Chapter Seventeen
Therainhadcontinued right into the afternoon, so dressed in a bright green raincoat with the freshly made cherry cheesecake in hand, I sprinted up the path towards the light yellow bungalow with white shutters covering the windows, noting the shiny red Lexus parked in the driveway with a 2021 plate, knowing it had to have belonged to Kaya. That car was way over budget for the salary of her profession.
“Hi, Grandma,” I sang into the house as I closed the door behind me and hung up my soaked jacket on a coat stand in the hallway.
I placed the cheesecake on a side table by the door and quickly checked my reflection in the mirror on the wall. Mascara had smudged from my bottom lashes onto the skin under my eyes, but at least they were no longer dry and sore on account of the full bottle of eyedrops Alex had assaulted me with. Now the whites were back to their sparkly selves, but were now brown thanks to contacts I’d chosen for today. I flattened the blonde, pink-tipped wig after wiping away the excess mascara and looked down at the ornaments decorating the sideboard.
A photograph sat proudly in the centre of the table, showing a young couple smiling at the camera. The man wore a smart grey three-piece suit, his black and grey hair styled perfectly, and was smiling broadly as he held the girl tightly around her waist, her long blonde hair fanning wildly around them and dark eyes alight with laughter, looking every bit the cover model she had been before she’d met her husband.
Mrs. Valéntina Packard was the Jones brother’s grandma Mary’s BFF and was in her late seventies now, but she hadn’t lost that vibrant look in her eyes, even long after her husband’s death. Valéntina married Oil Tycoon, Grayson Packard, when she was twenty-five years old, causing quite a scandal with Grayson being 20 years her senior and was supposedly engaged when they first got together.
Mary and Valé were inseparable when we were growing up; you would never arrive at Mary’s house and not find Valé with a glass of pink bubbles in her hand laughing hysterically at something Alex said. Even being forty years his senior, Alex was a shameless flirt.
When Valé had come down with an awful case of pneumonia and Mary stopped hearing from her, she begged Will to look into her nurse, calling her grandson daily with a ‘feeling’ thatsomething wasn’t right. If there was one person Will would do anything for, it was his grandmother.
With one last look at the young couple smiling in a park, I picked up the cheesecake and walked into a beautiful, open plan living room with oak hardwood floors, cream interiors and a large plush rug in the middle of the room. Mrs Packard was sitting on a love seat looking out a huge bay window into her garden and barely moved when I walked into the room, stopped to stand by her side and lightly placed my hand on her shoulder.
“Hi, Mrs. Packard,” I whispered, not wanting to startle her. Whatever Kaya had been doing to her for the last couple of weeks had taken its toll. Her long grey hair was sitting in a dishevelled pile on the top of her head, her once full face looked haggard, resting up on top of her frail shoulders, and her sparkling hazel eyes had lost their vitality. She faced the window overlooking her backyard, not acknowledging my presence as Kaya walked in to join us.
“Oh!” she squeaked in fright, holding her palm over her chest. “I didn’t know anyone was here. I’m Kaya, the carer.” She held out a hand, a slight wrinkle to her forehead in suspicion.
“Hi, I’m Noelle, Valéntina’s granddaughter.”
“Oh,” she said again, a sudden look of panic shooting across her face, which she quickly turned to surprise. “I thought she didn’t have any family.”
“We’re more not family by blood.” I smiled. “One of those close friends becomes family scenarios.” Turning away from her, I started to fix Valéntina’s hair, trying to sort the disarray of the bird’s nest that Kaya had left it in. It looked like it hadn’t been combed in weeks, let alone washed. Kaya stood in the doorway, eyeing me intently.
“I was just about to make some hot chocolate since the weather is so awful outside,” she said with faux cheer and pointed towards the cheesecake I’d sat on the coffee table. “I notice that you brought a pie. Why don’t I make us some drinks and we can have a slice? Maybe get to know each other? Since I’m looking after your grandma and all,” she questioned with a look that made my stomach turn.
Kaya had delicate soft features, honey-coloured skin, and warm, inviting hazel eyes. Her smile was kind, and her voice created a sense of calm when she spoke. A well-practised façade. Underneath, she was pure evil.
Collecting the cheesecake, I followed Kaya into the kitchen and watched as she began to rummage around finding things to make hot chocolate, complete with marshmallows and cream. She took the milk out of the fridge, as her watch beeped.
“Oh gosh. My dear, would you mind finishing this up? I need to give your grandmother her medications.”
I smiled and stepped forward to pour the milk into a pan. Kaya’s heels clacked away in the distance as I stirred the creamy liquid on the stove and grabbed the tablet bottle from my back pocket, popping the cap and dropping four copper-coloured pills into the milk. The steam rose in steady bursts as the tablets dissolved, and I added in the cocoa, making it nice and thick to disguise any bitterness. I poured her drink into a mug and quickly washed the pan and repeated the process, sans antidepressants, for me.
I unwrapped the cheesecake and plated three slices. Upon first look, the cake didn’t appear to show anything untoward. Excluding the one slice, which was patiently waiting for its unsuspecting prey, the sweet dessert was perfectly safe. Store-bought cherries made up the rest of the cheesecake to not draw attention to the cause of death. It was almost overkill using belladonna toxins when I could just feed her prescription meds, but I was an artist. My cheesecake could have been sold in bakeries; it was that beautiful on the outside. But inside, the danger lurked, just like Kaya.
Besides, the pills were only needed when the cops and paramedics showed up when this was over. A high dose of antidepressants prescribed to the bitch herself, anyone would put this down to an accidental overdose. The side effects of both atropine from the berries and amitriptyline hydrochloride were pretty much the same. Any post-mortem report would rule this as a mistake.
It may have also helped that Will had several paid pathologists in his back pocket. But taking pride in your work means going over and above what’s expected and if that asshole didn’t need to bail me out of situations and make evidence disappear, all the better for me.
Returning to the living room, I placed a small slice of the dessert in front of Mrs. Packard, but she was so incapacitated it rendered the gesture pointless.
Kaya started gossiping about different clients she’d cared for in the past, breaking all sorts of confidentiality codes, as she took a forkful of her slice of the cheesecake and put it to her lips.
“You made this yourself?” she asked around the bite, and I nodded as I started to eat my slice too. “It’s delicious!” she cried, popping another forkful into her mouth, and I sat back in my seat to watch her chew. I’d put enough berries in her piece to bring down a large man so the toxins should start to work in thirty minutes, give or take, but hopefully quicker with the added extra in her drink.
I drowned out Kaya’s incessant chatter and slipped my phone out of my bag. No sense in making small talk with the woman I already knew everything I needed to know while I waited for the toxins to do their magic. I bit my lip as I saw a text message waiting for me.
Jake: You’re my new favourite craving, Stefany. I need to see you again.
My stupid heart fluttered at the use of my name.
Jake: That is not a request, Stefany. Now I’ve had a taste, I need more.
My pussy tingled, remembering the way his thick fingers dove inside me and brought me to ruin. I shouldn’t want that again; I couldn’t want that again, but I was desperate for him.
A clatter from the other room grabbed my attention. Holding my phone, I made my way to find Kaya bent over the broken crockery scattered across the tiled kitchen floor. I hadn’t even noticed she’d left the living room.
“I don’t feel so good,” she whimpered and shuffled towards the kitchen table, nearly tripping into a chair. I took a seat at the far end of the table, placing my phone in front of me, and I watched, face stoic, as the effects of the poisons she ingested less than twenty minutes ago coursed around her body.
“Did you know that Belladonna cherries were routinely used in the sixteenth century to dilate the pupils to give them the illusion of being seductive?” I queried, picking at the edges of my nails, looking almost bored as Kaya rubbed the heel of her hand across her heart. “More interestingly, if one were to consume the berries, do you know how many you’d need to ingest before you die?”
Kaya stopped moving and looked straight at me, a snarl forming at her lips, her nice girl mask cracking as panic flared in her eyes.
“What - what are you talking about? What did you do?”
I leaned forward and steepled my fingers in a Will power play gesture. “Do you feel that, Kaya?” I asked in a low whisper, a smug grin dancing to my lips as her eyes widened. “How does it feel to be the vulnerable one? The scared one? The one who only wants to be cared for, yet no one is here to help you?” Her mouth opened and closed. Her tongue stuck out of her mouth like a panting dog as she tried to sate the dryness the toxins from the berries and amitriptyline created.
Her neck was flushing quickly upwards, redness crawling towards her face and down her chest and arms. Her pupils had dilated to the point that the colour in her irises was barely visible. She started unbuttoning her cashmere cardigan, followed by her pink blouse until she sat in her white cotton bra, fanning herself frantically with her hands, her discarded clothes heaped on the floor.
“I’m too hot,” she slurred, reaching out and flexing her hand, trying to grab something that was in front of her. She started to laugh, pointing to the centre of the table, muttering garbled nonsense as she rapidly blinked whilst trying to swat away a hallucination that was apparently in front of her.
“Why are you doing this?” she cried, sucking in deep breaths between words. “Help me. C-call an am-ambulance.”
“William Jones has decided your usefulness has outlived itself,” I said and kicked my shoes up on the table to watch. “You were under strict orders to nurse Mrs. Packard, instead you took it upon yourself to treat her like another one of your victims.”
Kaya was clever, more clever than Will had anticipated her to be. An initial background search highlighted nothing, but apparently after seeing the hundreds of thousands in Valéntina’s bank account, well… Turns out our little Kaya wasn’t who she said she was.
A bit like me, I suppose, but I would never harm an innocent.
Strumming my fingers against my knee, I checked my watch. The bitch was persistent and was taking too long to die. My phone skittered across the table as the vibration of an incoming call thankfully broke my boredom. Dropping my feet to the floor, I grabbed it before it slid off the wood and clicked accept.
“Hello, Mr. Weston. To what do I owe the pleasure?” I asked with a smile in my voice. I couldn’t help it. I liked that he called when I didn’t reply.
The little light left in Kaya’s eyes burned to life as she tried to call for help. Holding my finger over my lips, I signalled for her to be quiet.
“Have I interrupted you?” he asked and again Kaya tried to call for help.
“No, no. Everything is fine,” I replied, walking over to Kaya, and positioned myself behind her chair. I propped my phone against my shoulder and covered her nose and mouth with my hand. Panicked, she clawed against my hand, tearing into my skin with her sharp nails. I bit back a curse and squeezed harder. “How can I help you, Jake?”
“I need to hear those little whimpers you make when I made you come.” I sharply inhaled as he continued. “I need to feel the tiny pulses from your body as it responds so beautifully to my touch, every shudder, every purr that belonged to me. I want it again.”
My eyes closed at his words, and I released my hold slightly on Kaya’s face. She gasped, and I immediately tightened my grip.
“I actually have an annual work function tomorrow, and I would like to take you with me,” he said, changing the subject so seamlessly, like he hadn’t just whispered dirty things in my ear less than a second ago.
I exhaled a laugh and looked down at Kaya, watching as her fight slowly died out. “I’ll need to check my calendar and get back to you.”
“See that you do, Stefany.”
The call ended just as Kaya’s head lulled to the side, her last breath suffocated out of her. I took out a set of disposable gloves from my back pocket and quickly set about cleaning anything that may have had my fingerprints on it. A teaspoon, a knife, the mugs and plates from earlier were washed and returned to their rightful place. No proof that I had been here at all.
Grabbing a small nailbrush by the sink, I lathered up some soap and went back to Kaya’s dead body. I shouldn’t have used my hand to muffle her cries for help, especially since she now had my DNA embedded in her nails.
“You’re a silly girl, Kaya, letting your nails get so dirty,” I berated as I brought up her limp hand and began scrubbing away any proof of a struggle. To be on the safe side, I also used the brush to buff her nose and mouth gently, not that I’d expect anyone to search for fingerprints on her face, but you never know.
Where was my goddamn koala when I needed it?
If Kaya’s death was suspected of foul play, nothing would point back to me. Any hair strands would be analysed as synthetic from the wig I wore, and any clothing fibres would match the most popular and generic material sold by the millions on the high street.
Grabbing my bag from the living room, I gave Mrs. Packard one last shoulder squeeze and left out the back of the house.
By the back door was a recycling bin overflowing with old cardboard boxes and newspapers clearly from weeks ago. Pulling out a matchbox from my bag, I dug around the rubbish, scrunching paper into balls and tenting pieces of cardboard. The head of the match fizzled as the phosphorus sesquisulfide caught light and started to burn. I dropped it on top of the makeshift kindling and watched the flames dance to life.
After a while, dark smoke plumed over the top of the house and the harsh smell of melting plastic assaulted my nose. I walked around the side of the house and took out the burner phone Alex had bought me, dialling 911, and held it to my ear.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“Please help,” I sobbed to the operator. “I think a house is on fire and there are people inside!”
“Can you please give me the address?”
“It’s 267 Elba Avenue. Please hurry.” I hung up and tucked the phone into my jeans, along with the used gloves I’d removed, before making the call. Alex would destroy everything later.
I walked down the road and got into a rental car I’d taken out in a different fake name, then drove away to the sound of sirens wailing in the distance.
Sometimes you need to create a little bit of chaos and watch the world burn.