Most Likely To Die

Prologue

St. Valentine’s Day Dance 1986

St. Elizabeth’s High School

Portland, Oregon

What the hell does she want from me?

Jake Marcott hated to think what her plans might be. Standing in the near-freezing night air, he braced himself for whatever demands she was certain to make.

Bitch!

He didn’t know whether he loved her or hated her.

Probably both.

He lit a cigarette with shaky fingers, a residual effect from the car accident that had left his best friend dead and nearly taken his own life.

Ian.

God, he missed that crazy son of a bitch. Things would have turned out so differently if Ian hadn’t been thrown through the windshield. If his goddamned neck hadn’t been broken. Shit! The crash and spray of glass, the screech of tires, the groan of metal twisting and splitting still echoed through Jake’s brain. Ian’s face, freckled from too much sun, floated into Jake’s mind for just a second before Jake pushed it quickly away. Too many times he’d wondered what would have happened if the tables had been turned, if Ian were still alive and he had been the one to die.

It messed him up to think about it.

Everything seemed washed out and pale now…the joy bled from it.

He drew hard on his cigarette and thought about the tranquilizers in his pocket: the prescription that Doc Flanders just kept refilling, barely asking any questions, somehow knowing how deep Jake’s pain was, that the little white tablets were a nearly useless balm for the ache splitting his soul.

Get over it, Marcott, he told himself and was pissed that he was here in his damned tuxedo, missing the dance and waiting for her. When would he ever learn?

Clearing his throat, he looked around at this, the eeriest part of St. Elizabeth’s campus.

Why this lame, clandestine meeting?

Because she’s a psycho. You know it. You’ve always known it.

Jake took a drag from his cigarette and let smoke stream from his nostrils in the cold night air. He shoved a hand through his hair and glared up at the night-dark heavens. A few stars were visible, not that he cared. He was sick of dealing with the fallout from the accident, his woman problems, and the whole damned world. Eighteen fucking years old and he sometimes felt that his life was a waste.

So where was she?

He glanced around and wondered if she’d show.

Tired of waiting, he tossed what was left of his Marlboro into the darkness, watching the red ember arc, then sizzle and die on the frosty grass. He glanced up at the full moon hanging low in the sky and heard the thrum of a bass guitar throb through the hills. Edgy, his nerves strung tight as the piano wires inside his grandmother’s old upright, he paced back and forth in front of the oak tree just as he’d been told. Hidden deep in the maze of hedges, the leafless oak seemed to shiver in the wind, brittle branches reaching upward like skeletal arms scraping the sky.

From deep in the maze he was invisible to anyone. Even a crafty old nun peering out of her third-story window in the hundred-year-old brick building guarding the acres of this campus couldn’t see him here.

The place gave him a bad case of the creeps. Throughout the rounded corners and dead ends of the lush labyrinth, benches, fountains, and statues had been placed. Beneath the oak a sculpture of the Madonna stared down beneficently. Arms upraised, she stood silent, white as bleached bones, and surrounded by topiary cut into the shapes of dark creatures that, tonight, seemed sculpted by the devil.

Oh, for Christ’s sake, it’s just plants, Marcott. Nothin’ more.

Angrier by the minute, he glanced at the digital readout of his watch.

She was late. Nearly ten minutes late. So he’d give her another five and then he was gone…a ghost.

Besides, he had more important things to do than to waste time on her.

Snap!

He whipped around, toward the sound of a twig breaking.

He saw no one.

“Hey, I’m here,” he said in his normal voice.

Nothing…no response, just the faraway thrum of music and laughter and the soft whisper of the wind.

A stealthy footstep.

The hairs on his nape lifted.

Surely it was she.

Right?

“’Bout time you showed up,” he said to the inky darkness, his heart pounding a little.

“I was about to give up on you.”

Again, she didn’t say a word.

Christ, what was the problem with her?

Always playing these damn head games.

At that thought, he smiled…maybe that’s what she wanted. For him to chase her down. Find her in this maze of clipped shrubbery.

He heard the sound of a footstep again. Closer now. And something else…breathing.

Oh, she was close…

“I know you’re there,” he whispered.

He couldn’t help the smile that threatened his lips.

Still, she didn’t respond.

All the better.

“Have it your way,” he said. “I’ll find you.”

His eyes narrowed in the night and he noticed a dark shape move a bit…away from the twisted shadows of the topiary only to fade away again.

So this is what she wanted.

A thrill of anticipation sang through his brain. His blood heated.

Jake Marcott could never back away from a challenge.

Where the hell is Jake?

He’d been gone for over ten minutes, and Kristen had the first worrisome sensation that she’d been ditched. At the high-school dance. By her new boyfriend. On the two-month anniversary of when they’d started dating. It was like the lyrics of some bad 1950s song.

Don’t panic, he said he’d be right back. Just find him, she told herself.

Jake was easy to spot. At six-four, he stood half a head taller than most of the boys and a foot above a lot of the girls, so why couldn’t she spot him? “Where are you, Jake?” she muttered to herself. Tall and lean, with wide shoulders, thick brown hair, and an almost shy smile that had caused many a girl’s heart to beat triple time, Jake Marcott was definitely a hunk.

Kristen scanned the packed gym, her gaze skating over the knots of students clustered in the corners and crannies of the old gym. A few couples were dancing beneath a canopy of twinkling lights strung from the ancient rafters. Music thrummed, drowning out most conversation, and a fog machine, supplied by the DJ, gave the old building a creepy, intimate ambience. It was late, nearly eleven, and most of the guys had ditched their ties and jackets, but the girls were still dressed in gowns of silk, satin, lace, and chiffon, some sophisticated and sleek, some outrageously frilly, but all far more interesting than the stupid uniforms they wore daily to this, the last all-girls Catholic school in Portland.

Next year St. Lizzy’s, the final bastion of separation and education by sex, would, like its brother and sister schools, fall to the sword of coed classes, a nonuniform dress code, and more lay teachers than nuns. Kristen’s senior class was, thankfully, the last of its traditional, and in Kristen’s estimation, archaic kind. There was even talk of updating the social curriculum enough that the St. Valentine’s Day dance wouldn’t be held in the creaky old gym where it had been for nearly seventy years, but could conceivably be hosted someplace way cooler, like the Portland Art Museum or on one of the old stern-wheelers that churned their way up and down the Willamette River, or one of the turn-of-the-century hotel ballrooms around Portland-anywhere but in this dingy, old gymnasium.

“Hey! Kris!” a female voice yelled over the din, just as a song ended.

Kristen turned to spy Mandy Kim, her jet-black hair coiled high onto her head, hurrying through the throng. Petite and athletic, she was weaving her way toward her through the knots of couples. Inwardly Kristen groaned. Mandy was one of those friends who were quick to point out any flaw in others. An A student who was captain of the soccer team, president of the Honor Society, and had already been accepted by Stanford, Mandy could be a real pain. Tonight she was dressed in a sleek black gown that exposed enough of her back to give Sister Mary Michael conniptions. “Where’s Jake?”

If only I knew. “Outside, I think,” she said, noticing that Mandy’s date, a tall, handsome Asian kid with a stare so unblinking Kristen was certain he was wearing contacts, stood right behind Mandy, looking over her head, one hand cupped over her shoulder as if he were navigating her.

“Oh.” Mandy turned her head to look up at her date. “You know Boyd.”

“Yeah. Hi.”

Boyd mumbled a greeting, but his attention seemed keyed on the spot where the tips of his fingers scraped the smooth skin of Mandy’s nape. His last name was Song and he was forever getting teased about his name…Boyd Song, or Bird Song, Birdie, and finally Big Bird.

“Maybe Jake’s with Nick or Dean,” Mandy went on, mentioning Jake’s two best friends who also attended Western Catholic, an all-boys school and the counterpart to St. Elizabeth’s. “You know, I saw them all talking a while ago, near the back doors.” She leaned closer, as if to whisper the darkest of secrets. “Hey, did you see who Bella brought?” Mandy’s dark eyes deepened. “Wyatt Goddard! Remember? He’s been kicked out of about a million schools, including St. Ignatius and Western. Goes to Washington now and Boyd says he’s been suspended twice this year. Twice.” She said it in disbelief, and yet there was the tiniest trace of admiration in her voice for something that frightened but fascinated her. Boyd nodded. “I’m surprised he was allowed into the dance,” Mandy went on conspiratorially. “What’s Bella thinking?”

Who cares? Kristen thought, but kept her opinion to herself, her eyes searching the crowd for any sign of Jake while Mandy rambled on and on about the couples on the dance floor.

Kristen just needed to find Jake.

Boyd kept rubbing Mandy’s shoulder, gently kneading her skin. Obviously he was hoping to turn her on as, no doubt, he was getting off on the simple touch. Mandy didn’t act as if she noticed. “So Jake just took off? I wonder if he was looking for Lindsay…I saw them talking a while ago, out in the hallway,” she said, motioning to the gym’s wide double doors that were surrounded by red and white helium-filled balloons and had been forced open.

“I think he wanted to smoke. Outside.”

Mandy’s eyebrows lifted and there was a bit of a gleam to her gaze, the barest of a disbelieving smile touching her glossed lips. “Sure.”

Boyd kept on rubbing, his eyes even more glazed. Geez, he was really into it. Kristen didn’t dare let her eyes drop for fear she might see evidence of his enjoyment pressing hard against his rented tuxedo pants.

The disc jockey spun “What’s Love Got to Do With It” by Tina Turner, and Mandy, grabbing Boyd’s hand and breaking his trance, headed for the dance floor.

Kristen was gratefully alone again.

And still no sign of Jake.

Well, crap. Jake had been gone the better part of half an hour and Kristen wasn’t the type of girl to stand in a corner and wait. She tried to fight the paranoia that he’d taken off on her, that he’d either hooked up with his ex-girlfriend Lindsay or that he’d ditched her for a chance to get high with his friends.

No way.

Forcing a smile she didn’t feel, she eased her way through the tangle of students, recognizing familiar faces, seeing a few new ones but unable in the semidark room to discern who went to St. Elizabeth’s, Western Catholic, or Washington. Nor did she care.

She walked past a chaperone in a pink suit and stepped into the cold night through an exterior door.

Lindsay Farrell, her dark hair twisted atop her head, her face seeming wan in the bluish illumination from a security lamp mounted high overhead, nearly ran into Kristen. “Oh, sorry,” she whispered and then, recognizing her friend, stopped short. Lindsay’s ice blue dress was sleeveless, her arms bare, and she crossed them over her chest, warding off the chill of winter. “It’s freezing out here,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “Let’s go inside.”

“I’m looking for Jake.”

“Oh.” Lindsay’s mouth puckered into a little frown and the air was suddenly charged with unspoken recriminations. Kristen suspected that Lindsay still loved Jake; the reason for their breakup was still a deep secret.

“Have you seen him?”

“Me? No. I mean, not for a while…” Lindsay’s voice trailed off and she edged toward the open doors.

“Earlier?”

“Yeah, with you.”

“Where’s Dean?” Kristen asked, the bad feeling that had started in her gut growing deeper.

“Dean and Nick went to check out Chad Belmont’s new car.” Lindsay shivered and cast a glance up at the moon, which was shining like an icy disc in the sky. “Kind of a weird night, huh?”

Really weird, Kristen thought. No one in her small circle of friends seemed to be with her date. Isn’t that what the Valentine’s Day dance was all about? Being together? Being in love? Or was she kidding herself? Was she just a stupid, hopeless romantic? Why would one night be any different than any other?

Or was it a night when Jake was having second thoughts? Thoughts about hooking up with his old girlfriend, the one he really did love?

But Lindsay was here, without Jake, wan and tense, acting as if she couldn’t wait to disappear. Kristen tried to shake off her worries. Even though Jake and Lindsay had been broken up before Christmas, Kristen still felt a little strange dating him. Her relationship with Lindsay had definitely suffered because of it. “Look, Linds, if this is uncomfortable for you-”

“What?”

“I mean, me being with Jake.”

Lindsay scanned the area. “Are you? With him?” she asked, then shook her head impatiently as Kristen’s face reddened. “Look, I don’t have time for this.” She hurried away, silk skirts rustling, heading inside.

Fighting back a burning guilt, Kristen turned toward the parking lot. She was pretty sure she loved Jake, and that made it okay. And Jake hadn’t left her. He was here, somewhere, probably with Dean and Nick checking out Chad’s new car. Or he could be drinking stolen beers with them…or…Her gaze skated to the maze behind the cloister, those imposing, thick, impenetrable hedgerows planted in an intricate pattern.

She felt something. A warning. A tiny shift in the atmosphere that caused her scalp to prickle.

Suddenly she was sure something horrible was about to happen.

Lindsay barely made it to the bathroom. She flew past two girls adding layers of gloss to their lips, stepped into the stall, and ralphed up all of the contents of her stomach into the toilet.

“Oooh…yuck…” one of the girls said and they both hurried out, muttering about people who shouldn’t drink.

As the bathroom door banged shut behind them, sweat broke out on Lindsay’s forehead. Her mouth tasted foul, but once she’d retched, she felt immediate relief. Just as all the pamphlets had told her she would.

How she wished her sickness were the result of alcohol!

Oh, Lord, how am I ever going to get through this? she wondered desperately.

One day at a time.

She placed a hand over her flat abdomen and thought about the child growing inside her. All because of one night. One stupid night. How had she been so foolish? What had she been thinking? She, an A student who knew all about the facts of life. Then one night, because she was feeling down, she’d tossed away all of her values and dreams for one evening of passion.

She closed her eyes and drew in a shaky breath. Breathing deeply, she made her way out of the stall. Stumbling to the sink, she splashed cold water over her face. Too bad about her make-up, too bad about college, too bad about the rest of her life. You’re going to be a mother. Alone in the bathroom, she leaned her head against the cool tiles covering the wall.

So how was she going to tell her parents? Her mother would be heartbroken, her father bitterly disappointed that his only daughter had gotten herself “knocked up.” How could she explain it to anyone? She barely understood it herself.

Slowly, she released a tense breath.

She couldn’t cower in the restroom all night. She had to go out and face the truth. No more time for pretend. This was real. She looked at her reflection. Dark hair coiled onto her head, sleek blue dress showing off her figure, and an antique diamond necklace her grandmother had bequeathed her-the princess, heiress to the Farrell Timber fortune.

And pregnant.

Wouldn’t Nana be proud?

Well, there was more to her than Barbie Doll looks.

It was time to face the damned music.

She had to talk to Jake.

Squaring her shoulders, uncaring that some of her hair had fallen free of the plastered curls, mindless of the fact that her face was nearly devoid of any residual make-up, she hurried outside and into the night.

She’d lied to Kristen a few moments before.

She knew exactly where Jake was.

It was time for a showdown.

Eric Connolly was a boob. An idiot. A cretin! No two ways about it, and Rachel was stuck with him, at least for the remainder of the night. She watched as he, thinking he was so funny, poured a little gin into a cup of punch before taking it over to Sister Clarice…oh, Jesus.

Save me, Rachel thought, heading in the opposite direction. She needed some air, some space, and the appearance of not being with Eric when Sister Clarice took a sip, recognized the taste and smell, then grabbed Eric by the back of his scrawny neck and called his folks…as well as hers.

Rachel inwardly groaned and glanced at the doors leading to the back parking lot. She’d seen Jake Marcott walk through them not ten minutes ago and he hadn’t returned. His date, Kristen, was standing on the edge of the crowd, alternately checking the doors and scanning the dance floor as if she were looking for him, as if he’d ditched her. But Lindsay Farrell had gone outside along with a few other kids. Rachel had seen Jake’s sister Bella and Wyatt Goddard slide outside. Nick and Dean, Jake’s friends, had exited earlier, and now dateless Aurora Zephyr had wandered outside behind DeLynn Vaughn and Laura Triant.

It was almost as if the party was moving outside.

She bit her lip and thought of Jake. What was he doing? Her heart ached a bit and she reminded herself she was here with Eric the Clown.

Sure, Eric was cute.

Even funny.

But he was just so over the top. So stuck on himself.

She glanced around again and noticed Haylie Swanson bearing down on her.

Oh, God, not now.

Haylie was still in major bereavement mode: black dress; black hair ribbons; black armband; sad, sad eyes. Ever since Ian had died, she’d worn her grief like a noble mantle. But, Rachel knew, hidden in the folds of Haylie’s sorrow was a slow, burning, and intense anger, a hatred for the boy who had escaped injury while Ian had given up his life.

Rachel wanted to avoid Haylie, but there was no hope for it.

“I thought I saw you over here,” Haylie said, not cracking a smile, her lips painted a dark purple, as if she were some kind of wannabe Goth.

“Hi.”

“You with Eric?” Haylie wrinkled her nose a bit.

“Umm-hmm.”

“Why?”

“What?”

“Why did you invite him? He’s sooo immature.”

Rachel lifted a shoulder. Didn’t want to be part of this conversation even though Haylie was only echoing her own thoughts.

“You would have been better off to come alone. Since that bastard already has a date.”

“That bastard?” Rachel repeated.

Haylie’s gaze skewered her. “I know you’re in love with Jake,” she said, little white lines of fury creasing around a mouth the color of bing cherries. “God, Rach, you wear your heart on your sleeve. Everyone knows.”

Rachel cringed. How could anyone know, much less every- one? Hadn’t she hidden her feelings for him? She thought of Lindsay and Kristen, her two best friends who had both already dated and professed their love for Jake. Did they know? Oh, God, this was terrible. Mortified, she felt herself blush a deep, incriminating red.

One of Haylie’s eyebrows raised a fraction. She was satisfied by Rachel’s reaction…so she’d been guessing about Jake. Haylie didn’t know anything. Nor did anyone else. Haylie had just made a wild stab and had come up with a bull’s-eye!

Leaning closer, a slight gleam in those night-dark pupils, Haylie said, “It’s just such a waste, Rachel, because he’s a loser. A murderer. He killed I an, y’know.”

Oh, Rachel knew. The whole county knew. Haylie made it her mission to make certain that every living soul in the greater Portland area was aware that Jake Marcott had literally gotten away with murder.

“Not now, Haylie,” Rachel said.

“Then when? When is he going to pay?”

“The police don’t think there was foul play.”

“The police are idiots! They’ve covered it up.” Haylie was nodding now, agreeing with herself. Thankfully the music was loud enough that no one else heard.

“Why would they bother?”

“Because they just don’t give a damn.”

At that moment Eric returned, smelling of marijuana. Haylie cast Rachel a withering glance as she sniffed loudly, whether to indicate she’d smelled the sweet scent of the wicked weed or because she was into her near-tears act again, Rachel didn’t know.

Rachel felt bad about Ian. Everyone did. Especially Jake. But Ian was gone and there was no bringing him back. No amount of accusations, railing at the gods, praying to Jesus, or crying and wringing of hands could return Ian to this earth. There had been memorials, services, and dozens upon dozens of flowers and candles left at the corner where the accident had taken place. Rachel and her classmates had cried buckets of tears, said hourly rosaries, and prayed for Ian and his family. It was sad. Tragic. Horrible. But in Rachel’s estimation, there was no conspiracy. It was just an awful accident that would hopefully help everyone learn not to drink and drive.

Ian had been behind the wheel. Like Jake, he’d not been wearing a seat belt. His blood alcohol level had been in the stratosphere and there had been traces of prescription drugs in his blood as well. He’d taken a corner much too fast and paid the ultimate price. Both boys had been thrown from the car; Jake had ended up in intensive care with broken ribs, a fractured shoulder, concussion, and ruptured spleen. But he’d survived. To live with the guilt of knowing somehow he’d been spared.

Everyone mourned Ian Powers, but Haylie’s grief had turned to bitter anger. She claimed that Jake, not Ian, had been behind the wheel of Ian’s car.

Haylie checked her watch, sent Rachel a final knowing glance, then turned and headed toward the back of the gym.

“Head case,” Eric observed as the song ended and he spied Sister Clarice bearing down on him. “Crap!” His gaze darted around the gym. “Look, Rach, I’ll be right back. I’ve, uh, got to go to the john,” he said and half jogged through the crowd, trying to lose himself as the nun, like a patient lion stalking prey, slowly but surely followed after him.

Rachel wanted to melt into the floor. Since that was impossible, she turned and headed outside as another song, Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark,” trailed after her into the cold winter night.

She should just call it a night. Make some lame excuse to Eric and find a ride home. Instead, she kept walking, searching the area for Jake.

Geez, how dumb is that? Ditch your date and go looking for a boy who doesn’t see you as a girl, only as a “friend” he can use?

A few kids were scattered in the shadows, hidden from the eyes of the chaperones inside. Some were smoking, others drinking, others making out. But nowhere did she see Jake.

Don’t try to find him, Rachel, that’s a huge mistake. Huge.

She ignored the warnings running through her mind and let her gaze skate away from the few kids hiding for whatever reasons.

Keeping to the shadows, she walked around the corner of the cloister to the gardens, where a hundred-year-old maze of laurel, photinïa, and arborvitae crowded the dark sky and hid the moon.

It was a place to hide.

A place to avoid the people she didn’t want to see.

A place to figure out how to find her pride.

Coward, she thought, but wasn’t about to risk her shot at a scholarship and graduating with honors because of that dweeb Eric. God, why had she been so foolish, so damned desperate for a date, to invite him? She’d known enough about Eric to realize he relished his role of class clown at Washington High and yet, determined to go with a date, she’d invited the oaf to the dance. Now she was embarrassed as hell. It would have been better to come single. For the love of God, she should have known better. She was a levelheaded girl, the daughter of a cop, for God’s sake, and if not a straight-A student, then consistently on the honor roll.

But in her own way, she was as much of a moron as Eric.

Because of Jake.

Always Jake.

Though no one knew it. She fingered the locket at her throat, the one she always wore, the one no one had ever guessed held not only tiny pictures of her mother and father, now divorced, but of Jake as well…hidden behind the little heart cutout of her father.

And Jake, she knew, didn’t even know she was alive.

How long had she been in love with him? Three years? Four? Since eighth grade at St. Madeline’s?

She’d dreamed of him and told no one about her secret fantasies, not even her best friends, Kristen and Lindsay. Because she couldn’t. Lindsay had dated Jake for two years and once they’d broken up, he’d turned to Kristen, never once looking at Rachel, his friend, the girl who tutored him when he was failing. The girl who befriended his younger sister, Bella. The girl who took care of his dog when he went hunting. Good old reliable Rachel, who had covered for him when he’d been in the accident over Christmas vacation that had ended Ian Powers’s life.

She hadn’t really lied to anyone. Not really. She just hadn’t admitted to seeing Jake earlier that night.

You’re a fool, Rachel, she told herself as she marched toward the maze, a great place to hide, a spot where neither Eric Connolly nor anyone else who mattered would find her.

Kicking off her high heels, she sighed. She’d never had much use for killer shoes, and she didn’t care that the hem of her dress was dragging along the grass. Too bad. Her mother would be furious, of course; though the dress was a hand-me-down, it was still good and could be used again.

Tough!

What she wouldn’t give for her sweats and running shoes. She would be so out of here!

And go where, Rach?

She heard her mother’s tired voice as if the woman were walking right next to her instead of pulling a double shift at a local diner.

You can’t run from your problems.

Rachel turned into the maze, past a statue of the Madonna with her arms stretched and palms turned upward, as if to cradle the next poor soul to pass.

Rachel kept right on walking.

She had to think ahead. Of her future. One definitely without Jake. She had big plans. And nothing, not even her feelings for Jake, was going to stop her.

Kristen headed toward the center of St. Elizabeth’s campus, the garden area where a deep, frigid labyrinth of trimmed laurel hedges, pruned trees, benches, and statues separated the school grounds from the convent and chapel where the nuns lived and prayed. Fog was beginning to rise, causing the light from the moon to reflect oddly, as if the silvery orb were fuzzy with some otherworldly halo.

The temperature dropped.

The wind picked up.

Kristen’s skin crawled as she passed the weird gargoyles of the topiary and the walls of foliage. Her premonition about something bad about to happen hadn’t left her. She turned a corner and darkness suddenly consumed her as she met a dead end. Far in the distance, the music stopped, the background noise of drums and guitars fading into silence.

Where was she going?

Why was she exploring this maze tonight?

She heard a footstep behind her.

She wasn’t alone.

Her heart trip-hammered.

Ffftttt!

Something sizzled through the night.

And then a gasp, a strangled cry, like a wounded animal, a gurgling, primal groan.

She jumped backward.

What the hell was that?

Her blood turned to ice. She started running along the grassy pathways, guided by the eerie light of the moon. Her high heels fell off, but she raced barefoot, barreling down blind alleys, bouncing off prickly bushes. Don’t panic! Don’t panic! Don’t panic!

But she was already frantic, leaves and branches tearing at her arms, her hair falling around her face, her heart pounding out a terrified cadence.

Where was the sound coming from?

She careened around another sharp corner, stubbed her toe on the end of a bench, and yelped as she hurtled through the maze. It was too dark to see the lights from the school-the hedge was too high to peer over-but she kept running. In circles? Toward the center of the labyrinth? Or out of the damned maze?

Blood was oozing from her toe, through the ripped nylon of her panty hose.

Run! Run! Run! Get help!

She tore around a sharp corner just as a scream of pure terror ripped through the shivering shrubbery.

Her heart froze.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, her stomach wrenching.

In the weird moon glow she spied Jake Marcott, his body pinned to the trunk of the gnarled oak at the very center of the maze. His face was white, his eyes wide. A crimson stain covered the ruffled shirt of his tux, a thick arrow at its center. Blood dripped from the corners of Jake’s mouth and his head hung forward at an impossible angle, his dead eyes wide and staring.

Kristen took a step forward. This was a joke…a sick, awful, twisted joke. Jake couldn’t be…he wasn’t…“Oh, no…oh, no…”

Lindsay Farrell, her hands covered in blood, her dress splattered and stained, was crumpled at Jake’s feet. Her hair had fallen out of its pins, the long, dark coils curling at her bare shoulders. She lifted her head, her eyes filled with tears that streaked her face with black mascara.

“Why?” she cried as the sounds of shouts and frantic, thundering feet echoed through Kristen’s brain.

Help is coming. Maybe it isn’t too late. Maybe Jake can be saved! Maybe he isn’t dead yet!

She started to run to him, but Lindsay, her face twisted in fury, forced herself clumsily to her feet and barred her path.

“Why, Kristen?” Lindsay demanded again, her voice a razor-sharp whisper, her face twisted in fury and pain. “Why did you kill him?”

Chapter 1

Portland, Oregon, March 2006

“So, I’m stuck, is that what you’re saying?” Kristen balanced her cell phone between her ear and shoulder as she leaned back in her desk chair and felt a headache coming on. Though time was definitely running out, she’d held out hope that her friend Aurora had found someone else to be in charge of the damned twenty-year reunion. “No one’s willing to take over the job?”

“You were the valedictorian. If you didn’t want to head up the reunion, you should have gotten at least one B, okay? Like in PE or calculus or something.” Aurora Zephyr laughed at her own joke and Kristen imagined her toothy smile and knowing hazel eyes. Aurora was the one student at St. Elizabeth’s that she’d really kept up with over the years.

“If I’d known this was coming up, I would have.”

“Fat chance. Now give up the whole glass-is-half-empty thing. It’s going to be fun.”

“Yeah, right.”

“What’s got into you? There was a time when you knew how to have a good time. Remember?”

“Good time…” Kristen murmured skeptically.

“You’re just going to organize a big party for kids you knew way back when. Get into it, would ya?”

Kristen sighed and leaned toward her desk. “It’s just that I’ve tried to avoid anything to do with St. Elizabeth’s.”

“I know. Because of Jake. We all feel that way. But it’s been twenty years, for God’s sake. Time to get over it. Bury the past and lighten up.”

“I can try.”

“Hallelujah and amen, sister,” Aurora said and Kristen smiled.

“I’ve already rounded up quite a few volunteers,” Aurora added. “Remember Haylie Swanson?”

That psycho who believed that Jake killed Ian Powers? She wasn’t likely to forget. “She’ll be there?”

“Yep. And Mandy Kim. Her last name is Stulz now.”

Mandy Kim. Another girl Kristen hadn’t trusted in high school.

“We’ve got a few others who will show up. I just told everyone to spread the word. The more people involved, the better. I even called Lindsay Farrell and Rachel Alsace, but they both live too far away to help out.”

“I know.” Kristen still received annual newsy Christmas cards from the women who were supposed to have been her best friends.

“Lindsay’s some hotshot event planner in New York and Rachel’s…geez, wait a minute…I know this…”

“She’s in Alabama. A cop.”

“That’s right,” Aurora agreed slowly. “Like her old man. He was with the Portland Police Department for years.”

Kristen felt the muscles in the back of her neck tense. Mac Alsace had been one of the detectives who had worked on the Jake Marcott murder. Despite his and the Portland Police Department’s best efforts, the “Cupid Killer” case had ultimately gone cold. Kristen had heard that Detective Alsace’s inability to solve the murder of his kid’s friend had driven him to an early retirement.

Jake Marcott’s ghost haunted them all.

Kristen hadn’t seen either Lindsay or Rachel since graduation. She remembered them in their caps and gowns, all surface smiles and unexplained tears. The day had been warm for June; Kristen had sweated as she waited to give her valedictorian speech and later, accepted her diploma from Sister Neva, the Reverend Mother. After the ceremony, she’d found Lindsay and Rachel. They’d hugged, posed for pictures, and sworn to keep in touch, but they hadn’t. Not in that first summer before college, not afterward.

Because of Jake.

So many things had changed, because of Jake.

Kristen leaned forward in her chair to watch the aquarium screen saver on her computer monitor where an angelfish was being chased through lengths of sea grass by a darting neon tetra. “Aurora, you should be running this reunion, not me.”

“No way. You’re not weaseling out of it! I figured I could jump-start it for you, but the reunion is your baby.”

“Fine,” Kristen capitulated. “Why not? Believe it or not, I’ve done some work. I’ve got a couple of places who will cater, if we really elect to have it at St. Elizabeth’s.”

“It’s perfect. We were the last all-girls class to graduate and now the school is closing. It would be weird to hold it anywhere else. I did a quick poll of the first few classmates I contacted and the general consensus is to hold the reunion at the school.”

“If you say so.”

“Good. I’m sending you an e-mail with an attachment. It’s everything I’ve done to date. From there on in, you’re in charge. See you in a couple of hours.”

“You got it.”

Kristen hung up, popped a couple of aspirin for the impending headache, then buried herself in her work, effectively putting anything to do with St. Elizabeth’s out of her head as she polished a human interest story about a man and dog who had spent a year walking from Missouri to Oregon via the Oregon Trail. Once she’d e-mailed the story to her editor, she glanced up from her cubicle. The Elvis clock mounted on the temporary wall over her desk swivelled its hips. As the clock kept time, the King’s hands moved around the old-fashioned dial. Right now, Elvis was pointing out that it was nearly six and Kristen, as usual, was running late. She checked her e-mail, found the note from Aurora, and printed out an Excel file which contained more information than she’d ever want on her classmates.

Slinging her purse strap over her shoulder, Kristen stood up and stretched. She’d been allotted this cubicle while one of the newspaper’s more roomy offices was being remodeled. She’d been with the Portland Clarion for fifteen years, long enough to actually warrant an office-a dubious honor given that it felt as if the “higher-ups” scarcely noticed her.

“I’m outta here.” Kristen closed her laptop, placing it and her Excel printout inside her computer briefcase.

“Big date tonight?” Sabrina Lacey asked, two cubicles over, as she tossed back the remainder of her double espresso, then crumpled the paper cup in her long fingers and discarded the remains into her wastebasket.

“Yeah, right.” Kristen scrounged in her purse for her keys and, once the huge ring was found, headed for the door. Sabrina joined her as she wended her way through the labyrinthine desks, tables, and chairs of the Clarion’s newsroom. It had been her first job out of college, the one she thought she’d use as a stepping stone to bigger and brighter newspapers. Though her position had changed over the years-stretching, evolving, mutating-it said something she wasn’t sure she wanted to examine that she was still here.

“You should go out,” Sabrina, all big brown eyes, cornrows, and metal jewelry, insisted. “Find a guy. Have some fun.”

“I’m married, remember?”

“You’re separated, have been for a year, and last I heard, you were going to divorce Ross’s ass.” Sabrina arched a perfect eyebrow.

“I know, I know. It’s just hard.”

“Nuh-uh. I’ve done it three times.”

“Maybe it’ll get easier after the first one.”

“You’ll never know unless you try.” Sabrina stopped at the hallway leading to the restrooms.

“I’ve got a kid,” Kristen reminded her.

“Who’s nearly grown.”

Kristen snorted. “Sixteen does not an adult make.”’

“You tell her that?”

“Every day. Besides, I do happen to have a date tonight, only it’s with half a dozen women I haven’t seen in twenty years. I got drafted into heading the damned high-school reunion.”

“No way.”

“Drafted,” Kristen stressed. “I didn’t volunteer.”

Sabrina wrinkled her long nose. “Can’t you go AWOL?”

“I’m hoping to pawn the duties off on someone more deserving tonight.”

“Good luck.” Sabrina laughed and moseyed down the hall.

Kristen shoved open the glass doors of the newspaper offices and a blast of frigid air, smelling of the river and exhaust, rolled toward her. Dark clouds gathered over the spires of Portland’s highest buildings, and as she hurried the two blocks to the parking lot where her beat-up Honda was waiting, the sky opened up. Flipping up the hood of her jacket, Kristen made a mad dash to her Honda. The car looked as tired as she felt, and the fun was just beginning.

Kristen shook her head in disbelief. For her, high school had ended that night at the Valentine’s Day dance. The remainder of the school year had been a blur that hadn’t become clearer with time. But, apparently, one of the perks of being valedictorian of the class was that she got to organize the class reunion.

She’d managed to duck this responsibility for nearly twenty years, but no more. Aurora was making certain that this anniversary of the graduating class of ’86 would be celebrated.

The only good news was the hope that she could pass the baton for the next reunion. If there was one…

Sliding behind the wheel, she rummaged in her purse for her cell phone. Starting the Honda with one hand, she speed dialed her home number with the other. On the second ring, as she turned on the wipers, her answering machine clicked on. “Lissa?” she said as soon as the recorded message beeped at her. “If you’re there, answer, okay?” A pause. Nothing. “Lissa, are you home?” But there was no breathless response; no sound of her daughter’s voice. Obviously she wasn’t home. “Listen, if you get this, call me back. I should be home in twenty minutes.” She clicked off, punched in the number of her daughter’s cell phone, and heard, “Hi, this is Lissa. You know what to do. Leave your number and, if you’re lucky, I’ll call you back.”

Kristen hung up. Her daughter was undoubtedly screening her calls. Caller ID could be such a pain. “Great,” she muttered under her breath as she nosed her car out of the lot and settled into the slow flow of traffic that oozed out of the downtown area. She was ticked that her daughter wasn’t home. Didn’t that kid know what “You’re grounded” meant? Hopefully, Lissa would show up before Kristen had to leave again, in what? Less than an hour? “Save me,” she whispered, thinking of the evening to come and the first of what would probably be a dozen meetings of the reunion committee.

Never reaching a speed even close to twenty miles an hour, Kristen edged west onto Canyon Drive, which sliced through the steep, forested cliffs of the West Hills. Her route cut under the Vista Avenue Viaduct, more commonly referred to as the Suicide Bridge, and each time she passed under that arching eighty-year-old stone span, she thought of those who had leapt to their deaths on the very pavement on which she was driving. Shuddering, she watched the fat drops of rain drizzling down her windshield as she reached the turnoff leading to her house. She punched the accelerator and her little car climbed up the hill, along an impossibly winding side road that snaked through the stand of Douglas fir trees to the crest and the tiny dead-end lane that stopped at her house, a cedar-and-glass “Northwest Contemporary” that had been built in the 1970s and boasted a panoramic view of the city far below.

Tonight she would have loved to throw on her most comfortable sweats, light the fire, and curl up by the windows with a good book. The last thing she wanted was to leave home again to deal with some of her ex-classmates. She could do without their exuberance to connect with friends, enemies, and unknowns after twenty years of virtual silence. Nothing sounded worse.

As she reached her house, she suddenly realized how wrong she’d been: the reunion meeting was not at the top of her “things I don’t want to do” list. That first, dreaded spot was reserved for dealing with her soon-to-be ex-husband. And it looked like she was about to have the pleasure of another face-off with him as well. Ross’s monster of a black pickup was blocking the drive.

“Give me strength,” she silently prayed as she parked her car across the street.

The day was quickly sliding from bad to real bad.

“Perfect,” she muttered under her breath. She sent up another quick plea for patience in dealing with the man she’d married during her sophomore year in college. It had been a rash, hasty decision, one she’d come to regret. If not for their only child, the now “out of cell range” Melissa, the entire marriage could be considered a colossal mistake.

She just hadn’t had the guts, heart, time, or energy to end it.

Neither, it seemed, had he.

No divorce papers had been filed.

Yet.

“More fun to come,” she whispered under her breath as she grabbed the mail from the box. With her orange tabby nearly tripping her, Kristen made her way through the open door of the garage, past the lawnmower, ladders, and recycling tubs to the door leading to her kitchen, where, big as life, Ross was seated at the nook café table, sipping one of her light beers and reading the paper.

Just as he’d done thousands of times during their years together.

Wearing a white shirt with the top two buttons undone, his sleeves rolled up, his tie tossed casually over the back of a chair, he scanned the business section. His wallet and keys were on the table.

“Been here a while?” she asked as he looked up, his gray eyes, as always, assessing.

Her heart did a funny little glitch. Even after all the years, the fights, the differing paths of their lives, she still found him sexy. Her downfall.

“I thought I’d take Lissa to dinner. She hasn’t shown.”

“Just like that?”

“Yeah.”

She was stunned. “Did you consider calling?”

“Yep.” He took a swallow of his beer and leaned back in his chair to stare at her. “Thought better of it.”

“Why?”

He lifted a shoulder. “I figured you might try to talk me out of it. Or, if I got your okay, then I’d have to go through the whole thing all over again. This seemed easier.”

“So you just let yourself in?”

“Still own half of the house. Got my own set of keys.” Those damned eyes skewered her, challenging her to argue with him. Kristen decided not to rise to the bait. She didn’t have the time or energy to argue.

“Where is she?”

“I thought you’d know.” He stretched, his shoulders and arms tugging at the seams of his shirt, the black hair at his nape a little too long and ruffling over his shirt collar.

Uneasiness crawled through Kristen’s blood. “Lissa was supposed to come home straight after school.”

“You told her that?”

“Oh, yes.” The ugly scene this morning was fresh in her mind. They’d argued, the gist of it being that Lissa was furious with her mother for finding the progress reports from the school. Even though the envelope had been addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Ross Delmonico, Lissa had considered the contents about her failing grades to be no one’s business but her own. She’d thrown a fit and refused breakfast. Her eyes, so like her father’s, had snapped gray fire and she’d half run out of the house to catch a ride with her boyfriend. “I grounded her because of the progress reports from her school,” Kristen explained.

Ross waited, eyebrows raised, for Kristen to continue.

“She’s flunking chemistry and German.” Kristen picked up the progress reports from the dining room table and handed them to him.

“Flunking?” he said, eyeing the page with the teacher comments.

“She claims it’s all a big mistake, that the teachers haven’t entered a couple of grades, so I told her to get everything fixed and have Mrs. Hanson and Mr. Childers call me, send me notes, or e-mail me. So far, I haven’t heard from either teacher, so I figure until the grades are up, she’s going nowhere.”

“Isn’t that a little Dickensian?”

“You got a better idea?” She didn’t need a lesson in parenting from a man who for years was a ghost in the marriage, spending all of his waking hours working. When Ross didn’t reply, she said, “I didn’t think so.”

“She still going to school with Zeke?” Kristen nodded, and Ross said maddeningly, “Doesn’t sound much like grounding to me.”

“I was running late and-” Kristen stopped short, clenching her teeth. She glared at him. “Why am I explaining this to you? It’s not like you were around to drive her.”

“Your decision, not mine,” he reminded her in that irritating way of his. That much was true. She’d asked him to move out and he’d complied. Now he shifted on the chair to face her and she noticed the square cut of his jaw, still as strong as it had been when she’d met him nearly twenty years ago.

“Okay, let’s not go there. The blame game doesn’t really work.”

“Agreed.”

Damn the man. Was that a twinkle in his gray eyes? Was he finding some humor in this impossible situation?

Ross stretched out of the chair, pushing it back so hard it screeched against the tile. Shoving his hair from his eyes, he stood and she was reminded again that Ross Delmonico was one heart-stopping hunk of a man. It was no wonder she’d fallen head over heels for him all those years ago. She’d been vulnerable, hurting, even bristly after the end of her senior year of high school. She’d moved to Seattle by the end of June, gotten hired at a clothing store, and with the help of student loans and scholarships had started classes at the University of Washington in the fall.

Ross Delmonico, a graduate student, had been her TA in chemistry for the spring term. He’d taken the time to tutor her personally, and as the term had progressed the study sessions had segued into a series of casual dates. They’d explored the city, drinking coffee on the waterfront, shopping at Pike Street Market, poking through old book and antique shops in Pioneer Square, getting caught in the rain at the locks. They’d taken a ferry across the sound at sunset and watched the sun settle behind the jagged Olympic Mountains as they’d slowly fallen in love. Somehow she’d passed chemistry before switching her major to journalism. How ironic that their daughter was failing the same subject that had brought them together.

In her mind’s eye, Kristen caught a glimpse of Ross as a younger man. His hair had been longer, his clothes leaning toward denim shirts over faded T-shirts, beat-up jeans, and two days’ worth of beard darkening that strong jaw. He’d been soft-spoken, thoughtful, and when he smiled, showing off one dimple and strong white teeth that flashed devilishly against his tanned skin, she’d felt her breath catch in the back of her throat. God, she’d fallen hard for him.

He’d filled out a bit in the years since, and the untamed curls at the back of his neck had been clipped into a shorter, cleaner cut. Crow’s-feet fanned from the edges of his deep-set eyes, and if she looked hard enough she could see the first hint of gray daring to show in his thick hair. He looked almost citified in his slacks and white shirt, but in the depth of his eyes and the hint of his smile, there lurked the sexy, intelligent man she’d married.

“What?” he asked, drawing her out of her reverie, his expression faintly amused. Almost as if he knew where her thoughts had gone.

Through a partially open window she heard the sound of a car’s engine, and within seconds the nose of a battered red Dodge came into view.

Ross’s gaze centered on the window. “Looks like the prodigal daughter hath returned.”

“Good. Let me handle this.”

“No way…my turn, remember?”

Kristen really wanted to square off with Lissa. After all, she was the one who had set the rules and the punishment, but maybe it was time for Lissa’s father to step up. “Okay, Super Dad, you’re on.”

Chapter 2

They watched as Lissa leaned across the seat and kissed Zeke with enough open-mouthed fervor to make Kristen’s gut clench. Though rain was falling steadily, the drops weren’t enough of a curtain to shield the passion in the kiss.

“She’s giving him tongue, right here? In front of us in the middle of the day?” Ross sounded incredulous.

“Welcome to my world.”

Lissa slid from the SUV’s interior and headed toward the house. “If they kiss like that out in the open, what do they do when they’re alone?”

“We’ve had ‘the talk.’”

“‘The talk’? You mean about sex?”

“Yes, about sex. You know kids today don’t think oral sex is any big deal.”

“I think it’s a very big deal.” He looked shaken.

Where had he been for the past decade? Kristen wondered. Had he been hiding his head in the sand and believing the parents’ age-old foolish notion of “My daughter would never?” If so, it was about time he woke up.

“You’re kidding, right?” he asked, but his serious tone indicated he recognized the truth when it was served up to him on a platter.

“Wish I were.”

“Has anyone had ‘the talk’ with Zeke?”

“I didn’t take that one on.”

“Maybe I will.”

“Yeah?”

“You know, scare the shit out of the punk.”

“And risk losing your daughter’s respect?”

He snorted. “That’s already shot to shreds anyway. A little tête-à-tête with Zeke sounds imminent.”

Kristen agreed, but said, “You won’t gain any points.”

“Who cares?”

Exactly. “Then maybe you want to reinforce my position that oral sex at sixteen is not okay.”

“Jesus.”

Lissa’s steps slowed as she finally spotted her father’s car. She sent a guilty look toward the kitchen before her shoulders straightened, her chin jutted forward in rebellion, and she strode into the house, her attitude reeking of battle.

She dropped her backpack near the hooks by the door to the garage. Water dripped from her coat and she smelled of rainwater and something else-cigarette smoke? Or worse?

Mascara-rimmed eyes glared up at her father. Her near-black hair, cut short and tipped in shades of pink and gold, was curling and damp. “What’re you doing here?”

“Waitin’ for you. My night.”

“Your night?” she said, barely holding in a sneer. “Since when?”

“Since I got back into town and your mom and I worked out a deal.”

Kristen was about to speak up. There was no deal, but she caught a warning glance from Ross and held her tongue.

“A deal?” Lissa repeated skeptically as she walked to the refrigerator and opened the door. “About me?”

“Yep.”

“Without my consent?” She snagged a Diet Pepsi. “Shouldn’t I have been consulted?”

“Informed,” he corrected as she closed the fridge with a shoulder. “Which I’m doing right now. Come on, we’re going to dinner, then over to my place.”

“What? Why?” she demanded, clearly blindsided.

“Just to hang.”

“You and me?” She turned big eyes toward her mother as she opened her can of soda. “This is okay with you?”

“It was her idea,” Ross said as he reached for his jacket.

“No way!”

Ross moved toward the door. “Come on, grab your stuff. You must have homework.”

“Wait a minute. I can’t leave. Zeke’s coming back and we’re watching television together tonight.”

“Aren’t you grounded?” he asked.

“I’m not supposed to go anywhere, but he’s coming here,” she explained, as if her thinking were entirely logical. “Besides, the whole grounding thing is lame.”

“Then you have notes from your teachers for me?” Kristen asked. “Because nothing came through on my e-mail.”

“Not exactly. They’re working it out.”

“Great. When they do, then we’ll see.”

“God, Mom, this is just so unfair!”

Kristen nodded. “Probably so. Get used to it. And watch your mouth.”

“I’ll handle this,” Ross said, and Kristen decided to let him go for it. Let him deal firsthand with a stubborn, rebellious teenager.

“Good. I’ll let you two work it out.”

As he shepherded a recalcitrant Lissa out the door, Kristen took the time to lift Marmalade from the ground and pet the cat’s soft fur as she walked to the bedroom. She was rewarded with some deep purrs and a wet nose pressed to the inside of her neck. “Yeah, you’re a love,” Kristen said before the orange tabby started struggling and Kristen dropped her onto the edge of the bed…the king-sized bed she’d shared with Ross.

“Don’t go there,” she warned and wouldn’t even guess what Ross was sleeping on now. Maybe just the recliner he’d been so fond of before he’d moved out. “Not your problem.”

But she couldn’t help smiling when she remembered going bed shopping years earlier and how Ross had flopped onto the expensive mattress, crossed his legs, and patted the pillow top next to him. “Should we try it out first? You know, see if it can stand up to us?” he’d whispered.

Kristen had blushed to the roots of her sun-streaked hair before muttering, “In your dreams, Delmonico.”

“All the time,” he’d agreed and as she’d dropped onto the mattress, she’d imagined making love to him on that downy soft bed.

He’d read her mind and told the clerk, “Sold. When can you deliver?”

“Next Thursday,” the bald salesman had said, checking his delivery chart.

Ross had winked at Kristen. “I guess you’ll just have to wait to have your way with me, wife.”

Now Kristen touched the edge of a pillow and sighed. “A long time ago,” she reminded herself and shut her mind to those dangerous thoughts. There had been a time when Ross had meant everything to her. But that was before he’d started his own construction company and worked increasingly long hours. It had gotten so bad that some nights he wouldn’t come home, staying on the job in other cities, making excuses…or so it had seemed. She’d wondered if he was having an affair, had asked him about it and he’d scoffed at her. But there was something in his eyes that had belied his quick denial.

She’d never caught him in a lie.

Never picked up a call from another woman.

Never found a receipt he couldn’t explain.

And yet…

The worst-case scenario was he was a liar and a cheat.

The best case, disinterested in his family.

And what about you? What about his charges that you’d never really gotten over Jake Marcott? Just how much truth is there that his ghost still haunts you, as Ross charged?

She closed her eyes. How much of the failure of their marriage was her fault?

Half?

A quarter?

Did it matter?

In the past few years, Ross had slowly slipped away from her.

Or did you push him?

The headache she’d been fighting flared again, burning behind her eyes. The bottom line was that Ross had nearly disappeared from her life.

But he was here today, wasn’t he? And he’s with Lissa tonight.

“Too little, too late.” She wouldn’t forget that deep down Ross lived and breathed for Delmonico Construction. His wife and young daughter had become less and less important until Kristen had felt virtually invisible.

In the past two years, nothing she said or did seemed to sink into the man.

So it was a good thing he was dealing with Lissa. A very good thing.

She walked into the bathroom and stopped short when the closed blinds rattled slightly.

How odd, Kristen thought. The window was never open. Never. And yet…She pulled the blinds up and sure enough, there was a space between the sill and the bottom pane. Just wide enough to stick fingers beneath and push open. Water had collected on the window track, indicating that the window had been open for some time.

She frowned at the opening, pushed the window shut, and tried to latch it, but the damned lock, which had always been loose, didn’t click shut.

So who had opened it?

Lissa?

But she never used this bathroom.

Ross?

Nah…he was never here.

But he still has keys.

Why would he come into the bathroom…her bathroom?

It used to be his, too.

Oh, hell, she couldn’t think about this now. She snapped the window shut, forced the latch closed, and decided to ask Ross and Lissa about it later.

She only took the time to brush her teeth, pile her hair onto her head in an untidy knot, and strip out of her work clothes in favor of jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and battered running shoes. A dash of lip gloss, then she grabbed her laptop, portable printer, purse, and keys and was out the door.

As she drove to the committee meeting, she grimaced. Her job had lost its luster, she was soon to divorce her husband, her only child acted as if she hated her, and to top things off, it was a rainy night and she was headed to about the last place she wanted to go.

Could her life be any more pathetic?

So it’s finally going to happen.

Twenty long years had passed, twenty years of questions, twenty years of heartbreak, twenty years of fear.

Jake Marcott’s killer smiled inwardly. She had waited a long time for this, been patient, knowing that eventually the Fates would work with, rather than against, her and she’d get her chance to finally settle the score.

After Jake’s death there had been a time of fear and panic. She’d vowed to herself that she had done all that was necessary, but of course, she’d been wrong. She knew about the reunion meeting and itched to be there, a mouse in the corner, listening and planning, knowing that at last it was time to strike again, to right the very old and bitter wrongs.

Get ready, she thought, tucking her hair into a hat and glancing at the overcast skies. She thought back to that night, to seeing Jake’s eyes find her in the moonlight. His teeth had been a slash of amused white, his cocky expression changing as she’d lifted the already-armed crossbow, leveled the heavy weapon at his chest, and let the arrow fly.

Thwack!

Jake Marcott had taken one in the heart.

Right where he deserved it.

She smiled at that memory. Not once in the past twenty years had she regretted Jake’s demise.

Better yet, she’d gotten away with it. She’d left the damning weapon at the scene of the crime, but the stolen crossbow could never be connected to anyone at the dance that night.

No one knew.

She smiled as she looked into the mirror.

Jake Marcott’s murder had never been solved.

And the class of 1986 had never been the same.

There had been no five-year reunion, or ten. No one had said a word when fifteen years had passed, but now, on the eve of the closure of St. Elizabeth’s, the class of ’86 was going to meet one more time.

For some, it would be the last.

Chapter 3

Ricardo’s Restaurant was a bad trip down memory lane. Located only half a mile from St. Elizabeth’s campus, the little eatery was a place where all Kristen’s friends had hung out. Though twenty years had passed and the once-red plastic booths had been re-covered in a green faux leather, not much else had changed. The walls were still covered with pictures of softball, basketball, and Little League teams Ricardo’s had sponsored over the years, and the aromas of baking bread, tangy marinara sauce, and garlic still emanated from a kitchen hidden behind the main counter.

She saw the cluster of tables pushed together in one corner near the fireplace. Several women were already seated, and Kris felt a tightening in her gut as she recognized Haylie Swanson and Mandy Kim. Mandy’s dark hair was shorter and her face had rounded, but Haylie looked as if she hadn’t aged or changed one bit since high school. A trim black woman sat near Aurora, probably DeLynn Vaughn, and the other two women…Geez, they looked familiar, but who…oh, God, the heavyset one was Martina Perez and the other woman looked a lot like April Wright, whose mouse-brown hair had become sun streaked, her glasses long gone, her crooked teeth now capped and white.

Strewn over the tabletops were yearbooks, binders, a legal pad, yellowed copies of the school newspaper, class lists and the like. The women were talking, laughing and sipping either beer, wine, or Diet Coke.

Aurora looked up as Kristen wended her way to the tables. “Kris!” Aurora smiled widely and waved her over. “About time.”

“Sorry I’m late. Issues at home.”

“Tell me about it,” DeLynn Vaughn said, rolling her large brown eyes. “I’ve got seven-year-old twins…One might have to be held back, while his sister will be moved on to second grade. I get it, I really do. I’m a teacher, for God’s sake! But that doesn’t make it any easier. Oh, I don’t want to think about it right now.” She flashed a friendly smile. “How have you been, Kris? You’re a big-time reporter for the Clarion, right?”

“Editor,” Aurora corrected.

Kristen shook her head and slid into the empty chair between DeLynn and Aurora. “Associate editor. Not so big-time. You work there long enough, they figure they have to give you a title of some kind.”

“Sure, that’s how it works. They pass out promotions with no thought to talent,” DeLynn said dryly and Kristen smiled despite herself, only to glance up and find Haylie, sober as a judge, staring at her.

Great, Kristen thought. Some things never change. “Hi, Haylie,” she greeted her, deciding to break the ice. “Geez, I haven’t seen you since graduation.”

“You find that odd?” Haylie asked, fingering the stem of an untouched wineglass.

“A little.”

“I guess we’re all just too busy,” Martina said with a shrug. “Jobs, husbands or boyfriends, kids-”

“Yeah, that’s it,” Haylie muttered with a trace of bitterness.

“So…” Kristen dragged out her laptop and switched it on. “Let’s get to it. Thankfully, Aurora’s done a lot of the preliminary work, but I couldn’t bribe her into taking on the job.”

Several of the women chuckled. But not Haylie.

“You earned it,” Aurora said.

“Don’t remind me. Now, let’s see what we’ve got.”

What they had was plenty. Aurora and Martina had already started searching the Internet, using Web sites like Classmates.com to collect as many e-mail and regular mail addresses as they could, all of which were merged into a database. Mandy had elected to put together a booklet of bios of the classmates and DeLynn had contacted the current principal of the school to come up with possible dates for the reunion. They had agreed to make Friday night of the reunion weekend “classmates only” and decided to use Ricardo’s as the venue. Husbands and significant others would be invited to a dinner/dance on Saturday night at the school.

So much like the Valentine’s Day dance twenty years ago, Kristen thought, but held back any objections as everyone else seemed excited about the idea.

“You know, I don’t know why we haven’t had a reunion before,” Mandy chirped.

“Yeah, we should have done this after ten years…or maybe even five,” April agreed.

“That’s such a load of crap.” Haylie’s voice was a dash of cold water. The skin on her cheekbones tightened as she slid her gaze over all the women. “And we all know why.”

Everyone grew silent; even the piped-in music and ambient surrounding conversations seemed to fade.

“It’s because of Jake Marcott,” Haylie stated. “I told myself that if I came to this, I was going to say exactly what I thought, and I figured that we’d all pretend that what happened to Jake and to Ian was all forgotten. Well, it’s not.”

Kristen said, “I don’t think this is the time to discuss Jake.”

“Yeah, of course not. It never is. Why don’t we pretend it didn’t happen? We’ll all be as fake as we were the last year of high school.”

“Haylie, not now,” Kristen said, uncomfortable in her newfound role as the leader of this group.

“Then when, Kris? When?” she asked. “Ian and Jake have been dead twenty years! Longer than they were alive! Don’t you think we should at least acknowledge them?”

“At the reunion?”

“Here! Now!” She was visibly shaking, her wine slopping over the rim of her glass.

“Later.”

“It is later!”

“Oh, no!” April glanced up as another woman headed their way. Kristen’s heart dropped as she recognized Bella Marcott, Jake’s sister.

“Cool it, Haylie,” Aurora said, but Haylie, already incensed and fueled by a couple of glasses of Merlot, turned angry eyes on Bella.

“Something wrong?” Bella asked, then made a sound of acknowledgment. “You were talking about Jake, right?” Before anyone could answer, she skewered Haylie with a look. “And you’re upset because you still believe he killed your boyfriend.”

“His name was Ian. He wasn’t just my boyfriend. He was someone’s brother and someone’s son. And he was a person. Ian Powers.” Red-faced, tears sheening in her eyes, Haylie stood abruptly, knocking over her wine in the process. The crimson liquid ran like blood. She barely noticed as April and Martina started mopping up the oozing stain with their napkins. “He would have been thirty-nine right now, like some of us. But he never had the chance to go to college or hold a job or get married or have kids, and the damned shame of it is no one but his family remembers him.”

One napkin soaked, another still wicking up the wine, April said, “We get it, Haylie, okay? We’re all sorry about Ian.”

“No one really is.” She sniffed loudly and backed away from the table, colliding with a chair. “I knew this was a mistake,” she said. “I should never have come.”

“Oh, Haylie, come on.” Aurora, always the peacemaker, reached for Haylie’s arm. “Let it go.”

“I’ll never ‘let it go.’” Haylie snagged her purse from the floor and took off through the surrounding tables, half running toward the door.

“Should someone go after her?” Bella asked, turning to watch Haylie disappear into the night.

“I will.” Kristen was already on her feet. “She shouldn’t be driving.”

“What a drama queen,” April muttered under her breath. “She’s fine. Barely touched her wine.”

“I’m sorry, Bella,” Aurora said, motioning Jake’s sister into the chair recently vacated by Haylie. “I’m sure she didn’t mean anything she said.”

Bella arched an eyebrow, and in that instant she looked so much like her dead brother that Kristen’s blood chilled. “I think you’re wrong,” Bella said, looking through the large window toward the parking lot. “I think she meant every word of it.”

Kristen left her laptop and purse at the table and headed outside. She felt the eyes of other patrons following her and silently kicked herself for getting involved in the damned reunion. One meeting and it was as if she’d tumbled back in time. Here she was chasing Haylie Swanson, who, just like in high school, was always upset. She caught up with Haylie in the parking lot. Haylie had unlocked the door to her car and was about to slide behind the wheel.

“Haylie,” Kristen called and Haylie hesitated, turning toward Kristen. “Hey, don’t go off all upset. I’m sorry about Ian, really. It was a horrible accident, but it’s been twenty years.”

“So we should just bury it? Forget it?” She was fumbling in her purse, juggling her keys and a pack of cigarettes. Her hands were shaking and there was an edginess to her. She was almost frantic as she shook out a filter tip.

“Look, no one meant Ian any offense.”

“Wasn’t Jake your date that night?” She lit up, fingers trembling.

“It was a horrible night for all of us.”

“See what I mean? Everyone focuses on the dance and Jake’s murder. No one gives a damn about Ian.” She opened the car door and slid inside. “Good luck, Kristen,” she said as she jabbed her keys into the ignition. “I have a feeling you’re going to need it.” Cigarette clamped between her lips, she twisted her wrist, the engine firing as she slammed shut the door.

Ramming the sports car into reverse, Haylie floored it. She shot backward, her rear tires hitting a curb. As Kristen watched, she hit the accelerator again, barely slowing as she bounced into the street, almost clipping the fender of a passing white Cadillac. The driver of the Caddy swerved and laid on the horn as Haylie sped away.

Kristen sighed, then walked back inside. Her classmates were still seated, all staring out the window. “I think she’s losing it,” Kristen said.

Bella rolled her eyes. “It’s all for show.”

“I don’t know.”

April shook her head. “I used to work with her brother. Years ago when I was clerking for a law firm downtown. Even then Haylie was having problems, seeing a shrink. On and off antidepressants and anxiety drugs.”

“Sounds like ninety percent of the adults in America,” Martina said as she motioned to the waitress for another drink. “Let’s not worry about her now, okay?” She glanced around the table. “We can’t let Haylie derail us. Not when we’re on a roll. We’ve got work to do, wine to drink, and pizza to order.” The waitress approached, a tall, skinny woman with graying hair and deep-set eyes, and Martina flashed her a smile. “Do you still serve that Mexican pizza with the jalapeños? I used to love those things.”

The next hour was spent ordering and eating any and all foods Italian, organizing committee heads, and catching up. Pictures of husbands, kids, and boyfriends were passed around, and Aurora admitted that her oldest daughter had just married and was talking of starting a family. Aurora had married right out of high school, had her first child at nineteen, and her daughter had followed in her mother’s footsteps right down the bridal path. Aurora didn’t know whether to be elated or horrified. “Don’t get me wrong. I love babies, but me, a grandma? I’m waaay too young.” She was teased mercilessly, and the general mood at the table turned upbeat.

“What about you, Kris?” Aurora asked. “No pictures?”

Kristen shook her head. “Not with me.”

“You’ve got what? One daughter.”

“Mmm. And the usual axiom applies, sixteen going on thirty.”

There were murmurs of understanding.

“You’re married to Ross Delmonico, right?” April asked, interest evident in her features, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

Kristen tried to evade the question. Didn’t want to cop to the fact that she was separated. “Mmm.”

April picked up on the lack of commitment in Kristen’s tone. Her eyes sparked in interest. She plucked a breadstick from the basket in the middle of the table and snapped it in two. “So what’s the deal?”

Kristen had always been a terrible liar. Besides, there was just no reason to hide the truth. It would come out sooner or later. “Ross and I are separated.”

April tossed her lustrous hair over one shoulder. “Are you nuts?” She took a bite from the breadstick. “I met Ross a couple of times when I was working for the law firm. He’s what my daughter would call ‘a hottie.’” Leaning back in her chair, her expression said clearly that she thought anyone who would let Ross Delmonico slip through her fingers must be brain-dead. She chewed on the breadstick. “So, are you getting a divorce?”

Kristen thought about the papers she had yet to file. “I don’t really know,” she hedged, surprised at her reaction. Hadn’t she just hours before practically told Samantha, her coworker at the Clarion, the divorce was a done deal?

“Well, listen,” April said, as if she were teasing, “if you get tired of that guy, throw him my way, will ya?” She laughed at the joke, but there was something about her suggestion that made Kristen feel defensive. Oh, God, she wasn’t becoming one of those women who thought of a man as “hers,” the kind who only held on tighter when another female showed interest, was she? She smiled at April and said lightly, “Who knows?”

“When you figure it out, let me know.”

At that moment the waitress returned and the conversation drifted into safer territory. April turned her attention to one of the yearbooks lying open on the table, and after they ordered refills, the business of the reunion was brought to the fore once more.

Martina, who was married to Craig Taylor, a graduate from Western Catholic, suggested that their class invite the boys from Western who had graduated in the same year. “I think we should make this reunion special. It’ll be the last of its kind, as St. Elizabeth’s will be closing. Wouldn’t it be cool to have the boys that we did everything with there?”

“Ya think?” Kristen asked warily. Nostalgia aside, this was a little too eerie. “It seems like-”

“Like we’re trying to duplicate the dance where my brother died,” Bella said, and everyone grew quiet once again. Her smile had faded and she contemplated the contents of her wineglass. A crease lined her forehead as she thought. “You know, maybe it’s what we need. It could be cathartic.”

“Probably not for Haylie,” DeLynn said.

“Nothing will be.” April frowned. “As I said, she needs help. Serious help. But it’s not our problem.”

Bella glanced over at Kristen. “I’ll go along with whatever the group decides. Please don’t worry about me, and if we’re thinking about Jake, then what would he say? I think he’d tell us to ‘go for it’ and ‘have a bitchin’ party.’”

“She’s right,” Mandy agreed, still writing on her legal pad.

April eyed a bottle of Merlot. “Then why not?” She grinned wickedly. “It’ll be fun.”

Everyone, aside from Kristen, seemed to concur.

Martina said, “Good. I’ll call Laura. Remember her, Laura Triant? She married one of Craig’s friends. Chad Belmont. He graduated when we did and was Western’s senior class president, I think. Chad keeps in touch with a lot of the guys who graduated from Western.” Martina was running with her idea, nodding her head, her black hair gleaming in the dim lights.

They chose a weekend in July that the school had already approved, then they split into committees, each volunteering to oversee the different jobs that needed to be tackled. DeLynn took over contacting classmates, April wanted to work with the caterers, Martina was in charge of dealing with the boys from Western, Kristen, along with being the general coordinator and treasurer, would make certain that the announcements were sent, and Aurora would assist her. Bella was in charge of decorations. No one mentioned Haylie again.

Mandy Kim, the self-appointed secretary, took copious notes, filling in page after yellow page of a legal pad with information. She worked with the same intensity and focus that she’d exhibited when she was listening raptly to one of Sister Clarice’s lectures on world history twenty years earlier.

Some things never change, Kristen thought as she made her own observations and memos on her laptop.

The general consensus was to meet in a month, again at Ricardo’s, where they all would report their progress. In the meantime they’d be in touch via phone and e-mail.

An hour later the check had been paid and almost everyone had left. Only Kristen and Aurora remained.

“See,” Aurora said, as she stuffed her yearbook into a purse large enough to hold a small computer, “admit it, Kris, this went better than you imagined.”

“Okay, okay, you’re right. Aside from the Haylie meltdown and a few tense moments with Bella, it was okay.”

“Better than okay. It was successful. We got a lot of stuff accomplished and we even had some fun, right? I’m thinking the reunion is going to be a blast.”

“We’ll see,” Kristen said.

“It’s just too bad that Rachel and Lindsay couldn’t have been here.” When Kristen didn’t respond, Aurora added, “You’re still in contact with them?”

“We do the Christmas card thing.” Kristen gathered her things. Aurora was right. The meeting had gone better than Kristen had expected and it had been good to see some of her fellow classmates and find out what they’d been doing since graduation. “Hopefully they’ll make it to the reunion.”

“So why not just call them? You’ve got their numbers.”

“I will.” Kristen walked outside with Aurora.

As she shoved her purse and laptop into her Honda she felt a lot more optimistic that the reunion wouldn’t be a total disaster. She wasn’t convinced that it would be “a blast,” but it might have its fun moments.

After all, she thought, as she slid behind the wheel and turned on the ignition, what could possibly go wrong?

Jake Marcott’s killer sat in her car, the engine idling. Parked on a darkened side street, she watched the restaurant parking lot unobserved. Tension tightened every muscle in her body and she felt an old, familiar need course through her veins. Her palms sweated and her pulse jumped in anticipation.

Chill out, she silently told herself, then felt her lips twist wryly as the advice, offered so often by Jake Marcott, rang in her ears. “Bastard,” she muttered, gaze locked on the front door of Ricardo’s. He’d deserved to die, and she again felt the thrill of knowing she’d put him in his grave.

It had been so long.

Though she’d replayed the scene in her mind a thousand times over, the exhilaration she’d once felt had long ago begun to fade. But now, with the reunion on the horizon, the memories had intensified again, the thrill of killing him and getting away with it. She’d waited so long…and now, finally, she would get her revenge.

The door to the restaurant swung open and she reached for the gearshift, ready to pull out of the parking spot, when she saw a man hold the door open. A family of four, middle-aged mom and pop with two preteens in tow. The kids were fighting, the girl swatting at her brother, only to have him hit back, making her scream bloody murder.

As they walked to their vehicle, the father said something sharp to his son, then opened the door of a minivan. The pinch-lipped mother, ever the wiser, narrowed knowing eyes on her blond daughter. The girl was playing it up, putting on a beatific, almost angelic smile.

That’s it, girlie, play the part. Just like all the hypocritical bitches from St. Elizabeth’s.

Caught up in the family’s tiny drama, she almost missed the last two alumnae emerge from the restaurant. But she didn’t. And she couldn’t keep a smile from crawling across her face. Aurora and Kristen, the eager and the reluctant organizers, hiking up the collars of their jackets as rain began to fall.

Showtime, she thought, and her blood pounded in her ears. She hazarded a glance at the passenger seat beside her, at the yearbook, extra photos, and scissors. Some of the pictures had been cut from the pages and she’d been careful as she’d extracted them, wanting to slice each color photo to ribbons. Fury heated her blood. White-hot rage, fermented by twenty years of waiting, raced through her veins.

Stay cool.

Chill out.

Don’t blow this.

Not now.

Not when you’re so damned close!

You’ve waited too long to wreck everything now.

She bit hard on her lip. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself with the scissors gripped in her hand. Stalking her prey. Chasing her down. Catching her. Then, as the two-faced bitch recognized her attacker, she would panic, beg for mercy, cry out that she was sorry. Her victim would grovel. Promise to do anything the killer wanted to save her pathetic life. She would pretend remorse, but it would all be just an act.

Then the killer would strike.

Quick and fast and deadly.

She would plunge those razor-sharp blades deep into Kristen’s chest, piercing her heart.

Not just once.

But again.

And again.

Over and over.

Watching the blood spurt.

Hearing Kristen’s gurgling screams.

Feeling her go limp.

Witnessing the light go out of Kristen Daniels’s eyes forever.

“You damned bitch,” she whispered, then tasted blood where her upper teeth had sunk hard into her lower lip.

So caught up in her fantasy she was shaking, she almost missed Kristen’s Honda pull out of the parking lot and onto the side street.

Almost.

Slowly, letting a truck pass, the killer put her car into gear, stepped on the gas, and eased the car away from the curb. She zeroed in on Kristen’s vehicle, one back taillight blinking as it turned onto the main road.

Silently, with dark intent, she followed.

Chapter 4

“I think you should break up with Zeke.”

“What?” Lissa looked at her father as if he’d just lost what had been left of his obviously feeble mind. They were seated at the bar that separated his small kitchen from the living quarters of his high-rise condominium, the place he’d moved to after Kristen requested him to leave. The eating bar was slab granite, the floor-to-ceiling windows offered a panoramic view of the city, the Willamette River, and snowcapped Mount Hood, and the real estate agent had assured him he would love it.

She’d been wrong.

He hated everything about the place.

The quiet.

The air of sophistication.

The chic pseudo-elegance.

Even the damned view was lost on him.

It seemed a shell, just a place to crash. He’d rented enough furniture that he could sleep and watch television and that was it. He spent as little time here as possible.

“I’m not breaking up with Zeke.”

“I don’t like the way he treats you.”

“Wait a minute. You’re telling me how someone should treat me, when you’re not even around?” Lissa leaned back in her bar stool and ignored the half-eaten hamburger and basket of fries that they’d picked up on the way.

“I was just giving your mother her space.”

“Yeah, right.” Lissa scowled.

So she didn’t buy it. The truth of the matter was that he’d gladly packed his bags, that he’d thought they both could use a cooling-off period. Kristen had been certain he was cheating on her and he’d thrown it in her face that she’d married him on the rebound, that she’d never gotten over Jake Marcott, the kid who had been killed her senior year of high school. In the time that had followed his death, she had not only made Jack a martyr but a saint as well. Ross had done some digging and, as far as he could see, Marcott hadn’t been a candidate for canonization. Whether it had been guilt or love or some other deep, primal emotion, Kristen had never let go of him. Ross had seen it coming, even before they’d married, but he’d been young enough to believe that she would get over the murdered boy and that she would start living. With him. He’d thought he could make her love him because he’d fallen so hard for her: the athletic girl with the red-brown hair, sad hazel eyes, and throaty laugh.

Intellectually Kristen had tried to move on.

But emotionally she’d never let go.

The ghost of Jake Marcott had never quit haunting her. Haunting them. Sometimes, late at night, after they’d made love, he’d catch her staring at the shadows on the ceiling or looking through the diaphanous curtains that moved in the summer breeze.

Maybe now, with the damned reunion, she’d be able to get some closure. He sincerely hoped there was a chance that she could finally be free.

“You can’t tell me what to do, okay?” Lissa said, still trying her best to push his buttons.

“No, it’s not okay.”

“So now you’re going all authoritarian on me?” She sighed loudly, tipped her chin down, and glared at him.

“I’m your father.”

“Big effin’ deal.”

“It is.”

“Hey. Don’t be that guy.”

“What guy?”

“The father guy. I’m not one of those kids that you have to…I don’t know, throw a baseball to, or take hiking, or spend”-she made quote marks with her fingers-“‘quality time’ with or even relate to. I’m fine. And I’m fine with Zeke.” She grabbed her soft drink and chewed on the straw. “You don’t even know him.”

“I know he doesn’t have the respect to walk you to the door, that he’s got his hands all over you, and that I haven’t heard you’ve even gone on a real date together.”

“A ‘real date’? You want me to go on a ‘real date’? What? Like where he comes to the door in a suit and tie and smiles at you and Mom and brings me home by ten. That kind of date?”

“Sounds about right,” Ross said equably.

“Dad, that was fifty years ago, and even you and Mom didn’t do anything so stupid. If you haven’t noticed, our family is not exactly Aussie and Harriet.”

“You mean Ozzie.”

“I mean we’re more like the Osbournes than the Neil-sons.”

“Nelsons…Oh, I get it. You’re putting me on.” Beneath her act of boredom, the crazy-colored hair and make-up, was the little girl who had often run to him, her arms in the air, the ribbon in her dark hair always falling out, bandages on her knees. She’d been thrilled to see him and had always announced wildly, “Daddy’s home…Daddy, put me on your shoulders…Daddy!” That girl was still there, just buried in anger, sadness, and too much make-up. “Should I be flattered that you think I’m like Ozzy Osbourne?”

“Why are you doing all this now?” she asked on a huge sigh. “Acting like you care or something.”

“I do care.”

She snorted her disbelief.

“I mean it, Lissa, and I’ve missed you.”

“Save me,” she whispered, arms folding over her chest, chin jutted forward in rebellion.

“Okay, I screwed up. Is that what you want to hear?”

She didn’t reply, and he shoved his uneaten food to one side and turned to look her squarely in the eye. “I think we should get something straight, okay? No one in our family is perfect. We’ve all made mistakes. But I am your father and the adult here. So we’re going to figure out why a smart girl like you lets her grades slide into the toilet and hooks up with a guy who hasn’t shown me that he has an ounce of respect for her or anyone else.”

“You don’t even know him!”

“You’re right. I don’t.” He found his cell phone and slid it across the table. “Call him. I think it’s time we met.”

“What?”

“You know his number, right? Dial him up, tell him I want to meet him.”

“Now?”

“No time like the present.”

She glanced away. Thinking. “He’s probably busy.”

“Thought you said he was coming over to your house to watch television. Call him.”

“To have him come here?” she asked, pointing at the floor.

“Yeah.”

“With you?” She was shaking her head. “He won’t do it.”

“Why not?”

“It would be too weird. With you. You already don’t like him.”

“So this is his chance to change my mind.”

She eyed the phone, then stood up and walked to the couch, where she flopped down. Picking up the remote control, she started flipping through the channels. “You’re so lame,” she accused.

“Probably. So, since we’re not entertaining Zeke, let’s figure out what the problem is in chemistry. I can’t help you much on the German, but I’m a chemistry ace.”

“Lucky for me,” she mumbled with more than a touch of sarcasm.

“That’s right. This is without a doubt your lucky night.” He sat beside her on the couch and cracked open the huge textbook before taking the remote from her reluctant fingers and turning the television off.

“Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

He grinned. “Come on Lissa, how much fun would that be? I figure I’ve made a mistake, not being around so much, but I’m changing my ways, turning over a new leaf. So you’d better get used to it.”

She probably should have gone straight home.

That would have been the smart thing to do.

It was getting late and she was tired and there was still the issue with Lissa. But after all the talk about St. Elizabeth’s and its imminent closure, after seeing a smattering of her classmates and remembering what they were like in high school, after being dragged kicking and screaming to the past, Kristen couldn’t help herself.

Maybe it was the reporter in her.

Maybe it was just curiosity.

Or maybe it was because it was time to put to rest some old ghosts.

Whatever the reason, she headed out of town and toward Beaverton. Though her old alma mater and her current home were less than five miles apart as the crow flies, they were separated by hills and canyons and winding roads. She’d never felt any need to visit the old campus. In fact, if she thought about it, she’d studiously avoided returning to St. Elizabeth’s.

Until tonight.

The beams from her headlights cut through the night, shimmering against pavement growing wet with new rain. She wound through the steep hills of Douglas fir, oak, and cedar, her wipers slapping slowly. She wasn’t completely alone on the county road that ran past the school. Taillights glowed red in the road ahead when she crested small hills, and she met a broken line of oncoming headlights.

How many times had she driven this route during her four years at St. Elizabeth’s? At first her mother, a devout Catholic and a widow who owned a bakery/café on Twenty-third Street, had hauled her to school in the Sweet Nothings delivery van. Kristen had been mortified to be dropped off in the rattletrap of a vehicle when Lindsay Farrell arrived in her father’s Porsche and even Rachel Alsace alighted from her mom’s vintage, but cool, Jeep.

Kristen had saved all the money she’d earned at the bakery, and the minute she turned sixteen and passed her driver’s license test, she bought a 1976 Volkswagen Super Beetle convertible with a dent in one fender and ninety thousand miles under its fan belt. Not in the same class as the Mercedes and BMWs that were parked in the school lot, but better than the stupid van. She’d been in heaven. Innocently unaware of what was to come.

Now, as the buildings of St. Elizabeth’s campus came into view, she felt a chill as cold as winter. The church was there, a massive stone structure with a high bell tower, and set back a bit, the attached convent, where once the nuns who had taught at the school had lived.

Kristen wondered if any of the sisters still resided beyond the thick gates. What had happened to Sister Clarice with her weak chin, rimless glasses, and bloodless lips? Or Sister Maureen with her apple cheeks and tittery laugh? She’d filled the classroom with flowers and always smelled of lilacs. What about the Reverend Mother, Sister Neva, who had been in her seventies twenty years earlier and had walked with a cane and thankfully had never been able to remember Kristen’s name? Were any of them alive? Did they still dwell behind the thick rock walls?

The rain began in earnest, covering the windshield and fogging its interior. Kristen turned the wipers higher and stared through the glass at the school. In the gloom, it seemed miraculously unchanged. Its broad portico, supported by stone pillars, still protected the heavy double doors leading to the main reception area. The building was two stories, faced with the same rock, brick and mortar as the church.

Kristen eased on the gas and inched closer, fighting the sensation that she shouldn’t be there, that she was trespassing into a faraway time and place that was no longer hers.

Her car crept forward and she recognized the gym, set back from the rest of the classrooms, its high, domed roof dwarfing the cafeteria next to it.

The gym. Venue to the doomed Valentine’s Day dance. She tapped her fingers against the steering wheel and wondered about the maze separating the gymnasium from the cloister. Was it still intact? Or hopelessly overgrown? Had the order had the hedges removed, hacked down to stumps after the tragedy, or had the laurel and arborvitae been shaped and manicured, the topiary sculptured as if nothing horrible had ever happened within the garden walls?

“This is nuts,” she told herself as she flipped up the hood of her jacket and grabbed a flashlight from the glove box. She cut the engine and stepped out of the car into the puddles and drizzle of the night, then walked toward the back of the school, stepping over a chain that barricaded the unused gym lot from the delivery alley. The pavement was pockmarked and rutted, but she followed it unerringly to the back of the gym, across a parking lot to the gardens.

The hedge was as she remembered…maybe a little less groomed, a few more weeds surrounding it, but it was there. It didn’t take too much imagination to remember that night, the music in the background, the smell of cigarette smoke, the horrifying sound of Lindsay’s scream and then the sight of Jake, his lifeless body slumped over the heavy arrow pinning him to the tree, the blood everywhere, dark against the trunk of the tree, pooling on the wet grass, staining the front of Jake’s tuxedo and smearing over Lindsay’s dress.

Oh, God, what was she thinking, coming back here to this dark place? She glanced up at the nunnery and saw a few lights glowing in the tracery windows. She swallowed hard as she saw a silhouette in one window, a movement of the blinds.

So what, Kristen?

Someone lives in that room, probably one of the old nuns. She was just walking past the window, lingering there with her Bible and rosary in hand, for crying out loud!

Why are you doing this? Why are you trying to freak yourself out?

She had no answer to that one, but she cut the beam of her flashlight and looked up at the window where the shadow passed and the lights were suddenly extinguished.

Either the person inside was going to bed, had left the room, or had decided to use the darkness to hide him or herself.

Now you’re really getting paranoid. Turn around and go home. Sit by the fire, have a glass of wine or decaf coffee with a shot of Kahlua and a dollop of whipped cream. Treat yourself, you’re alone tonight. No motherly responsibilities.

And still she walked forward, switching the flashlight back on, heading through the entrance to the maze where the walls of shrubbery closed in more tightly, the untended branches brushing against her shoulders, the oddly shaped topiary untrimmed and grotesque. The beam of her flashlight bobbed ahead, offering weak illumination.

What’re you doing out here? she asked herself, understanding subconsciously that this was simply something she had to do, an urge she couldn’t ignore, a driving force that made her squint against the rain and darkness. She caught sight of an old bench, then a fountain, and with each step in the squishy grass, she felt another drip of fear in her blood, an eerie feeling she tried to ignore.

You’re just on edge because you know you’re trespassing, that someone at the convent could see your light and put in a call to the police. What would you tell them, hmm? That you wanted to visit the place where the boy you loved in high school was murdered?

Turning one corner, she stopped short, a wall of branches cutting off her progress.

Odd, she thought, wondering at her misstep. She was certain she’d followed the correct path. A cold blast of wind cut through the heavy shrubbery and touched the back of her neck.

Turn around and go back to the car. For God’s sake, what’re you trying to prove?

Her skin was chilled, but she was going to finish this, whatever the hell it was. Shining the light on the ground, she did an about-face, following her own footprints where the grass was mashed down until she came to another forty-five-degree corner that she didn’t expect. Walking briskly, she found another dead end, another wall of foliage.

“Crap.” She must be more tense than she realized, and now she was more determined than ever. She backtracked again, retracing her steps. At the entrance, she shined her light on the edge of the maze and, seeing slightly smaller, less dense bushes interspersed with the older arborvitae and laurel, realized that the hedge had changed. The maze she’d known by heart had been restructured, and in the darkness, the newer shrubs changing the pathway were already nearly twenty years old and hard to distinguish from the older vegetation.

Perhaps the old tree where Jake had been killed had been cut down. There had been talk of making it a memorial, but Mother Superior had refused the suggestion, not wanting the tragic incident to mar the reputation of the campus or become a destination for the morbidly curious.

“We need to downplay this painful situation and pray for God’s understanding,” Mother Superior had told the student body on the Monday after Jake’s death. “The police have finished their investigation of the grounds and there is no need to sensationalize what happened, nor should we encourage those who are obsessed or curious about the tragedy. Those who want to pay their respects to the poor boy can do so at his grave site…”

It all came back to Kristen now as she walked along the hedgerows, trying to second-guess the new pathways. It took her nearly half an hour before she made the right succession of turns. Suddenly, she was in the center of the maze, the old oak tree still standing, branches naked and spreading in the gloomy night.

Kristen’s heart squeezed as she shined her light over the ground littered by branches. The statue of the Madonna was unscathed, bleached white as ever, hands lifted as if in supplication to God.

An unworldly chill ran through Kristen’s blood as clouds blocked the moon and rain peppered the ground. “Dear God,” she whispered, her hands clenching tight. Her throat closed and she felt hot tears mingle with the cold rain sliding down her cheeks. She imagined Jake as she’d last seen him, slumped and dead, dressed in his rented tuxedo, shot through the heart with an arrow, for God’s sake.

Cupid’s Killer. The newspapers had run that one into the ground.

In her mind’s eye, Kristen once again witnessed Lindsay at Jake’s feet, her ice blue dress dark with the stain of Jake’s blood, her face white with fear, mascara running in black rivulets from her eyes. And then the accusation.

“Why, Kristen? Why did you kill him?”

What had possessed Lindsay that night? Why had she thought Kristen had anything to do with Jake’s death?

Lindsay had never given her a straight answer, not even the next week at school when Kristen had asked her about it.

It had been in the senior hallway, a short first-floor and locker-lined corridor that was wedged between the library and the business offices.

Kristen had found Lindsay struggling to open her locker. “Why did you accuse me of having something to do with Jake’s death?” When Lindsay didn’t immediately respond, she pressed, “Lindsay?”

Lindsay yanked on the combination lock, but the locker held fast. “I…I didn’t know what I was saying. I was in shock. Crazy.” She rattled the locker door more furiously, trying to force the combination lock to spring open. It didn’t budge. “I was upset.”

“We all were. But that doesn’t explain why you blamed me.”

“Okay, I know. I’m sorry!” She was twirling the combination wildly again, her fingers trembling. “What do you want from me? I found Jake there in the middle of the maze, an arrow though his heart. And blood everywhere. I knew…I mean, I knew he was dead. It was like”-she stopped tugging at the lock long enough to stare at Kristen with round, panicked eyes-“it was like I saw his soul leave, Kris. Swear to God, the life went out of his eyes as I got to him and…and I knew his soul had escaped, right in front of me…Oh, God…I was so freaked, so scared, so out of my damned mind and you were the next one who showed up and…and…and he was your date that night. You were supposed to be with him! At the dance. When you knew I was still in love with him!”

“You were broken up,” Kristen fought back, feeling a little niggle of guilt. “Jake and I had always been friends.”

Lindsay made a disparaging sound, then calmed a little. “Apparently you wanted more than that, but…Oh, crap, what does it matter? He’s dead, isn’t he? Nothing’s going to change that.”

“I had nothing to do with his murder.”

Lindsay sighed. Blinked back tears. “As I said, Kris, I went nuts. That’s all. I was crazy. Sorry!” Her chin trembled as she turned back to her locker and added in a whisper, “I don’t know what more I can say.”

Lindsay finally managed to work the combination, the lock sprang, and the door opened. She grabbed her English textbook, but not before Kristen got a glimpse of the inside of the locker door where pictures of Jake Marcott were plastered: snapshots, yearbook photos, his senior picture decorated with ticket stubs and red hearts cut out of shiny red paper.

Shocked, Kristen took a step backward, and the sounds of the normal noises in the hallway between classes, the clatter of shoes on the shiny floors, the clang of slamming lockers, the rumble of laughter and conversation, the buzzing of the tardy bell all were muted, as if those familiar noises came from a very long distance.

Only when Sister Clarice touched her on the shoulder, her black habit rustling with her quick strides, and told her to “get to class, chop-chop,” had Kristen snapped back to the present and hustled up the stairs at the end of the hall, hurrying to slide into her seat in the physics lab before cranky old Mrs. Crandall took roll.

Now, years later, standing in the rain, staring at the tree, she felt chilled to the bone. Alone. With no more answers than she had twenty years earlier. She walked to the tree and shined a light on the gnarled trunk.

“Oh, Jake,” she whispered when she found the mark in the rough bark and ran her fingers in the groove. “Who did this to you?”

And why?

She closed her eyes, sent up a prayer, and sighed.

Over the drip of the rain she heard a foreign sound, a rustle of leaves in the wind.

She turned and shined her flashlight onto the hedge behind her. Wet, shiny leaves quivered.

She froze. Felt a frisson of fear. Who else was out here? Had someone followed her? Watched her?

Her heart pounded.

It was probably just a raccoon or possum or skunk…

The branches stilled.

No tiny bright eyes were caught in the flashlight’s beam.

Her pulse pounding in her ears, Kristen moved her small swath of illumination across the wide expanse of greenery, a weak beam of light that seemed to be dimming in the rain. She saw nothing. No movement. Heard no sound other than her own rapid heartbeat and the steady drip of the rain.

No one was here. She was alone. Scared, feeling like she was trespassing, standing in the heavy drizzle in the middle of the night.

Like an idiot.

Quickly, she scanned the area one last time, then turned and made her way out of the labyrinth. She made only one wrong turn, righted herself, and sprinted across the parking lot and over the blemished tarmac of the alley until she found her car parked where she’d left it.

She’d never been so glad to see her little Honda in her life. She unlocked the car with her remote and the Honda’s lights flashed. After tossing the flashlight and her purse into the backseat, she slid behind the wheel and flipped off her coat hood.

Rain slid down her neck. She switched on the ignition and the radio came on…but she hadn’t been listening to it on the way over to the school…what the devil? She glanced down at the illuminated dash and realized it wasn’t the radio at all, but a cassette, stuffed into its slot in the dash. She heard garbled sounds and laughter and music…familiar sounds…oh…my…God…The hairs on the back of Kristen’s neck raised as she listened. The song was a Springsteen classic. “Dancing in the Dark.”

A shudder slid down her spine, and she glanced through the fogging windshield where the wipers were already moving, scraping a pink piece of paper back and forth.

Glancing around, she opened the window and snagged the soggy piece of paper from the glass. The letters on the pink page were faded, the paper nearly torn to shreds, but she recognized it for what it was: the photograph of her and Jake taken at the Valentine’s dance two decades earlier. A picture she’d hidden far away in a school scrapbook that she hadn’t looked at in years. Her stomach knotted as she stared at their faces, smiling, carefree, innocently unaware of what the horrid night would bring. Worse yet, scrawled across their smiles was a jagged red slash, the color of blood.

Kristen nearly screamed.

But she didn’t have to.

Because as Bruce Springsteen’s voice faded and the sounds of the dance so long ago disappeared into the night, there was a second of silence, a click, and then the tape issued a scream of pure, unadulterated terror.

Kristen ejected the cassette, stepped on the accelerator, and tore out of the parking lot.

Her entire body shaking, her heart jackhammering in fear, she glanced in the rearview mirror and thought she saw an image, a quicksilver glimpse of a dark figure, running past the darkened windows of the chapel.

She blinked.

The figure was gone.

Just a figment of your imagination.

No way! Someone knew she’d be at the school that night. Someone had either followed her or been waiting.

She glanced at the passenger seat where the wet, garish picture lay beside the damning cassette.

She’d thought the nightmare was over.

Now she realized it was just beginning.

Chapter 5

Run, Kristen. Run as far and as fast as you can. But it won’t help. I’ll find you. I’ve waited this long and I’m not going to let you get away now.

Jake Marcott’s killer stood in the shadows of the overhang of the school, watching the Honda’s retreating taillights as the rain dripped from the overflowing gutters of the portico that was the entrance to good ol’ St. Lizzy’s.

How many times had she stood right in this spot, eyeing the others, wishing she fit in, listening to all of them talking about Jake Marcott as if he were a god, as if they all owned a piece of him?

Little did they know that Jake had never loved any of them.

Never had…never would.

Jesus, they were all such idiots. Kristen, the valedictorian, for God’s sake, was the worst. She was supposed to be smart, but in truth, she was as dumb as a stone. And predictable. So damned predictable. Even if she hadn’t followed her, she would have guessed that Kristen would return to St. Lizzy’s.

All the planning of the reunion would bring back memories of the night of the Valentine’s dance and would drive Kristen here, to literally the scene of the crime. She had known it intuitively.

Which all fit into her plans perfectly. She wondered, watching the taillights disappear in the rain, what Kristen had thought when she’d seen the picture the killer had left on the car. Had she understood the message? Did she know what was coming? Did she feel a scratch of fear along her spine as she’d heard the tape of the dance and Lindsay’s howling, bone-chilling scream?

Oh, just you wait, Kristen.

It’s only going to get worse.

Remember the night Jake was killed? How you found Lindsay? And Jake?

That night had been perfect. From her hiding spot at the end of one hedgerow in the maze, hearing the music and whisper of voices, the killer, still holding the heavy crossbow, had heard frantic footsteps and pulled farther into the shadows. Then, clicking her pocket recorder on again, she’d witnessed Lindsay, her shimmering blue dress catching the moonlight, running into the heart of the maze. The killer had followed a few steps so that she could watch and tape the tall girl’s reaction.

And it had been worth it.

Lindsay, murmuring, “Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no!” had run to the tree where Jake was slumped. She’d tried to revive him, to hold him, to force some life into his already-dead body. “Jake, oh, God, no…Jake! Jake!” His blood had run down the bodice of the icy-blue gown, staining and smearing the expensive garment as she’d tried to revive him. “Oh, no, oh, no…oh…” Then, as if she’d finally understood that this was real, not some dream, Lindsay had let out a high-pitched, bloodcurdling scream that had keened mournfully off the West Hills.

The killer had ducked back and started running, not along the maze’s intricate paths but through three slits she’d made earlier, tiny spots where she’d folded the branches back and slipped through, cutting across the north side of the maze and down a hillock and around the edge of the property until she could slip into her hiding space in the basement of the school, change quickly into her dress again, then return to the group of kids who, smoking dope and drinking, had never really noticed how long she’d been in “the ladies’ room.”

It had all worked so smoothly.

She’d even been clustered with the others when she’d seen Lindsay, her face white, her dark hair falling in disarray, her silk dress stained with the purple-red of Jake Marcott’s blood, stumbling out of the maze. Lindsay had been zombie-like and sobbing out of control. Kristen Daniels had been ashen faced and starting to shake. Rachel Alsace had been horrified and stunned, but already moving into action. She’d immediately demanded that a stricken-faced Sister Clarice call the police and her father immediately.

The other students, faculty, and chaperones had been in varying degrees of terror and shock. Paranoia had begun slowly and had reigned for the rest of the night.

Oh, it had been so good. So damned good.

And it would be again.

The killer smiled coldly in the damp darkness.

Kristen had ejected the tape, but that horrible scream ricocheted through her brain. Her heart was pounding a mile a minute, her fingers clenching the steering wheel so tightly they showed white as she pushed the speed limit to her house. Who would do this to me? Who?

Someone from the reunion committee?

Someone who didn’t show but knew about it?

Someone else?

The damned killer?

Everyone at the meeting ran through her head: Mandy, April, Aurora, Bella, DeLynn, Martina, Haylie…Were there others invited who hadn’t shown? But Haylie was certainly psycho enough, and weird enough, to pull this off. And she’d left early.

Kristen tailgated a car in front of her and checked her rearview mirror continuously. She didn’t know what to expect; whoever planted the sick picture and cassette tape could be following her…to what? Do her physical harm? But if that were the case, wouldn’t he/she/it have waited for her in her car? Or abducted, or hurt, or killed her there at the campus while she was alone?

“Idiot,” she berated herself. She knew better. She read the paper every day, watched the news religiously, kept up on world, national, and local events. She knew there were wackos out in the world and she was usually careful. But not tonight.

Her purse lay on the floor in front of the passenger seat, and now she reached for it and while driving with one hand, searched the side pocket for her cell phone with the other.

Her car drifted a little and she eased it back to the middle of the lane, retrieving her phone at that moment. Flipping it open, she wondered whom to call.

Ross! For God’s sake, get Ross!

She gritted her teeth. Speed dial #2 would instantly connect her to him, but she hesitated. They were separated. On their almost-amicable way to divorce. She couldn’t lean on him.

So call the cops!

And tell them what? That someone left a prank tape and photograph on the car while she was trespassing at St. Elizabeth’s? The police had bigger crimes to investigate. She saw the police blotter every day at the offices of the Clarion.

Dropping the phone, she let out her breath, easing her car onto the secondary road that led up the hill to her house. She checked the rearview. No one was following her.

But someone intended to scare the hell out of her.

“Mission accomplished,” she thought aloud, pushing the button on her remote garage-door opener. She pulled into the garage and didn’t get out of her car until the door had ground back down again.

Still shaken, she grabbed her purse, laptop case, the cassette and marred picture, then tried to pull herself together.

“Get a grip,” she ordered, but it was no use. Whoever had wanted to freak her out had done a damned good job. Who would do this and why? Again, she had no answer. It all came back to someone wanting to scare the bejeezus out of her, someone who didn’t want her either working on the reunion committee or like her poking around St. Elizabeth’s…no, that wasn’t right. She’d had no plans to visit the old school when she’d gone to the committee meeting tonight. Someone had to have followed her.

She just didn’t know who.

“Psycho bitch,” she muttered under her breath, though she couldn’t be certain a man wasn’t behind this.

Walking into the house, she nearly tripped over Marmalade. “Oops, sorry.” She dropped her things on the kitchen table, then scooped up the cat, who wrapped her long, striped tail around Kristen’s side and began purring contentedly and pressing a pink nose into the underside of Kristen’s chin. “Somebody’s lonely.” Kristen forced herself to relax a little as she walked through the house, still carrying the cat, and checked every door and window to make sure they were locked, the house secure. She had no alarm system; she’d always felt safe with Ross around. Even in the later years, when he was home less and less, she’d never worried or been frightened. Now, however, she double-checked every possible entrance.

“Safe and sound,” she said at last as Marmalade, bored with the attention, squirmed in her arms. Kristen let her hop to the floor, where she took up a favorite position on the back of the couch and began grooming herself. The message light was blinking on the answering machine and Kristen hit the Play button.

“You have two messages,” a mechanical voice advised her.

“Hi, Kris, it’s Aurora. I called on your cell and left a message there, but I’ll tell you again. I think the meeting went well. Wasn’t it a hoot to see some of the old gang again? And Haylie…puh-leez, what’s with her? Anyway, I forgot to mention that I think you should use some of your pull at the paper to advertise, well, for free, of course, the reunion. Maybe we’ll reach some classmates who we’ve lost track of. I’m thinking even if they’re still not in town, their parents or grandparents or cousins or somebody might be. And since St. Lizzy’s is giving up the ghost, oh, er holy spirit”-she chuckled at her own joke-“it could make some great human interest stories. Maybe you can interview some of the old nuns who were there when we were. Sister Clarice still lives in the convent, can you believe that? And remember Sister Mary Michael? She’s there, too. Wouldn’t it be great to interview them? Just a thought. Call me later!” She hung up with a click and Kristen deleted the message. The mechanical voice took over again, reminding her of yet another message. The damned thing aggravated her. She’d been threatening to buy a new one but hadn’t gotten around to it. “Next message,” the automated voice said.

“Mom, please, please, please come get me.” Lissa’s voice was a desperate whisper and for a millisecond Kristen’s muscles tightened in fear for her daughter. “I can’t stay here with Dad,” Lissa went on. “It’s just too weird.” She hung up abruptly, probably because her father had walked in on her.

Kristen leaned back against the cupboards, her pulse slowly returning to normal. She was totally spent but she managed a smile. Let the two of them work things out. She wasn’t buying into Lissa’s heroine-in-peril ploy. She was with her dad, for God’s sake. It was time the two of them got reacquainted.

Nerves still a bit jangled, Kristen poured herself a glass of wine, turned on the tap in the tub, added bubble bath, then wound her hair onto her head. After finding her favorite Eagles CD and pushing it into the player, she stripped off her clothes and sank neck deep into warm, frothy water.

She closed her eyes.

Listened to the music.

And, for the moment, pushed all thoughts of Jake Marcott, the marred photograph, the recording of the dance, and anything else that had to do with St. Lizzy’s out of her mind.

Tomorrow she’d deal with everything.

Tonight, after all, was supposed to be her night off.

Her heart was pounding out of control, her body drenched in sweat. Where was Jake? Where? The night was black, the moon hidden by clouds, a thin, rising fog dimmed her vision. Branches slapped her in the face, brambles pulled at her dress. Her feet were bare and the grass was cold and frosty. She stepped around the final turn of the maze and she saw him though the mist. He was slumped, drooping from the tree, an arrow glinting as it impaled him and fastened him to the oak’s thick trunk. His dark hair spilled over his face; his skin was as white as the marble of the statue of the Madonna placed beneath the spreading, brittle branches of the oak. The statue appeared to be crying, a reddish liquid oozing from her eyes.

“Jake!” Kristen cried, running toward him, nearly tripping on an unseen root.

Blood poured from his wound, stained his clothes, trickled down to pool at his feet.

“Jake, oh, God, Jake, what happened? Answer me, oh, please, please!”

Horrified, she reached his sagging body and yanked on the arrow, her hands slipping with the slick warmth of his blood. “No, no, no,” she whispered, pulling harder, her muscles straining.

She heard footsteps. Turned, her hands still clenched over the arrow’s unbending shaft. “Help!” she cried. “We need help! Oh, God, somebody help!”

Looking wraithlike, Lindsay Farrell stepped from the fog. Her eyes were round as saucers, her pupils wide and dark as the night. “You killed him, Kristen,” she accused. “You.”

“No, Lindsay…Please, he needs help. An ambulance. Call 911.”

“This is your fault, Kris, leave him be. I love him. Me.” She cradled Jake’s head in her hands and tenderly kissed his lips. Tears rained from her eyes, mingling with his blood, and he seemed to twitch a little, as if there were still life in him.

Was it possible? Kristen saw his fingers move and she gasped. Could it be? Could Jake still be alive? She reached for her cell phone, but her purse wasn’t with her…She’d left it in the car, the car with the awful note on the windshield.

Backing up, scarcely believing her eyes, she stared at Jake. Lindsay ceased kissing him and both of them turned to stare at her. Their blue eyes were black, and blood smeared Lindsay’s dress. Jake smiled, that incredible, devilish smile that she’d known since she was a child.

“Why, Kristen?” he asked, as if he weren’t in pain, as if nothing were wrong. “Why did you do this to me? I thought we were friends.”

“We were…are…We’re all friends.” As the words passed her lips, everyone who had been at the dance that night and others who hadn’t appeared in the mist. They walked toward her like zombies. Rachel, pale as death, was there along with April. Mandy joined them, her tattered dress falling off her shoulder where a hand, Boyd’s hand, was connected. They were mumbling, whispering, louder and louder until it became a deafening roar, “Why, Kristen, why?” Chad, Nick, Bella, DeLynn, Martina-all advancing upon her as if in slow motion, blood on their hands, no life in their fixed stares. From behind the tree and out of the maze came more people she knew, all dressed in tuxedos and gowns, their faces ashen, blood smeared upon cummerbunds and white shirts and staining red across lace, silk, and satin.

“I didn’t…Jake, I wouldn’t…I love you…” Kristen said, backing up as more kids showed up…Aurora and Dean…then Haylie, holding hands with a smiling, very pale Ian.

Oh, God, oh, God…no, I had nothing to do with this, Kristen tried to say and then she saw Ross…oh, thank God, he was here! She tried to run to him but her feet were stuck and she couldn’t move…Only then did she realize she was sinking in a bog, a mire deep in the maze, and the bog itself was running red with the blood of all the people closing in on her.

“Ross!” she cried, hoping he would save her. “Ross!”

Kristen’s eyes flew open. Panic ripped through her as she blinked into the darkness before realizing she was in her own bedroom. The digital alarm clock glowed the time in a steady bright blue, the numbers blinking out the time: five-forty-five in the morning.

“Oh, Lord,” she whispered, realizing she was covered in sweat though the room was cool. She let out a long tremulous sigh, grateful to have awakened from the dream, relief flooding through her.

“Only a dream, just a damned dream…no, only a nightmare,” she muttered as she snapped on the bedside lamp and heard the sound of rainwater running in the gutters. The light made her wince and she heard a soft meow of protest. Marmalade, who had been curled on the foot of the bed, lifted her tawny head, stretched, then inched upward to press her pink nose against Kristen’s. The cat usually slept with Lissa but had obviously given up hope that she would return. Sometime in the night, Marmalade had slunk into Kristen’s room. “Any port in a storm, eh?” Kristen said, glad for the bit of company. She petted Marmalade’s soft fur as the dream replayed through her mind, all the people, all the accusations, all the guilt. Twenty years of guilt. Once more she thought about that night and how, if she’d done just one thing differently, the tragedy might have been avoided and Jake would be alive today.

If only she’d looked for Jake sooner.

If only she hadn’t let him out of her sight that night.

If only she hadn’t asked him to the damned dance in the first place.

“Let it go,” she told herself, as she had so often in the past. “Let it go, let it go.” She shoved her hair away from her face. Why in the world had she agreed to get involved with the reunion committee? Hadn’t she known it would become a mistake of grand proportions? Okay, so she’d been drafted into the position, but she could have done nothing, just as she had at five, ten, and fifteen years. Either Aurora or another gung-ho, rah-rah St. Lizzy’s alumna could have taken over the reins or the whole thing could have just never happened. So what if the school was going to close? Who cared?

The cat settled onto the pillow next to Kristen’s head. Ross’s pillow. Marmalade’s tiny chin resting on Kristen’s shoulder. “Don’t get too comfortable,” Kristen warned the tabby. “Haven’t you heard? There’s just no rest for the wicked, and that’s you and me, girl. Decidedly wicked. Come on.” Kristen moved and flung off the covers. Marmalade scrambled to the side of the bed and hopped onto the floor. Yawning, Kristen headed for the kitchen with the cat following at a trot. “First item on the agenda? Coffee.” She filled the basket with ground coffee, poured a full pot of water into the carafe, then punched Mr. Coffee’s ON button.

Within seconds, the machine began to gurgle. Kristen wasted no time. While the smell of coffee permeated the first floor and rain ran down the windows, she pulled down the attic ladder in the hallway and climbed to the musty space filled with insulation, cobwebs, Christmas decorations, and baby paraphernalia she’d never had the heart to give away.

This summer, she promised herself. This summer she would clean the attic, divide out Ross’s things, have that garage sale she’d been talking about for years, and be done with it. She flicked on the switch and two bare bulbs illuminated the cluttered, unused space. Old furniture, maternity clothes that were fifteen years out of date, beat-up luggage, and boxes were stuffed into the corners.

Wrinkling her nose at the mouse droppings and insect carcasses, she made her way to a part of the attic where her old textbooks, scrapbooks, and high-school memorabilia were tucked away, boxes her mother had packed when she’d converted Kristen’s room into a home office years before.

The first three boxes were paperbacks and records, tapes and CDs, but on the fourth she hit pay dirt-all the notes, pictures, awards, report cards, and personal items from her desk and bulletin board. Near the bottom were loose pictures that had never made it into her scrapbook.

The first was one of Kristen, Rachel Alsace, and Lindsay Farrell, three girls beaming for the camera, though their smiles were false. Kristen frowned, pushed the photo aside and picked up the next, which was a group shot in the parking lot of St. Elizabeth’s, one corner of the arborvitae maze visible. Mandy, Aurora, Haylie, Bella, DeLynn, and Kristen were huddled together in the rain.

It was weird, Kristen thought, staring at the images. All of them were so young and fresh-faced in the photo. DeLynn had been the only black student at that time and Bella, having skipped fourth grade, had been the youngest. Haylie was glowing and in the picture she was wearing a ring-Ian Powers’s class ring. Aurora, ever the cutup, had placed her hand behind Mandy’s head, either giving a peace sign or giving Mandy the illusion of having horns. As for Kristen, she was looking at something in the distance, seemingly unaware of the camera.

She remembered. No one else had noticed Jake Marcott driving into the parking lot. But she had. She’d never missed anything that had concerned Jake. “Stupid, stupid girl,” she murmured, spying the wistful look on her face in the photo. She’d had a crush on him forever even though she’d only been his “friend,” and that was largely through Bella. Lindsay was the one who’d seriously dated him.

To dispel the wave of nostalgia, she quickly flipped through a few more yellowing snapshots before she found the jacket for the photo she was searching for, the one taken of Jake and her at the dance. She opened the paper folder and it was empty.

No picture.

Her heart lurched.

The photo was missing. She searched through the loose pictures again, but it wasn’t there. Kristen’s brows drew into a frown. She so clearly remembered posing with Jake. They’d stood beneath an arbor of fake roses, their arms around each other, their heads turned toward the camera.

Was the picture that had been plastered over her windshield her own? Had someone taken the photo from its jacket? The box didn’t appear to be disturbed, but maybe she just couldn’t tell. When was the last time she’d seen the photo? When she’d moved these boxes up here fifteen years earlier? Or had she even looked then?

Or was it taken yesterday, while you were at work? The bathroom window was open…

“Hello?” Ross’s voice boomed from below. “Kris?”

Her first impulse was to run to him and throw herself into his arms. That was how unnerved she felt. Then she caught herself short and looked down at her old flannel pajamas. She hadn’t even brushed her teeth yet. Or combed her hair.

“Kris? You here?”

She hurried down the attic stairs and was on the bottom rung when he appeared at the end of the hall. Jesus, he looked good: hair still damp from a shower or the rain, faded denim shirt, battered leather jacket, not unlike the one he wore in college a lifetime ago. “Hey, you okay?” he asked, his intense gray eyes trained on her.

“Yeah, just…just getting ready.”

His gaze slid up the staircase. “In the attic?”

“Of course not. I…I had to get something for the reunion committee.”

“Up there?” he asked, motioning to the picture in her hand.

“Yeah. I was looking for my yearbook.”

“Find it?”

“I was just looking through the boxes when I heard you.” That really wasn’t much of a lie. “There’s a lot of stuff up there. Some of it’s yours.”

He wasn’t derailed. “Looks like you found something, though,” he said, hitching his chin toward the kitchen.

He was already walking down the short hallway and she followed, all the while knowing what was to come. Last night, cold and wet and freaked out, she’d dropped everything she’d been carrying onto the kitchen table. Her purse, laptop, and notes as well as the tape and marred picture she’d found in her car.

Great, she thought, just what she wanted to do, talk it all over with her soon-to-be ex. She asked, “Where’s Lissa?”

“I dropped her off at school.” He was already pouring two cups of coffee. Unerringly he found the fat-free milk in the fridge, poured a stream of the bluish liquid into her cup, then handed it to her. He drank his black. “She promised to come straight home after school. On the bus.” He glanced over at Kristen. “That’s a lie, of course. I think she spent half the night talking to that cretin of a boyfriend of hers.”

“Did you call him that to her face?”

“Nope.” He tested his coffee, looking at Kristen over the rim of his cup. “Want to tell me what’s going on?”

“Not really.”

“Do it anyway.”

“Not this morning. I really don’t have time for-”

“Make time.” He kicked out a chair and settled into it. “You can be late for work.”

“No, I really can’t.” She didn’t want to discuss any of this with him. At least not now.

“Then talk fast.” He jabbed a finger at the wet, red-slashed picture of Kristen and Jake. “Where’d you get this photo? At the reunion committee meeting?” He didn’t bother hiding the sarcasm in his voice. “Or was it one of your keepsakes?” Before she could answer, he glared at the cassette tape. “And what’s this?” Without asking he took the cassette tape, walked into the den, and slid it into the tape deck.

Kristen braced herself.

With a push of a button, the noises from the dance, the music, the talk, the laughter, and then the bone-chilling scream echoed through the house.

Standing barefoot in the kitchen, her cup of coffee untouched in her hands, her heart thudding as hard as it had the night before, she listened to the horror. Old memories surfaced. The nightmare spun again.

Ross listened, his expression turning more grim as the tape played, the lines near the corners of his mouth turning white as the horrible scream filled the house. When the sounds faded away, he flipped the tape out of the deck and turned, staring hard at her. Gone was any trace of humor. In its stead was a confused anger. “Okay, Kris. Time to level with me. What the hell is going on?”

Chapter 6

Against her better judgment Kristen gave Ross the rundown, from the minute she’d driven into Ricardo’s parking lot to meeting old friends, Haylie’s scene, then the drive to St. Elizabeth’s, where she’d found the disturbing picture and blood-chilling tape in her car.

At first she was hesitant, but as she began explaining, she started talking faster and faster, watching his reaction move from anger to concern as he ignored his coffee.

Once she was finished, he shook his head. “What in God’s name were you thinking going back to the school, the maze in the middle of the night?”

“I don’t know, but it wasn’t that someone would follow me or leave me a tape of the dance!” She leaned back in her chair, pushing her hair from her eyes. “What do you think it means?”

“Nothing good. You should go to the police.”

“And tell them what? That I was trespassing and that someone left a marked-up picture and cassette tape of the dance in my car? They’d say it was a prank-I mean, I think it is. Right?”

He didn’t smile. “I think it’s more than a prank. Anything else happen?”

She hesitated, thought of the opened bathroom window.

“Kris?”

“Okay, so yesterday, before the reunion, the bathroom window was left open a crack, but I never open it. I didn’t think it was that big a deal; nothing was missing.”

“But someone could have been here for hours, searching the place, looking for the picture.”

“That’s a pretty big gamble. Who knew I had it?”

“Exactly, who did know?”

She shrugged, reached for the photo, and turned it over. Though smudged, the name, phone number, and address of a local photographer were still legible. “Ron Phillips Studio in Beaverton,” she said.

“I remember that place.”

“Is it still open?”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “Don’t think so.”

“I think I’ll check it out. Nose around a little.” What would it hurt to do some digging? Try to locate the owner of the studio.

“I vote for the police. This could be dangerous, Kris,” Ross said, leaving his barely touched coffee on the table. “Did you look outside the window, check for footprints?”

“No. It was dark, and to tell you the truth, I didn’t think about it.”

“Maybe they’re still there.” He walked to the pantry, grabbed a flashlight, then headed to the front door and pulled it open, letting in a blast of cold, wet air.

“Don’t let Marmalade out-”

Too late. The cat, sensing a chance for escape, had slipped through the doorway. Ross didn’t seem to notice as he stepped outside.

Kristen finished her coffee and was putting her cup in the dishwasher when he returned, rain wetting his face and dappling the shoulders of his jacket. “Well?” she asked, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.

“Inconclusive. It looks like someone might have walked back there, but that’s also near the spot where the cable comes into the house, and it looks like you had some work done.”

“Two weeks ago. The cable was out.”

“So much for my detecting skills.”

“Nancy Drew doesn’t have to worry that you’ll take her job?” Kristen teased and to her surprise, he lifted a dark eyebrow, surprised at her joke.

“Nancy’s safe.” He walked toward her, and in her mind’s eye she remembered making love on the sandy shore of a lake hidden high in the Cascades. It had been near dusk, mist had risen off the clear water, and as they’d kissed and pulled off each other’s clothes, it had seemed that they were the only two people in the universe.

She swallowed hard, licked her lips, and felt her skin flush. Ross had always had that effect on her. Always. Obviously, it hadn’t changed.

“Yeah, but are you?”

“What?” Dear Lord, was she blushing.

“Safe?” He moved close enough that she could smell the rainwater on his skin, hear the creak of leather as he reached around her to place the flashlight on the counter near the sink. The back of his hand brushed against her bare arm and she flinched, as if burned.

“I think we’re blowing this all out of proportion,” she said, stepping away from him. He leaned a hip against the edge of the stove and stared at her. Damn the man, sometimes she thought he could read her mind. “Look, if anyone really wanted to harm me, I would be dead by now. Someone’s just trying to freak me out.”

“Why?”

She tossed her towel on the counter, annoyed that her pulse had skyrocketed. “That’s a good question. I don’t have an answer yet.”

“Are you going to talk to members of the committee?”

“Of course. Don’t worry, Ross, I’ll take it from here.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Well, neither do I, but there it is.” She glanced at the clock on the counter. “Geez, I’ve got to run. I’m gonna be late.”

“Kris-”

“Look, if you really want to help,” she called over her shoulder, half running down the hall, “find the damned cat and let her in. Otherwise she’ll be out in the rain all day.”

She shut the bedroom door behind her and waited, shoulders pressed against the panels of the door, her breath held tight in her lungs until she heard him leave. The back door opened and closed, his truck’s engine roared to life. She let out a sigh. What was it about Ross that made her so crazy? Thinking sexy thoughts about him one minute, wanting to wring his neck the next? “Because you’re an idiot,” she muttered, turning on the spray in her shower, then stripping out of her pajamas.

And there’s a part of you that still loves him.

That thought hit her hard. Ridiculous. Whatever she’d felt for Ross Delmonico was long, long dead. She stepped under the spray and turned the faucet to allow a blast of cold water to hit her full force.

She gasped as the icy needles of water hit her skin.

She would have no more hot, sensual thoughts of Ross Delmonico even if she had to take a hundred cold showers.

Ross didn’t like what was happening.

Not one little bit.

His family was falling apart.

He turned off the radio, flipped on the windshield wipers, and reluctantly turned his black truck toward the freeway. First there was his daughter. Lissa was on a fast train to trouble with her attitude toward school and that scumbag of a boyfriend of hers. He’d been a horny teenager. He knew what that kid was thinking.

Then there was what was happening with Kristen and the damned reunion. He’d been against the thing from the start, figuring it would just stir up her old, unresolved feelings about Jake Marcott. But he’d had no say in the matter. It was her life, which she’d so angrily pointed out on more than one occasion.

He let it go, deciding he’d fought the ghost of Jake Marcott long enough. But now someone else wasn’t letting it lie. Someone else was resurrecting the past.

Ross waited at the ramp signal to northbound I-5, seeing the taillights of thickening traffic, hearing the rush of engines and tires, but driving on automatic, by rote, his mind going over bit by bit what he’d learned in the last twelve hours.

What the hell had Kristen been thinking, going back to the school at night? Alone, for God’s sake.

Not alone; someone was definitely following her.

A prankster?

No way. The light turned green and Ross stepped on the accelerator, threading into the steady stream of traffic heading into the Terwilliger Curves, a section of the freeway known for its winding path through the hills. He held the steering wheel so hard his knuckles bleached white.

Someone was messing with his family.

And it was because of the damned reunion.

Remember, Jake Marcott’s killer was never located.

Ross braked as a semi beside him eased a little close to his lane. The trucker kept control of his rig and Ross gunned it, moving past the eighteen-wheeler.

He saw the exit for Macadam Avenue and jockeyed into position for the off-ramp. He knew what he had to do.

His daughter wouldn’t like it and his wife would throw one helluva hissy fit. But it was just too damned bad. Until this mystery was solved-and maybe even after it was-Ross intended to insert himself back into their lives.

“So…how did the, what did you call it-‘the reunion meeting from hell’? Yeah, that was it. How’d it go?” Sabrina asked once Kristen had settled into her chair. Because of Ross, Kristen was running late. Damn the man. She remembered the concern that etched across his face as he’d stared at the photo and felt warmed.

She had to mentally shake herself. Don’t buy into it. Where was he when you needed him? When Lissa needed him? And who the hell does he think he is that he can just barge into your life and start handing out advice?

“It went,” she said, answering Sabrina’s questions. “Not great, but it went.” She shoved her purse into a drawer and pressed her computer’s ON button.

Sabrina was leaning both hips against the edge of her desk, long legs stretched out in front of her, and pointing a manicured nail in Kristen’s direction. “You survived.”

“Barely.” Kristen rolled her chair away from her computer monitor.

“It couldn’t have been that bad.”

Kristen thought of Haylie’s outburst and the eerie note and tape left in her car. “It was pretty bad.”

“But you couldn’t pawn off the responsibility of running the thing?”

“Nope. Believe me, I tried.”

“Give yourself a chance, you might just have some fun with this,” Sabrina said, a slow smile spreading across her face.

“Think so? Well, get this, you might be invited.”

“Me?” Her black eyebrows drew together. “I didn’t go to St. Lizzy’s.”

“No, but your husband went to Western. Graduated the same year I did, right? Class of ’86?”

Sabrina’s grin slowly fell. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“The vote was to ask the Western boys to join us, so, being as you’re the spouse, you too could be a part of the festivities. Hey! I could work it out so that you could be in charge of decorations or name tags or-”

Sabrina had pushed herself off the edge of her desk. She held her hands in front of her in the classic “stop” position. “Okay, okay. I get the picture. Don’t be signing me up for any committees, and don’t let anyone talk to Gerard. He’s got enough on his plate already.”

“I think someone from Western, probably Craig Taylor or Chad Belmont, will be contacting him.”

She groaned as her phone rang and she turned her attention back to work.

The rest of the day was uneventful. Kristen polished up a couple of stories, turned them in to the editor, then, when things were at a lull, thought more about the tape, marred photo, and the night of Jake Marcott’s death. Surely the newspaper had articles about what had happened that night, the murder and subsequent investigation. She only had to look. At four o’clock, she began searching all the old computer records, but the information went back only twelve years. Eventually, she made her way downstairs and into the basement. In a windowless room with the fluorescent lights humming overhead, she sat on a stool at a small desk and stared into the viewer until she found the first story on Jake’s murder, printed the day after the dance.

Her skin crawled as she read the account, a clinical, facts-only report of the killing at a private school. So much was left out: the human emotion, the pain, the heartache.

Setting her jaw, she worked forward, searching the following editions, looking for information about the investigation. Unfortunately the information was limited:

Jake had been a student at Western Catholic.

Services were held at St. Ignatius.

He was survived by his parents, James and Caroline, one grandmother, Maxine Baylor, and three siblings, Bella, Naomi, and Luke.

Students, chaperones, and faculty attending the dance had been questioned, as had family and friends and acquaintances of Jake Marcott.

The murder weapon, a crossbow, had been discovered in the maze at St. Elizabeth’s and was found to have belonged to a bow hunter who had reported it missing sometime in December. The bow hunter had a strong alibi and was dismissed as a suspect.

There was information about Jake, including the fact that he played football and baseball and had been in an accident during the Christmas break in which another Western student, Ian Powers, had died.

The police were asking the public’s help in solving the crime.

The lead investigator for the “Cupid Killer,” Detective Mac Alsace, was looking into “new leads every day,” but the case had eventually gone cold and references to Jake Marcott’s death had disappeared.

Kristen printed out a few of the articles, turned off the viewer, put the microfiche away, and rubbed the kinks from her neck. She was stiff from sitting in one position and hadn’t learned much more than she already knew.

That night, she dealt with Lissa, who said in no uncertain terms that she’d never spend another night at Ross’s condo.

Real good father-daughter relationship, Kristen thought, keeping mum on her feelings.

To her surprise and Lissa’s disgust, Ross came over that evening, bringing with him five white boxes of take-out Chinese. Lissa, who had rolled her eyes upon his arrival, hadn’t been able to resist the tantalizing aromas of cashew chicken, sesame beef, and peanut sauce. They ate on the floor in the den, watching some inane music awards show on television, and Ross didn’t even remark when Lissa, after receiving a call on her cell, took her plate and phone to her room.

When she didn’t immediately return and Ross looked ready to go get her, Kristen pointed a chopstick at his chest. “Don’t,” she warned.

“But we were having dinner. Can’t she give up her calls for half an hour?”

“For God’s sake, Ross, how hypocritical can you get? How many times did your dinner get cold while you talked on the phone with some subcontractor?”

“That’s different. It was business. Important.”

“This is important to her.”

“Then we need to set some rules.” She raised an eyebrow, daring him to continue, and Ross didn’t disappoint. “No phone calls at dinner. Not for any of us.”

Kristen frowned as she chewed on a piece of tangy shrimp. “Wait a minute. So you think that we”-she rotated the chopstick in a circular motion to include Ross, herself, and the empty cushion recently vacated by their daughter-“we’ll be doing this often?”

“I’m just saying whenever we have a family dinner, some rules should be observed.”

“A little late for that, isn’t it?”

“It’s never too late.” He was serious and she caught his meaning, felt the atmosphere in the room shift a bit.

“Wait a minute. We’re talking about dinner together as a family, right? Nothing more.”

“What more do you want?”

She felt her damned cheeks flame. “Don’t do this, Ross, okay? Don’t start that talking-in-circles thing you do. Let’s just play it straight. If you’re talking about you and me getting back together, if you think that we shouldn’t go through with the divorce, then you’re wrong.”

“You haven’t filed yet.”

“I know.” She stared at the fire, while on the television in the background some girl of about seventeen, dressed in next to nothing, was belting out a song as if her life depended upon it. “It’s a big step.” She sighed and shook her head. “I want you to know that when I took my wedding vows, I…I meant them.”

“So did I.”

Kristen felt overwhelmed. She should never have started wading into this river. The current was too damned dangerous and was bound to pull her under.

Her cell phone rang and she immediately started to get up.

Quick as lightning, Ross’s hand clasped over her wrist. She nearly dropped her plate. “Let it ring,” he insisted, gray eyes holding hers.

“But-” His hands were warm, fingertips pressed into the flesh inside her arm. How many times had he rubbed his hands up her arms as he’d kissed her? How many times had they tumbled so easily into bed? Her pulse beat unsteadily.

“New rule, remember?”

“I didn’t agree to any rule. You know how I hate them.” Would he please release her? The feel of his skin against hers was way too distracting.

The phone blasted again.

“It could be important. My mom-”

“Feeble excuse, Kris. Your mom is healthy as a horse.”

“How would you know?” She tried to pull her arm away, but he held on tight.

“She called me a couple of weeks ago. Is interested in the condos on the river. Is hoping I’ll give her a deal.”

“Oh, God…”

“You know Paula.”

Kristen inwardly groaned. Ever since selling the bakery, Paula Daniels had fancied herself an investor. Ross was right, she was always trying to finagle a good deal.

The phone rang again and Kris gave up, flopping back against the couch. “Okay,” she said in surrender and Ross loosened his grip. “You win. Again.” She ignored the warm spot where his fingers had touched her pulse, refused to stare into his seductive gray eyes another second. Damn, what was she thinking? Of kissing him? Of making love to him? Now that would be a mistake she couldn’t dare risk. Ross Delmonico had always had a way of turning her inside out when it came to sex.

Using a key she’d had made two decades earlier, Jake’s killer unlocked the door at the bottom of the outside stairwell and moved inside. It was dark and smelled of dust, dirt, and mold. As she closed the door behind her and slid the lock into place, she heard the steady drip of rainwater that had seeped through the cracks of the old school and the scratch of tiny claws against concrete, no doubt rats and mice who had found homes in this little-used storage space that held old, forgotten relics of St. Elizabeth’s.

A shame they were planning to tear the old place down.

The wrecking ball was scheduled for sometime next year and by that time, all of her work would be done.

And work it was.

Silently and familiarly, using the tiny beam of a small penlight, she dodged broken benches and desks, lab tables and outdated, now rusted, physical education equipment to reach a long-forgotten closet with an old combination lock she’d installed herself-just to be on the safe side. She held the lock in her palm, turned it over, saw the initials scratched on the back, and smiled to herself.

J.M.

Big as life.

A bell tolled and she froze, then smiled as the peals echoed through the campus, just as they did at each hour of the day. She rotated the dial to the combination. The lock sprang and she was inside her own little chamber, her private place in the universe.

Once the door was closed behind her, she flicked her lighter to the wick of an old kerosene lantern. As the lamp began to glow and her eyes adjusted, she saw the fruition of her years of labor, the perfect room for what she’d planned for so long.

She’d done her work over the years, gathering items at garage sales, estate sales, the local thrift shop run by the parish, St. Vincent De Paul stores, and, when all else failed, resorting to stealing the most valued items. Then she’d lucked into an unexpected bonanza. A few years after Jake’s death, the interior of St. Elizabeth’s had been remodeled and old desks, equipment, lockers, tables, and the like had been sold at an auction.

Which had been perfect.

She’d bought several lockers, the numbers burned into her brain forever, lockers that had once belonged to that unique circle of friends who were linked by one boy: Jake Marcott.

Under the cover of darkness, she’d brought them here…back home to a hidden room beneath the auditorium of the old school. Each of their graduation pictures had been duplicated, laminated, and affixed to the lockers with their corresponding numbers: Rachel Alsace, locker 102; Kristen Daniels, locker 118; Lindsay Farrell, locker 123…and there were others, of course, all of the girls in that certain special clique.

She smiled.

Licked her lips.

Oh, how long she had waited.

Now, it seemed, she was about to be rewarded.

She sent up a prayer of thanks, made a hasty sign of the cross, then opened the locker that had once belonged to Kristen Daniels, now Delmonico. Inside were several artifacts: Kristen’s final report card, the one that had sealed her place as valedictorian over the next two in line, Bella Marcott and Mandy Kim; Kristen’s list of awards and achievements printed in the yearbook, including scholarship offers, writing commendations, and her duties as editor of St. Lizzy’s newspaper and captain of the debate team; her French III textbook, the one she’d thought she’d lost on a trip to visit the University of Washington campus.

And finally, and best yet, Kristen’s diary, the little leather-bound book with its ridiculous key, the secret tiny volume of written notes, dreams, and wishes that had disappeared from under her mattress. Kristen had been sick with mortification, worried that her mother had found and discarded the diary-or worse yet, that some of the boys from Western, known for their pranks, might have somehow gotten into her room and found it, only to reveal its contents. She’d been in a panic for weeks when she’d noticed it missing.

The killer smiled when she remembered Kristen’s distress.

It had been the beginning.

Now, in the flickering light of the lantern, she opened the diary to one of the last entries, one of her personal favorites:

I can’t believe it! Jake said yes! I invited him to the dance and he agreed! Lindsay will be upset when she finds out and Rachel already thinks I’m out of my mind, but I’m in heaven. Jake Marcott is going to the Valentine’s Dance with me!

Me!

I just know it’s going to be a night I’ll never forget.

And so it had been, the killer thought…so it had been.

Chapter 7

During the next three weeks, nothing out of the ordinary happened, unless it was that Ross had been sticking around a lot more and that Kristen was beginning to feel safe again. But now, driving home from work, Kristen didn’t know whether to be irritated, suspicious, or just accept the situation and see what developed. She’d still not filed the divorce papers and wondered about that. Why the hesitation? She’d made the decision, hadn’t she? Just because Ross was suddenly showing some interest in his family wasn’t enough of a reason to stop the inevitable-or was it? So far, she’d adopted a “wait and see” attitude; she could always tell her attorneys to continue.

The rest of her life was routine. Her position and responsibilities at the Clarion hadn’t changed and she was still wondering if she should try and change jobs, look for a new perspective. She’d heard Willamette Week was interviewing for an editor but, for the moment, she’d decided against making any more major alterations in her life. She was already on the horns of a dilemma about her divorce, and Lissa seemed even more distant and rebellious. Sometimes, with her daughter, Kristen felt as if she were tiptoeing through a minefield, never certain when the next emotional explosion would occur.

Changing lanes, she squinted against a lowering sun as she headed west. For the first time in months, she scrounged in the console for her sunglasses and plopped them onto her nose before realizing they were dusty and covered with fingerprints.

Tonight was the next meeting of the reunion committee and she wasn’t looking forward to it. Though she didn’t have the same trepidation as she’d had a month earlier, she still wasn’t red-hot on the idea of running the show.

Aurora had reported in twice since the last time they’d met, and everyone was doing her assigned task. Kristen had talked to Sister Clarice, who had spoken with the powers that be at the convent, and a date for the event had been chosen, the venue of the old school approved. Sister Clarice had reluctantly agreed to be interviewed, along with a few of her peers, for a series of articles the Clarion would run. According to Aurora, the Western Catholic graduating class was “on board,” so at least a portion of the festivities would include their alumni. A caterer had been secured, decorations planned and the official invitations were about ready to be sent.

It looked like the whole damned thing was coming together-and no further warnings had occurred. Kristen had never told any of the reunion committee what had happened at St. Elizabeth’s campus the night of the first meeting, nor had she mentioned that she’d been there. She figured if Aurora or any of the others had experienced something similar, they would have said so. So up till now Kristen had decided to bide her time, but tonight she planned to show everyone on the committee what she’d found.

In the interim she’d also tried to track down the photographer who had taken the picture at the dance, just on the off chance that the photo left in her car wasn’t the original. Maybe her copy was simply missing…maybe…

Lost in thought, behind a slow-moving cement truck on Canyon Drive, she nearly jumped from her skin when her cell phone jangled. She found it in the pocket of her purse and, after changing lanes and exiting off the main road, she answered just before voicemail picked up. “Hello?”

“Kris!” Her mother was always delighted to catch her.

“Hi, Mom. How are ya?” Kristen felt a little jab of guilt. She and her mother usually met once a week for lunch or dinner, but lately they’d been playing phone tag, which had been as much Paula’s fault as her own. Though Paula Daniels was an AARP card-carrying senior citizen, she hadn’t slowed down an iota. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you.”

“I got your messages and meant to call earlier, but I’ve been busier than ever, if you can believe that. I’ve been elected president of our little women’s group at the golf course and I’ve got that bridge group with Henry and, believe it or not, the woman who bought the bakery is wanting me to come in and work a few days a week.”

“Are you?”

“I’m thinking it over. Depends on if I move.”

“Ross said you asked him about his condos on the river.”

“Wouldn’t that be fun! And no more mowing the damned grass…if the price was right, I’d jump on it like a flea on a dog! And Henry’s interested too.”

Henry was, as her mother called him, “her main squeeze.” Kristen had never asked exactly what that meant and figured she was better off not knowing.

“I hear you’re seeing Ross again, that the divorce is on hold.”

“Where’d you hear that?” Kristen demanded, slowing for a corner, then nearly standing on the brakes as a squirrel darted across the road.

“Well, is it, or isn’t it? You know, I’ve always liked Ross and he is Melissa’s father, and well, I do believe that no matter what your troubles are, you can fix them. No marriage is a picnic, believe me, but there are those vows about sickness and health, good times and bad and…”

“We were married by a justice of the peace,” Kristen reminded her as she sped up for the final rise to her house. Why was she having this conversation with her mother, why?

“You should have had Father McIntyre-”

“But we didn’t, okay? That’s water under the bridge.” She turned into her driveway one-handed and hit the brakes again. Once the car had rolled to a stop, she let the engine idle and pressed the garage door opener with her free hand.

“I didn’t call to get into a fight. I thought you and I and Melissa could get tickets to Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, it’s coming to town, to Keller Auditorium, in July and has had fabulous reviews.”

“Sounds good.” Keller Auditorium was one of the largest and most upscale theaters in Portland and the venue for a lot of the touring Broadway shows.

“I’ll order them…if I can get a Saturday night. Should I get one for Ross, too?”

“No!” Kristen scaled back her tone with an effort. “Let’s just make it a girls’ night out, okay? You, me, and Lissa.”

“Henry will be disappointed, and I know Melissa has a boyfriend.” Paula was using that wheedling tone that Kristen had always found irritating.

The thought of sitting for hours in an upscale theater with Zeke was too much. He’d probably wear a stocking cap over his ears and be plugged into his iPod, or be trying to make out with Lissa.

“Come on, Mom. Let’s make this a women thing.”

Paula sighed loudly and Kristen knew she hadn’t heard the end of this particular discussion. “I’ll let you know when I get them. I think there are some bargains on-line.”

“Good seats, though, Mom, okay? Nothing under the balcony. And make sure they’re all together this time. I’ll pay the extra cost.”

“Mmm-hmm…I’ll get the best I can finagle. Oh, gotta run. Got another call coming in…it’s Henry…and I don’t know how to put you on hold.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll talk later.”

Kristen hung up as she entered the kitchen through the garage side door. She figured she was doomed. Her mother wasn’t one to change her mind easily. For some reason she wanted a group date with the men involved. “Save me,” Kristen murmured.

She checked on Lissa, who was seated at her desk, actually working on homework, even though the buds for her iPod were plugged into her ears.

“I’m going out tonight, remember?” Kristen said and when her daughter didn’t respond, shouted, “Lissa!” so loudly that Marmalade, who had been seated on the windowsill, scrambled from her perch, hissed at Kristen showing fierce, needle-sharp teeth and an incredible pink tongue, then scurried beneath the skirt of Lissa’s bed. She peered out balefully, as if Kristen were suddenly the enemy. “Ingrate,” Kristen muttered at the cat.

Lissa pulled out one of her earbuds. “What?” she asked in a bored tone.

“I’m going to a meeting tonight. The reunion again. I shouldn’t be gone long. There’re some Lean Cuisines in the freezer.”

Lissa rolled her eyes.

“Or pizza.”

“Big deal. Dad’s coming over.” Another exaggerated roll of her expressive gray, and overly made-up, eyes. “Didn’t he tell you?”

“I must have missed that memo.” Of course Ross hadn’t said anything. Lately, he didn’t seem to understand that she needed some warning before he strolled into the kitchen. Ever since the night of the first reunion meeting, Ross had been making a point of inserting himself into their lives again. It bugged her, but worse yet, Kristen found herself kind of enjoying the attention a bit, too.

Now she gritted her teeth. For whatever reasons, Ross was playing the part of interested, concerned father, and for that Kristen was on board. She wasn’t as certain she liked his renewed attentions to her…it was as if some switch had flipped back on. Suddenly he was smart, witty, and attentive-more so than he’d been in years. But what did it mean? How long would it last?

Bottom line: she didn’t trust him.

And she didn’t trust herself when it came to him.

It was just too easy to fall into that trap again.

“He said he was going to bring dinner again. Oh, wow,” Lissa said, curling her lip, “another Dad date.”

“Could be worse,” Kristen pointed out.

“How?”

“Could be taking you to his condo.”

Lissa looked stricken. The thought of being stranded in Ross’s Portland high-rise was enough to give her apoplexy. Forget the fact that she’d go there with her cell phone and iPod and have e-mail access through his computer; in Lissa’s opinion spending a night in the condo was a jail sentence.

“I’ll be back before ten, I think,” Kristen said, but her daughter was already plugged in again, her nose pointed toward her open algebra book, while on the computer screen someone named ZeeMan was instant-messaging her.

No doubt Zeke.

Kristen bit her tongue and walked the few steps to her room, where she showered, changed, slapped on some lipstick and mascara, then ran her fingers through her hair and called it good. She had just picked up her laptop and notes when Ross, pocketing his keys, walked in.

She tried not to notice how good he looked, but her female antennae picked up everything in a flash. His black hair was unkempt, aviator sunglasses covered his eyes. He was wearing khaki slacks and a white shirt with sleeves rolled to the elbows to show off tanned, sinewy forearms. His tie hung from a loosened collar, which added to the image of hardworking businessman ready for a little R &R. “Hi,” he said, tossing his keys and wallet onto the table.

“I didn’t know you were coming over.”

Taking off the sunglasses, he added them to the pile of his personal things. “Time got away from me. Meetings with those jackasses at the bank, a financing snafu that could hold up the entire Macadam project, and then more problems with a plumbing subcontractor. I didn’t have a second to breathe, let alone call and-” He stopped himself, shoved his hair from his eyes, and offered her a rueful smile. “I’m sorry. I should have phoned.”

“Amen.”

He held up his hands as if in surrender. “Won’t happen again.”

She didn’t believe him for a second, and it must’ve shown in her expression because his grin widened and he made an exaggerated cross over his chest. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“Yeah, right. Okay, okay, I forgive you. This time, but I gotta go. Already late for the meeting.” She grabbed her purse and tried to brush by him.

“Wait.”

She looked up into his teasing eyes, so damned seductive with their tiny striations of blue in the gray irises.

“I have to apologize for one more thing.”

“And what is that?” Her blood pressure was already elevating.

“This.” He pulled on her arm, yanked her to him, and suddenly kissed her. A deep, hot kiss. Surprised, Kristen gasped, and he took advantage of her open mouth, his lips molding to hers, his tongue touching and exploring.

She reacted instinctively, her stupid, wayward body beginning to melt, her bloodstream surging, her heart pounding a staccato rhythm. You don’t want this, you don’t, her mind was screaming at her, but her body, so long without a man’s touch, so anxious for the feel, taste, and smell of him, responded eagerly. Heat skittered up her spine, spreading across the back of her neck. Her knees threatened to buckle. She dropped her purse on the floor. It landed with a soft clunk.

“Oh, no!”

Lissa’s disgusted voice pierced through the haze of desire, and Kristen pulled back from Ross as if she’d been yanked by an invisible wire. Glancing past him, she spied her daughter, nose wrinkled as if she’d smelled something rotten, staring at her.

Lissa turned and swept down the hallway and quickly into her room. The door banged shut.

Kristen felt her cheeks flushing. She took one step after Lissa, then stopped. “You handle this,” she said tightly.

Ross, damn him, was grinning like a Cheshire cat. “I will.”

“Good.”

“It was just a kiss, Kris. A nice one. A very nice one. But just a kiss.” He slid his eyes toward the hallway where Lissa had disappeared. “We are grown up and married.”

Kristen groaned, more at herself than anything else.

“It’s not like we were ‘doing it’ here on the kitchen floor.” Unfortunately Kristen’s mind recalled a time when they had done it on the kitchen floor. Ross seemed to pick up on her thoughts, because he laughed and his eyes twinkled in the way that really got to her. “You’re just mad ’cuz you liked it.”

She made a strangled sound but couldn’t deny it. “Yeah, all right, I liked it. I didn’t want it, but okay, it was…nice.” She picked up her purse again and grabbed her laptop. “Doesn’t mean it’ll ever happen again.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” he said as she walked out the door and pulled it shut harder than she’d planned. What was it about that man that made her so crazy?

She decided she didn’t have time to think about it. Not right now. Not when she was on her way to Ricardo’s. Tucked inside one pocket of her computer case was the mutilated picture of Jake and her at the dance. In another compartment was the tape. Though she had a small cassette recorder with her, the one she used while interviewing, she didn’t intend to play the tape unless she had to.

Ross rapped softly on his daughter’s bedroom door, but before Lissa could shout out “Leave me alone,” he pushed it open and stepped inside the chaos that was Lissa’s room. Not quite a pigsty, it was still messy as hell. She was flopped on her bed, cell phone to her ear.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” she said, placing a hand over the receiver.

“Tough.”

“Dad. No. Not now.”

“Yep, Lissa, now. Hang up.”

She shook her head and he heard a voice, a male voice, saying something.

“Either you hang it up or I will.”

“Oh, puh-leez.”

“I’m serious.” He took a step forward.

“I’ll call you back,” she said quickly. “In a few minutes.” Then she hung up. Turning rebellious eyes up at him she said, “Satisfied?”

“Nope.”

“Oh…shit. You don’t even live here anymore.”

“I’m working on that. Clean up your language.”

“It’s just words, Dad.” She looked about to let fly with a blue streak of four-letter words, then caught his expression and changed her mind. “And don’t ‘work on it’ to move back in. Mom and me, we don’t need you.”

“Really?” He folded his arms over his chest. “Tell me about it.”

“I don’t need to tell you anything. You just want to come back here so you can go to bed with Mom.” She made an “ick” face as if the picture of her parents sleeping together was the most revolting image she could imagine.

“Your mother’s my wife,” he said, crossing the room, grabbing her desk chair, flipping it around, and sitting on it backward.

“Not for long.”

“You think?” He smiled. “We’ll see.”

She shook her head. “Don’t you get it? Mom doesn’t love you anymore.”

That statement stung, but he ignored it. “Let’s turn this around, okay? I didn’t have time to pick up anything on the way, so let’s go out for a burger. You can tell me all about your life then.”

She looked at him as if he’d suggested she eat banana slugs.

“Come on, Lissa. It won’t be so bad.”

“I’m…I’m a vegetarian.”

“Since when?”

She made a face and shrugged. “A while.”

“Great. I know a place where they make veggie burgers out of tofu or something.” He picked up her flip-flops and tossed them onto the bed. “Let’s go.”

Chapter 8

Kristen tried to ignore her case of nerves, but as she drove to the restaurant she couldn’t forget the night of the last reunion meeting and the fact that someone had followed her to St. Elizabeth’s afterward. Had it been one of the women on the committee? Or someone who had waited in the parking lot, then followed her Honda as she’d left? Was it the person who had stolen the picture of Jake and her from the attic where it had been hidden for years, or someone else?

Who?

And why?

The same old questions hounded her and she couldn’t help but check her rearview mirror and the surrounding traffic as she drove through the congested streets of Beaverton. Twice she thought she noticed a vehicle lagging back, visible in her sideview mirror, but the first time it was a truck with an older man in a baseball cap who had pulled into a convenience store, and the second time it was a dark SUV that passed her, the driver, a soccer-mom type, not giving her a second glance.

“You’re paranoid,” she told herself as she pulled into Ricardo’s lot. She spied Aurora’s Subaru wagon in a parking space near the front door and noted several other vehicles that could be reunion committee members’ cars. She didn’t see Haylie Swanson’s BMW.

Grabbing her computer and purse, Kristen locked the car and headed inside. Once again, the tangy garlic-laden scents emanating from the hidden kitchen made Kristen’s stomach growl. Somehow, she’d missed lunch and hadn’t noticed how hungry she was until this minute.

The restaurant was quieter than it had been the previous time they’d met. There were plenty of people seated at the tables, but the decibel level was lower due to the fact there was no preteen basketball party in progress.

Kristen waved a hello to Aurora. Most, if not all, of the other usual suspects from St. Lizzy’s had shown up. Only Haylie appeared to be missing, replaced by another woman Kristen recognized as Laura Triant, the girl who had married Chad Belmont from Western Catholic. Kristen was relieved. She didn’t want a replay of the last meeting’s scene. Hopefully Laura was a lot more stable than Haylie.

Three tables had been pushed together in a corner close to the bar. Once again notes, yearbooks, pictures, and printouts were scattered among bottles of wine and frosty mugs of beer or cola. Mandy, DeLynn, Bella, Aurora, and Martina were seated around one end of the working surface, leaving Laura Triant Belmont and April on the opposite side.

“Welcome, El Presidente,” Aurora greeted her.

“Sorry I’m late.”

“Nah…the rest of us are early.”

“Sure.” A lie. To make her feel better. She slid into an empty chair next to DeLynn and across from April. “Are we all here, or are we waiting for Haylie?”

“She’s not coming. I called,” Aurora said. “Left a couple of voice messages. She never called back.”

“Which is just as well, considering last time,” Bella pointed out. “For as long as she lives, she’s going to blame Jake for Ian’s death.” She shook her head, her hair as dark as her brother’s had been. In high school, she’d looked enough like Jake that people had thought they were twins, especially those who hadn’t realized Bella had skipped a grade in elementary school.

“She can find us, she has all our numbers,” Martina added, her dark eyes sober. “I’m with Bella. Haylie’s more trouble than she’s worth.”

“That’s not exactly what I meant.” Bella, slightly irritated, picked up her glass of wine.

“Sure it is. It’s what we’re all thinking…Oh, well, doesn’t matter. Let’s get on with it,” Martina said. “Kristen, you remember Laura? I told you she’s married to Chad Belmont?”

“Hi, and welcome to the committee.”

“Glad to be here,” Laura said. “We were just discussing the boys from Western. Martina and I see a lot of them.”

The conversation took off from there as they discussed some of the Western grads. Laura had brought a yearbook that caused lots of chuckles, sly glances, and comments like, “I so had a crush on him!” or “He was a friend of my brother. I couldn’t wait for him to come over and play basketball.” Or “Geez, he was always a nerd in high school, always hitting on me. I heard he made a fortune with some dot-com company.”

For twenty minutes they discussed the “boys” from Western.

Just as they had about every waking moment twenty years earlier.

“Chad’s all over this reunion,” Laura said, sipping from a mug of beer. “One hundred percent!” She was still as freckled as ever, but a few streaks of gray had infiltrated her once-vibrant red hair. “He and some of his friends, including Craig,” she added, mentioning Martina’s husband, “are already starting to contact classmates.”

Martina nodded as she sipped what appeared to be a Diet Coke. “Craig’s already put out the word on the Internet. I think they’ve got over forty guys signed up already.”

“I say bring ’ em on.” April ’s eyes were full of interest at the prospect of being with “the guys.” She’d been married twice before and made no bones about the fact that she was “lookin’ for number three.”

Aurora pointed to the wine and beer on the table. “Help yourself. It’s light beer. And Merlot. That pizza’s cheese and pepperoni, and this one”-she indicated the large tray in front of Martina-“is veggie delight. If you want something from the salad bar or a soda, you’re on your own.”

“A beer sounds like heaven,” Kristen said as she reached for the half-full pitcher and an empty mug. “Bring me up to speed.”

They did. Laughing, talking, eating, and drinking, they laid out how the event would take place. Bella had great ideas for decorations and was proceeding on ordering them, and DeLynn had managed to get most of the classmates’ addresses and was working on the final three.

“Does anyone have any idea about Leslie Bonaventure, or Karleen Signatore, or Bette Lablonsky?” DeLynn checked the spreadsheet she’d printed out. “I’m missing about twenty-six alumnae, but I have leads on all but those three. Here’s the list.” She passed copies around the table.

“I think I heard Bette’s family moved to Chicago,” Bella said around a bite of pepperoni, “but don’t quote me on that.”

“Karleen has an aunt in Oregon City, or did,” Martina put in. “I’ll see if I have that address.”

DeLynn made notes on her spreadsheet. “I also got in contact with Darla Campbell’s parents. She died last year in a boating accident, and I don’t think Selma Ortega will come. Not only was her husband killed last year in the war, she’s battling ovarian cancer. She has to wait and see how she feels.”

There were murmurs of shock and concern from the rest of the committee. It was sad and oddly strange to learn of their classmates’ troubles and deaths.

DeLynn tapped her pencil on the table. “Selma has two kids and Darla a son. I think the committee should set up some kind of donation fund or something, y’know, as well as acknowledging them at the event.”

Everyone agreed with the idea.

“Well, on that somber note,” April said, “I think we should move on. Here’s the menu and bid from the caterer. It’s pretty expensive, but the best I could come up with. You’ll see that I got a bid with and without dessert.” She passed her sheets around. “I was hoping Kristen’s mom might be able to help in that area. It could save us some money if we got a deal on the pastry.”

“From my mom?” Kristen snorted as she picked up a piece of vegetarian pizza. “She was never big on giving special price breaks, and she sold Sweet Nothings a few years ago.”

“But she still has connections in the industry.”

“I can ask,” Kristen said dubiously. “But don’t count on it.”

“Okay,” Aurora said. “What about the advertising? Can you run ads for the reunion at the paper and on the Internet? Maybe we can find those last missing souls.”

“Will do.”

They talked a while more, organizing, and eventually Aurora handed Kristen a stack of nearly a hundred invitations. “These are ready to go. They’re already stuffed with registration forms, return envelopes, and questionnaires. All you have to do is add a personal note-slash-invitation as head of the committee and maybe include DeLynn’s list of the people we can’t find, so that if anyone knows where a missing alum is, they can contact us.”

“I think you should write the letter,” Kristen teased, though she took the boxes of invitations. “Honestly, Aurora, you’ve done the work on this.”

Aurora waved a dismissive hand. “Give me some credit in the letter and maybe in the little pamphlet that we hand out at the reunion. Just don’t make me the person everyone turns to if there’s a problem. That’d be you, Kristen.”

Kristen didn’t want to think about what those problems could possibly be. It was time she told them about what had already happened to her, but she hardly knew how to broach the subject.

Then DeLynn checked her watch and sighed. “Got to go. The baby-sitter can only stay until nine-thirty.”

Drawing a breath, Kristen plunged in. “There’s something else I wanted to talk about.” The committee members turned interested faces her way. “Something I want all of you to see.” Unsnapping her briefcase, Kristen reluctantly pulled out the marred photograph.

Everyone at the table stared at the faded, red-marked photo.

“What is this?” DeLynn asked.

“Someone left it in my car, the night after the last reunion meeting.”

“What?” Aurora was stunned. “They left it here?”

“No.” As succinctly as possible, Kristen relayed her story.

“Why did you go to the school? The maze?” Bella asked, her eyes trained on the photograph of her brother.

“I don’t know. It was stupid.”

“This is beyond creepy,” Laura said.

DeLynn agreed. “Who would do this?”

“I think someone followed me,” Kristen admitted. “No one knew I would be there. I didn’t plan to go. I can’t even explain why I felt compelled to drive to the school and walk through the maze.”

“You should have your head examined,” Martina muttered as she looked away from the photograph. “Where did this picture come from?”

“It might have been stolen from my house,” Kristen said with a grimace. “I checked my attic. It’s missing. Just the paper folder that it came in was left.”

“You think someone was in your house?” DeLynn whispered. She’d forgotten all about her baby-sitter.

“How else would they get the picture?”

“From the photographer?” Aurora asked.

“He’s out of business. I checked.”

“We have a picture like that,” Bella said and swallowed hard. “Or at least we did.” She bit her lip. “I, um, I haven’t seen it in a while. But Jake paid for the picture and it was sent to our house, you know, several weeks after…after he died. My mom fell into a million pieces all over again.” She looked up at Kristen. “I’ll check with my folks. See if they still have it.”

“I don’t like this,” April murmured, rubbing her arms as if suddenly chilled.

“Whoever left the picture also left me an audio tape…it’s from the dance.” Kristen glanced at Bella. “Look, I’m sorry, this is painful for us all, but I thought you should know. The tape has people’s conversations and then…well, it ends with a horrible scream. I think Lindsay’s.”

“Okay, this is sick!” Aurora rubbed her temples and stared at the picture lying between the half-drunk mugs of beer. “Someone’s turned complete psycho. Have you…did you talk to the police?”

“Not yet.”

“Why the hell not?” DeLynn demanded.

“Because I thought it might just be a prank.”

“A prank.” Her condemning tone conveyed her disbelief. “Kristen, this is malicious, cold, and potentially dangerous.” She glanced at her watch and muttered, “Damn. I’ve really got to go.” She pointed a finger at the picture. “Take that and the tape and call the damned police. That’s what they’re for.” Scooping up her purse, she was out the door.

“She’s right,” Laura said. “You have to take this to the police. Maybe they can pull fingerprints off the cassette or listen to it and piece together different voices…a time line. Some of us might remember who was around when those conversations were taped.”

“It’s been twenty years.”

“My guess?” April said. “Haylie’s behind it. She had that meltdown. Still blames Jake for Ian Powers’s death. And she didn’t show up tonight. I’ll bet she’s guilty as sin.”

Aurora shuddered. “Let’s not start pointing fingers, but DeLynn’s right, Kris. You have to talk to the police.”

The killer watched as cars rolled out of the parking lot. As each woman left the meeting, she looked over her shoulder, then peered inside her car to make sure it was empty. They were all paranoid the bogeyman was hiding inside, and after a cursory search they drove off with cell phones pressed to their ears, doors locked, tires chirping as they hit the gas.

Just you wait, she thought, watching from deep within her vehicle, a dark SUV with tinted windows. She smiled. It was almost delicious.

She was parked near a stand of pines that rimmed the lot, and no one noticed her vehicle wedged between a pickup and a sedan. They were too busy getting away.

Because they were scared.

Because Kristen Daniels had told them about the picture and the tape.

They’d all been shocked, and she’d been able to witness their horrified expressions.

Everyone was edgy.

Nerves strung tight.

Good.

Humming “Dancing in the Dark,” the old Bruce Springsteen song that was playing the night Jake was killed, she smiled and put her Blazer into gear.

Things were about to get worse. A whole lot worse.

Chapter 9

No one followed her. She watched, checking her rearview mirror, her hands gripped tight on the steering wheel, but the drive was uneventful until she pulled into her driveway and found Ross’s truck parked on the street.

Her heart did a stupid little jump and she looked in the mirror one more time to check her appearance. “Oh, get over yourself,” she muttered. “It’s Ross. Ross. The man you’re divorcing. Remember?”

But the woman in the mirror didn’t seem convinced.

She walked through the garage to the kitchen and found Ross sprawled on the leather couch in the family room, his shoes kicked off, a fire lit, the television tuned to a sports update show. The cat was curled on the back of the couch, her tail wrapped around her tawny body.

Ross twisted his head as she walked in and flashed that incredible, roguish grin of his again. “Hi, honey, you’re home!” he teased, and her heart lurched again.

Don’t fall for it. This is just an act.

“Comfy?” she asked, dropping her bag and laptop onto the table as the cat opened her eyes, yawned, then settled back to sleep.

He patted the cushion next to him. “I could be better.” His voice was deep. Sexy. Oh, she’d heard it a thousand times in the first five or six years of their marriage-the happy years. “Come on over and take a load off.”

She was tempted. “Nah. Too much to do.”

He cocked an eyebrow and she noticed that not only the collar button but a few more had come undone. His sleeves were rolled over forearms that were impossibly tanned considering the time of year. “I believe that was my line. At least you accused me of it, oh, about a dozen times a day.”

“Was I really such a nag?” she asked, walking toward him. Marmalade, disturbed by all the commotion, hopped off the couch and sought solace under the kitchen table with an accusatory meow.

“Worse.”

“You are so not making points with me,” she said. Reluctantly, knowing inside she wanted to far too much, she took a seat on the ottoman, facing him.

His eyes assessed her, causing a little frisson of awareness to slide down her spine. “How ’bout I get you a drink. Gin and tonic? Glass of Chardonnay?”

“How can you be so damned sure of yourself?”

“Years of practice.” Again he thumped the spot beside him in invitation. “Come on, Kris. What’ve you got to lose?”

“Lissa’s home.”

“And my guess is she knows all about us. It won’t hurt if she walks out of her room and finds us together.”

Kristen arched a dubious brow.

Ross continued in a conversational tone. “We are her parents and we own this house. Together. I think she understands the facts of life. And just in case she doesn’t, I told her about them tonight over tofu burgers and French fries that had been guaranteed not to be fried in anything resembling animal fat.”

“Oh, that’s right…she’s a vegetarian.”

“Nope. I think she upped her commitment to the cause. Now she’s a vegan.”

“She was last year, too. It lasted a couple of weeks.”

He snorted in amusement. Kristen smiled back and quit fighting him. Gave up the battle with herself. Sliding onto the couch, she tried not to melt against him when his arm pulled her close and her head nestled so naturally into the crook of his neck. “So, how was it? Are you hot on the trail of those long-lost classmates?”

His arm felt right around her and the whiff of his cologne reminded her of how easily she could respond to him. “I suppose.”

“Don’t they know they can’t escape? That you’re like a bloodhound when you’re tracking something?”

“Actually, DeLynn Vaughn, er, Simms, is in charge of locating everyone, and she’s a lot better at it than I am.”

“If you say so.”

“Mmm.” She frowned and decided to tell him about the rest of the meeting. In for a penny…“I showed everyone at the meeting the picture that was left on my car and told them about the tape.”

She felt him tense a bit, the muscles surrounding her tightening. “And?”

“And everyone agrees with you, that I should call the police.”

“Good. And have you?”

“First thing in the morning. I promise.”

He lifted her chin with one finger and forced her to look him straight in the eyes. “I’m going to hold you to it, Kris. This is important. You don’t know what kind of a nutcase you’ve got running around. A prankster who’s getting his rocks off by scaring the crap out of you or a real psycho, like the person who killed Jake Marcott.”

Kristen grimaced. Ross had always accused her of never being able to get over Jake’s death, of feeling guilty that the boy she’d loved had died, of never letting go of him. He’d also blamed Kristen’s unrequited dreams and fantasies about a boy who had become a ghost for ruining their marriage.

Part of his accusations were true. No doubt about it.

She tried to pull away from him, but he held her fast. “I’m serious. This isn’t a random act, and we both know it. Whoever decided to mess with your car planned it. Stole the picture. Either audiotaped the murder years before or stole the tape from someone who did, someone who never mentioned it or gave the tape to the police.” Eyebrows drawn in concentration, he added, “It’s no coincidence that this is happening now, when you’re planning the reunion. Someone’s been waiting for just this moment.”

“You don’t know that.”

Ross slowly released her, but his tone was demanding. “You think it was random? That whoever did this was just up at the school, waiting for you to walk into that damned maze?”

“Of course not,” she admitted.

“I don’t like it,” Ross said, frowning into the fire.

“Neither do I.”

“I think it would be best if I stuck around.”

Her gaze, which had drifted toward Marmalade, flew to his face. “What do you mean? Like…stay here? Overnight?”

The fire hissed and crackled as he asked, “Would that be so bad?”

“We’re supposed to be separated…you can’t just…move back in.” She shook her head though a part of her wanted it badly enough to scare her inside. She shot to her feet. “Look, Ross, nothing’s really changed.”

“Like hell. I’ve changed. You’ve changed.”

“Don’t…” She struggled to keep a grip on things even though with each passing day she’d begun to believe that he’d never cheated on her. That she’d imagined that part because he’d lost interest in her. In their family. That was the stone-cold truth. “It didn’t work before. I don’t think it’ll work now.”

“So kick me out.”

“I am.”

“And I’m not budging.”

She couldn’t believe his gall. “We had an agreement.”

“An arrangement. I didn’t really agree to anything. I was just giving you the space to figure things out. But I’m through with that.” To emphasize his point, he pulled the quilt from the back of the couch and tossed it over his legs. Gray eyes dared her to argue.

Kristen glanced at the door to Lissa’s room and lowered her voice. “Really, Ross, you can’t stay here.”

“Sure I can. Just watch.”

“You son of a bitch,” she said on a note of wonder. He was really pushing this.

“Now, there’s the woman I love. I wondered when she’d surface.”

“What’re you planning to tell Lissa?”

“How about ‘Daddy’s home’?”

“Fine. If you want to camp out in the family room and make some kind of macho statement, have at it. You can explain it to Lissa tomorrow.”

“Sweet dreams,” he called after her as she strode into their bedroom and slammed the door.

It was all Ross could do not to chase after her, kiss her for all she was worth, toss her onto the bed, and tumble after her. He knew their lovemaking would be searing. Intense. Erotic.

It always had been.

Even when they’d made light of it and laughed or teased, the physical wanting and desire had always been white hot.

Lying on the couch, watching the fire die, hearing a sportscaster drone on and on about the NBA, he let his mind wander back to the time when they hadn’t been able to get enough of each other; when a simple brushing of the elbows, or naughty little glance, or upturned corner of a mouth had started a sensual foreplay process that might have lasted fifteen minutes or more likely hours, touching, kissing, caressing.

They had experimented with positions and places; in fact-he glanced around the house-there hadn’t been a room they hadn’t christened in one way or another before they’d moved here permanently. Closing his eyes, he remembered the feel of her tongue sliding down the cords of his neck and lower, over his shoulders and down his abdomen. She would often place her teeth and tongue around one of his nipples before moving slowly, with sweet agony, downward.

His blood heated and even now, alone, thinking of her, his groin tightened and his damned cock grew hard.

He tried to shift his thoughts from her, but it was too late.

They hadn’t been able to get enough of each other and if there had been any problems, they had seemed small at the time. True, he’d known from the get-go that she hadn’t resolved her feelings for the boy who had died, but Ross had thought with the passage of time, Jake Marcott’s ghost would be laid to rest, that eventually Kristen would come to terms with what had happened that night.

He’d been proved wrong.

Jake had always been there.

Standing between them, and in Ross’s mind’s eye, the dark-haired boy had been laughing at Ross’s naïvete. He’d even shown up in some of Ross’s dreams, this high-school kid he’d never even met! And always, without fail, Jake was the one walking out of the damned maze with Kristen, and Ross was left shackled to the tree, the greenery closing in on him, Kristen’s voice fading in the distance.

He’d always been stark naked in the nightmare, while Jake was in a black tux and Kristen in a differing array of clothing; sometimes in a long, sexy black gown, other times in nothing more than a red teddy and high heels.

He’d always woken up hot, horny, and thankful that Kristen was beside him, sleeping soundly.

So why had he let it slip away? Why let the nightmares of Jake Marcott push him further from her? When had his work, his goddamned work, become more important than his wife and daughter?

Never.

They had just slowly grown apart and they’d let it go too far until questions, doubts, and fears had overtaken love and trust.

But no more.

Whether Kristen liked it or not, he was back. And horny as hell.

So the husband is there.

That was an unexpected wrinkle.

The killer, having parked two streets over, had carefully slunk through the shadows of the tall firs that partially covered the hillsides of this sparsely occupied neighborhood. With houses on partial acres, hidden away, and the few houses close to the road built on steep, forested hillsides, traffic had been light, nearly nonexistent, as she’d neared the Delmonico home at the end of the dead-end street. She’d had to hide only twice when a car had passed.

Now, across the street as she viewed Kristen’s home, the killer stared at the big black pickup belonging to Ross Delmonico. She didn’t like the fact that Delmonico was in the picture again. He could screw up her plans. Big time. And she had waited so long. So damned long.

Don’t panic.

Stay the course.

You’ve come too far to let this little snag affect you.

She let out her breath, the warm air from her lungs expelling in a streaming fog as it hit the cold night.

Staring at the house, she reached into her pocket, her fingers closing over the key deep inside, a key she’d made from the one Kristen had hidden on a nail tucked under the eaves of the porch, the one she left for the kid who was always forgetting hers.

They’d never known it was missing. The killer had located it one morning after everyone had left for the day and put it back it before anyone had returned. Easy deal. She’d done the same with all the houses she’d needed to enter. Most people weren’t that clever when hiding their spare.

Slowly, caressingly, she rubbed her thumb and index finger over the cold metal, pressing hard over the unique, sharp little teeth that were fashioned and cut to ensure the locks on Kristen Daniels’s doors would open.

But the husband was a problem.

As was the kid.

Not insurmountable. You can handle them. You just have to be careful and wait for the precise moment to strike. You can do it. You won’t fail.

Through the slats of the blinds, she saw a fire glowing, warm and bright, flickering flames reflecting on the windows, smoke curling into the thick, dark night. Every once in a while she’d catch a glimpse of a silhouette moving in front of the window and her gut would tighten.

Don’t let anyone see you, she reminded herself.

What the hell was the husband doing there?

The light in Kristen’s bedroom snapped on, and though the killer could not see through the closed shutters, she imagined what was happening in that room. With the husband. She imagined the mating, that big man mounting Kristen in the missionary position, or maybe from behind. He would be grunting in pleasure, she gasping, maybe holding on to the rails of her headboard, and there would be the slap, slap, slap of flesh meeting flesh, hotter and faster as the smell of sweat and sex overcame the scents of candles and fire.

Her lower abdomen tightened.

And need started to pulse through her. Did she dare peek through the blinds to watch their rutting? Spy Kristen in the throes of passion, knowing she would be pretending the man thrusting himself into her, making her pant and her blood run like lava, wasn’t Ross Delmonico at all, but Jake Marcott?

“Whore,” the killer whispered. They were all whores. For Jake.

Her jaw was so tight it hurt.

Tears burned behind her eyes.

Bile rose up her throat.

She clasped the key so hard it cut through her skin, and she might not have noticed the pain except a dog started barking, breaking into her obsessive fantasy.

A big dog, from the sounds of it.

Not a little yapper.

And not penned.

Wrenching her gaze from the house, she narrowed her eyes into the frigid darkness and focused down the hill toward the corner where the main road split and this offshoot continued up the hill. There was only one streetlight between Kristen’s house and that fork.

She saw the bobbing beam of a flashlight.

Shit!

Her heart nearly stopped.

Someone was walking their damned dog!

Blocking her way out.

Her ears strained and she heard the pound of footsteps.

She racewalked in the other direction, toward the dead end, where no house could be built as the lot was essentially little more than a sheer cliff.

She had to get away before she was seen!

Slap! Slap! Slap! Slap! A brisk tempo of running shoes hitting pavement.

Oh, hell, the guy wasn’t walking his dog. He was running. Even though it was almost midnight. The runner and dog reached the lamp post with its eerie pool of bluish light. The man wasn’t all that big, but the beast-some kind of Doberman/Rottweiler mix-was huge. Massive. Drooling.

Shit!

The killer took one final glance at Kristen’s house and froze.

There, staring straight at her, peering through the damned bedroom window, was Kristen Daniels Delmonico.

The bitch.

Chapter 10

Kristen’s hand stopped in midair. The blind she had been adjusting was partially open as she squinted through the window past the shrubbery of her yard, and at the far side of the street she saw movement. A blur.

She sucked in her breath.

What was it?

Was it her imagination, or was someone standing beneath the drooping boughs of the ancient Douglas fir trees that stood like giant sentinels in the vacant lot?

You’re seeing things, she told herself, but her heart was jackhammering, her breath caught in her lungs. Don’t do this, Kristen. Don’t let your imagination run away with you. It’s probably just a deer-or shadows.

Another movement outside. A dark figure starting to make tracks.

“Oh, God.” She switched off the bedside lamp, causing the room to go dark, cutting the reflection and allowing her eyes to adjust so she could see more clearly.

There it was again, that murky blur.

Someone running or walking quickly toward the dead end.

Without thinking, Kristen flew out of the bedroom, down the hallway to the kitchen.

Ross was lying on the couch.

“Someone’s outside,” she said, searching in the drawer for her flashlight. “Across the street. Watching the place. They took off toward the end of the street when they saw me looking outside.”

“What?” He was instantly up, reaching for his shoes. “What do you mean? Who?”

“I don’t know. Just that someone’s out there. Someone who shouldn’t be,” she said, and couldn’t keep the undercurrent of panic from her voice.

“Then stay inside. I’ll check it out.” He was halfway to the kitchen.

“I’ll come with you.”

“No way.” His voice was firm. “It’s probably nothing, but on the off chance it’s trouble, you stay with Lissa. I’ll yell if I need you to call 911.”

“No, Ross, I’ve got to show you where I saw-”

He grabbed her by the arms. “Stop it! I’m going out there. You’re staying here. With our daughter. End of story!” He scooped the kitchen phone’s handset from its cradle and slapped it into her hand. “If I need help, I’ll yell. Lock the door behind me.” He was outside, letting in a wave of wintry air before she could say another word. She twisted the dead bolt and stared through the kitchen window toward the street, but Ross had already disappeared into the shadows.

Lissa’s door opened and she stepped into the hallway. “What’s going on? You were shouting. Is…is Dad still here?” Wearing faded jeans and a short T-shirt, she looked about five years younger than her age. Kristen couldn’t resist hugging her close, startling her.

“Yes, Lissa, your father’s here, and he’s going to stay overnight.” Her daughter opened her mouth as if to protest, but Kristen cut her off. “It’s okay. In fact, it’s a good thing, so please do not, I mean, do not give me one second’s grief about it.”

“Geez,” Lissa said, but she didn’t argue further as she scanned the kitchen and family room. “So, what’s going on? Where’s Dad now?”

“Outside. I thought I saw someone across the street and…well, Dad’s checking it out.”

“You saw someone doing what?”

“I don’t know. Lurking.”

“Oh.” Lissa hesitated, ran a hand through her hair, then admitted, “It was probably Zeke.”

“Zeke?”

Gnawing on a corner of her lip, Lissa shook her head as if silently arguing with herself.

“Melissa?”

“I, um, sorta told him to come over.”

“But…it’s after midnight. And why wouldn’t he just come in the door and-” The light in her mind suddenly dawned, with a painful, intense brilliance she’d tried to ignore. “You were going to sneak him into the house?”

Lissa lifted a shoulder. As if it were no big deal. “Just for a little while. We were just going to hang out.”

“Melissa Renee Delmonico, that is the absolute worst idea I’ve ever heard of! You can’t sneak Zeke or any boy, or anyone for that matter, into the house. You know that.”

For once Lissa didn’t roll her eyes, just stared at the door as Ross returned. Alone. He snapped off the flashlight. His face was set and hard, the lines near the sides of his mouth more pronounced.

“Zeke’s not with you?” Kristen asked.

“No…why would he be? The only person outside was a guy jogging with his dog. No one else.”

“A jogger?” No way!

“With a flashlight and dog. A big dog.”

Kristen shook her head. “The person I saw didn’t have a flashlight. I’m telling you”-she slid a glance at her daughter, and though she didn’t want to frighten Lissa, she figured everyone in the family needed to know what they were dealing with-“someone was lurking outside, across the street. Not moving until they saw me looking through the blinds. This wasn’t a jogger or someone walking his dog.”

Ross’s eyes were dark, his expression even more severe. He set his flashlight on the kitchen counter, leaned a hip against the top of the cupboards, and folded his arms over his chest. His gaze was riveted on his daughter. “Why did you think it might be Zeke?”

Lissa blinked hard, then started to turn as if heading for her room.

“Hold it right there. Answer me. What’s going on?” Ross demanded.

Lissa’s shoulders stiffened. She sniffed loudly, then finally turned. Her lower lip began to quiver, though she fought breaking down completely. “Nothing. Nothing’s going on, Dad, and it’s all your fault. Zeke…Zeke doesn’t like it that you’re hanging out and…and I told him to come over. Yeah, that’s right, I know what time it is,” she added when Ross glanced at his watch. “Anyway, he was going to come in through my window and-”

“Wait! What?”

“I was going to sneak him in, but it doesn’t matter anyway because I guess he stood me up. Again.” She swiped the back of her hand under her nose and added acrimoniously, “Happy now?”

Before Ross could respond, Kristen said, “Don’t bother with the lecture. Melissa and I have just had it. She knows that she made a mistake, but”-she switched her attention to her daughter-“if this is the way he treats you-”

“Save it, Mom.” Lissa glared at her parents.

Ross said, “Call him.”

“What?”

The set of his jaw brooked no argument. “Find out if Zeke was here. Maybe your mom and I scared him off.”

“I don’t want to-”

“Call that little creep right now, or I will.”

“Damn it, Dad, don’t do this!”

“Now,” he ordered, though his voice wasn’t quite so harsh.

She hesitated, then whipped her phone from a pocket of her jeans. Turning her back to her parents, she hit speed dial, and standing in the hallway, had a quick call in hushed, mumbled tones. Her small shoulders were slumped, her head cocked, one shoulder braced on the wall.

“No one was out there, Kris,” Ross said as Lissa finished her short conversation and snapped her phone shut. When she turned to face them again, she was fighting tears. “It wasn’t him, okay?” She swiped at her red eyes and sniffed loudly.

“You’re sure?”

She nodded, her jaw sliding to one side. Hesitating, she then cleared her throat and squared her shoulders. “I don’t think he’d bring someone else over here. He’s with Tara O’Riley. I heard her laughing.”

“Oh, honey.” Kristen’s heart cracked for her daughter.

“It’s okay,” Lissa said. “He’s a jerk.”

Ross stepped right into it. “You could do better anyway.”

“Then why’s he with Tara?” she spat, bristling as she threw her hands into the air. “What do you care, anyway?”

“Lissa,” Kristen warned, but her daughter’s volatile emotions erupted.

All her anger and shame had shifted to her father. “Mom says you’re moving back in. What’s up with that?”

“I said he was spending the night. That’s different from moving back,” Kristen reaffirmed.

“So this is just temporary?” Lissa asked, a trace of sarcasm still evident in her voice. “You move in, you move out, you move in again. Just like some kind of yo-yo dad. So who are you to give me any kind of advice?”

Kristen expected Ross to come unglued. To argue. To point out the difficulties of an adult relationship, to explain why both he and she had needed their space to sort things through. Instead his jaw worked, he glanced down at the floor for a second, rammed his hands deep into the pockets of his slacks, then nodded to himself before looking up and meeting his daughter’s angry, red, accusing gaze. His voice, when he spoke, was softer. More thoughtful. “I can’t give you advice. You’re right, Lissa.”

There was a beat of uncertain, uncomfortable silence when only the slow sizzle of the fire and quiet rumble of the refrigerator could be heard.

“But I am moving back in,” he said, holding Kristen’s gaze. “For good.”

Chapter 11

Over the next few days Kristen learned how serious Ross had been. She hadn’t argued with him when he’d made his proclamation, because a part of her was thrilled to have him back. She wanted to give their marriage one more chance.

But she’d laid down some rules. Ross used the guest bedroom as his office and sleeping quarters for now. They chose a family counselor who would work with them as a couple, as well as with Lissa, to help them repair the rifts in their shattered little family. They both agreed to the changes, though Lissa dragged her heels to the first counseling session and thought the whole idea was “beyond lame.”

But it was a step forward…a step in the right direction.

As for the reunion for St. Elizabeth’s, Kristen did call the police about the tape and photo and a detective came by the office and took her statement, along with the “evidence.” Considering the more deadly, higher-profile crimes that were occurring in the city, Kristen didn’t hold out much hope that anything momentous would come of the investigation.

She managed to write a letter to the alumnae and stuff and seal all of the envelopes. Then, unfortunately, because of deadlines at work and her own complicated family situation, she forgot to take the damned things to the post office. They sat ready to be mailed on the kitchen table for two days before she finally remembered to haul them to the post office a week after the reunion meeting. Only when Ross had remarked about them and actually offered to take them himself did she realize they weren’t already in the post.

Ross was being on his best “family-comes-first” behavior, and though Kristen wanted to trust him, she was holding back. Everything was much too fragile. She thanked him for his offer but she dropped off the envelopes on her way to work the following morning, then caught up with Sabrina, who had decided, against her better judgment, to help her husband Gerard and Chad Belmont with the Western Catholic reunion that was the same weekend and dovetailing into the St. Elizabeth’s festivities.

“So I heard about the weird tape you got and that creepy picture,” Sabrina said, shuddering as she blew across the top of her caramel/mocha-nonfat-decaf-with-light-whipped cream latte she was sipping. She and Kristen were taking a break at the local coffee shop, seated inside the windows, watching clouds roll over the sky and pedestrians scurry past as the first few drops of rain began to splatter against the sidewalk. With a great rumble, a TriMet bus pulled out of the bus stop and eased into traffic heading east, toward the gray waters of the Willamette River and the Hawthorne Bridge.

“Did you talk to the police?”

“Mmm, but so far, they haven’t found anything.”

“It would be a great story for the Clarion. You could bring up Jake Marcott’s murder and then tell what happened to you. Get a little press and a nice byline.” She was only half kidding.

“No, thanks. The publicity just might be what whoever did this wants. It could make him frantic for more and more, and he could up the ante.”

“Or she.”

“Or she,” Kristen agreed as they carried the rest of their drinks back to the office. Kristen finished a piece on school funding or lack of it, and near five, she made a phone call to Alabama-one she’d been putting off-where it was almost eight in the evening.

A woman picked up on the third ring. “Hello?”

“Rachel?” Kristen asked. “This is Kristen. Kristen Delmonico, but it was Daniels. From St. Elizabeth’s.”

“Kris? Daniels?” Rachel replied, clearly surprised. “Hi. It’s been years…Oh, I get it, you’re in charge of the reunion, aren’t you?” She laughed, and it was a sound that Kristen remembered well, one that caused a pang of regret to cut through her. How had she let so many years pass without trying to connect with her old friend? “Listen, if you’re trying to get me involved, forget it. You got drafted for the job, not this girl.” Again the soft laughter.

“I did call about the reunion,” Kristen admitted, “but I really wanted to talk to you. To catch up. Got a minute?”

“Absolutely.”

They talked for nearly half an hour, filling in the gaps and laughing. Kristen told Rachel about her job at the Clarion, her husband and daughter, and Rachel revealed that she was divorced and working as a cop.

“I heard that much,” Kristen admitted. “That’s really one of the reasons I decided to call you today. I know your father worked on the Jake Marcott murder case.”

On the other end of the phone, Rachel sighed. “Oh, God, yes. Swear to God, the fact that Dad couldn’t solve that one drove him to an early grave.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I. For a lot of things,” Rachel admitted. “The Jake thing…horrible. For all of us.”

“You’re right, and it hasn’t gone away.”

“It never will,” Rachel thought aloud. “It really ticks me off that someone got away with murder.”

“Me, too, and I’m afraid whoever did it might be back.”

“What?” Rachel asked, a little more loudly.

“Either the murderer has returned or…someone’s getting off on messing with me, probably because of the reunion.” She explained everything that had happened, from the moment she felt someone might have been inside her house to the reunion committee, to feeling she was being watched. As Rachel listened, Kristen told her about driving to St. Elizabeth’s campus, walking through the maze, and receiving the “gift” of the picture and tape. She finished with, “The photographer is out of business and my picture, the one of Jake and me at the dance, is missing, though I don’t know for how long. It’s been years since I looked in that box in the attic.”

“What about the other people on the committee? Anyone else been harassed?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Then you were singled out because you’re in charge of the reunion, or because you went to the campus, or both,” Rachel surmised. “And you went to the police?”

“They weren’t all that interested. They took the tape and the photograph, but…really, they’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

“Not if this is really tied to Jake’s homicide,” Rachel said, and Kristen heard a rhythmic sound, as if Rachel were tapping the end of her pencil on something…just like she used to do when she was really thinking hard in Sister Clarice’s religion class twenty years earlier. Religion was one of the few classes Rachel, Lindsay, and Kristen had shared their senior year. “You know, Dad’s partner, Charlie Young, is still with the force, at least I think so. I’ll give him a call and find out what’s what.”

“I’d appreciate it,” Kristen said with feeling. “Well, we all would. Some of the girls-I mean women, we’re bona fide women now-would, too. They were a little freaked at the last committee meeting.”

“I’ll bet,” Rachel said. “I’ll get back to you.”

“Thanks.” Kristen hung up feeling slightly better. At least someone in law enforcement was interested, even if that interest came from nearly twenty-five hundred miles away.

Two days later, Kristen parked her car in the garage, then walked out to the mailbox to pick up the usual assortment of junk mail and bills. There, between an offer for a low-interest rate credit card and her Visa statement, was the invitation to the reunion. She was surprised because she hadn’t bothered to mail one to herself; she’d kept the prototype in her laptop and figured why waste the stamp. But there it was, big as life, addressed to Kristen Daniels Delmonico.

“What the devil?” she asked, as she walked into the house…the quiet house. “Lissa? Ross? I’m home,” she called as she headed down the hallway.

Odd…no one save for Marmalade was inside.

“What’s up with that?” she asked, and then remembered that her cell phone’s battery had run out after her long conversation with Rachel and she’d forgotten her charger. Now she fished the phone from her purse, snapped it into the charger on her desk, and as the phone went through its machinations of coming to life in a series of tinkling sounds, she found the letter opener in her desk drawer.

“You have seven new messages,” the computer voice informed her after she entered her password.

“Seven?” she repeated, holding the phone between her shoulder and ear to free up both hands so she could slice open the reunion packet. Marmalade hopped onto the desk and sat squarely in the pile of mail. “See how popular I am?”

The cat ignored her and began cleaning herself.

“Yeah, yeah. A lot you care.”

“First message,” the computer voice stated.

“Mom, it’s Lissa. I’m going over to Brandy’s house to work on a project for German. Either she’ll bring me home or I’ll call for a ride.”

Click.

That sounded safe enough. Kristen sincerely hoped that her daughter was where she said she’d be.

The machine announced, “Next message.”

“Hi, Kris. Hey, I’m running a little late, okay? But I’ll be home by seven. If you want, I can pick up something for dinner. Or we could go out, or whatever. Love you.”

Ross’s voice enveloped her. The words, uttered so quickly, touched her heart. Don’t go there, not yet, she warned herself as she pulled the thick, folded papers from the envelope.

“Next message.”

“Is this your idea of some kind of joke?” Aurora demanded, her voice shaking. “I just got my invitation and surprise, surprise. What the hell were you thinking, Kris? Call me!”

Kristen stared at the phone, then opened the folded pages of her own invitation. Everything was as it should be except there was no letter of explanation signed by her, and her picture, the one she’d copied and cut from the yearbook to be used as part of her name tag at the reunion, had been altered. A harsh red line streaked across her face.

Her lips parted in shock. The threat was clear: someone intended to do her harm.

“Next message.”

The phone beeped. A hang-up. Kristen dropped the invitation as if burned.

“Next message.”

Oh, no.

“Hi, Kristen, this is Bella. I got my invitation today and…well, it’s really, really weird. Some of the other girls on the committee got identical ones and I just don’t understand. Call me back.”

“Next message.”

Kristen was shaking.

Aurora said coolly, “Okay, Kris, I talked to other people on the committee. It seems I’m not the only one who got the marked-up invitation. Bella and Mandy got one, too. But the rest of the committee, as far as I know, didn’t. What the hell’s going on? Call me!”

The next two calls were hang-ups, but caller ID indicated that Aurora had been dialing her every fifteen minutes.

Staring down at her own scratched senior photo, Kristen thought she might be sick. Who had done this and when? She thought of the invitations that had been left on her table for three days. Had they been tampered with?

Had someone been inside her house?

She nearly fell into the desk chair, her mouth dry, her heart pounding. She picked up the phone to dial Aurora when she stopped and listened.

Was she alone?

She thought hard, adrenaline kicking in. She didn’t have a weapon in the house. Neither she nor Ross owned any kind of gun. Quietly, she walked to the kitchen, reached for the butcher knife, but it was missing. Probably in the dishwasher. She didn’t have time to search and settled for a serrated, long-bladed knife from the drawer, then saw her reflection in the window-a pale ghostlike image of herself with a huge knife, just like one of those idiotic girls in a teen slasher movie.

Too bad. She needed something to protect herself. Moving softly, she walked from room to room, looking in closets, under beds, in any corner where someone could possibly hide. Her heartbeat thrummed in her ears as she searched every inch of the house. She’d nearly satisfied herself that she was alone when she remembered the attic.

Though the temperature was cool, sweat broke out on her back. Don’t be a fool, she told herself, but walked to the cord hanging from the ceiling anyway, pulling hard. The stairs unfolded into the hallway. The only other access to the attic was through a small window in a gable of the house, so Kristen told herself it was unlikely anyone would be inside. Still, her heart was thundering as she mounted the narrow steps, her muscles stretched tight.

She poked her head up slowly, only to eye level.

Thump!

Kristen gasped and nearly fell off the ladder when she heard the telltale scratch of little claws scraping across the floor. A damned mouse. That was all.

Slowly she stepped upward and flipped on the lights. No one was hiding in the dusty shadows. No dark figure cowered in a corner. No deranged psycho was crouched behind the antique chest of drawers she’d never gotten around to refinishing.

No…everything was fine.

She was about to snap off the lights when her gaze swept over the stack of boxes of old textbooks and high-school paraphernalia she’d searched through.

One box was missing.

No. That couldn’t be right.

Again her heart began pounding crazily and a lightning chill raced down her spine. She gazed around wildly, her eyes searching one corner to the next. Surely she’d misplaced the damned thing…That was it. She’d tucked it somewhere else.

Frantically she scoured the room, not wanting to believe that someone had actually violated her privacy and sneaked into her home.

But the box that had contained all her memorabilia from St. Elizabeth’s was gone. She could still see the square shape in the dust where it had sat for so many years.

Sweet-Mother-Mary.

Who was this sicko? What did he want? What if he became violent? Images of Jake Marcott’s white-faced body flashed through her mind. She remembered his blood-soaked tux. Lindsay’s ruined dress. The pool of red oozing around the base of the oak tree and statue.

Backing toward the stairs, she could almost hear Lindsay’s ear-splitting, terrorized scream echoing through the rafters. She thought of the mutilated picture of Jake and her at the dance, the bloodcurdling scream on the tape, and now the marred invitations to the reunion.

Some sick pervert had been in her house.

Without breaking a window or knocking down a door.

Someone had a key, and now no one was safe.

Oh, God, Lissa! Was she really studying at a friend’s house, or had she been coerced into calling? Had she been kidnapped? No, no, no!

Fear storming through her, Kristen flew down the stairs.

Carrying the heavy box, the killer slipped into her private lair, deep in the locked, forgotten basement at St. Elizabeth’s. It had been a long, hard, but oh so rewarding day. Everything had gone perfectly. As planned.

She set the box on a desk, then, once the door was shut behind her, lit the kerosene lantern. In the flickering illumination she searched through the items in their cardboard container. Little trinkets, photos, even Kristen’s essays and diploma were in the box. She thrilled at the personal things, playing with the tassel from the mortarboard of the graduation cap and pulling out the long gold honor cords that Kristen, as a member of the Honor Society, had worn at graduation.

Then there were the pictures…in an album or left loose, photographs of the three best friends: Rachel, Lindsay, and Kristen, and, of course, all the snapshots of Jake Marcott.

She fingered those pictures and sighed.

What fools they all were. All of them. Even Kristen Daniels. Despite her soaring GPA and stratospheric SAT scores, she was an idiot.

They all were.

But they would soon learn.

Satisfied, she walked the few steps to the wall and worked the combination to locker number 118. Kristen’s locker. A click, then a groan as the metal door opened to reveal the few items already tucked inside. Now along with the French III textbook, awards, final report card, and her diary, she could display the pictures and little mementos that Kristen had treasured enough to keep all these long years.

A thrill ran down through her as she draped the faded honor cords over the jacket hook. They hung like a woman’s thinning blond braids.

What a joke.

“Fool, fool, fool,” she whispered happily to herself. Carefully she stacked, pasted, and glued items inside the locker. When she was finished, she admired her work, then took out the final item from the box:

The butcher knife she’d stolen from Kristen’s kitchen.

A serious stroke of genius, she thought, staring at the blade and seeing her own distorted reflection in the shiny steel.

“Tomorrow,” she told herself, shivering with anticipation as she imagined the moment when one of St. Elizabeth’s graduates would give up her miserable, useless, whoring life.

She pricked her thumb with the tip of the blade and saw a drop of red blood gather in the small cut.

Oh, yes, she thought, smiling coldly. Oh, yes.

Chapter 12

Kristen picked up her cell and speed dialed Lissa, only to be connected to her daughter’s voicemail. No, honey, oh, no, no, no. She left a message for Melissa to call home immediately. Frantic, she punched in the number again only to be directed to the voicemail box once more. With an effort she forced her shaking fingers to text a simple message: Call home. URGENT!

For the first time in history Kristen hoped her daughter’s cell phone was off or that Lissa was screening her calls. She didn’t waste a single moment as she located the high-school directory of students and began flipping through the pages for Brandy’s number. Brandy…Brandy…Parker…no, Brandy Peters…no, oh, what the hell was that girl’s name? She found the page with the Ps, ran her finger down the page until she saw Brandy Porter. That was it. She was dialing the number frantically when she saw Ross’s truck roll into the driveway.

Thank God!

“Hello?” a girl’s voice answered on the other end of the line.

“Is this Brandy?” Kristen asked in a rush, then didn’t let the girl respond. “I’m looking for Lissa, er, Melissa Delmonico. I’m her mother.”

“Oh…she, uh, left.”

“What? How?”

“Her boyfriend picked her up?”

“Her boyfriend? What boyfriend?” Kristen demanded, in a full-blown panic. “Zeke?”

“Yeah?”

“When did they leave?”

“Uh…I dunno…maybe fifteen minutes ago?”

Ross walked through the back door and Kristen sent him a look that warned him not to say a word. He had two sacks of groceries that he set on the table.

“Were they coming straight home?” Kristen asked, the girl’s vagueness making her want to tear out her hair.

“I think…so?”

“Okay, thanks.” She hung up, scared and frustrated.

“Lissa’s with Zeke again?” Ross’s voice was steel.

Kristen nodded, her mind racing.

He swore roundly. “How do you knock some sense into that kid?”

“Ross, there’s something else going on here. I think someone broke into the house. Someone who had a key.”

Quickly, she outlined what had happened since she’d returned from work. Ross’s expression turned grim, the veins in his neck stood out, and a small tic started at his temple as she handed him the doctored invitation that someone had sent her. She also told him about Aurora’s and Bella’s calls. “I haven’t called either one back yet, but I can’t concentrate on that when Lissa is…Oh, God, is that her?” She ran from the den to the kitchen where, through the window, she saw the high beams of an SUV splash against the rear of Ross’s truck.

Relief flooded through her as she spied Lissa climbing out of the passenger side, shouting something Kristen couldn’t hear, then slamming the door of the SUV. Lissa turned and stormed in through the garage, and the vehicle took off with a roar.

“Prick!” Lissa said as she stepped through the door. “Lying, cheating, useless prick!” She caught sight of her mother as she slammed the door and her face reddened. “Sorry. I was talking about Zeke.”

“You were supposed to call me,” Kristen said, so grateful to see her daughter alive and safe that she really didn’t care if Satan himself had given Lissa a ride home. “Let’s not argue about it now.”

“Did you ever give Zeke a key to this house?” Ross asked.

“What? No.” She was shaking her head as she walked to the refrigerator and opened the door.

“Anyone else?”

“Uh-uh. There’s nothing to eat.” She grabbed a bottle of water and cracked it open. “Are we gonna have dinner?”

“Soon,” Kristen said. “Now, Lissa, I think someone might have been in the house and taken some things.”

“Really? What?”

“A box from the attic.”

She looked from one parent to the other. “This is a joke, right? Who would come in here and steal some of that junk?”

“I don’t know,” Kristen said. “But someone. Dad’s going to bring you up to speed while the two of you cook dinner.”

Kristen ignored the you’ve-got-to-be-kidding look on Melissa’s face. “I’ve got some work to do, so you guys whip up something spectacular and then we’ll discuss what we’re going to do.”

“What we’re going to do?” Lissa repeated suspiciously. “What does that mean?”

“We’ll probably call the police.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Ross said as he began unloading a couple of grocery bags. “Tell you what, since you and I are on for dinner, I’ll dial the phone and you order the pizza.”

Kristen left them to argue the merits of pepperoni versus vegetarian and headed to the den. Her cell phone had died on her again, so she replugged it into the charger and sat at her desk. Bracing herself, she punched out Aurora’s number on the landline. Aurora answered on the second ring.

“Hi. It’s Kris. I got your messages.”

“What the hell is-”

“Enough already. I got a doctored invitation, too, and I didn’t send it. I wasn’t going to bother sending one to myself but it came, just the same.”

“You call that slash mark ‘doctored’? It wasn’t just a little mark, Kris, it was like someone pressed hard with a red pen, intent on making a scar. It was drawn to look like a goddamned knife wound.”

“I know, but I didn’t do it.”

“If you didn’t send them, who did?”

“That’s the point. I don’t know. I took the invitations to the post office, but I just grabbed the stack that I’d left on the table and dumped them in the mail slot. I never double-checked them. I think someone was in my house, long enough to take out information from the packets and put them into new envelopes.” She thought hard, her mind clicking ahead. “If so, the labels probably don’t match the others unless the person who did this has the database for our mailing list.”

“You think it’s someone from the committee?” Aurora was rattled.

“I don’t know who it is.” She then went on to tell Aurora everything that had happened. Aurora listened without interruption as Kristen explained about her house probably being broken into, the box of her school paraphernalia missing from the attic, and how she suspected someone was stalking her.

“Mary, Jesus, and Joseph,” Aurora murmured at the end, and Kristen imagined her making the sign of the cross over her fairly large bosom.

“I’m scared to death for my family. I’m calling the police in the morning, after I figure out who else got the mutilated invitations. You said in your phone call that it isn’t everyone on the committee who received one?”

“So far, it’s only a few of us. For example, I got one, but DeLynn didn’t. Nor did Martina, but Bella got one and so did Mandy.”

“What about Laura?”

“No. Same with April. They got the real deal. No tampering. Their pictures weren’t slashed with a red marker.”

“Probably the same marker used on the picture of Jake and me that was left on my car.”

Aurora sucked in a quick breath. “Oh, shit, you’re right. This is going from beyond weird to downright scary.”

Kristen couldn’t have agreed more. Just talking about it made her blood run cold. She thought of the person she’d seen lurking on the other side of the street. A person staring at her house. Casing the place. Because he wanted to break in and steal junk from her high school days?

Shivering, she wrapped one arm around her abdomen. “What about people who aren’t on the reunion committee? Graduates who didn’t volunteer?”

“No way of knowing unless they call one of us-you, probably, as your name is listed on the invitation. The girls who moved farther away wouldn’t have received theirs yet,” Aurora said. “Geez, Kristen, I was just talking to Lindsay, right before I got the mail. It was fun, reconnecting, y’know? Then I hung up and went to the mail and there it was. Freaked me out.”

“I know. I just don’t get what this is about. Are they mad because we’re finally getting it together and putting on the reunion?”

“You mean, you think someone’s trying to stop it from happening?”

“Maybe…or maybe…this is about Jake?”

Aurora sucked in a breath. “You think his killer’s involved?”

“No…I don’t know…But this reunion’s stirred someone up, that’s for sure. He or she has been waiting a long time. Twenty years. Now here’s his chance, his venue to make whatever psychotic statement he wants to.”

“Who would do that?”

“Someone with serious psychoses.”

“But why?”

“I’ve been asking myself that since the night I found the tape and picture in my car.” She heard a click in the receiver, indicating someone was calling in. Caller ID flashed a message that Swanson H was trying to get through. “Hey, Aurora, I’ve got to go. Haylie’s on the other line.”

“You think she received one of the bad ones?”

“I don’t know. But when I find out, I’ll call you back.”

“Do.”

Haylie Swanson was about the last person Kristen wanted to speak with, but considering the circumstances, she knew she needed to talk to all of her classmates. Bracing herself, she clicked over to the second line. “Hello?”

“Jesus H. Christ, Kristen, why don’t you ever call me back?” Haylie demanded, her voice rising with a harsh, unrestrained fury. “I left three goddamned messages!”

“Haylie…I didn’t get them. Really.”

“Oh, sure! Your machine picked up,” she said, nearly accusing Kristen of lying.

“Oh…I haven’t heard those messages. I usually use my cell.”

“It’s your home number listed in the damned invitations, Kris,” she pointed out, so angry her voice trembled. She was breathless, as if she’d been running, and Kristen imagined her, a bundle of raw nerves, pacing on the other end of the line. “So what’s with the reunion picture? The one with my face marked up?” Haylie demanded, then Kristen heard the click of what sounded like a cigarette lighter.

“You got one, too,” Kristen said, almost whispering.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Several people got the marred invitations, we’re not really sure who, but Aurora, Mandy, Bella, me, and now you…”

“Oh…so people connected to Jake Marcott,” she said, as if the answer were obvious.

Kristen nearly fell off the chair. “Connected to Jake?”

Haylie snorted. “Well, you were dating him at the time he was killed, and Bella is his sister. I’m connected through Ian.”

“That’s kind of far-fetched, Haylie.” Maybe the woman really was having a nervous breakdown. Or maybe she was behind it all.

“Jake and Ian were friends,” Haylie explained with extreme impatience. “And whether you want to believe it or not, Jake was at the wheel the night of the accident. Jake killed Ian! I was in love with Ian, and I was once friends with Jake.” She inhaled on her cigarette. “We’re all connected to him.”

“You think the people who knew Jake are…targets?” Kristen asked, her nerves stretching as she thought about it.

“I studied everything there was to study about Jake. I made it my mission, Kris.”

“What about Mandy and Aurora?” Kristen argued. “Neither one of them dated him that I know of.”

“But they wanted to! Everyone had a thing for him, and I don’t get it. I never got it. He was bad, Kristen, really, really bad. There was a black spot in his heart, I’m telling you.”

“So anyone who ever wanted to date him is also getting marked-up invitations? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It’s all about people connected to him!” Haylie insisted. “Mandy Kim was one of the girls who helped Jake with his homework, got him through some of his tough classes, and he and Aurora worked together for a while at the pet store…you know the one, it used to be in kind of the Burlingame area, at the corner above Riverside Abbey.”

Kristen knew the area, south of the freeway, near the Terwilliger Curves. Crosby’s Critters. The place had changed hands half a dozen times, if Kristen remembered correctly. It had gone from pet store to athletic equipment sales, then became an insurance company and a Thai restaurant, and even a few other things that Kristen couldn’t recall. Now it was a coffee shop.

“You don’t believe me,” Haylie accused.

“I don’t want to believe it,” Kris said honestly. “I don’t like it.”

“I didn’t like getting that invitation.”

“Haylie, if you’re right, other people could be singled out. All Jake’s friends at Western Catholic and Washington.”

“No…no…They didn’t get invitations, though. Not to the St. Elizabeth’s reunion. Those went out only to the girls who graduated from the school.”

Kristen’s mind tried to follow Haylie’s twisted thought process. “Then there should be others.”

“Only a few more. Rachel Alsace was supposedly his best friend, as far as the girls at school went, and Lindsay Farrell, well, everyone knows she was the love of his life.”

Kristen heard the truth in that even though she’d always hoped Jake had loved her. It seemed silly now, and she peeked down the hallway, spying Ross at the kitchen table with Melissa. As if he’d felt her gaze, he looked up, and as his eyes found hers she felt a warmth spread through her. Why had she ever mistrusted him? How had she nearly let him slip through her fingers?

“Because I’m an idiot,” she whispered.

“What?” Haylie demanded.

“Nothing.” She smiled at her husband, then looked away, concentrating on the conversation. “If you’re right, then Rachel and Lindsay and anyone else who isn’t in the Portland area haven’t gotten their invitations yet.”

“They will,” Haylie predicted.

A cold chill ran through Kristen’s body. “How do you know?”

“Whoever is doing this has a reason. A big reason. They didn’t wait twenty years for nothing. Look, I gotta go. Think about it. We’ll talk later.”

She hung up abruptly and Kristen replaced the receiver just as the pizza arrived. Ross paid the pimply-faced kid who delivered it, then opened the box on the kitchen table. The hot aromas of garlic, tomato sauce, and cheese permeated the room. “You can eat this, right?” he said in mock seriousness to his daughter. “At least the cheese side…that’s okay?”

“Yeah. I’m not really into being a strict vegan.”

“Good.” His smothered grin told her he thought her fling with avoiding meat and animal products wasn’t serious. She made a face back at him but didn’t argue.

“So?” he said as Kristen reached for two beers in the refrigerator.

“It’s not getting better.” She noticed there were eight calls on the answering machine and, placing the long-necked bottles and an opener on the table, punched the Play button. “Lissa, figure out what you want to drink. There’s soda and water…”

As Kristen had expected, three of the phone messages were from an ever-more-frantic Haylie, one was from Aurora, another from Mandy Kim, and the last was Bella, all with basically the same question: Why had they been sent the mutilated invitations? There was also one telemarketer and a hang-up.

With each message that played, Ross and Lissa, who had been talking about the merits of vegan versus vegetarian, became increasingly quiet. When the last message ended Ross said, “As soon as we finish dinner we’re talking to the police, then we’re outta here until we change the locks.” He was putting paper plates on the table while Lissa searched through a drawer. “We’ll stay at my place.”

“The condo?” Lissa closed the drawer and looked in the dishwasher. “No way.”

“It’ll just be for a night or two.” Ross opened his beer, touched the neck of his to Kristen’s in the same silent toast they’d observed since college, then took a long sip. Kristen did the same. “It’ll be fun.”

“Whatever,” Lissa said with a disgusted sigh, then added, “Anyone know where the big knife is? The one we use to cut the pizza?”

“The butcher knife?” Kristen asked. “Isn’t it in the dishwasher?”

“Nope.”

“You’re sure?” As if Lissa couldn’t see for herself, Kristen peered into the dishwasher, then pulled out the drawer where all the knives were kept. “That’s strange.”

“Everything’s strange tonight,” Lissa said and settled for a steak knife.

Kristen glanced over at Ross and their eyes met. They didn’t have to say a word. In a heartbeat, Ross had drained most of his beer and was boxing up the pizza. “That’s it. We’re leaving. Now. Each of you pack a bag and I’ll get the cat.”

“You can’t be serious,” Lissa whined. “I don’t want to go anywhere. And I’m hungry.”

“You’re outvoted.” Kristen was already down the hallway and in her bedroom. “Eat a slice of pizza before we go.” She hated to leave, but they couldn’t stay. Couldn’t. Who knew what the psycho who’d been in their house might do.

“Dad, this is ridiculous,” Lissa was stomping her way to her bedroom while Ross found Marmalade and placed the hissing, unhappy feline in her carrying cage.

Ten minutes later, they were out the door: Lissa, Ross, and the pizza in his pickup; Kristen and a yowling Marmalade in the Honda. “Looks like I pulled the short straw,” Kristen told the cat, who only howled more loudly.

Ross backed down the street and waited as Kristen pulled out. Then he followed her down the hill.

No one noticed the figure hidden in the shadows across the street. No one knew that they’d barely escaped with their lives.

The killer watched the vehicles drive away. She was wearing a bulky sweatshirt, and in the wide front pocket she fingered the butcher knife she’d stolen earlier.

Fury rose inside her like bubbling lava. She’d planned to wait another night before she struck, to savor the moments of anticipation another twenty-four hours, but her excitement had gotten the better of her and she’d decided she couldn’t stand it one more minute. It had been too long already; much too long.

She’d hoped to catch the bitch at home alone, but the damned husband and kid had shown up. Hadn’t she known they’d be a problem?

And now, it was too late! They were leaving!

No doubt Kristen had realized that someone had been in her house, had used a key…

Her fist clenched around the hilt of the butcher knife. She’d wanted Kristen first. And she’d envisioned slicing Kristen Daniels’s throat just at the moment the bitch recognized her killer.

She knew how it would go down:

Kristen would be in the house, probably at her desk, maybe yakking on the phone. The killer would wait until the conversation was over, the phone hung up, Kristen still lost in thought.

Then she would spring! Attack! Call out Kristen’s name, witness the whore turn! There would be a look of bewilderment as she realized who was in her home, then a second when she’d relax and call out the killer’s name in mild confusion.

“What are you doing here?” she would ask…then she would notice the knife. Her own kitchen knife. Panic would set in. Her eyes would round and she’d start to scream or run. But it would be too late.

The killer would plunge the knife straight into the bitch’s useless heart.

Oh God.

She was shaking.

Standing in the darkness, she felt a thrill like no other. She was furious that her mission had gone awry. Shaking with repressed need.

Get a grip.

Don’t lose it.

Not now…not after you’ve waited so damned long.

Slowly, without speaking, she counted to ten. Slowly she calmed her raging heartbeat. Slowly she got herself under control.

Maybe this would work out to her advantage.

Maybe she could save the best for last.

There were others. She’d thought about taking the others first, one by one, of course. That had been her original plan, but after being in Kristen’s house, finding the slut’s diary and all her ridiculous pictures of Jake Marcott, the killer had changed her mind. Her bloodlust had been so overpowering that she’d made a dangerous misstep.

One that she could correct.

Tonight.

Stay the course. Don’t veer off track. There’s another who needs to die.

Letting out a breath in the cold night air, the killer realized that sometime during her reverie it had begun to rain. A thin, fine mist caressed her skin and caused ringlets to form around her face. She tilted up her head, letting the filmy drops touch her eyes, her cheeks, her throat.

Calmer now, she fingered the cold blade once more.

Get it together. There is still time.

You know what you have to do.

You know who is next.

She licked her lips. Envisioned another victim. This one with surly blue eyes, full lips, and a face framed by long blond hair.

Go now.

She’s waiting.

Chapter 13

They talked to the police. For several hours. In Ross’s condominium. With the panoramic view of the city lights reflecting off the Willamette River, Ross, Lissa, and Kristen all gave statements about the events of the evening, but the cops were skeptical. The only crimes were a supposed break-in and the stealing of a butcher knife and box of ancient schoolgirl memorabilia. The two cops took down the information and agreed that the special invitations were weird, someone’s sick idea of a joke. Same with the tape and letter left in Kristen’s car.

Before they left they promised to have someone go over to the house in the daylight and take a look around. They advised Kristen to get an alarm system and a big dog. Forget the wimpy-looking orange cat. Clearly, though they were doing their duty, they felt the perpetrator’s actions were more pranklike than a serious threat.

But Kristen was beginning to put more stock in Haylie’s theories and hadn’t forgotten that someone had killed Jake Marcott, someone who had escaped justice.

Kristen checked the time. It was late. She wanted to call Lindsay and Rachel but decided to wait to learn if they, too, had received tampered-with invitations. If they had, then Haylie’s twisted hypothesis might be proven true.

Kristen walked down the short hallway to the second bedroom, where Lissa was asleep on the daybed, the television still flickering blue, the sound hushed. How peaceful their daughter appeared, Kristen thought as she leaned a shoulder on the doorjamb. As if Lissa didn’t have a care in the world. Kristen couldn’t help but wonder how much of her daughter’s teenage rebellion was the normal part of being a kid stretching her wings and how much was because of the deterioration of her parents’ marriage.

Guilt dug at her heart, but she pushed it aside. The past was over. It was time to move on.

She didn’t hear Ross approach but felt his arm slip around her waist. Pressing warm lips to her ear, he said, “She’s fine. I think it’s time you and I called it a day.”

She felt a secret stirring in her blood as he pulled the door shut, took her hand, and led her farther down the hall to the master suite. A king-sized bed took up one wall and faced the windows. He closed the door, then pulled her through the spacious room to the master bath, where an oversized tub was filling with hot water. Steam rose toward the ceiling, fogging windows that also faced the city lights.

He’d lit half a dozen fragrant candles, and the tiny flames were the only illumination in the room.

She eyed the rapidly filling tub and clucked her tongue. “Looks like you’re trying to seduce me.”

“Nuh-uh.” He let go of her hand to place both of his on her waist. “You got that backward, lady.”

“Oh.” She laughed. “I’m seducing you?”

He smiled and his eyes glinted devilishly. “How about a fresh start? You and me.”

“I thought that’s what we were doing.”

“No, we agreed to try. Let’s forget the trying part and just do it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m asking you to marry me. Right now. Right here. I want a commitment, Kris, not just a maybe. And don’t tell me that we’re still married. I know.” His deep gaze caught hers. “You know what I mean.”

She thought about it a second and looked at his earnest face, his intense gray eyes, the dark hair that was forever falling over his forehead, the face of the man she loved.

Ross said softly, “No more accusations, no more putting work before time together, no more Jake Marcott.”

She nodded and felt a rush of stupid tears. Dear God, what kind of moron was she? This was her husband and they’d been married a long, long time. This wasn’t a new, untried head rush of first dates.

“Just please don’t make me go through another ceremony.”

“All I want is for you to say yes.”

“Okay. Yes!” She stood on her tiptoes and brushed her lips over his. “Yes, yes, yes!”

He laughed, and shook his head at her enthusiasm.

“Satisfied?”

“Not yet.” He reached for the top button of her blouse and grinned wickedly. “But I have a feeling I will be.”

The killer cut the engine and parked not far from Westmoreland Park, only a few blocks away from her target’s home. She’d been here before, scoped out the place and knew, if she was patient, that she would get her first real opportunity. There was a window that was always cracked and, to ensure that it stayed that way, the killer had slipped inside one day while the bitch was at work and tinkered with the latch so that it would never stick tight again.

Now it was just a matter of raising it, crawling into the house, creeping down a short hallway, and opening the bedroom door, which conveniently had no lock.

Dressed in black, she jogged, as if on an early-morning workout. She was wearing a blond wig and colored contacts, along with a fine set of fake boobs, and beneath the jogging suit, a little extra padding over her ass and waist-a chunky girl trying to shed some extra pounds.

The knife was hidden.

But she encountered no one on this dark morning.

And the house was just ahead.

She ducked into the back alley and caught her breath, but her blood was pumping, as much as from anticipation as the short run.

Finally.

Counting slowly to ten, calming the excitement surging through her veins, she moved through the shadows.

Haylie couldn’t sleep.

Probably because of the damned reunion and the closing of the school and the image of Ian that had started creeping into her dreams again. She’d thought she was over him, that she’d put all those painful thoughts about his death behind her.

It’s not as if she’d pined for him for twenty years, she thought, sitting up and staring at the clock near her bed. She’d tried to move on. She really had.

She made a sound of disgust. Four-damned-thirty in the morning. An indecent time to be awake. She thought she heard a noise outside but dismissed it. Probably the cat. Or raccoons scavenging in the backyard, trying to get at the Japanese goldfish she kept in a small pond near the patio.

Pulling her pack of cigarettes from the bedside table, she then walked outside to her private back patio where, standing in the old T-shirt she used as a nightgown and her fuzzy bunny slippers, she lit up. No raccoons. The pond was undisturbed, water lilies lying softly on the surface, the fish safe for the night.

Good.

One less problem in a world filled with them.

A cool mist was falling, shrouding the night, and for an inexplicable reason, goose bumps rose on the back of her arms. She was jittery, had been for weeks or months or maybe even years. She lived in a small bungalow in Sell-wood, a community in the southeast part of Portland. The house, small to begin with, had been divided into two tiny apartments. Recently the neighbors had moved, leaving the cat she’d reluctantly adopted and a For Rent sign out front.

The cat, a black longhair named Bo, was skulking through the garden now, slinking among the barren pots where petunias and impatiens had thrived in the summer. He’d never shown any interest in the fish, thank God.

“Come here, Bo,” she said. “Kitty, kitty, kitty.”

The cat turned and looked at her, standing beneath the porch light, his green eyes growing round, but he didn’t budge. He was an outside cat and maybe she was lucky that he didn’t want to be an inside one. This way she never had to mess with a litter box.

Closing her eyes for a second, she dragged deep on her cigarette, feeling the warm smoke curl and fill her lungs as the nicotine worked its way through her bloodstream.

She should give up the habit, but it wasn’t as if she hadn’t tried. She’d used the patch, the gum, and even hypnosis. Nothing had worked. Like it or not, she’d have to quit cold turkey.

Before her fortieth birthday.

In the meantime she enjoyed smoking and refused to feel like a criminal just because she liked the buzz. And now, with the reunion looming ahead, with meeting all those people she’d known in high school, with all the talk of Jake Marcott, Ian’s face had again crept into her dreams. No way was she going to give up her pack-a-day habit yet!

Ian…she thought sadly. She wished she could get over him, give it up, but it was such a damned injustice. Jake Marcott had killed him, pure and simple. Why the cops and everyone who had graduated with her couldn’t see it, she didn’t understand. But Jake Marcott was not the saint everyone pretended he was. No way. He’d been a sinner in life. It was unfair that he’d become a martyr.

A soft footfall sounded.

Haylie twisted her head.

At this hour?

She looked at the fenced yard, but there was no one there, no one lurking in the shadows where the lamplight didn’t touch. The traffic on the street was nonexistent at this hour, and it was even too early for those type-A joggers and bicyclers who were rabid in their need for exercise.

Probably nothing.

She took another drag and looked for the cat again, but he’d disappeared. “Bo?” She didn’t want him to go anywhere near the street, though he did seem to have some brains when it came to avoiding cars and roads. “Kitty?”

Nothing.

Not even a sough of wind in the branches of the single pine tree in the yard.

“Fine, stay outside.”

Another quiet scrape.

The hairs on the back of Haylie’s neck lifted. “Bo?” she said anxiously, turning to go inside. What was it about this night that had her so anxious?

Hisssss!

The cat was at her feet, staring into the night, and Haylie’s heart nearly stopped.

Damn it all to hell. She hadn’t counted on the cat. Quickly, still hidden in the shadows, blond wig and extra padding left beneath the branches of a rhododendron, the killer slid her knife from its sheath. She didn’t have any more time. She was lucky Haylie had stepped outside, unlucky that the cat had sensed her.

She crept forward as stealthily and quickly as the stupid feline who’d betrayed her.

“What is it?” Haylie asked nervously, taking one step toward the back door.

Too late.

Quick as lightning, a dark figure stepped from around the corner of the garage and sprang. A woman. Armed with a butcher knife.

Oh, shit! Haylie, dropping her cigarette, leaped toward the open door. She wasn’t fast enough. The killer was on her in an instant.

“No way, bitch!”

Fear screamed through Haylie’s body. “No! Don’t!”

The knife gleamed in the pale light.

“Wait! Wait!” Haylie cried. The blade swung in an arc. Cutting downward, flashing in the lamp glow. Slicing through her skin.

Haylie tripped over her own feet. Tried to scream. It was cut off with another searing slice. Her own blood sprayed. She stumbled backward.

Oh, God, was this really happening?

The blade struck again, tearing into her flesh.

Pain exploded in her abdomen.

The killer stabbed again and all the rage, all the pent-up fury of twenty long years, screamed through her brain. Die, you miserable, spoiled brat. Die! Die! Die!

The blade came out of Haylie with a hideous sucking noise. The killer didn’t wait. She plunged the knife into the crumpling body. Again and again, feeling the warm, wet spray of blood and the cold satisfaction that justice, at last, was served. At her hand.

But Haylie was only the first.

She felt the body shudder and let it fall onto the pavement.

Near-lifeless eyes looked up at her.

She stared down into the eyes of her victim.

Haylie was near death, but her lips formed an unspoken “You?”

And then the light in her eyes faded.

Haylie, the first, was dead.

Exhilaration sizzled through the killer’s body as she worked quickly, unzipping and stripping out of her jogging suit. She stuffed it, along with her extra padding, wig, and knife, into the athletic bag. Now she was in skintight neoprene, which she covered with an oversized hiking parka that reached her knees. Her hair, still wound onto her head, was quickly disguised by a Mariners baseball cap. There was still some blood on her black running shoes, but she couldn’t help that. She’d wash them at St. Elizabeth’s in the gym and trash the clothes in an incinerator that was still used occasionally at the school. First things first. She had to make this look like a robbery gone bad.

She saw the cat hiding beneath an azalea and then she left, stomping out the still-smoldering cigarette and knowing that she’d sent Haylie Swanson’s soul straight to hell.