Page 46 of She Didn’t See It Coming

Lizzie has stuck a chair up under the handle of her bedroom door to prevent her mother from coming in unexpectedly and seeing what she’s doing.

She sits at her desk, turns on her computer, and puts on headphones to play music in the background.

Without even reading to catch up on everything that’s been posted, she starts typing a new post as Emma Porter, again using her photo of the front of the building.

She hits post.

With that off her chest, she reads what people have posted since she was last online, late the night before. There are many more people in this group than there were. There are more comments to her posts now, too, and some of them are a bit disturbing.

Mel Schep

I think she deserved it. It’s wrong to sleep with another man when you’re already married.

Ange O’Neil

Mel Schep Oh fuck off. No woman deserves to be murdered.

Mel Schep

Ange O’Neil She got exactly what she deserved!

Now something new comes in. Deep Diver has posted a picture of a uniformed officer outside a Dunkin’ Donuts shop and accompanying text.

While the cops have been slacking, or having donuts or whatever, I’ve been busy looking further into Derek Gardner, and his wife, Alice Gardner.

And guess what?? I found something VERY interesting!

She inherited MILLIONS from her mother when she was killed four years ago in a—wait for it—HIT-AND-RUN.

WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN SOLVED. This case just gets more and more interesting!

Maybe Sam Frost killed his wife, I don’t know.

But if she was sleeping with Derek Gardner—think about it.

Maybe he’s killed before. Maybe he deliberately ran down his mother-in-law with a car and left the scene so he and his wife would get all her money.

And this one happened on a lonely rural road in New Hampshire, outside of a tiny town called Roxbury.

I’ve looked into this, and it looks like they weren’t even considered suspects, because the police said they had no suspects.

But what if he got away with it? And what if he killed Bryden?

I’m switching my vote from TEAM SAM to TEAM DEREK.

I think he’s a killer. It takes someone very cold-blooded to run over an old lady.

And it takes someone very cold-blooded to hold a plastic bag over a woman’s face till she’s dead and stuff her body in a suitcase.

Brittany Clement

Wow! How many million?

Deep Diver

Brittany Clement Three million

Brittany Clement

Deep Diver That’s money worth killing for!

Deep Diver

Brittany Clement Right?

Brittany Clement

Deep Diver If he did it, his wife must know what he did.

Deep Diver

Brittany Clement Ya think?

Brittany Clement

Deep Diver What do you know about her?

Deep Diver

Brittany Clement See new post

There’s a new post from Deep Diver, and Lizzie quickly looks at it. A photograph of a familiar woman with auburn hair, with the following text.

Here’s a pic. She’s a looker. Only child, wealthy parents.

Neither she nor her husband, Derek, are on social media, which makes them weird in my book.

And harder to find out about. But he has his own cybersecurity firm and she works at the University at Albany.

I’ve attached a photo of a short news article about the accident.

Lizzie reads all this breathlessly. Reads the posted newspaper article too. This makes Derek look very much like a killer. No wonder his wife is worried.

She remembers Alice, sitting with her on the bench. I’m Team Sam . Alice knows that Lizzie is on here, or she never would have said that to her. So which one is she? Does she know that Lizzie is Emma Porter? And if so, how? Has she seen through her “friend in the police” story?

Alice might suspect, but she can’t be sure. Lizzie’s not going to stop because of Alice Gardner.

She sits at her computer, her fingers hovering over the keyboard, deciding how to respond in a comment to Deep Diver’s post.

Emma Porter

You’re right. I already knew about the hit-and-run because of my contact in the police. But they’ve been keeping it quiet.

Deep Diver

Emma Porter Maybe it’s time to apply pressure to the police so they take this seriously. I’ll send this info to the news media in Albany, and they can dig deeper. Let’s see what happens! I love to help catch killers. That’s what we’re all about, right?

Emma Porter

Deep Diver And maybe they could reopen the case?

Deep Diver

Emma Porter It’s still open. But it’s in another jurisdiction. I’ll see what more I can find out.

Lizzie feels frustrated that she’s been upstaged by Deep Diver. She doesn’t like it. She doesn’t feel that high she felt yesterday, when she had so much to report, when everyone was hanging on her every word. She misses it. But she has something she can say.

I was at the condo today, hanging around, trying to eavesdrop on the journalists outside the building.

And guess what I saw? Bryden’s sister, Lizzie, and Bryden’s little girl—I forget her name—they came out of the building and went across the street to the park.

I saw a woman go up and sit beside her on a park bench and talk to her.

And now, looking at this picture from Deep Diver, I realize who it was.

It was Alice Gardner. Why would Alice Gardner be talking to Bryden’s sister?

···

Donna waits for her daughter to come out of her room. She waits for hours. What is she doing in there? She wants to ask her about Clara. Finally, she approaches her bedroom door, taps on it, and calls out, “Lizzie? Are you busy? Can you come out for a minute?”

Lizzie ignores her.

She tries again. “Lizzie?” Maybe she has her headphones on, listening to music, Donna thinks. She can’t wait any longer. She tries to open the door. But it’s stuck. She rattles it in the frame. It won’t budge. “Lizzie? Are you all right?”

She knows there’s no lock on this door, but something is preventing it from opening. She is seized with alarm. Has Lizzie done something to herself? An overdose? She yells for Jim.

Jim comes quickly, grasps the situation, and begins to pound on the door, yelling, “Lizzie! Lizzie, open the door!”

Abruptly, the door opens six inches and Lizzie’s face appears, pale from within the darkened room.

Donna sees a chair behind her daughter as if she has just pulled it away from the door.

Donna knows that chair is usually on the other side of the room.

Her heart is pounding in distress. “What’s going on?

Are you all right?” Donna demands breathlessly.

“I’m fine,” Lizzie replies, annoyed. “What do you want?”

“We want to talk to you. Why didn’t you answer the door? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I had my headphones on. I just needed some privacy.”

“You’ve been in there—with the chair propped up against the door—for hours. What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” Now she’s being sullen, as if she’s a teenager again, not a thirty-two-year-old adult. “I just want to be alone.” And she closes the door in their faces. They can hear her shoving the chair up under the doorknob again.

Donna turns to her husband, who looks as alarmed as she is. “What’s wrong with her?” Donna asks. She whispers, “Do you think she’s taking drugs?”

They reluctantly move away from the bedroom door and make their way to the kitchen. Jim answers, “I don’t know. Do you?”

“I don’t know,” Donna says. “I noticed yesterday that her eyes seemed glazed. She seems excitable, moody, different. She’s a nurse, she has access to drugs.”

“You don’t have to be a nurse to get drugs,” Jim says worriedly. “They’re everywhere.”

“Maybe she needs help. She’s not handling Bryden’s death well. None of us are.”

“Is there a way to handle it well?” he asks brokenly. “How does anyone handle something like this?”