles and a lab coat over her work clothes, which consisted of a skirt or slacks with matching jacket, unless the company had a low-key dress code. In that case, she might replace the jacket with a sweater.
She made her way down the hallway, straightening picture frames on the wall as she went. She liked order, structure, and symmetry. After setting the mail in a neat pile on the desk in front of her computer, she went to her bedroom and hung her purse on the wall hook. Robotically, she removed, examined, and then finally hung up her dark-blue jacket.
After that, she headed for the kitchen, where she washed her hands twice, making sure to get the areas between every finger before using a clean towel to thoroughly dry her hands. The last thing she did was pour herself a glass of cold water from the filtered pitcher in the refrigerator. As she held the glass to her lips, she spotted the knife block. Her right hand trembled slightly.
Back in her study, she sat at her desk. Usually the first thing she did each day was look through the mail, sorting bills from junk, but not today.
Ever since she’d killed Brandon, she’d been unable to concentrate. Her moment of empowerment had been short-lived.
She reached inside her purse, unzipped the side pouch, and pulled out a small plastic container. Inside was one capsule, the size of a pea, filled with concentrated potassium cyanide. The pill was not to be swallowed whole. She would need to crush it between her molars.
She wouldn’t suffer. There would be minimal pain, if any.
Coward. You shouldn’t be the one to die for what happened to Brandon.
Her eyes watered. Her entire life had been filled with so much anguish and torment. But after all this time, she’d killed a man. Why now?
Long overdue.
She shook her head.
It’s time to make a list, Jenny.
She stared at the pill within the container. The fast-acting poison would cause brain death within minutes. Her heart would stop soon after.
Put that away and make the list. Trust me. You’ll feel better if you just make the fucking list!
OK! OK! She’d make the damn list. She put the pill to the side and set about finding a notebook and pen. She stared at the blank paper for a few minutes before finally reaching over and grabbing the article she’d been saving. She examined the picture of Terri Kramer, her supposed friend—the woman who had stolen her antiaging formula and made headline news.
On the first line of the notebook, she wrote Brandon Louis and then drew a line through his name. Next, she wrote Terri Kramer. Beneath Terri’s name, she wrote Stephen White.
The names came easily after that, one after another. With each came memories: insults, snickering, nasty words whispered in her ear. Every push and every shove came flooding back to her in vivid detail.
She swallowed the knot in her throat, surprised by the emotions so easily conjured, spilling forth, as if it had all happened yesterday. Not a day had gone by in high school that she wasn’t pointed at, called names, and made fun of. One particular group of kids had been relentless in their taunting. The harder she had worked at becoming invisible, the more they had picked on her. Their actions had never made any sense to Jenny since she’d done nothing to earn their wrath.
She was the geek, the kid with no friends. All she wanted was to be left alone. The bullying had gotten so bad that there had come a point where she figured she deserved to be punished. Why wouldn’t she be made fun of? She was the poor girl who lived on a pig farm, the girl with crooked teeth and thick glasses. She was the oddball with the bangs chopped off at odd angles, the kid who wore hand-me-down clothes and flimsy shoes without laces.
The teachers were no better. They knew what was going on, but they never lifted a finger to help her in any way.
Some memories of what the other kids did to her were too painful to bring forth: recollections so awful, she kept them locked tight in her memory banks; things that made being kicked and shoved into a locker seem like child’s play; occurrences so horrifyingly humiliating and repulsive, she didn’t dare call them up. Not now. Not yet. Preferably never.
After college, and after she’d started earning a decent paycheck, she’d gotten braces, contacts, ridiculously expensive haircuts, and new clothes. Even before the mini-makeover, she’d possessed a decent body, but in the end none of it mattered. One thing she’d learned very quickly was that no amount of scrubbing and perfume could hide the fact that she would always be the poor girl from a pig farm.
Always had been.
Always would be.
Mirror, mirror on the wall . . . who’s the ugliest of them all? Jenny Pickett, that’s who.
She reached for the small canister, and this time she removed the lid. One tiny pill could end it all. Put her out of her misery forever.
For a moment in time, Jenny had thought things could be different. She’d thought hard work and success would show all her haters that she didn’t deserve their disdain.
But now she knew better.
All of those people who fucked with you are the pigs, not you! Why can’t you see the truth? Don’t you dare take that pill!
Jenny clamped her hands over her ears.
Look at the list again. Don’t be a fool. They’re the ones who deserve to die!
She didn’t want to listen to the voice. She wanted to end her misery and be done with it.
Read the list, Jenny!
Jenny dropped her hands and forced herself to look at the names. This time, she read each one slowly, letting every syllable roll over her tongue. Each person on her list had done horrible things to her. It wasn’t her fault they did what they did. They had a choice. It was them, not her. The hatred and disgust she’d felt for herself had been misplaced.
The realization caused her to feel a hundred pounds lighter.
Why hadn’t she seen it before?
She put the lid back on the container and put the suicide pill away.
It’s about time you stood up for yourself. Maybe you’re not so spineless, after all.
Brandon Louis
Terri Kramer
Stephen White
Debi Murray
Gavin Murdock
Rachel Elliott
Melony Reed
Ron Jennings
Louise Penderfor
Mindy Graft
Aubrey Singleton
Claire Moss
Chelsea Webster
Dean Newman
Gary Perdue
After reading the names over and over, confident that these were the worst of the offenders, she sucked in a deep breath of air and then slowly exhaled.
This is your kill list. It’s beautiful.
Yes . . . her kill list. Each and every person on the list would die, but she would need to follow a set of rules:
a) be smart,
b) be patient, and
c) do not get caught.
Making the list had been easy. Now she needed to work things through and put some thought into how she would end their lives.
She’d gotten lucky with Brandon. He’d kept their relationship a well-guarded secret, which turned out to serve her well. He’d never shared his private numbers with her, always calling her from airport pay phones.
But in the end, stabbing him had proved to be quite messy. Cleaning up all that blood wasn’t easy. Getting rid of the rental car and Brandon’s body had taken the entire night. Lining the trunk of her car, driving to her parents’ farm, and then digging a hole in the middle of their fifty-acre parcel had been beyond exhausting.
How could she kill them without getting caught?
It can’t be that difficult. You’re a chemist.
She couldn’t exactly bury any more dead people on her parents’ farm. She needed to make the deaths appear to be random accidents. But how?
Do I have to repeat myself? You’re a chemist. Poison.
She straightened in her seat. It couldn’t possibly be that easy. She went to the wall of books lining the shelves and brushed her fingers over the spines: Organic Chemicals, Pharmacotherapy: A Pathophysiologic Approach, The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics, Handbook of Pharmaceutical Excipients, and—there it was. Toxicology: The Basic Science of Poisons. Perfect.