CHAPTER 12

PERLA

Perla and I immediately clicked. We're both private-school girls, you know. She went to Rochester, which is a few rungs up from Blaketon, where I went, but you know ... we're cut from the same cloth. When she brought Sophie in for her interview, I was really impressed by their family. Grant clearly doted on both of them, and Sophie was so well mannered—and already one heck of a soccer player, even without our program. I was devastated when I heard what happened to her. I organized a little memorial for her in our break room. I tried to send something to her funeral but ... obviously, I couldn't. Not once I found out everything.

—Tina Anthow, Tom Pullic Soccer Academy

My home office was on the second floor and overlooked the side yard and Sophie's tree house. The tree house had intentionally been built on the side—out of view of the pool area and hidden from the wall of windows that stretched across the back of the house. In addition to the tree house, the expanse between us and the neighboring estate held the vegetable gardens, the fruit-tree orchard, and a sandbox.

Sophie had outgrown the sandbox years ago. I looked down on it and made a mental note to have it removed before I listed the home for sale. That, and the tree house. The rest could stay. I'd spent years on the gardens, and someone would appreciate them. Maybe a woman like me. Someone fastidiously detailed.

Turning away from the floor-to-ceiling windows, I settled into my cream ergonomic desk chair and pulled open the middle drawer. Looking over the perfectly organized interior gave me a sense of calm, and I took a moment to line up all the white gloss pens before removing one and placing it on the clean surface of my desk. Everything in the drawer matched the wardrobe in my closet—all whites, blacks, and grays. I selected a fresh pad of paper and placed it beside the pen, then straightened a stack of Post-it notes and white mints before closing the drawer. I rolled forward until I was snug against the desk. There.

If I was going to do this, I needed to make sure it was worth the effort, and that I had a plan of attack for before, during, and after the event.

I wrote down section titles to outline my thoughts.

WHO:

WHAT:

WHEN:

WHERE:

WHY:

I put the pen tip beside the first title, then stopped, frowning. I drew a line down the center of the page, then repeated the list of queries and put headings above the columns.

Truth above the left. Fake above the right. TRUTH FAKE WHO: WHAT: WHEN: WHERE: WHY:

Then I got to work filling each in.

Under the Truth column, I put the details of the potential crime.

WHO: Me.

In order for this to work, I couldn't use any accomplices. No loose ends. No potential snitches. I would have to pull off the murders myself.

WHAT: A recreation of the Folcrum Party event

I grinned as I wrote it down and resisted the urge to put a smiley face at the end.

WHEN: Sophie's 12th birthday party (August 13th)

WHERE: In her bedroom

WHY: To cast doubt on Leewood's guilt and trigger an appeal/mistrial. To justify me stepping forward and becoming involved in his defense.

Right now, if I pushed harder with an attorney or reached out to Leewood directly ... my motives would be called into question. Grant would likely divorce me. It would be a disaster from the start.

But if my daughter were killed by the "true" Folcrum Party murderer ... a grieving mother's quest for justice wouldn't be questioned—it would be applauded. Leewood would certainly accept my visitor request. And then, once he saw me ... once our eyes met ... My heart beat faster at the idea.

But the goodwill wouldn't come only from him. I'd watched the media footage from after the Folcrum Party murders. The candlelit vigils; the crowds of people sobbing, surrounding the dead girls' parents. So many shots of the teary-eyed mothers. Interviews. Cover stories.

I would be getting all that. A double helping of it. My story was too good to miss: torn from her father at a young age ... forced to live with strangers ... my hardworking climb to prosperity, only to suffer this tragedy.

I added it to the list as a why .

The aftermath.

I placed the pen down and rolled back in my chair, over to the long credenza that spanned the left wall of my office. Pulling on the wooden cabinet door, I opened the enclosed mini fridge and selected a sparkling Evian from the rows of bottles.

"Good morning."

I swiveled the chair around, surprised to see Grant in the doorway. He wore a cornflower-blue button-up and dark-charcoal slacks. His glasses were on, and he had a small piece of toilet paper stuck to his jaw where he must have cut himself shaving. "Hey," I said warmly, making sure my gaze didn't travel over to the desk, where my neatly written list was in plain sight. All Grant would need to spot was the word Folcrum and he'd read every word on that page.

"Whatcha doing?"

I laughed. "What are you doing? Shouldn't you be at work?" That was the problem with a house this big. People lost each other in it.

"I'm going to work from home today." His attention strayed toward my desk. "You in the middle of something?"

I let out a sharp gasp, grabbing my side, and his head snapped toward me, his eyes widening in concern.

He rushed forward and crouched beside my chair. "What's wrong? Is it—"

I gripped his shoulder, grimacing as I pressed into the imaginary pain. "I—oh my God. I'm ... It's a bad cramp."

He looked up at me, alarmed. "But your period isn't for another ten days."

"Sometimes people get cramps," I snapped at him, both annoyed and pleased that he knew my ovulation calendar so well.

"Of course, of course." He patted my leg awkwardly. "What can I get you? Some magnesium? A Gatorade? Do you think you're dehydrated?"

"No, I just ... I think it's passing." I kicked out my legs and leaned back in the chair, stretching out my abs. The act caused my blouse to rise, exposing a glimpse of my stomach, but my husband didn't even notice. Instead, his gaze had turned vacant. I had lost him to some sort of mathematical equation or line of database code.

I grabbed his face with both hands, forcing him to look into my eyes. "Go and work," I ordered. "I can just feel you thinking."

He smiled and I returned the gesture, an automatic motion set to On. "Okay."

When he was out of the room, I locked the door, then returned to my desk, my own ideas churning.

I moved to the second column, still crudely labeled as Fake . I needed a better moniker, but for now—for this mental exercise, which I would destroy at completion—it was fine.

This section was for the story I would create with evidence, misdirection, and testimonials for the press and the police.

WHO: The original Folcrum Party killer, who wants his rightful place in the limelight and another round in his cat and mouse game.

I read the line and liked it. Rachel and Gabrielle and their million-plus Murder Unplugged listeners would love it.

I quickly filled in the same details as before in the What , When , and Where sections. Then, the Why .

WHY: Because he's bored, wants the chance to kill again, and to pin this crime on a new scapegoat.

I laughed out loud, reading that over, because someone, somewhere, would try to poke holes in that and say it wasn't a valid motive, but I was proof positive that it was. This entire event would be proof positive that it was. Even if I was the only one who understood the true irony of it.

I sat back and twisted right, then left, in my seat, thinking. It took a while to put the various pieces together in my mind, but then I sat straight up, buoyed with clarity.

I leaned forward, scanning the faux scenario I would be creating, then printed neatly in the space beside the Who section: Grant .

Grant. He could be the killer, both then and now. But what would his motive be? I frowned as the legitimacy of the idea started to crumble. I crossed out his name and moved my pen down to the Why section, rereading my note.

Because he's bored, wants the chance to kill again, and to pin this crime on a new scapegoat.

Beside scapegoat , I wrote Grant's name.

Why not? If the first Folcrum Party pinned the crime on the father, wouldn't the recreation do the same?

Excitement thrummed through me, and I set down my pen and let out a silent shriek of happiness at the sheer genius of it all.

It would be difficult, the most complicated thing I'd ever set up. Brutal, given that the main victim would be my daughter. Tricky, because if they didn't see the setup, Grant would be convicted of the crime.

But I could do it, and if I did it right ... Leewood would be free. We'd be connected, and then who knew what would happen. With my money and his freedom ... anything was possible.

I underlined Grant's name, cementing his fate in my mind. It didn't really matter whether he'd be convicted of the crime. Most marriages didn't survive the loss of a child. Grant and I would part ways, due to his incarceration or our divorce. I'd been toying with the idea of an exit for a while, and this would give me an opportunity to take care of a bunch of to-do items at once.

Closing my eyes, I quickly went through the execution and then took my time with the aftermath. The attention. The sympathy. A warm glow traveled through my chest at the vision of the crowds that would line our street, the media vans, the pile of flowers and mementos, the front-page articles, the trending hashtags, the soft voices and concerned faces of the interviewers. I would only do one, maybe two. Very high-profile sit-downs, with perfect lighting and a line in the contract that would grant me control over the final edit.

A small smile tugged at my lips, and I allowed it to come. After all, this would be the cherry on top of all this. I would be wrapped in a warm embrace of the entire nation. How many people were lucky enough to experience that? Only a handful, and I would be one of them.

Of course, I would need to get rid of my mole before then. I opened my eyes and swiveled in the chair, looking in the dark reflections of the dual computer screens mounted above my second desk. The mole, which sat on the far end of my right cheek, just beside my ear, was my biggest flaw. That, and the hard bridge of my nose. I had considered fixing both in the past, but the surgeries had always been pushed aside for this reason or that.

But now, looking at my face in the dark glass, it was all I could see. I couldn't go on prime-time TV looking like this. People were cruel. They became easily fixated on things. I'd be spilling my guts on camera while a fat Kansas housewife laughed at my big nose.

Forget the crime planning. Top priority was surgery. If I couldn't complete that in time, I would need to pick someone else's birthday, which would mess everything up in terms of Grant's setup and Sophie's elimination. Hmm. I turned away from my reflection before I began to obsess over it.

I tapped the screen of my phone and checked the date, then counted off the weeks until Sophie's birthday. Nine weeks away. Was it enough time?

Nine weeks. I wrote down the timeline, then added a question mark beside it.

I started a to-do list, these tasks just as important as the first.

Nose job.

Mole removal.

I ran a hand over my once-flat stomach, then added Liposuction as a third item.

I looked over my list of who s, what s, when , where s, and why s, committing it all to memory. Once it was completed, I tore off the page and carried it over to the shredder. Feeding it through, I smiled as I watched the crosscut blades easily chew through the page.

For the first time in a long while, I was no longer bored.