Instead, she found her normally calm, composed neighbor careening across the kitchen with a rolled-upWashington Postin her hand, frantically whacking the countertops while emitting little screams.
Piper crossed the room in two strides and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Kiersten. What’s wrong?”
Kiersten’s gaze ricocheted around the room. “The cockroaches. They’reeverywhere.”
Piper released her shoulders and stepped backward. “Cockroaches?”
Then she went silent as her ears tuned to a soft hissing sound. “What’s that ... noise?”
Kiersten swallowed. “It’sthem.”
Dear God.
Piper grabbed a Sharper Image catalog from the pile of junk mail on the kitchen counter and rolled it into an impromptu cudgel. A giant bug skittered across the kitchen island, and she brought the magazine down with a sharp thwap.
Kiersten dropped to her knees and did the same, whacking and slapping at gigantic cockroaches as they skittered across the floor.
For a solid twenty minutes the kitchen rang out with the smack of rolled-up reading material and small shrieks as they systematically killed every cockroach they could see. The hissing eventually faded to silence as they stared at each other with wild eyes, surrounded by the carcasses of dead insects.
Chapter Sixty-Three
Kiersten
Kiersten sank down on the family room couch with a box of Keebler Fudge Stripes cookies and shoved one into her mouth.
She’d been so good since she started running with Reggie. She’d lost six pounds since they started the Experiment, and she could now button the jeans she’d worn to chaperone one of Matthew’s field trips when he was infifthgrade.
But the cockroaches ... she shuddered and stuffed another cookie into her mouth. Her body screamed for sugar as her mind tried to block out the hissing ... the legs ... the antennae.
A new shudder convulsed her body as she watched Piper use a piece of cardboard to heroically collect each carcass, slide it back inside the cardboard tube, insert it into the box, and seal the whole thing shut with packing tape.
Only a true friend would gathercockroach cadaversin your kitchen and then dispose of them. She said a silent prayer of gratitude for Piper and the random forces that had brought them together.
After carrying the box out to the curb, Piper sank down on the couch beside her. “I’m so sorry about all this.”
“Sorry?” Kiersten blinked. “How could Madagascar hissing cockroaches possibly be your fault?”
That’s what the packing label inside the box said.Live Madagascar Hissing Cockroachesfrom the Happy Valley Farm Pet Supply Store.
Piper pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “It’s Hawkeye Slaughter. My stalker. He’s disappeared and joined some kind of antigovernment militia group.”
“Is this the guy you told me about before?”
“Yes.”
“I still don’t see how this is your fault.”
Piper ran a hand through her hair. “Hawkeye obviously intended to send those cockroaches to my house, and they were delivered to your house by mistake. He sent me worms, too, remember?”
Kiersten shook her head. “But this box had my address. And my name.”
Piper frowned. “That’s weird.”
“Maybe someone with a similar name and address has an exotic pet? And they’re ordering these things for their gecko or something? And they sent them to me by accident?” Kiersten asked hopefully.
Because surely that was a more plausible explanation than a crazy member of an antigovernment militia with a grudge sending hissing cockroaches to Piper’s neighboron purpose?
This wasn’t a John Grisham novel, after all. Or an episode ofOzark. This was a nice, quiet neighborhood in the Washington, DC, suburbs.
