Penney Richmond's disembodied face loomed in front of Jennifer in the dark—all too human, all too real. Except for that teal eye shadow—that was pretty fake. And so was that platinum hair. Not to mention those eyelashes.
Jennifer sat up in bed and threw back her hair. Sweat had made her clammy. What kind of murder had she thought she'd been planning? Had she really believed she could kill someone without ever coming into contact with the victim? Penney Richmond was no fictional character to be deleted with a keystroke.
She turned to her night stand and found her alarm clock. It read two o'clock.
Muffy, dozing on the floor, gave out a gentle woof and scratched at the carpeting before settling down again. Who knows what prey she was chasing in her dreams.
Jennifer's prey was chasing her. She hadn't been able to sleep since coming home from the party. How could she? Writing about murder was one thing. Actually depriving another person of her life was quite another, even if that person was a despicable, no-good, lowlife meanie who had no time or compassion for dedicated, talented writers whose only dream was to see their stories in print.
There was no way Jennifer could kill this woman for murdering her dreams or for fame or fortune or anything. She couldn't kill spiders, as much as she hated them (most likely a throw-back to that Buddhist phase she went through in college). She couldn't even eat meat, for heaven's sake.
She didn't even want to kill her. After all these nightmarish images, she wanted Penney to live forever.
What had she been thinking? Had she lost her mind?
Apparently.
Jennifer slumped back down on the bed, tears gathering in her eyes. Her hand found the flat of her stomach. "Oh, Jaimie," she whispered. "What kind of mother would I be to you if… I would never, never hurt anyone, really I wouldn't, no matter how much they deserved it."
Thank goodness Jaimie didn't have ears yet—two sets of chromosomes were needed for that. She/He didn't know, would never know what horrible thoughts her/his mother was capable of. Jennifer would do better. She promised.
She was all done with murder, except the fictional kind, of course. After all, that's what she wrote about. Puzzles. Mind games. Who did what to whom and why. Nothing gritty, nothing gory. She didn't even describe the crime scenes. Too much blood.
Jennifer sat straight up. Of course! That's why her books hadn't sold. That's what Penney Richmond had been trying to tell her in that awful phone call. She had to get down to the nitty-gritty. How could she expect to write effective murder mysteries when she had no clue what murder was all about, knew nothing about how murderers feel?
She couldn't actually harm Penney Richmond, but she could go through with her plan. She'd simply omit that annoying murder part. She'd walk through her plot down to the very last detail, establishing an alibi, and somehow gaining access to Penney Richmond's home. At last she would know how a killer thinks. And she'd be able to write it, to bring stark reality to her work, to find that missing element. At last she would find success.
And no one would ever know how she'd done it, not even Sam, who was destined to play a part in all this. It had to be that way.
Jennifer settled back against her pillow. Everything was going to be just fine. She and Sam would find out what happened to Kyle Browning, and she would finally discover that secret that her books had been lacking. She could do it. She would do it. And Penney would be just fine. Everything would be just fine. She patted her tummy. Just fine.