Most Likely To Die

Chapter 23

Huntsville, Alabama, May 2006

Her partner lay bleeding to death at her feet. As she radioed for help, she tried to protect him as best she could by dragging him into a protected corner of the alley. Rapid fire from a semiautomatic bombarded her. Dear God, where was the backup she had ordered at least ten minutes ago? With her heartbeat racing and adrenaline rushing through her body at breakneck speed, Sergeant Rachel Alsace realized she was caught in a life-or-death battle with an escaped killer.

Suddenly, without warning, as she got off several quick, well-aimed shots, return fire caught her in the shoulder, the bullet searing through her flesh like a white-hot branding iron. Somehow, she managed to pull the trigger of her Glock two more times. Then reality blurred as agony enveloped her and darkness descended, a smoky gray fog of fear and pain dragging her down, deeper and deeper into unconsciousness.

Sweat coated her body, drenched her oversized cotton T-shirt emblazoned with the words Roll Tide and the famous Alabama elephant, and dampened the cotton sheets on her queen-size bed.

Rachel woke with a start. She tossed the light covers aside, jerked straight up into a sitting position, and took several deep, calming breaths. Since coming home from the hospital three days ago, she had been plagued by nightmares of the day her partner had been killed and she had been severely wounded. Twenty-seven-year-old Officer Bobby Joe Poole had left behind a wife and two young children. For about the hundredth time since that horrific day, Rachel had wondered why a man with so much to live for had died and why she, a divorced, childless woman just two years shy of forty, had been spared. Luck of the draw? Fate? Divine providence?

As she turned around and slid off the bed, Rachel felt an overwhelming sense of guilt and an equal measure of relief. Guilt that she was alive and her partner dead. Relief to still be alive, to have a second chance to find some sort of personal fulfillment beyond her job as a police officer on the Huntsville, Alabama, police force.

She looked at the lighted digital bedside clock. Five-ten. Only twenty minutes earlier than her normal wake-up. At least five-thirty had been her regular get-up time before she’d been forced to take an extended leave of absence. Medical leave. She probably wouldn’t be reinstated to active duty for another couple of months. Recovering from a near-fatal bullet wound, as well as the battery of psychological tests, would take some time. Not to mention the internal investigation already underway, looking into the death of the man she had killed-Randy Grimmer-who had murdered a convenience store clerk and two customers in a bold daytime robbery before shooting her partner and her.

Rachel padded barefoot into the bathroom, turned on the sink faucet, and splashed cold water onto her face. After drying off, she flipped on the light switch that flooded the small room with illumination from three sixty-watt bulbs over the vanity. Momentarily shutting her eyes against the offending brightness, she lifted her good arm-the right one-and rubbed the back of her neck. Slowly, cautiously, she opened her eyes and stared at her reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror. Lord, she looked a sight, her short blond hair sticking out in every direction. Using her fingers, she combed through the rats’ nest of curls as she made her way out of the bathroom.

While walking through her bedroom and into the hallway, she thanked God for air-conditioning. Springtime in the South was usually warm, but hot weather had arrived early, just in time for Mother’s Day, and seemed intent on sticking around for a while.

Rachel dismissed thoughts of her own mother, missing her more with each passing year. If not for a few close friends and a scattering of cousins, she would be all alone in the world. Her father had died years ago, back in his hometown of Portland, Oregon, and her mother had passed away six years ago. Rachel had buried her mother alongside her relatives in her hometown cemetery in Chattanooga, Tennessee. That had been a horrific year. She had suffered a miscarriage, lost her mother to cancer, and finally admitted that her six-year marriage to Hamilton County, Tennessee, sheriff’s deputy Allen Turner was over. Three losses in the span of ten months had forced Rachel to reevaluate her life. By year’s end, she had moved to Huntsville and joined the police department, after having served eleven years with the Chattanooga P.D.

Since the day her father died, Rachel had devoted herself to one goal-becoming the kind of law enforcement officer he would have been proud of.

After entering the kitchen, she clicked on the lights, then punched the ON button of her coffeemaker. As the coffee began to brew, she disarmed her security system, opened the back door, and stepped onto the sidewalk that led around the house to the driveway. The nearby streetlight radiated through the early-morning darkness, allowing her to locate her newspaper where it lay in the middle of her concrete drive. She liked her friendly neighborhood in the Harvest area, loved her neat three-bedroom brick house and appreciated the variety of nice guys she’d met since moving here. She was actually beginning to enjoy dating again. She wasn’t seriously involved with anyone, but she kept hoping the real Mr. Right would come along one of these days. But if he didn’t, she’d be okay on her own. She had a pretty good life, hadn’t she?

When Rachel went back inside her house, she removed the half-filled coffeepot, poured a mug of the steaming black brew, and carried it, along with the newspaper, over to the kitchen table. After sitting down, she spread the paper apart to the front page and took a sip of coffee. Scanning the headlines, she noted that there had been another Beauty Queen Killer murder-this time in Alabama, in a little town south of Huntsville. Cullman. A former Cotton Queen had been brutally killed, her head chopped off.

Rachel shuddered.

The poor woman.

Zipping through the brief article, Rachel shook her head. She had been in law enforcement over sixteen years, and she still couldn’t understand what drove a person to murder. Self-defense, she understood. Cold-blooded, brutal murder, she didn’t understand.

She had been keeping tabs on the slew of Beauty Queen Killer murders for the past few years. The perpetrator was a vicious serial killer who had struck throughout the South over and over again. An old friend of hers from their days with the Chattanooga P.D. was working for a private PI firm that had been hired by a victim’s family to independently search for the killer. She and Lin McAllister kept in touch on a semi-regular basis. Mostly e-mails, but a few phone calls once or twice a year.

As Rachel flipped through the newspaper, she finished off her first cup of coffee. The caffeine stimulated her into full consciousness. A second cup should make her even more alert. But alert for what? Another day of crossword puzzles, watching The View and Oprah and As the World Turns? Trying to concentrate on the most recent Sandra Brown novel?

Two cups of coffee later, with her fourth cup in hand, Rachel sat down in front of her laptop computer, which she kept at the built-in workstation in the corner of her kitchen. When she downloaded her e-mails, she deleted several, then paused when she saw a couple from old friends, high-school classmates from St. Elizabeth’s. Her index finger hovered over the Delete key, itching to erase the messages without reading them. It wasn’t that she had anything against her two old friends-friends she hadn’t seen in twenty years-but she knew both e-mails would be about the upcoming reunion. Rachel had no intention of returning to Portland. Not now or ever. Although she had some wonderful memories of her high-school days, those good memories were overshadowed by two tragic losses. A boy she had adored-Jake Marcott-had been murdered at the St. Valentine’s Day dance their senior year. A part of her still mourned him, although she had long ago stopped loving him. And less than two years after Jake’s unsolved murder, her father-the lead detective on Jake’s murder case-had died of a sudden heart attack. Everyone who knew Mac Alsace suspected that being unable to solve Jake’s murder had literally worried him to death.

Just read the damn e-mails.

Rachel hesitated. A week ago, she had received her packet of information about the high-school reunion, a combined St. Elizabeth’s and Western Catholic High reunion. When another classmate, Aurora Zephyr, had phoned her several months ago, she’d made it clear that she wouldn’t be attending. But Kristen Daniels Delmonico had mailed her the packet and the invitation.

And what an invitation it had been! The very special invitation had included her senior picture cut out of their high-school yearbook. A cute idea-with a sinister twist. A vicious red line marred her smiling face. A bloody slash. Somebody’s idea of a sick joke? She’d known Kristen well enough, way back when, to know despite the fact the packet came from her, she wasn’t the type to do such a despicable thing. She’d never do anything to desecrate Jake Marcott’s memory, not when she’d been in love with the guy, just as Lindsay Farrell had been. And only God knew how many other girls, including Rachel herself, had been fools over him.

You weren’t in love with Jake. Not really. You were infatuated with him. Dreamed of what it would be like for him to kiss you, make love to you, pay you the kind of attention he paid Lindsay and Kristen.

If not for the fact that he’d been murdered that long-ago February night, he would be little more than a vague memory, along with so many other memories of her high-school years. But because of Jake’s death at the hands of a still-unknown assailant, no one who had known him as well as Rachel had would ever be able to forget him.

No more procrastination. Read the e-mails!

Rachel opened Kristen’s e-mail first and read it hurriedly.

Her stomach muscles knotted painfully.

Hi Rach,

I hate like the devil to be the bearer of more terrible news. I can hardly believe it myself. It was only last month that I felt compelled to let you and Lindsay know about Haylie Swanson dying and that a homeless man was arrested for her murder. Now, we’ve just found out that Aurora Zephyr died while on a trip to New York City. She and Lindsay had gotten together while she was there and…No one knows for sure what happened, but it looks like she tripped and fell onto the subway tracks. She didn’t have any ID on her at the time, so it took a while for the police to identify her.

I know you are opposed to our having the class reunion, but with two more classmates gone…

Look, Rach, I wouldn’t say this to just anybody, but my gut instincts-maybe my reporter instincts-are screaming that there’s something just not right about Haylie and Aurora dying within weeks of each other, and both dying violent deaths. I’ve pointed this out to others on the reunion committee and suggested we consider canceling our plans, but everyone else thinks I’m overreacting. What do you think?

Kris

The Kristen Daniels that Rachel had once known was not the nervous, hysterical type, and she doubted that the thirty-eight-year-old Kristen Delmonico was either. So, if Kris’s gut instincts were warning her that something was off center about the recent deaths of two old classmates, then Rachel believed her.

So, what could she do? She wasn’t in Portland or New York City. She hadn’t seen either Haylie or Aurora in twenty years. Although she was sorry to hear about their deaths, their dying had no effect on her life.

Or did it?

Get real, she told herself. Don’t buy into some weird theory that Kristen has concocted in her imaginative reporter brain.

Rachel scrolled down to the e-mail from Lindsay, opened it, and read rapidly through the brief message.

Hello Rachel,

I’m sure by now someone has contacted you with the sad news that Aurora Zephyr died accidentally while visiting here in New York City. I still can’t believe she’s gone. We had such a nice visit while she was here. Like old times.

Strange, isn’t it, that two of our old gang have died recently under such tragic circumstances. I know it’s stupid of me to even think it, but I can’t shake the idea that somehow their deaths are connected to the reunion Kristen and the others are planning. It’s as if fate is trying to warn us not to have a reunion.

What’s your take on this? You were always the sensible, levelheaded one. If anyone can sort through this craziness, you can.

XOXOXO…Lindsay

Rachel took a deep breath, then released it. The corners of her mouth lifted in a tentative smile as she remembered that the sweet, emotional Lindsay always signed all her notes with Xs and Os. Hugs and kisses.

Staring at the computer screen, Rachel read part of the last line. If anyone can sort through this craziness, you can.

Rachel stood, carried her mug of cool coffee to the sink, and dumped it in; then she poured herself a fresh cup. Glancing at the clock on the microwave, she realized it was nearly six. Her stomach growled. She needed to eat a bite of something before she took her medication. More antibiotics. But no more pain pills. Those damn things made her brain fuzzy. She hated that. Being a bit of a control freak, she didn’t like the idea that the drugs influenced her brain.

Pacing in her small kitchen, she thought about the basic facts. From what she’d been told, Haylie Swanson had been slightly unbalanced for the past twenty-plus years, ever since her boyfriend, Ian Powers, had died in a car crash their senior year of high school. It was unfortunate that she hadn’t been able to pull her life together, and just as unfortunate that a homeless guy had robbed and killed her. But how could her death have anything to do with Jake’s murder or the upcoming reunion? And poor Aurora. Rachel remembered how much the dark, curly-haired girl had longed to be an actress. Instead she’d married young and had a baby. Tragic that she had lost her footing and wound up crushed to death by a subway train. But her death had nothing to do with the reunion or with Jake. Accidents happened every day, every hour.

Yeah, so why are you questioning the facts about how they died? It’s more than just your normal policewoman curiosity. Maybe you’re letting your imagination run wild because Kristen and Lindsay are.

But why would three intelligent women have the same doubts?

Because of Jake Marcott. Because one horrible night years ago, a boy all three of them had loved was murdered at the school dance, and this reunion was stirring up memories all of them would prefer to forget.

She knew what she should do-e-mail Kristen and Lindsay to tell them how sorry she was to hear about Aurora, then add that she hoped the reunion came off without a hitch but she wouldn’t be there.

After all, she had the perfect excuse, hadn’t she? She was recuperating from a near-fatal gunshot wound.

Before daylight, while others slept peacefully in their soft beds inside their safe homes, she made yet another pilgrimage to the shrine she was constructing in the basement of St. Elizabeth’s, now abandoned and awaiting demolition. This was her secret place, one she had created for her eyes only, not to be shared with anyone else. Except maybe Jake’s ghost. Sometimes she felt his presence down here in this dark, dank basement. A whiff of the aftershave he’d worn often scented the musty air. And she would swear that every once in a while, she could hear his laughter. She had both loved and hated Jake’s laugh, as she had both loved and hated him.

If only things had been different…If only Jake had been different. He had loved her. She knew he had. But he had been cruel to her and had allowed those bitches to be mean to her, to ignore her, to treat her as if she were nobody.

They thought he had loved them-Lindsay and Kristen. Even Rachel thought he’d cared about her. Fools. All of them. She was the only one he’d ever loved.

Shining the flashlight over the row of lockers in the basement, she smiled. One item at a time. Adding one memento here and there, building this monument to Jake, to his death, to the past. And all the while planning the next execution. They had to die. If she could kill all of them before the reunion, fine. If not, she would find a way to end their lives that night.

She ran her hand over her side, recalling the feel of the knife slashing through her clothing and into her side. Thank God, it had been a superficial wound. And although her hand was healing nicely, it had caused her a great deal of pain. Since she was a gourmet cook, it was easy enough to explain that a paring knife had slipped and slit open the fleshy skin and tendon between her thumb and forefinger.

You’ll pay for the pain you caused me, Lindsay.

She giggled.

Jake had been hot after Lindsay.

All these years she had believed Lindsay’s baby was Jake’s. Boy, had she been wrong! She was glad the child hadn’t been Jake’s. Lindsay was not worthy of being a mother to Jake’s child.

If only she had known the truth years ago. The truth could have saved her from such anguish, such torment, thinking Jake had a child out there somewhere. Alive and well.

Her plans to eliminate Lindsay in New York City had failed. But there was more than one way to accomplish a goal. The reunion was less than six weeks away. If she was lucky, Lindsay and Rachel would come home for the big event. And if not?

Just wait and see.

Was there a way to entice both Lindsay and Rachel back to Portland? Think. What would bring them back here early? Everyone had a weak spot, didn’t they, an Achilles’ heel?

Lindsay’s weakness was her son. Wyatt Goddard’s bastard.

She giggled again.

Do you hear that, Jake? She asked the question in the stillness of the basement beneath St. Elizabeth’s. He’s not your son. He’s Wyatt Goddard’s. Lindsay was screwing around on you and you didn’t even know it. Her son’s name is Leo Cellamino. And I came this close to killing him.

She held up her thumb and index finger to indicate just how close she had been to murdering Lindsay Farrell’s child.

Oh, what a fitting punishment that would be for Lindsay, if her son died. But even more so if the child had been yours, Jake.

It wasn’t fair that Lindsay’s child was alive. Not when her child was dead.

If she could somehow use Lindsay’s child to lure Lindsay back to Portland…But how? If not her son, then what?

The death of a good friend?

She smiled at the thought of killing another of Jake’s women.

What about Rachel Alsace? She was a cop now, in some small city in Alabama. At least that’s what Kristen had told them. So what would draw a policewoman back to Portland? Maybe a twenty-year-old unsolved crime.

Giggling as she danced around in the dark, her feet smacking against the concrete surface, she imagined what it would be like to kill them. One by one. Kristen. Lindsay. Rachel.

Lindsay Farrell and Wyatt Goddard sat side by side in the private detective’s office. Wyatt reached over and clasped Lindsay’s hand, which rested at her side. He gave it a reassuring squeeze.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“A minute since the last time you asked,” Wyatt told her.

“He’s not coming.”

“He’ll be here, Ms. Farrell,” Gene Lester said. “His mother”-he glanced sympathetically at Lindsay-“his adoptive mother is coming with him.”

Wyatt had hired one of New York’s top PIs to locate their son. Although Lindsay had wanted him to wait, to give Leo the time he needed to come to them, Wyatt told her that they had been waiting nearly twenty years.

“But after what happened to him, being abducted by some crazy person the way he was and thinking that when he talked to me, he was talking to her…” Lindsay swallowed the emotion threatening to choke her. She had tried not to think about how close her son-their son-had come to dying, but the very thought plagued her day and night.

Wyatt squeezed her hand again. “Who knows how such a terrible thing happened, but it could be as Gene suggested and someone found out that Leo was my son, knew I was wealthy, and intended to kidnap Leo.”

Before Lindsay could reply, a soft rap sounded on the closed office door. Gene Lester’s secretary opened the door and announced, “Mrs. Betty Cellamino and her son Leo are here.”

“Show them in,” Gene told her.

Lindsay’s heart stopped. For one endless millisecond, she didn’t breathe. The young man entered the room first, and he was all that Lindsay saw. The sight of her son filled her world.

Leo was tall, lanky, and handsome, very much his father’s son in that respect. But his dark hair, his eyes, his nose, the shape of his face were all Farrell. God, he looked so much like her. Except the mouth. His mouth was a replica of Wyatt’s.

Her son stared at her, his dark eyes filled with questions. Their gazes met and locked. She released a tight, chest-clutching breath and rose to her feet. Wyatt came up off the sofa and stood beside her as they faced the child their one night of wild teenage passion had created.

“Hello,” Leo said.

Wyatt made the first move, taking a step forward and holding out his hand. “I’m Wyatt Goddard. I’m your father, your biological father.”

Leo stared at Wyatt’s hand for a minute, then took it, and they exchanged a cordial shake. Wyatt reached back and pulled Lindsay forward and to his side, his arm resting around her waist.

“This is Lindsay Farrell, your birth mother,” Wyatt said.

Lindsay stood frozen, speechless and unable to move.

Leo nodded, then turned and motioned to the woman still standing in the doorway. “This is my mother, Betty Cellamino.”

Betty shook hands with Wyatt and then with Lindsay.

She looked right at Lindsay when she said, “Thank you for Leo. He’s been a good son, a true blessing.”

Tears gathered in the corners of Lindsay’s eyes. Damn! Don’t do this.

“Thank you.” Lindsay cleared her throat. “I prayed that my baby would go to a loving family, that he’d have a good mother.”

“Ma is the best,” Leo said, as if he needed to defend Mrs. Cellamino.

Lindsay focused solely on her son. “I’m sure she is. It’s what I wanted for you when I…It wasn’t easy for me to sign the papers, to relinquish my rights to you, but I was just a teenager and my parents didn’t know I was pregnant.” She looked at Wyatt. “And neither did your father.”

“Look, I know this is awkward for all of us,” Wyatt said. “Especially after what happened with the fake limo driver. God, what a nightmare for you, son.” Wyatt hazarded a glance at Leo as if questioning his right to call the young man son.

“I thought the entire ‘you’ve found your birth mother’ was some crazy hoax that a pervert had played on me,” Leo told them. “When Mr. Lester came to see Ma and told her about you two…It’s a lot to take in.”

“We don’t want to rush you,” Lindsay said. “If you can’t find a place in your life for us, we’ll understand. But we wanted you to know that we care, that we’d very much like to get to know you, for you to get to know us.”

“Not necessarily as your parents,” Wyatt interjected as he glanced at Betty Cellamino. “If you’ll give us a chance, we’d like to be your friends. But it’s up to you.”

“I-I think I’d like to get to know both of you.” Leo stared directly at Lindsay. “But nobody will ever take Ma’s place. She’ll always be my mother.”

Intense pain and unbearable sadness enveloped Lindsay, but she bore it as best she could and even forced a fragile smile when she looked at her son. “Just being given a chance to be a part of your life is more than I’d ever expected.” It was all she could do not to reach out and grab him. Her arms ached to hold her child.

Betty Cellamino nudged Leo forward. Reluctantly, he held out his hand to Lindsay. She opened her arms. Leo hesitated. Betty gave him another nudge. He walked into Lindsay’s open embrace, his long, lean body stiff as a poker.

Lindsay hugged him. Briefly. But it was enough. For now.

When Leo stepped back, Wyatt wrapped his arm around her shoulders and held her close. When his lips brushed her temple, she sighed. After twenty long years, both the man she had always loved and their child were back in her life.

At eight-thirty West Coast time, Rachel placed a telephone call to her father’s old partner on the Portland Police Bureau. Charlie Young was now the chief of police, a man only a few years younger than her father would have been had he lived. The first few years after Rachel had moved to Tennessee with her mother after her father’s death, Charlie and his wife, Laraine, had kept in touch on a regular basis. Charlie had wanted to keep tabs on Rachel, his old friend’s only child. And despite the fact that her parents had divorced a few years before her father’s deadly heart attack, her mother and Laraine Young had remained good friends.

When she heard Charlie’s gravelly voice, the sound brought back memories from her teenage years when she had been like a daughter to the childless Youngs.

“Uncle Charlie, it’s Rachel.”

“Well, hello, girl. How are you?”

“I’m fine. How are you and Aunt Laraine?”

“Older, fatter, and grayer.” He chuckled.

“I-I’m thinking about coming to Portland for a visit.”

“Hmm…Coming back in July for the reunion at St. Elizabeth’s.”

“Probably, but I may come in before July.”

“You’ll stay here with us, of course. Laraine wouldn’t let you stay anywhere else.”

“I’d love to, but do you think you can put up with me for five or six weeks?”

“That long, huh?” He chuckled again. “Are you planning on taking a leave of absence or-”

“I’m on leave already,” she told him. “I was wounded in the line of duty a few weeks ago.”

“Are you all right?”

“I’m getting there.”

“Then hop on the next plane and come on out here.”

“Uncle Charlie?”

“Yes?”

“I want to ask a favor.”

“Sure thing. What do you need?”

“I would like to take a look at the files from the Jake Marcott murder case.”

Charlie Young let out a long, low whistle. “Why do you want to do a thing like that? That case is colder than the polar ice cap.”

“Let’s just say that all this talk about a high-school reunion has brought back a lot of memories. Besides, I’ll need something to occupy my time while I’m there.”

“You’re not still pining away over that Marcott boy, are you? I’m sure your dad never told you that we found out a few not-so-pleasant things about that kid.”

“No, I’m not still pining away over Jake,” she assured her dad’s old partner. “And when I get to Portland, I want you to tell me all about those not-so-pleasant things you found out about him.”

Chapter 24

Portland, Oregon, June 2006

Nearly two weeks after Rachel spoke to Charlie Young, she arrived in Portland, the town where she had grown up. The City of Roses. Originally, she had thought she could just pick up and go, but she’d been wrong. First of all, her doctor had refused to allow her to travel until after her scheduled checkup, and then she’d had to okay leaving the state with her captain at the Huntsville Police Department. Odd how she’d done a complete turnaround about going back to Portland for the St. Lizzy’s reunion. When Aurora had called her back in March, she’d been totally uninterested. No way in hell. The past was better left there, along with all the memories, both good and bad.

Now, Aurora was dead.

An accident.

Or was it?

Haylie was dead, too.

A victim of a robbery gone bad.

Or was there more to her death than met the eye?

Those e-mails from Kristen and Lindsay had piqued Rachel’s curiosity, her law-enforcement training kicking in and making her ask a hundred and one unanswered questions about the deaths of two old friends. If she’d been smart, she’d have simply accepted both deaths for what they probably were, what the police in Portland and in New York City had accepted. But a niggling doubt in the back of her mind kept bothering her, kept eating away at her until she had known what she had to do. Go back to Portland, under the guise of a St. Lizzy’s alumna returning to the city for a long-overdue visit before the twenty-year class reunion.

Adding to the two untimely deaths of old classmates were the not-so-coincidental situations with Lindsay and Kristen. Lindsay had been attacked by an unknown assailant in her own apartment, and Kristen had been-and possibly still was being-stalked by some unknown person.

And what about those marred senior photographs? The dead women had each received one of the ruined invitations.

Rachel could not accept that two deaths, an attack, and a stalking, all of the victims her old friends, all four women connected to Jake Marcott and St. Lizzy’s, were mere coincidence. No, it didn’t wash. There was something wrong with the scenario, and her gut instincts told her that in some crazy way it had something to do with the reunion, with her group of friends from high school, and with Jake Marcott. He was the common denominator. A boy who had been loved and hated in equal measure. A boy who had been shot through the heart with an arrow-Cupid’s arrow-at their senior high Valentine’s Day dance.

She had arrived at PDX, Portland International Airport, and picked up her rental car yesterday. Then the twenty-minute drive through town had allowed her to see just how much had changed and yet how so many things remained the same. The Willamette River, which flows northward to the Columbia River, divided the city into east and west sides; the west side waterfront was the business section of town, with Northwest Twenty-third a trendy area with boutiques, shops, and restaurants. Where the Blitz brewery had existed, now the area was referred to as “The Pearl District” with trendy condos and lofts.

Uncle Charlie and Aunt Laraine now lived in a gorgeous new house in a new neighborhood. Uncle Charlie had been at work when she arrived, but Aunt Laraine had welcomed her with open arms and shown her to a guest bedroom and bath on the ground level.

“You’ll have your own key, of course,” Laraine had said. “And you can come and go as you please. There’s a side entrance and a kitchenette, too. We bought this place when Mother moved in with us.” Laraine had sighed heavily. “We lost Mother three years ago. But she lived a good life. She was eighty-nine.”

Despite how much she had wanted to go directly to Charlie’s office and get started with going through the old files on the Jake Marcott case, Rachel had spent the rest of the day with Laraine. But at dinner that evening-yesterday evening-she had brought up the subject with Charlie.

“Well, if you’re that determined, I suppose I don’t see what harm it’ll do for you to spend some time going through all the old records,” Charlie had said. “It’s been a cold case for nearly twenty years, so it’s not like you’re stepping on anybody’s toes. Plus it was your dad’s case, and you are a police officer.”

So, this morning she had awakened early, showered, and dressed in a pair of tan slacks, pale blue silk blouse and lightweight navy blazer, comfortable loafers, and an oversized shoulder bag. After breakfast with Charlie-coffee and an apple Danish-they headed for downtown.

Headquartered at 1111 SW Second Avenue, the Portland Police Bureau was larger than Huntsville’s, but the office space had a familiarity that put Rachel at ease. And it helped that several of the older officers had worked with her dad and they remembered her from the old days.

“I’m going to turn you over to one of our detectives in the Cold Case Homicide Unit,” Charlie told her. “He’ll authorize you to have access to any and all material from the Marcott case. Like you, he had a connection to Jake.”

“Oh?” Rachel wondered which one of her former acquaintances had gone into law enforcement as she had. One of the St. Lizzy’s girls? Or maybe a Western Catholic or Washington High grad?

Charlie led her to a cubicle in the back where a man sat, his head down as he peered over The Oregonian, a statewide newspaper.

Charlie cleared his throat. The man glanced up. Rachel’s heart skipped a beat. She stared into a set of golden brown eyes the color of rich, dark honey. He grinned. What a wickedly flirtatious grin.

The man stood to his full six-two height and held out his big hand. “Hello, Rachel. It’s been a long time.”

She studied his handsome face. Square jaw. Hawkish nose. High cheekbones. And a mane of thick wavy sun-kissed brown hair.

“Dean McMichaels?”

“Yeah. Don’t tell me you didn’t recognize me.”

“No…yes, I mean, not at first.”

“Well, since no introductions are necessary, I’ll turn her over to you, Dean.” Charlie put his arm around Rachel’s shoulders and gave her a paternal hug. “If you need anything, honey, just let me know.” He looked right at Dean. “You treat her right, you hear me?”

“Yes, sir.” Dean saluted Charlie, who chuckled, hugged Rachel again, and walked away, leaving her to face the boy who had made her life a living hell when they were kids.

“Have a seat.” Dean indicated the swivel chair at his desk.

Rachel sat. He propped his hip against his desk and faced her. “So, why do you want to put yourself through the misery of looking at all those old records about Jake’s murder?”

“I don’t know,” she lied. “I’m on leave from work-” When he raised a speculative eyebrow, she explained, “I was wounded in the line of duty and won’t be going back to active duty for another month. As I said, I’m on leave and Kristen and Lindsay wanted me to come to the reunion, and Uncle Charlie and Aunt Laraine insisted I stay-”

“Cut the crap,” he said. “This is Dean, remember. You can’t lie to me. You couldn’t when we were kids and you still can’t.”

“What I remember when we were kids and teenagers is your tormenting me to death.”

He leaned forward, just enough to put them face-to-face, less than a foot separating them. “Ever ask yourself why I picked on you the way I did?”

“Because we couldn’t stand each other. You were such a little shit. Pulling my hair, stealing my purse, calling me names, laughing at me, making fun of me for having a crush on Jake.”

“You were too good for a guy like Jake,” Dean said as he got up off the desk. “Want some coffee before I give you a tour and we find you an empty desk somewhere?”

“Coffee’s fine.” She followed behind Dean, the act reminiscent of when they’d been preteens and had lived next door to each other. Even then she’d wanted to do everything the boys did and hated being told she couldn’t do something because “you’re just a girl.” How many times had she heard Dean say those fighting words?

He stopped at the coffeemaker, poured the strong dark brew into two disposable cups, and handed one to her. “Black okay?”

She nodded. “What did you mean when you said I was too good for Jake?” As she recalled, Dean and Jake had been buddies.

“There was a lot more to Jake Marcott than you knew. He had a dark side, believe me.”

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you that you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead?”

“You aren’t still hung up on Jake, are you?”

Rachel took a sip of coffee. God, it was awful. Way too strong. And bitter. “Jake hasn’t been a blip on my radar for most of the past twenty years. Do I remember him? Yes. Do I occasionally think of him? Yes. Do I remember what it felt like to have a major teenage crush on him? Of course I do. But there was never anything more than friendship between Jake and me. And there have been several men in my life since then, including a former husband.”

“Divorced?”

“Yeah.”

“Me, too.”

“Kids?” she asked.

“Nope. But we did fight for custody of Brighton, our cocker spaniel. She won custody.”

When he grinned, Rachel’s stomach flip-flopped. God, what was wrong with her? Why was she reacting this way? For pity’s sake, this was Dean. Dean McMichaels.

“What about you?” he asked. “Got any little rug rats?”

“No children.” I lost a baby four months into my pregnancy. Six years ago.

“Guess that means we’re both footloose and fancy free.”

“I guess it does.”

“How about dinner tonight?”

“What?” Her eyes widened in absolute shock. Had Dean McMichaels just asked her for a date?

“I’m not a guy who wastes time with subtleties,” he told her. “I’ve been divorced four years, been through two semi-serious relationships since then, and have been free as a bird for the past six months. Unless you’ve got a jealous boyfriend back home in Alabama, I’m putting my hat in the ring.”

She stared at him, still in a state of shock, still not quite comprehending that this drop-dead gorgeous police detective who was putting the moves on her was Dean McMichaels. “Dinner, huh? Okay.” Why not? He was right-they were both footloose and fancy free. And it wasn’t as if she had to worry about the thirty-eight-year-old Dean pulling her hair, teasing her unmercifully, or telling her that she couldn’t play with the boys.

“You’re staying with the chief and Mrs. Young, right?”

Rachel nodded.

“I’ll pick you up at seven this evening.”

His grin widened, showing off his perfect white teeth.

“Seven’s fine.” She swallowed hard, wondering if she’d lost her mind. The last thing she had expected when showing up with Charlie this morning was finding out Dean McMichaels was now a detective with the Portland Police Bureau. And right up there running a close second of unexpected happenings was agreeing to go out on a date with him. “About the records on the Marcott murder case…”

“Are you going to come clean and tell me why you’re really going through the records of the Cupid Killer cold case file?”

“Maybe. When we get better acquainted and I know I can trust you.”

Kristen Delmonico couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching her. A few months ago, she would have thought herself paranoid, but not now. Not since someone had invaded her privacy, forcing her to leave her own home and flee into the arms of her almost-ex-husband. A great deal had changed since she and their daughter Lissa had moved in with Ross, the least of which was the impending divorce. After admitting that they still loved each other, she and Ross had agreed to give their marriage a second chance. So far, so good. Ross showered her with attention and had become a diligent father, keeping close tabs on their only offspring. The unseen, unknown stalker who had been plaguing Kristen for a couple of months now had brought out all the protective instincts in Ross, and she had to admit that she didn’t mind having a big, strong man around, no matter how independent and self-reliant she had always been.

No one is going to attack you in the middle of the day at a downtown restaurant. It’s broad daylight. There are dozens of people surrounding you.

Yeah, well, there had been dozens of people surrounding Aurora when she’d fallen beneath a subway train in New York City. You didn’t have to be alone in your home, the way Haylie had been, to become a murder victim.

A homeless man robbed and killed Haylie. Aurora accidentally fell into the path of a subway train.

Kristen hoped that if she told herself often enough, she would eventually begin to believe it. There was no lunatic methodically killing members of their old high-school gang, the bevy of little planets that had circled around the sun god, Jake Marcott.

Then what about the photos slashed with red?

Stop thinking crazy thoughts like that, she told herself. Unless someone followed you from your office, no one knows where you are or who you’re meeting.

Maybe some guy at the bar was looking at her or maybe someone at a nearby table thought they knew her and was staring at her. Any number of reasonable explanations came to mind as to why she felt she was being watched.

“Kris?” A female voice with just a hint of a Southern accent called her name.

She looked up to see Rachel Alsace walking toward her. She would have recognized Rach anywhere, anytime, and yet she was different. Not just older. There was a confident swagger to Rachel’s walk. A chin held high, shoulders back, I-am-a-force-to-be-reckoned-with attitude. Rachel had always been a bit of a tomboy, dressing casually, keeping her blond hair short, not wearing very much make-up or jewelry. This new and improved version still had short hair, but with soft curls that framed her face, and her make-up flattered her fair skin. A pair of small, fat gold hoops shimmered against her earlobes.

“Rachel.” Kristen shot up quickly and grabbed her friend’s hands. “Girl, you look fabulous.” She’d never have dreamed Rachel would turn out to be such a looker.

Rachel hugged Kristen, then the two sat down facing each other at the small table. “You haven’t changed a bit, Kris. You’re still as pretty as you were twenty years ago.”

“Flattery will get you the best meal in this place. The Serrano ham is to die for. I usually get a sampling of several of their specialities. Andina’s has scrumptious stuffed yucca. You’ve got to try it. I went ahead and ordered. I hope that’s okay. “

“Yes, of course, that’s fine with me.” Rachel stared at her. “It really is so good to see you again.”

“Yeah. I feel the same way.”

Silence.

Their smiles disappeared.

“Are you really going to look into Jake’s old files?” Kristen asked.

Rachel nodded. “You’ll never guess who’s one of the two detectives assigned to the Cold Case Homicide Unit.”

“Dean McMichaels.”

“You knew and didn’t tell me!”

Kristen’s smile returned. “I honestly didn’t even think about it. I knew Dean was a detective with the Portland Police Bureau, but I really didn’t know he was working the Cold Case Homicide Unit.”

“He has certainly changed,” Rachel said.

“Has he? How?”

“Well, for one thing, the guy is drop-dead gorgeous.”

“He always was,” Kristen said. “You just didn’t notice because all you could see was Jake.” She sighed. “Like so many of us. You, me, Lindsay, Mandy, and half our class. Were we idiots or what!”

“Jake didn’t love any of us, you know,” Rachel said. “Not even Lindsay.”

“Yeah, I know.” Kristen grimaced. “God, I hate the very thought of opening all those old wounds. I wish Aurora had never talked me into heading up the reunion committee. She told me that because I was valedictorian, it was my duty.”

“Now Aurora’s dead.”

Silence.

The waiter brought the food Kristen had ordered, along with a bottle of wine from the Pearl Wine Shop located on a lower level of the restaurant.

“Kris, if Aurora’s death wasn’t an accident and if that homeless guy didn’t kill Haylie, you do know there’s a possibility that someone-maybe whoever killed Jake-has decided to eliminate the girls who formed the inner circle around Jake.”

Kristen took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “The thought has crossed my mind, but the question is why now? Why wait twenty years? And why kill any of us? What is this person’s motive?”

“Why now, twenty years later? My guess would be the reunion ignited some kind of spark in this person. All of us getting together again stirred up the past for him or her. Why this person would want to kill us-I don’t have a clue.” Rachel reached for her wineglass. “Of course, all of this is merely conjecture on my part, but as a cop, I’ve learned to rely on my gut instincts, and they’re screaming like crazy. I think the only way to find out if my assumptions are correct is to look into Jake’s murder case and find out just who Jake Marcott really was.”

After taking a sip of wine, Kristen nodded. “And it doesn’t hurt that you’ll be working side by side with to-die-for Dean.”

Rachel grinned. “He asked me out.”

“Dean asked you for a date?”

Rachel nodded. “Tonight.”

“You work fast, my friend. You do know he’s one of the bachelors in Portland. Ever since his divorce, he’s played the field, broken a few hearts, and walked away from two incredible ladies, both wild about him, or so I hear.”

“Are you informing me or warning me?”

“A little of both.”

“Did you know his wife?”

“No, not really, but I met her once. A perky little blonde. I think she was a cheerleader in high school. She had her own local thirty-minute TV show for a while. She came here from Sacramento, and I heard she went back there after the divorce.”

“I despised him, you know,” Rachel said as she picked at her plate of edible delights. “When we were kids.”

“I know you two fought like cats and dogs, but I always suspected that was because you two were really hot for each other and neither of you had sense enough to admit it.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Are you telling me that you really weren’t hot for him back then and that you don’t think he was nuts about you?”

“We are talking about the same person, aren’t we? Dean McMichaels. Student at Western Catholic. The guy who lived next door to me and pestered the crap out of me almost every day of my life from kindergarten through high school.”

“Don’t you remember my trying to tell you once that you should forget about Jake and grab Dean before he got away?” Kristen said.

“Yeah, I remember, but at the time I thought you were just trying to steer me away from Jake and cut out some of the competition.”

Kristen and Rachel laughed simultaneously, relieving some of the tension that the mere mention of Jake’s name created.

“Let’s enjoy our meal and forget about everything else for a little while,” Kristen said. “And now that you’re here in Portland and planning on staying until the reunion, we’ve got plenty of time to catch up on everything.”

“Including trying to figure out who might want to kill you and me and Lindsay.”

She sat far enough away from Kristen and Rachel so that they couldn’t see her, but by scooting her chair to the edge of her table, she could watch them from a distance.

She couldn’t believe her good fortune-Rachel had come to Portland four weeks before the reunion, and word was that Lindsay and Wyatt Goddard might come in early, too, a couple of days before the reunion. Everything was working out even better than she had hoped. She wouldn’t have to seek them out, wouldn’t have to make another out-of-town trip the way she had when she went to New York City. All her victims were coming to her. How sweet!

Today, she had followed Kristen from her office, keeping a discreet distance so she wouldn’t notice the car that was tailing her. She’d had no idea Kristen was meeting Rachel for lunch, although she’d heard that Rachel was planning to spend a month with Chief Young and his wife. If by any chance Rachel and Kristen walked by her on their way out of Andina’s today, they wouldn’t recognize her, not in her elaborate disguise. She had begun to enjoy trying out different disguises. She now owned three wigs-blond, red, and black. Today she wore the red wig, along with a pair of frog-eyed glasses and a row of ear studs that made it appear that she had pierced both of her ears at least a dozen times. Purple nail polish and lipstick complemented the outlandish orange and purple gossamer robe that swept behind when she walked.

Look at them sitting there laughing, enjoying themselves, reminiscing about the good old days. They were probably talking about Jake, about how handsome he’d been, what a stud he’d been, how his kisses had tasted, what it had felt like to have him ramming into each of them. She didn’t know for sure that he’d fucked Kristen and Rachel, but knowing him the way she had, she figured he had fucked them all.

But he never loved any of them. Not even Lindsay.

He loved me. Only me.

And I loved him.

Jake, why did you make me do it? Why did you force me to destroy something so precious?

You deserved to die after what you did.

And they deserve to die. All of them.

Two down and four to go.

One by one, they’re each going to join you in hell.

Chapter 25

Mandy Kim Stulz felt uneasy. And not for the first time in recent weeks. Overactive imagination, she told herself. No one was watching her, following her, keeping tabs on her comings and goings. At their most recent class reunion meeting, hadn’t everyone been on edge? Kristen, DeLynn, Martina, April, and Bella had each admitted that the deaths of fellow classmates Haylie Swanson and Aurora Zephyr unnerved them more than just a little. After all, both women had died violently in the past two months and both had been on the reunion committee.

And both had known Jake Marcott. One had hated him; the other had adored him.

Stop thinking such nonsense. Haylie had been murdered during a home robbery and Aurora’s death had been an accident. Neither had anything to do with their being on the reunion committee or with Jake Marcott.

But try as she might, somehow Mandy couldn’t shake the notion that the two deaths were more than a horrible coincidence. And she couldn’t forget the sick photograph she’d received in her invitation to the reunion.

Kristen hadn’t come right out and voiced what they were all thinking, what they all feared-that someone, perhaps Jake’s killer, had targeted some or all of the girls who’d played a major role in his life.

A whimpering sound came over the baby monitor sitting on Mandy’s home office desk. She listened intently, waiting to see if little Emily was simply whining in her sleep or if she was waking. Mandy held her breath. It had taken her an hour to get her eighteen-month-old daughter to sleep so she could get the class of ’86 bio booklet printed, stapled with a back and front cover, and ready to box up for the big night. Although the actual reunion was four weeks away, she hated leaving anything to the last minute.

Silence. No crying. Good. Emily was still asleep.

Mandy and her husband, Jeff, had tried unsuccessfully to have a child for nearly ten years. Nothing had worked. In the end, after two in vitro attempts failed, they had opted for adoption. Emily Amanda Stulz was a godsend, a beautiful doe-eyed little girl they had found through an overseas adoption agency. Emily’s biological mother, a biracial Vietnamese prostitute, had sold her baby to the highest bidder. Only through the grace of God had the precious child been saved from a fate worse than death.

Mercy, Mandy! Is every thought in your head these days about death? Weren’t you the idiot who voiced loud and clear at the first reunion committee meeting, “Why haven’t we had a reunion before now?”

No one who graduated in ’86 could ever look back without remembering that cold February night, the St. Valentine’s Day dance, and the Cupid Killer. The person who had shot Jake through the heart had never been found. Was he or she still out there and had for some unknown reason resurfaced and started killing again?

The phone rang. Mandy jumped as if she’d been shot.

Her hand actually trembled as she picked up the receiver.

“Is this Mrs. Stulz?” the peculiar voice asked.

Damn, why had she automatically answered without checking the caller ID? This was no doubt a telemarketer.

“Yes, this is Mrs. Stulz, but whatever you’re selling, I’m not interested.”

Just as she started to hang up, she heard the voice say, “Aren’t you interested in staying alive?”

Mandy’s hand clutched the receiver with white-knuckled tension. “Who is this?”

“Your worst nightmare.”

“If this is some kind of sick joke-”

“No one is laughing about Haylie’s death or Aurora’s, are they?”

For a millisecond, Mandy couldn’t breathe.

Diabolical laughter echoed through the phone line. Mandy gasped for air.

The dial tone hummed in her ears.

Sweet Jesus, who?…why?…

Mandy slammed the receiver down on the base, then sat there shaking from head to toe. After regaining a little of her composure, she checked the caller ID. A number, but no name. She redialed. It immediately went to voicemail.

“Hi, this is Minnie Mouse,” a squeaky, almost inhuman voice said. “Leave a message and Mickey will call you back.”

Mandy shook her head. What kind of crazy nonsense was that?

What should she do?

She would have to tell the others.

Call Kristen first. She’ll know what I should do. Then call Jeff and tell him to come home right away.

As much as she hated to admit it, Mandy was scared out of her mind.

She slipped the prepaid cell phone into her purse and smiled. It was time to shake things up a bit more, to up the ante. She wanted the others running scared, wanted them to spend sleepless nights worrying and wondering, wanted them to keep looking over their shoulders searching for the boogie man. Originally, she had wanted to kill the three-some-Rachel, Kristen, and Lindsay-first, but when it hadn’t worked out that way, she had revised her plans. She’d get rid of the others first and leave Kristen, Rachel, and Lindsay for last. She hated them all, but especially Lindsay. If it were possible, she would love to kill each of them at the reunion. What if she somehow managed to lure them, one by one, here into the maze outside St. Elizabeth’s? Wouldn’t that be just too incredibly wonderful?

She looked up at the dreary gray sky that threatened rain this afternoon and breathed in deeply. Surrounded by the labyrinth of hedges, deep within the quiet sanctuary, she let her gaze travel over the sculpture of the Madonna, white and bleached as bones, then on to the ancient oak tree that towered high above the hedges. The tree was green and lush, brimming with late springtime life, so unlike the way it had looked that night twenty years ago. In February. It had been leafless, barren, the skeletal branches quivering in the cold wind.

As much as she had tried to erase the memories from her mind, she couldn’t. Over the years, those memories had haunted her, growing in intensity and vividness with each passing year. She had fought the hatred, the envy, the bitterness she felt for the others, trying her best to forgive them for what they had done, just as she had tried to forgive Jake. Jake, whom she had loved.

But he didn’t love you as much as you loved him. He used you. He made you destroy the life growing inside you.

“You can’t have my baby,” he had told her.

But Lindsay had given birth to his baby. Her son had lived. No, no, that’s all wrong. You just thought the baby belonged to Jake. But Leo Cellamino isn’t Jake’s child. He never was.

Maybe Jake wasn’t the father of my baby either, and he made me kill it for no reason.

If she had told Jake that there was someone else, someone who loved her and was good to her, would he have let her have her baby? But she couldn’t tell Jake that he wasn’t the only one. He would have been furious. He might have…

It doesn’t matter now. My baby is dead. Jake is dead.

I killed them both.

A warm breeze stirred to life, rustling through the thick hedges and swaying the top branches of the old oak tree. Narrowing her gaze, she stared at the tree, at the very spot where Jake had stood leaning against the trunk, a half-smoked cigarette between his fingers. He’d been so cocky, so sure of himself. Mr. Irresistible.

He had grinned when he saw her peeking at him through the hedges where she’d hidden in an area of shrubbery that had died and been trimmed into an alcove shape. And that smile had stayed in place until the arrow hit him dead center, in the heart. A lucky shot? Divine providence? What did it matter. Jake Marcott had paid for his sins with his life.

Tears welled up in her eyes as she remembered the way he had looked, his body pinned to the tree trunk, blood oozing from the wound, him gasping, his eyes wide with shock. He hadn’t died instantly, but soon enough. And all the while, he had stared right at her, as if asking for her help.

She had slipped away, leaving him, glad that he was dead.

Dean McMichaels considered himself a good guy. Friendly, courteous, likable. Ever since junior high, he had attracted the ladies. Teenage girls back then. But his first conquest had been an older woman. He fifteen and she seventeen. Teena had been the cousin of a friend of a friend, a girl all the guys in his circle had screwed at one time or another. In retrospect, he wasn’t all that proud of the fact that he’d been one of them, but he’d been a horny kid and she’d been putting out. After Teena, he had become a bit more discriminate, usually going steady with a girl before they had sex. But the one girl he had really wanted-wanted so much that he’d honest-to-God compared every other woman in his life to her-had been hung up on another guy: Jake Marcott. May his black soul rot in hell.

He had known Rachel Alsace since kindergarten when her family had moved back to Portland, her dad’s hometown, from where her mom had lived all her life, Chattanooga, Tennessee. From day one he had kidded Rachel about her hillbilly accent. Once he’d even made her cry and had instantly regretted it. She’d been a tomboy, climbing trees, riding her skateboard, racing her bike, playing baseball. A real live wire, full of energy and enthusiasm.

He wasn’t sure when he’d stopped thinking of her as just one of the guys and starting seeing her as a girl. About the time she went through puberty and grew a set of perfect knockers. Man, how he’d wanted to see her boobs. Once-just once-he’d kissed her, at Lindsay Farrell’s thirteenth birthday party when they were playing some crazy kissing game. Being a good sport, Rachel had allowed the kiss, but when he’d copped a feel, she had slapped him. Their gazes had locked in a heated exchange. He had wanted to kiss her again but knew he’d blown his one chance to become more than just buddies.

By the time Jake Marcott showed up in their lives, when they were sixteen, he had already begun to pester the hell out of Rachel, doing everything he could to make her notice him. Why was it that all the other girls had paid attention to him, but not the one he’d wanted?

After Jake’s murder, nothing was ever the same for any of the old gang, least of all for Rachel and her family. She had moved back to Tennessee with her mother after her father’s death, and he’d lost track of her. Once in a blue moon, he’d run into Kristen and asked about Rachel, but she hadn’t known anything more than her address. Both of his serious girlfriends in college had been cute, petite blondes; when he’d married in his late twenties, his wife, Kellie, had fit the same description. He hadn’t been consciously aware of the fact that he had repeatedly tried to find a substitute for the one and only girl he had always wanted.

And here she was back in Portland, back in his life, and walking straight toward him. All he could say was she cleaned up damn good. Just looking at her took his breath away. Nothing flashy, just understated beauty. The kind of clean, wholesome, all-American beauty that turned Dean inside out.

They were both thirty-eight, both divorced and childless, and together again after twenty years. Was fate giving him a second chance with Rachel? Or was he a fool for letting himself believe in second chances?

Dean stared at Rachel, drinking in the sight of her. Her short blond curls framed her heart-shaped face. Her big blue eyes sparkled with mischief and curiosity just as they had when she’d been a kid. She had dressed casually, her outfit suitable for just about any place he might take her in Portland for dinner. White slacks in some gauzy fabric with a matching loose-fitting blouse that billowed out from a row of tiny beading directly under her breasts. Heaven help them both, but she looked good enough to eat.

“You have her home at a decent hour, young man,” Charlie Young said jokingly as he patted Dean on the back.

“Is two in the morning a decent hour?” Dean asked.

“I’ll be home before midnight,” Rachel informed both men.

“You two have a nice evening,” Laraine called after them as they left the house.

Once alone together in Dean’s white Thunderbird, he started the engine, then turned in his seat and looked directly at Rachel. “You look beautiful.”

The corners of her mouth lifted ever so slightly. An almost smile. “I’m not beautiful and I know it, so don’t waste your time with flattery because it will not get you laid tonight. Got that?”

Dean laughed. God, she hadn’t changed. At least not in the way she reacted to him. Hackles raised. Spitting fire. On the defensive.

“I really do think you’re beautiful.” I always have. “And to set the record straight, I don’t put out on a first date. A girl has to woo me a little before I let her have her way with me.”

“I can’t believe this-you act like you did when we were sixteen.” She glowered at him. “I’m cute, vivacious, spunky, and have a really nice rack, but I am not now nor have I ever been beautiful.”

He shifted gears, backed his Ford sports car out of the Youngs’ driveway, and gunned the engine, shooting the Thunderbird like a rocket down the residential street.

“You’ll get a speeding ticket driving so fast,” she told him.

He slowed down to just ten miles over the speed limit. “I have friends on the police force who can fix a ticket for me.”

Rachel gave him a real smile then, and his stomach knotted.

“Would you be interested in a movie before dinner?” he asked, already having a particular movie in mind.

“I guess so, if there’s something good showing.”

“Define good.”

She glanced his way. “Something that isn’t all blood and gore. Something that won’t give me nightmares and something where every other word isn’t MF.”

“Well, there goes my idea of seeing a movie.”

They both laughed.

That evening after leaving Emily with Mandy’s parents, Mandy and Jeff drove over to Ross Delmonico’s apartment. Mandy had called earlier and told Kristen they had to talk, that it was urgent. Now, after she’d had the entire afternoon to rationalize the eerie phone call she’d received, Mandy was able to tell Kristen about it without crying or freaking out.

“Is there anyone who might want to frighten you or even hurt you?” Kristen asked. “Someone not connected to St. Lizzy’s or the reunion”-she sighed heavily-“or to Jake?”

“No, no one,” Mandy said.

“I think Mandy needs to report the call to the police.” Jeff glanced from Kristen to her husband Ross.

“I agree,” Ross said. “When Kristen sensed she was being stalked-”

“Rachel Alsace is back in Portland,” Kristen blurted out. She’s a police officer in Alabama and Chief Young is allowing her to go through the old Cupid Killer files. She’s working with Dean McMichaels. You remember Dean, don’t you?”

Mandy stared at Kristen, trying to decipher any hidden message in what she’d said, doing her best to read between the lines. “Have you seen Rachel, talked to her?”

“We had lunch today.”

“And?”

“She thinks there might be a connection between Haylie’s and Aurora’s deaths, something the police here in Portland and in New York City weren’t aware of that would have made them look beyond the obvious.”

“What?” Ross and Jeff voiced the word simultaneously.

“She isn’t sure, but she feels certain there’s something,” Kristen said. “And if Rachel senses something isn’t right about their deaths, and we do, too, then we’d be fools to ignore our gut instincts, wouldn’t we?”

After deciding not to go to a movie, Dean had driven Rachel around Portland. When she suggested going by St. Elizabeth’s he had hesitated.

“Why spoil a perfectly lovely evening?” he had asked.

“We won’t get out,” she’d told him. “I’d just like to drive by and take a look.”

He had driven by, barely slowing down, as if the ghosts from the past were hot on his heels.

“You and Jake were buddies, but sometimes I thought maybe you didn’t always like him,” Rachel had said.

“He could be a jerk.” Once the old red-brick school that had originally been built in 1920 was out of sight, Dean added, “Jake could be a real son of a bitch. He kept his dark side well hidden.”

“It’s easy enough to defame his character now, when he can’t defend himself.”

After she had made that really stupid comment, silence hung between her and Dean for quite some time-until they arrived at their original destination. Bar Pastiche was an odd little restaurant on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard. Odd in that it was a small eatery where the updated-daily menu was written on the wall on butcher paper and where customers threw their paper napkins on the floor as people might do in a true tapas spot in Spain. The ambience was nonexistent, but the food was fabulous. They sat together at the small bar, sipped their drinks, and nibbled on mini-meatball sandwiches and Spanish deviled eggs.

After dinner, as they headed for Dean’s Thunderbird, he asked, “It’s too early to take you home. Want to go dancing? Pick up some ice cream? Run by my place and let me introduce you to my cat?”

“You have a cat?”

He chuckled. “Nah, not really, but I thought that sounded better than saying ‘want to come up and see my king-size bed?’”

She playfully punched him on the arm. “No running by your place for any reason. And no dancing. Not tonight. However, if you’re offering to buy me a double scoop of cherry vanilla ice cream-”

Rachel’s cell phone chimed. A no-nonsense ring. Not a cute song or music of any kind. She reached inside her white handbag, removed her small phone, and flipped it open.

“Hello?”

“That had better not be another man.” Dean winked at her.

“What?” she said into the phone. “Oh, crap! Yes, y’all wait right there.” She glanced at Dean and mouthed one word. Kristen. He immediately knew she meant Kristen Daniels Delmonico.

When she’d closed her phone and dropped it into her open bag, Dean asked, “What did Kristen want?”

“She wants us to come to her apartment-her husband’s apartment. Mandy Kim, who is now Mandy Stulz, and her husband are there with Kristen and Ross. It seems Mandy received a threatening phone call this afternoon, and both she and Kris are convinced that someone is stalking them…stalking all of us.”

Dean raised a questioning brow. “All of us as in…?”

“The girls who were once closely involved with Jake in some way-Kris, Mandy, Bella, Lindsay, and me. Maybe even some of the others. We’re not sure.”

“You know how crazy that sounds, don’t you?”

“If you want to hear crazy, then listen to this theory: we, as in Kristen, Lindsay, and I, think that Haylie and Aurora may have both been murdered by the same person. Maybe the same person who killed Jake. Several of us received pictures that had been scratched, as if we were being singled out. Maybe warned.”

“You think the Cupid Killer is killing again after twenty years?”

“Yes, we do. And that’s the real reason I’ve come back to Portland. I intend to catch Jake Marcott’s murderer.”

Chapter 26

After Rachel and Dean met with Kristen, Mandy, and their husbands last night, they had all agreed that someone was stalking Kristen and Mandy, but the guys pointed out that they couldn’t be certain this had anything to do with the reunion or Jake Marcott’s twenty-year-old murder. However, the one thing they all agreed on was that Kristen and Mandy shouldn’t take any chances, that someone wanted to, at the very least, scare them. And at the very worst?

That question had become a bone of contention between Rachel and Dean in their discussion of the situation when he drove her home.

“What if the person stalking Kris and Mandy killed Haylie and somehow implicated the homeless guy? What if this person went to New York, killed Aurora, and tried to kill Lindsay?”

“That’s a lot of what ifs,” Dean had said.

“Well, here’s one more for you-what if the two deaths, the attempted murder, and the stalkings are all connected to the reunion and to Jake?”

Dean had played devil’s advocate, pointing out the holes in her theory and asking the one unanswerable question-what was this unknown person’s motive?

Rachel had no reply. Dean was right when he’d asked why Jake’s killer would resurface after twenty years.

Today, Rachel had sat in the corner of the squad room at the police bureau headquarters and gone through the Cupid Killer case files. There was far too much information to absorb in one or two days. But after only a few hours yesterday and again today spent sorting through the facts, she had come to one conclusion-she had never really known Jake Marcott. The flirtatious, fun-loving, handsome boy she remembered had apparently been little more than a figment of her fertile teenage imagination. Just as Dean had told her, there had been a dark side to Jake. Why hadn’t she seen it? He had been a troubled boy from a troubled home, but he had hidden it well, as had Bella.

Rachel and Bella had never been buddies, but they had gotten along better than Bella had with most of Jake’s friends, especially the girls in his life. Bella had resented the fact that she didn’t quite mesh with the in crowd, the St. Elizabeth’s and Western Catholic students that her big brother had hung out with. Rachel had always felt sorry for Jake’s little sister and had thought there was something strangely sad about her.

Wonder if she’s still that quiet, brooding girl she was twenty years ago?

Well, Rachel would find out in a few minutes just what Bella was like now. She rang the doorbell as she waited on the front porch of Mandy and Jeff Stulz’s sprawling ranch house, which must have cost them a small fortune. But from what Kristen said, Jeff Stulz’s accounting firm had become one of the most prestigious in the Portland area and the guy was raking in the big bucks.

“Mandy worked for him,” Kristen had said. “That’s how they met. He’s probably ten years older than she is, but he doesn’t look it, does he?”

When the door opened, Rachel came face-to-face with someone she didn’t recognize. Expecting Mandy to greet her, she paused, wondering if she might be at the wrong house.

“Rachel?” the attractive black woman asked.

“Yes, I’m Rachel.” She stepped into the two-story foyer. “I’m afraid I don’t know-” She stared questioningly at the woman.

“I’m DeLynn Vaughn. Actually, it’s DeLynn Simms now.” Smiling warmly, she closed the door behind Rachel. “Come on in. Mandy’s upstairs with little Emily, putting her to bed for the night. The others are in the great room, having drinks and discussing what’s been happening to Kristen and Mandy.”

When Kristen had called her first thing that morning, Rachel had agreed to join the members of the reunion committee who were meeting at Mandy’s house that evening. But their hen party had been called not to discuss the reunion, but to compare notes and see if only Mandy and Kristen were being stalked.

As Rachel entered the great room, Kristen met her and offered her a glass of white wine, which Rachel accepted.

“Come on in,” Kristen said. “You met DeLynn at the door. April and Martina are eager to see you.”

By the time Kristen had reintroduced her to Martina Perez Taylor and April Wright, Mandy had joined them. Although Martina had gained at least fifty pounds in the past twenty years, Rachel would have recognized her anywhere. April was another matter. Her once-brown hair was a sun-kissed blond, her teeth were capped and pearly white, and contacts had replaced the thick glasses she had once worn.

Then there was Bella Marcott, who shook hands with Rachel but said nothing. Still quiet and shy? Still a bookish wallflower? With her curly black hair and light blue eyes, Bella should have been strikingly beautiful-as beautiful as Jake had been-but despite the similarity in their features, Bella was simply a pale imitation of her brother’s beauty.

“It’s good to see you again,” Rachel said.

“You’ve changed,” Bella told her. “You’re prettier.”

“Thank you.” I think. As in the past, Rachel didn’t quite know how to take Bella. She’d always been a rather odd bird, a girl who didn’t seem to fit in anywhere. And she didn’t really fit in here with the others tonight. Except for the fact that Kristen had said the reunion would include the guys from Western Catholic and even the kids from Washington High, Rachel would have been puzzled by Bella being on the committee.

For the first fifteen minutes, the women chitchatted about children, husbands and ex-husbands, their jobs, and the upcoming annual Rose Festival here in Portland. Then the one person Rachel had never thought would bring up the subject asked the question that had been hanging in the air like a dark cloud.

“So, Rachel, with your background as a police officer, what do you think is going on?” Bella asked. “Has Jake’s killer returned? Did the Cupid Killer murder Haylie and Aurora and is he or she stalking the rest of us?”

An unnatural silence fell over the room. Suddenly the only sound was the combined soft breathing of the six women congregated in Mandy’s great room.

Rachel focused on Bella. “I think it’s possible.”

“But why would Jake’s killer suddenly start killing again?” Martina asked.

“And why kill Haylie and Aurora?” April inquired.

“We-Kristen and I-think it has something to do with this reunion y’all are planning,” Rachel told them. “For some reason, knowing that the old gang will be reunited has set this person off, but there has to be more to it than that. And I plan to dig as deep as possible into the Cupid Killer files and see if I can come up with something that will warrant the Portland Police Bureau reopening Jake’s case.”

“Oh.” Bella mouthed the one word, an expression of surprise on her pale face.

“I’m sorry, Bella,” Rachel said. “I know this has to be painful for you, but-”

“No, no. Really. I understand and I’m all right with whatever you need to do. No one would like to see Jake’s killer brought to justice more than I. Even now, after all these years.”

Rachel offered Bella a sympathetic half-smile. “Look, there’s nothing we can do to help Haylie or Aurora, but we can help ourselves, protect ourselves. Someone is stalking Kristen and Mandy. Anybody else? Do any of you feel as if you’re being watched? Followed? Anything missing from your houses? If anything odd has happened to you lately, tell me.”

One by one, they shook their heads, then Bella gasped. “It might be nothing, but…well, several of my scarves are missing. I thought it odd, but since I have a habit of misplacing things, I just dismissed it as that. You don’t suppose someone stole them, do you?”

“Was there any sign of a forced entry into your home?” Rachel asked.

“No, but I usually open the window in my bedroom at night. I like the fresh air. And I have been known to forget to close the window when I leave in the morning.”

“But you haven’t sensed that someone was following you or watching you?”

Bella shook her head.

“From now on, I want each of you to be alert. Not paranoid, just careful.”

“Are you working with the police?” Martina asked. “I mean, is the Portland Police Bureau aware of what’s been happening?”

“Actually, Rachel is unofficially working with Dean McMichaels,” Kristen said. “Dean is a homicide detective now. He works in the Cold Case Homicide Unit.”

“Dreamy Dean?” April sighed. “Is he as gorgeous as ever?”

“Oh, yes, he certainly is,” Kristen said.

“I used to have crazy dreams about that guy,” DeLynn admitted.

“I think it was his eyes,” Martina said. “He’s the only person I’ve ever met with golden eyes.”

Feeling just the slightest bit uncomfortable listening to the girls talk about Dean, Rachel cleared her throat. “Ladies, I think we got off the subject, didn’t we?”

“Okay, so you’re working with Dreamy Dean. I’d say that’s a plus since you two were friends from the time you were in diapers, right?” April said. “It shouldn’t be any trouble for you to convince him to reopen Jake’s case, especially if you really think it is somehow connected to what’s happening now.” April looked directly at Rachel, her gaze intensely focused. “Do you think we’re all in danger? I mean, I wasn’t one of Jake’s girlfriends or anything. Actually, we weren’t even friends.”

“I don’t know for sure who is in danger and who isn’t. We’re not even certain the scratched photographs are significant,” Rachel admitted. “For now, I’d say everyone working on the reunion committee should be careful and watch for anything unusual happening. At this point, there is no way to know for sure who has been targeted and who hasn’t or what criteria this person is using to choose his or her victims.”

“But my brother Jake, his murder, is somehow at the core of what’s happening,” Bella said, her voice a mere whisper. “Poor Aurora. She never did anything bad to anyone. And Haylie…well, we all know she was unstable, don’t we? Neither of them deserved what happened to them.”

“If you need us to sign a petition or whatever to get the police to reopen the Cupid Killer case, just let us know,” DeLynn said.

The others piped in with their endorsement of DeLynn’s statement.

Half an hour later, Rachel left Mandy’s feeling as if she had not only reconnected with old friends, but had also accomplished a great deal toward achieving her goal. She wasn’t the only person who wanted to solve the Jake Marcott murder, and in doing so, possibly save the lives of potential victims.

In the dark, dank basement of St. Elizabeth’s, she pointed her flashlight at Mandy Kim’s locker. Mandy, with her moon-pie face and expensive salon haircut and rich husband. Mandy who was and always had been too smart, too cute, too everything. Jake used to talk about what a living doll Mandy was and how he’d love to get in her pants. She knew he’d told her that because he wanted to make her jealous, wanted to hurt her. The only time he had ever said sweet things to her was when he was softening her up for the kill. That’s how she had thought of sex with Jake. Each time he touched her, each time he buried himself inside her, she died a little. By the time she’d murdered Jake, she was totally dead inside, her uterus empty, her emotions frozen, her future destroyed. That’s why she’d been able to kill Jake so easily, without any regrets. It had been all his fault. If he hadn’t ruined her so completely, she wouldn’t have…

Killing Mandy would take cunning. And intricate planning. She would be cautious. Waiting. Expecting. Anticipating the worst.

That’s all right. Let her be on guard. I simply have to devise a plan that will enable me to take her by surprise, to sneak up on her blind side.

She has a toddler whom she adores. Perhaps I can use little Emily Stulz in some way to lure Mandy into a trap.

A deep rumble of laughter fluttered up from her diaphragm and erupted into deliriously happy giggles. She had them all running scared. Each of them would be looking over her shoulder all the time, waiting for the unknown killer to strike.

Even wiseass policewoman Rachel Alsace had no idea who was marked for death, who the next victim would be.

But you have to know that you’re on my list. You, Kristen, and Lindsay. The ones who loved Jake the most.

Rachel had to admit that the following day when she arrived at 1111 SW Second Avenue and went to her desk in the corner of the squad room, she had hoped to see Dean. When she hadn’t caught even a glimpse of him by two that afternoon, she had begun to think he was avoiding her. Then when she was absorbed in looking over the photos from the Cupid Killer crime scene, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She jumped and yelped at the same time.

“Sorry,” Dean said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Exhaling a calming, relieved breath, Rachel swivelled around to face him. “Next time, blow a whistle or something.” She laid the photos aside.

Dean sat on the edge of her desk and glanced at the glossy prints. He fingered them, separating the top two, one a full shot of Jake from head to toe, his body pinned against the oak tree by a crossbow arrow, the other a photo of the bow, found at the scene.

“Nasty stuff,” Dean said.

Rachel nodded. “You know, back then all of us suspected one another. Crazy, huh? We were all a bunch of kids who knew nothing about crossbows. And it’s not as if St. Lizzy’s or Western or Washington High offered archery classes.”

“Yeah, it never entered our minds back then that it would take an expert with a bow to hit a guy dead center in the heart and pin him to a tree.”

“Even if the person had been fairly close, they still would have had to know what they were doing. I can’t think of anyone in our circle of friends that would qualify.” Rachel spread the photos apart, placing them side by side atop her desk. “When I first read over the file, I started wondering if a woman would be strong enough to handle the rigid tension on a crossbow, but then I read where there’s some kind of lever on a crossbow that would enable just about anybody to cock it.”

“Yeah, but just anybody couldn’t hit the target, especially not dead center.”

“I’ve looked at the report on the man who owned the crossbow, but apparently he was a dead end.” Rachel searched through the file folder until she found that specific report. “His name was-”

“Patrick Dewey,” Dean said.

Rachel stared at him. “You’ve taken a look at these files, haven’t you?”

“Sure. More than once,” Dean told her. “There was a time when Jake and I were good friends.”

“What actually happened between you two? When did you stop being best buddies?”

“You want to know the truth?”

“Yes.”

“When I found out that Jake had been driving the car the night Ian Powers was killed and that Jake laid all the blame on Ian because he was dead and couldn’t defend himself. Jake wasn’t about to take the rap for vehicular manslaughter.”

A tight fist constricted around Rachel’s heart and for a brief half second, she couldn’t breathe. So, it was true. All the accusations that Haylie had made against Jake had been true!

“How do you know that Jake was driving that night?”

Dean grunted. “Jake told me. A few weeks after Ian’s funeral. One night when we’d both had a few too many beers.”

“And you never told anyone?”

Dean didn’t respond. Instinctively Rachel knew there was more. The question was, did she really want to know exactly what the “more” was?

“Tell me the rest of it,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

She nodded.

“Jake threatened me,” Dean said.

“What? Are you saying Jake threatened to kill you?” If Jake had threatened Dean, wouldn’t that have given Dean a motive to murder his onetime best friend?

“He didn’t threaten to kill me,” Dean told her.

“I don’t understand, if he didn’t-”

“He threatened to harm someone who meant a great deal to me.”

Puzzled, Rachel stared at Dean.

“He told me that if I ever breathed a word about what he’d said about driving the car the night Ian died, he would seduce you and then drop you like a hot potato. I knew that if he did that, it would not only break your heart, but it would break your spirit.”

Rachel sat there staring at Dean, absorbing what he had just told her, coming to terms with distorted memories and shattered dreams. She’d had a major crush on Jake, had thought he hung the moon, despite the fact that she knew he could be a self-centered jerk. But she had never seen his truly dark side. And Dean, who had been the bane of her existence from kindergarten through high school, had been her hero, her champion. Why had she been so blind?

“Are you okay?” Dean reached out, clasped her hand resting on the desk, and gave it a squeeze.

“Yes, I’m okay. Just stunned. I thought I knew Jake. I was wrong about him.” Her gaze met Dean’s. “I was wrong about you, too.”

“Old news, honey. Jake’s history. He’s the past. He can’t hurt anybody now.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“Look, I can’t officially reopen the Cupid Killer case, but in my free time, there’s no reason I can’t help you sort through the old records, snoop around, and ask some new questions.”

“Are you saying you believe us-believe me-about the possibility that Jake’s killer murdered Haylie and Aurora and is stalking-”

He tapped his index finger on her lips. “Nah, I’m offering to do this just to make brownie points with you.”

It took Rachel a couple of seconds to realize Dean was joking. Or was he? He was looking at her like a hungry man staring at the last bite of food anywhere in sight.

“I’ll take you up on your offer,” she said. “And earning brownie points with me is dependent upon just how much help you are.”

“Fair enough.”

“Where do we start and when?”

“No time like the present.”

“But you’re still on duty.”

“I’m on an extended coffee break.”

“I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble,” she said. “Uncle Charlie and Aunt Laraine are having dinner out with friends tonight, so why don’t we borrow Uncle Charlie’s home office this evening, order in, and plan a strategy?”

“What time? Six?”

“Make it six-thirty.”

“It’s a date.”

She shook her head.

He chuckled. “Think of it as a study date.”

Every afternoon, about an hour before she started dinner, Mandy took Emily for a stroll up the street and through a nearby park. Today, she had considered not going. After all, if someone was stalking her…

But her neighborhood was one of the safest in the Portland area. And it was broad daylight. Besides that, she had a whistle and Mace, didn’t she? And even Jeff had agreed that she couldn’t live in terror every second of every day.

Five minutes later and only two blocks away from her house, Mandy was on the verge of a panic attack. She kept seeing shadows, kept sensing dark figures behind every tree, kept hearing odd sounds.

Ridiculous!

It was one of those spectacular days in Portland-bright sunshine flooded over the earth in warm, shimmering glory. The breeze was mild, birds were singing, and butterflies were fluttering all about. She should be enjoying this afternoon stroll with her daughter, not anticipating some sinister character to come out of nowhere and grab her.

By the time she pushed Emily’s stroller into the small park a few blocks away, Mandy felt calmer and more assured that all was well. She had passed by Mr. Hensley working in his flower garden, Mrs. Kennedy walking her dog, and the Monroe twins skipping rope on the sidewalk. And in the park, she ran into another stay-at-home mom and neighbor, Erin Minor. They talked for a while, chatting about nothing of any importance and comparing notes about their toddlers.

On her walk home, Mandy actually enjoyed herself, as she usually did, all her anxieties now under control. As she approached the back door that led into the mudroom where she kept the folding stroller stored, she noticed something stuck on the glass storm door.

Sweet Jesus!

Someone had taped an arrow on her door. Her pulse raced. Glancing from side to side as if she thought she might spot the culprit who had left the arrow, Mandy eased around to the front of the stroller and lifted Emily up and into her arms. Resting her daughter on her hip, she walked closer to the door and stared at the arrow. A child’s toy arrow, the kind with a rubber tip. But there was something red and wet dripping from that rubber tip. Blood? Surely not!

Mandy clenched her teeth to keep from crying out. Taking several steps backward, behind the stroller, she reached down into the diaper bag inside the back pocket on the stroller and retrieved her cell phone. Under ordinary circumstances, the first person she’d call would be Jeff. But not this time.

She dialed the newest number she had programmed into her phone. Rachel Alsace’s phone number.

Chapter 27

During the eight days Rachel had been in Portland, a wave of anxiety and fear had swept over the reunion committee, spreading from Kristen, and Mandy to the others-DeLynn, Martina, Bella, and April. And Rachel. Each one had received at least one weird phone call and a strange, threatening note. And each member of the group had come home on various days to find a child’s toy arrow taped to their back door. The rubber tip on each arrow had been dripping red paint. Not blood. Paint. But the message was clear-Remember how Jake Marcott died.

Initially, the police handled these incidents as misdemeanors, as nothing more than silly pranks. But because of Rachel’s involvement and the fact that one of those arrows had been attached to Chief of Police Charlie Young’s back door, an investigation was under way to look into the matter more thoroughly. The arrows and paint were easily traced, both sold at a variety of stores in the Portland area, making it virtually impossible to pinpoint the buyers. The phone calls had all been placed on prepaid cellular phones purchased by Minnie Mouse. The words in each note had been cut from newspapers and magazines and taped to a sheet of plain white paper.

At first, after Mandy had returned from a walk in the park with her child and found the first arrow on her door, Dean had tried to convince Rachel that someone was playing a sick prank. Maybe it was someone who, for his or her own perverted reasons, wanted to resurrect the past, to remind everyone about Jake’s brutal murder. But after each committee member found an identical paint-tipped arrow on her back door, Dean had come around to Rachel’s way of thinking. Someone was targeting the women who had been a part of Jake’s life back in high school. But why? And was the stalker the same person who had killed Jake?

Day by day, Rachel sifted through the Cupid Killer files, with Dean assisting her in his free time. As she worked diligently to put together the pieces of a twenty-year-old murder, she often felt that she was betraying her father’s memory. Mac Alsace had been the best detective in the world, bar none. If he hadn’t been able to find Jake’s killer, what made Rachel think she could?

Time and distance often had a way of clearing the gray areas, of making things more black and white. Sometimes even the best investigator could be too close to the forest to see the trees. As she had studied the photos, read the reports, gone over the facts again and again, a clear picture had emerged. Jake Marcott had not been the boy she’d thought he was, that was for sure. But more important, the likelihood that one of his teenaged peers had killed Jake was slim to none, unless one of them had been a skilled archer and had been able to keep that fact a secret.

Back in the day, the police had released very little information about the case, hoping to keep the killer in the dark. And Rachel’s father had never discussed the particulars of the case with her, partly because he was duty-bound to keep certain things private, and partly because he had wanted to protect her from some ugly truths.

Even after all these years, she still missed her dad. As much as she had loved her mother, she’d always been a daddy’s girl. His death at age forty-seven had come as a shock. Such a waste. A man in his prime.

Rachel couldn’t help wondering how her life might be different now had her dad lived. One thing she knew for certain-her mother wouldn’t have moved home to Tennessee as long as Rachel remained in Portland, and Rachel would never have left Portland as long as her dad was alive. And if she had stayed here in Portland? She wouldn’t have a slight Southern accent, wouldn’t be referring to a group of people as y’all, and she would never have married Allen Turner.

Would she be working alongside her dad now, who would probably be chief of police instead of Uncle Charlie? Would she perhaps be partnered with Dean McMichaels? Would the two of them have hooked up years ago, maybe gotten married and had a couple of kids?

Wow! Where had that thought come from-Dean and she married? Back then, she hadn’t even liked Dean. But back then, she hadn’t really known Dean. If she had, she never would have suspected him of killing Jake-and she had! After all, it hadn’t exactly been a secret that the two guys, once best buddies, had parted ways, and no one had understood why. Now Rachel did. It had been because Dean had known one of Jake’s deep, dark secrets. Because Jake had used Dean’s feelings for Rachel to blackmail Dean to keep him quiet.

Dean placed two brown paper bags on Rachel’s desk. “Lunchtime,” he said as he pulled up a chair and sat beside her.

“You didn’t have to bring me lunch.” She twisted her swivel chair around so that she faced him. “But it’s a sweet gesture. Thanks.”

“It’s no big deal. I had to eat anyway, so I just picked up something for you, too.” He eyed the brown paper bags. “Do you still like Reubens? Kosher dills? Diet Coke?”

Her mouth opened wide in surprise. Why would Dean remember her teenage favorites? “If you’ve got a Snickers candy bar in there for dessert-”

“If I do, what?” he teased.

“I won’t believe it until I see it.” She opened one sack, removed two sandwiches, two giant dill pickles, and two single-serving bags of potato chips.

Dean opened the second paper sack and removed a regular and a diet canned Coke and a couple of straws, then he turned the sack upside down and shook it. Out popped two Snickers bars.

Rachel gasped, then giggled. “Dean McMichaels, you have a memory like an elephant.”

“Only for the important stuff.” He winked at her.

Her heart did a crazy little rat-a-tat-tat. “I imagine that kind of memory has helped you become a top-notch detective.”

He unwrapped his roast beef sandwich. “What makes you think I’m a top-notch detective?”

She popped the tabs on both colas, stripped the paper off the straws, and inserted them into the openings of the two cans. “Uncle Charlie told me. You’re a highly decorated officer, made lieutenant younger than anyone else on the force, and you’re in line for a big promotion.”

“I just do my job. That’s all.”

He seemed genuinely embarrassed by her praise. A modest man. Imagine that. So different from her ex-husband. So different from Jake.

Rachel unwrapped her sandwich, lifted it to her mouth and took a bite, then sighed. After chewing and swallowing, she said, “Delicious.”

Dean opened both potato chip bags. “I tracked down the man who owned the bow that was used in Jake’s murder.”

“You did?”

Dean nodded. “Patrick Dewey moved his family to Salem nineteen years ago. I phoned his home today, right before I went out to pick up our lunch.”

“And?”

“I spoke to his wife, Marilyn. She said Patrick died a couple of years ago.”

“Hmm…too bad, but I don’t suppose he could have told us any more than he told the police twenty years ago. He reported the bow stolen a week before Jake was killed.”

“Yeah, and the only reason we know it was Dewey’s bow is because he registered it with the manufacturer right after he bought it. They keep a record of the serial numbers for the warranty registration.”

Rachel nibbled on her potato chips. “I saw a report where my father interviewed several bow hunters who lived in the area, but none of them, including Dewey, knew Jake or his family.”

“Yeah, and besides that, they all had alibis for the night Jake was killed.”

“You really did go through all these old files, didn’t you?” Rachel sipped on her Diet Coke.

“A few years after I joined the force, I asked permission to take a look at the Cupid Killer files,” Dean said. “It wasn’t that I actually thought I could find anything your dad and his partner missed. I was curious. You know, because the victim was Jake and because of how things happened. I think Jake’s murder affected all of us in some way or other.”

“Mmm…” Rachel washed down the bite of sandwich in her mouth with another sip of cola. “Sometimes, I think the reason I went into law enforcement after college, other than the fact I wanted to follow in Dad’s footsteps, is because of what happened to Jake.” She looked directly at Dean. “Is that crazy?”

“I don’t think so, but I’m the wrong person to ask. I figure the way Jake’s murder hit all of us so hard is one of the reasons I joined the Portland Police Bureau.”

“It seems you and I have a great deal in common, don’t we?”

Dean reached out and brushed a stray curl off Rachel’s cheek and moved it behind her ear. Their gazes connected and held for a heart-stopping moment.

“Too bad we didn’t realize that years ago,” she said.

“Better late than never.”

Oh, no. Those pesky butterflies were doing a jitterbug in her belly again. Every time Dean looked at her as if he wanted to kiss her, she felt the kind of rush that comes only with falling in love. But she wasn’t falling in love with Dean, was she? Not Dean McMichaels! Of all the men on earth, why him?

It’s just good old-fashioned lust, she told herself. You haven’t been with a man in a long time and you’re horny. That’s all there is to it. You need to have sex.

Did that mean she should have sex with Dean?

“So, we’re on for tonight,” Dean said.

“Huh?”

“You haven’t been listening, have you? Where did you go just then?”

“Nowhere. Just woolgathering.”

“Were you thinking about Jake?” Dean pulled away from her and sat back in his chair.

“What? No, I wasn’t thinking about Jake. Actually, I was thinking about-” Are you out of your mind? You can’t tell Dean that you were thinking about having sex with him, to use him to scratch an itch.

Dean glared at her.

“I was thinking that we should pick up a bottle of wine to take to Kris and Ross’s tonight.”

Dean gave her a skeptical look. She knew he didn’t believe her.

“No problem. We can pick up a bottle on the way there.”

Rachel laid her hand over Dean’s. “I haven’t been carrying a torch for Jake all these years. After I moved to Chattanooga with my mother, I got on with my life and I hardly ever thought about Jake.”

“You didn’t ever think about me either, did you?”

“As a matter of fact, I did. Every once in a while.” She punched him playfully on the arm. “I thought about how you were always giving me a hard time.” The minute the words were out of her mouth, she wished she could recall them and rephrase that statement.

Dean grinned. “Interesting choice of words.”

She blushed. Heavenly days! “Don’t read anything into them,” she told him. “They were just words.”

“If you say so, but you’ve got to wonder…”

“I’m not finishing that sentence for you.”

“All right,” he said. “I’ll finish it. You’ve got to wonder what it would be like if we hooked up, did the horizontal”-he lowered his voice and added-“had sex.”

“Even if I might be curious, that doesn’t mean I’m going to jump into bed with you,” she whispered. “Believe it or not, there are still some women in this world who do not have casual sex, and I’m one of them.”

“If we ever had sex, it wouldn’t be casual.”

Before she could respond, Officer Ray Middleton approached them, calling out to Dean as he walked toward Rachel’s desk.

“Hey, Dean, that eyewitness from the Henderson case showed up early,” Officer Middleton said. “He’s pretty nervous, so I thought it best to come tell you and not make him wait too long. He might bolt.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Dean said, then turned to Rachel. “See you later.”

He winked at her again.

And her insides quivered.

Kristen crinkled her nose with worry as she spoke to Lindsay Farrell, who had telephoned while she was in the middle of setting the table in Ross’s apartment dining room. Their daughter Lissa was at a friend’s house studying, so dinner tonight would be a foursome.

“Look, Linds, I’d like nothing better than to cancel the reunion, but Rachel and I are a majority of two,” Kristen said. “Even Mandy, who’s as nervous as a cat these days, says we can’t let some nut job dictate what we should and shouldn’t do. The others agree, so the reunion is still on.”

“I had planned to come in early,” Lindsay said. “And we still might, if-”

“You and Wyatt?”

“Yes, Wyatt and I. Who would ever have thought that we’d wind up as a couple? But then again, who would have believed that we had a one-nighter in high school that resulted in a son who is now nineteen?”

“Why didn’t you tell me or tell Rachel? We might have been able to help you.”

“What could either of you have done?” Lindsay asked. “You were both teenagers, too, and would have agreed that my giving my baby away was the only thing I could have done.”

“I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you, knowing he was out there somewhere. Lissa tries my nerves, but the thought of having no choice but to give her up at birth-”

“If Wyatt and I can work things out with Leo-you know, the three of us figure out what kind of relationship we each want-then I’ll get a second chance with my son as well as with his father.”

“Linds?”

“Huh?”

“Stay safe, will you. Okay?”

“I will. You, too.”

“Not knowing where he or she will strike next is the worst part,” Kristen said. “Ross is so concerned about me that he’ll barely let me out of his sight. And Mandy’s husband is talking about hiring a bodyguard for her. And even Rachel, who’s a trained professional, carries a gun, and knows karate or one of those martial arts, has Dean looking out for her.”

“Are they together now?” Lindsay asked. “Once again, who’d have thought it-Dreamy Dean and our Rach. She was always hung up on Jake.”

“Yes, she was, just as you and I were.”

“We were fools, weren’t we?”

“Yes, we were, but we were just kids who didn’t know any better.”

“Kris, please keep me posted on what’s happening.”

After she replaced the phone on the cradle, Kristen finished setting the table, then went into the kitchen to check the roast in the oven.

If she had her way, they would cancel the reunion, but then again maybe the others were right about not giving in to pressure, not allowing their fears to dictate their actions. And who was to say that if they canceled the reunion the threats would stop? If the person who was behind the child’s arrow stunt, the notes, phone calls, and break-ins had killed Aurora and Haylie, they could strike again at any time. But without proof that Aurora’s death was not an accident and with such damning proof that the homeless bum killed Haylie during a robbery, there was no way to definitely connect either crime to what had happened to Lindsay in New York. Nor could their deaths be connected to what had been happening with her, with the other committee members, and with Rachel.

They were up there now, Kristen and Rachel and Dean McMichaels, with Kristen’s rich hubby Ross Delmonico. Just like back in high school, they were having fun, enjoying the good life, while she was on the outside looking in. Damn them. Damn them all. Kristen, so pretty and oh so smart. And never without a boyfriend. Even Jake had turned to her when he’d broken up with Lindsay. And Rachel, the good sport, everybody’s friend, even Jake’s. It had been unfair twenty years ago that girls like Kristen and Rachel and Lindsay had everything going for them, that they got all the breaks, had all the fun. And it seemed that very little had changed in all this time. Maybe they hadn’t been deliberately cruel to her, but ignoring a person was more than simply being unkind. Sometimes she used to feel invisible, as if none them ever saw her. She had longed to be one of them-really one of them-and not just one of those girls hanging around on the periphery.

She stood outside the building, gazing up at the high-rise apartment that belonged to Ross Delmonico. She had followed Rachel and Dean, wanting to see just where they were going, and wasn’t the least bit surprised to find that their destination was a visit with an old friend. Probably dinner. She’d noticed that Dean was carrying a bottle of wine.

Have fun tonight. Enjoy dinner. Talk and laugh and discuss old times. The last laugh won’t be on me-it’ll be on you. On you, Kris. And on you, Rachel. But most definitely on Lindsay. Bitch!

But killing them would have to wait. She knew now that the time and place for their deaths would come soon enough. But for those three, the end should be special. She had jumped the gun with Kris and even more so with Lindsay, because she hated Linds the most.

God, how she hated those cute little nicknames. Kris and Linds and Rach. She especially despised those names when Jake had used them.

“Ma’am, are you all right?” a voice asked.

Astonished by the fact that someone had spoken to her, she gasped loudly. Her gaze connected with a set of dark brown eyes. A young couple, apparently walking their dog, were standing there staring at her as if she had two heads.

“I-I’m fine,” she replied, then hurried away, up the street. Don’t panic, she told herself. They wouldn’t remember her. Besides, they hadn’t gotten that good a look at her, there in the semidarkness. And who would be asking them about her anyway?

She all but ran back to her car, which was parked a block away, got in, and started the engine. Leave Kris and Rach for another day-for the night of the reunion. There is someone else who deserves your immediate attention, someone less important than the exalted three, but someone as guilty as they, someone who deserves to die. And soon.

Dinner with the Delmonicos had been nice. Dean liked Ross and hoped he and Kristen would continue trying to make their marriage work. And not just because they had a kid together, but because they seemed to genuinely love each other. Maybe when all was said and done in a relationship, love really was all that mattered. Real love. Not lust. Not fleeting passion. Not memories of raging teenage hormones.

Who was he kidding? He didn’t know the first thing about real love. As a teenager, he’d bonked just about any girl who’d let him. And later on…well, he’d been around the block a few times before he got married. He had loved Kellie and she him, but it hadn’t been enough, hadn’t been real and true and meant to last a lifetime. His parents had had that. Still had it. They were off traveling across the country in their motor home, loving life and loving each other as much as if not more than ever.

He wanted that kind of relationship. Hell, he wasn’t getting any younger. If he was going to remarry and produce a few offspring, he needed to get started pretty soon. After all, he was scaring forty to death. So maybe that was the reason he kept putting Rachel into the scenario, kept thinking about her as a life partner, as the future Mrs. Dean McMichaels. Ever since they were kids, he’d been protective of her, almost like a brother, but somewhere along the line, he’d become possessive, too, and by their senior year in high school, he’d known he loved cute, bubbly Rachel Alsace.

He glanced over at her where she sat looking out the passenger side window in his Thunderbird. “Penny for your thoughts.”

She turned to face forward, then glanced at him. “I was just thinking how lucky Kristen is. She and Ross. They have each other and a daughter and…And Lindsay just reconnected with Wyatt Goddard. I told you about them and their son and…”

“And at our age, being alone isn’t all that great, is it?”

“You’re right,” she said. “And it makes us more vulnerable to getting involved with the wrong person or persuading ourselves that a relationship is more special than it actually is.”

Dean harrumphed.

“Was that a laugh or a grunt?” she asked.

“A bit of both,” he admitted. “I was actually thinking along the same lines. About us, to be honest.”

“Us as in you and me?”

“Yeah. I used to care about you, back when we were kids. My feelings were sort of complicated. I pestered the hell out of you and tried to protect you, sort of like a big brother, but then when we were teenagers, I wanted you…you know, wanted wanted you.”

“I wish you’d told me…back then.”

“It wouldn’t have made any difference. You were too infatuated with Jake.”

“If you had just told me how you felt-”

“I’m telling you now. I’d like to take you back to my place and screw you all night long,” Dean said. “But if we did that, then we would both be even more confused about our feelings than we are now. Heck, I’ve halfway convinced myself that I’m in love with you, and I think you’re starting to wonder if we might not have a budding relationship in the works. Right?”

“Maybe. Why is that so wrong?”

“For the very reasons we just discussed. We’re both nearly forty, unmarried, no kids, and envy old friends who seem to have what we want. I don’t want us to make a mistake and wind up hurting each other by jumping into a relationship.”

Rachel didn’t reply. He glanced at her and noticed she had turned to look out the passenger window again.

“Rachel?”

“Hmm?”

“Did I say something wrong?”

She cleared her throat. “No, no, you didn’t say anything wrong.”

When he pulled into the Youngs’ driveway and parked the car, Rachel opened the door and hopped out, then called, “Don’t bother seeing me in. It’s late and I don’t want to disturb Uncle Charlie and Aunt Laraine.” Just before she slammed the door closed, she added, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Dean sat there and watched her practically run to the door and let herself in, not once looking back. He released the tight hold he had on the door handle, then huffed loudly. Women! He’d never understand them.

Don’t just sit here, he told himself. Go home. You messed up big-time with Rachel, and it’s not something you can fix tonight.

Exactly what had he done? He’d been honest with her. Why was that so wrong? He’d thought she felt the same way-that they were in danger of thinking themselves in love, and that before taking their relationship to the next level, they needed to make sure of just where they were headed. Not for his sake, but for hers. He cared too much about Rachel to use her to simply scratch an itch.

Apparently, sometimes honesty wasn’t the best policy.

Chapter 28

Rachel spent the next week with two objectives in mind. One: to continue searching for the answer to a twenty-year-old murder case. Two: to spend as little time with Dean McMichaels as possible. The first had been easy enough because it was within her control. The second had proven to be more difficult. Dean acted as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn’t all but told her to back off, that he wasn’t interested in anything serious happening between them. She had to accept the fact that Dean probably flirted outrageously with every woman he met, that the sexual banter they had exchanged was simply par for the course for him. And all that garbage about him once having feelings for her was probably little more than a ploy to get into her pants. After all, he did have a reputation with the ladies, something she’d found out from others who knew him. Since his divorce, he had dated dozens of women. She figured she was just one more “date” to him.

Apparently he had realized she was beginning to fall in love with him, and that was the last thing he wanted. Okay. Fine with her. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t live without him. Her feelings for him hadn’t deepened that much that fast.

Or had they?

If she wasn’t hung up on the guy, why did she feel as if he had slapped her in the face with a major rejection? Why did she get tight knots in her stomach whenever he was around? Why did she catch herself daydreaming about him?

Because you’re an idiot!

Rachel’s cell phone rang. She picked it up from where she had placed it on her desk here at headquarters, checked caller ID, and hesitated when she didn’t recognize the number. Another cell phone coming off a Portland tower.

She flipped open her phone and identified herself immediately.

Silence.

“Hello. Is anyone there?”

Breathing. Heavy breathing.

This is ridiculous. “Look, if you have the wrong number, just say so or hang up.”

“I have the right number,” a disguised voice said. Rachel immediately knew that whoever was on the other end of this conversation was using some type of voice-altering device, just as he or she had done for other calls. Those voice-altering things could be bought just about anywhere for little to nothing or for hundreds of dollars. Trying to trace who might have bought one in the past few months would be time consuming. A fruitless endeavor.

“Who is this and what do you want?” Rachel kept her voice calm and even.

“Someone is going to die.”

Every nerve in Rachel’s body came to full alert. Reacting as the professional she was, she asked, “Is that right? Are you going to kill them?”

“Yes, I am. Just like I killed Jake.”

Rachel’s heart lodged in her throat. Was she really speaking to Jake Marcott’s killer? “Did you kill Haylie and Aurora?”

Laughter. Harsh, anguished laughter.

“Did you kill them?” Rachel demanded, her voice remaining calm, but with a commanding tone.

“That’s for you to find out. You’re the smart policewoman, aren’t you? Find me, if you can. Stop me, if you can.”

“Why are you doing this? Why kill Jake’s friends?”

No response. Rachel realized the caller had hung up.

She sat there for a couple of seconds, her phone in her hand, her heart beating at breakneck speed. Hurriedly, she checked her phone for the number of the last call and hit the Recall button. The phone rang repeatedly. No one answered, which didn’t surprise Rachel.

“Trying to crush that phone with your bare hands?” Dean asked.

Nearly jumping out of her skin, Rachel gasped, then whirled around and glared at him. “You scared the bejesus out of me.”

“Sorry. I seem to make a habit of unnerving you. What’s wrong? Unpleasant phone call?”

Rachel flipped the phone closed and laid it on her desk. “I was talking to Jake’s killer. Or at least he or she claimed to have killed Jake.”

Dean sat on the edge of Rachel’s desk. “No wonder you look pale. Did you recognize the voice?”

“Just like with the other calls we’ve all gotten recently, they used something to disguise their voice.”

Dean nodded. “Could you tell if the caller was male or female?”

“Not really. I tend to think it was a woman, but that’s merely a guess.”

“Working under the premise that it was a woman, exactly what did she say?”

“Not much, just that she had killed Jake and was going to kill someone else.”

“I don’t suppose she told you who.”

“No. And there won’t be any way to trace the call or even pinpoint where it came from. My guess is she was using a prepaid cell phone again. My caller ID showed Portland.”

“Probably, but we’ll run a check and see, just to make sure.” He glanced down at her cell phone. “You tried the number, right?”

“Right. And no one answered.”

Dean placed a lid-covered paper cup on her desk. “White chocolate latte. It’s your favorite, right?”

She eyed the cup as if it were a snake. For the past week, he’d been doing thoughtful little things for her. Peace offerings? Or just business as usual for a notorious flirt?

“Thanks.” She opened the lid, lifted the cup, and took a sip.

“If the person who called you is on the level and did kill Jake, then we have a problem on our hands, don’t we?”

“Yes, we do. The question is, who has she chosen to be the next victim?” Rachel stated the obvious.

“The first thing we do is contact everyone on the reunion committee and warn them to be even more careful than usual.”

“I can do that. There’s no need for you to-”

“Look, honey, let’s get something straight, I’m involved in this, too. Maybe not officially, but I’ve bought into your theory-yours and Kristen’s and Lindsay’s-that whoever killed Jake might have killed Aurora and Haylie and is targeting other girls Jake knew.”

Rachel patted the stack of files on her desk. “I’ve been through these time and time again. I’ve talked to numerous people who were there at the dance that night and I’ve gone over everything I personally remember.” She heaved a heavy, defeated sigh. “I have to admit that I’m as stumped as my dad was. There is just no evidence pointing to any one person. Jake was loved and hated in equal measure, yet nobody had a strong motive to want to see him dead.”

“Other than Haylie, maybe. But she was one of the first suspects cleared twenty years ago, and she was the first new victim.”

“Someone else hated Jake enough to kill him and do it in a spectacular way.”

“Yeah, and it was someone who wanted to look Jake in the eye when they offed him.” Dean glanced at the file folders on Rachel’s desk. “The coroner stated that the shot was at fairly close range and that in order to pin Jake to the tree that way, Jake had to have been right up against the tree.”

“He was probably leaning against the tree while he smoked.”

“I’ve wondered more than once if Jake realized what was about to happen and simply froze, or if he didn’t understand what was about to happen until it was too late.”

“Jake had been drinking that evening. And when he drank, he became more cocky and arrogant than usual. I can see him staring at his killer and laughing in his face. He probably thought it was a joke.” A fine mist of tears clouded Rachel’s vision.

Dean cursed under his breath. “Damn it, don’t waste any more tears on that asshole.” He shot up off her desk.

She noted that he had balled his hands into tight fists and held them on either side of his thighs. What was his problem anyway?

“Give me a little credit, will you? I’m not crying. I’m just a little misty-eyed, and it’s not about Jake.”

Dean glared at her. “If you’re not all weepy and sentimental about Jake, then what?”

“About everything. The past, the reunion, Haylie and Aurora…and if you want to know the truth, I’m uneasy about the threat this person made and concerned about the safety of my old friends and even myself.”

The tension in Dean eased. He loosened his clenched fists and relaxed his stiff shoulders. “I’m sorry I jumped to the wrong conclusion.”

She nodded.

“Look, I dropped by with the latte hoping we could talk, and for more than two minutes,” Dean said. “I’ve been looking into something and I wanted to run it by you, get your take on it.”

She eyed him inquisitively. “Sure. What is it?”

“Call it my cop instincts or just a gut reaction, but ever since I talked to Patrick Dewey’s widow, I’ve had this niggling feeling that something was off with her.”

“Did she say something that-”

“No, it wasn’t what she said. It was more what she didn’t say and the way she answered the few questions I asked her.”

“Maybe it was nothing. After all, her husband wasn’t involved in Jake’s case, except in a roundabout way. His bow was used in the murder, but he had reported it stolen a week earlier.”

“That’s what’s been bothering me ever since I talked to Marilyn Dewey. I asked her to confirm what your dad’s old report stated, that the bow that was used to kill Jake was the only item stolen from their home.”

“It was,” Rachel said. “I distinctly remember reading that report. Nothing else was missing from their home or garage, only Mr. Dewey’s bow.”

“Why that specific bow?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean why just that one crossbow? Dewey owned several bows, one newer and more expensive. Why steal none of the other bows or his rifle or shotgun or none of his wife’s jewelry?”

The wheels in Rachel’s mind spun at lightning speed. “You don’t think the bow was stolen, do you?”

Dean shrugged. “It might have been, but let’s say it wasn’t stolen.”

“Then why report it stolen?”

“Why indeed.”

“If it wasn’t stolen, then Dewey had to have a reason to report it. Insurance money? No, that wouldn’t make any sense. The bow was used to kill Jake, and whoever used it left it at the scene of the crime, as if they wanted it to be found.”

“Let’s say that, for whatever reason, a bow hunter wanted to kill someone and intended to use his bow to do it. What better way to cover his butt than report the bow stolen?”

“A logical scenario,” Rachel said. “Except for two things: Patrick Dewey didn’t know Jake and therefore had no motive to kill him, and he had an alibi for the night Jake was killed.”

“Do you recall who gave him his alibi?”

“Uh…yes, I remember now. His wife said he was at home with her.” Rachel gasped. “His wife could have lied for him. But why?”

“Before we take this supposition any further, we should talk to Mrs. Dewey. After all these years and with her husband now dead, if she knows something, we might be able to persuade her to tell us.”

“Did the Deweys have a son? If so, maybe he knew Jake, maybe they-”

“The Deweys’ two sons were five and seven at the time of Jake’s murder.”

Rachel frowned. “So much for that thought.”

“I say we drive down to Salem tomorrow and talk to Mrs. Dewey, face-to-face.”

She hesitated momentarily, not sure that she wanted to spend an entire day with Dean, especially not trapped in a car with him for several hours making the trip to and from Salem. “Can you take tomorrow off?”

“I think I can arrange it.” He grinned. “I have an in with the chief.”

“So you do. Okay then, I’ll meet you here at-”

“I’ll pick you up at the chief’s house around eight-thirty, if that’s not too early.”

“It’s not too early. I’ve never been one to sleep until noon.”

“Eight-thirty it is.”

“You realize that this could turn out to be nothing, that your gut instincts could be wrong,” she told him. “I mean, what are the odds that the owner of the bow that shot the fatal arrow was actually involved in the crime?”

“I’m not saying he was involved, just that I got odd vibes from his widow.”

“Well, it’s better than anything I’ve come up with. And if there’s even a one in a hundred chance that Mrs. Dewey knows-Oh my God! What if she knew Jake? What if he was fooling around with an older, married woman and her husband found out?”

Dean grinned. “Honey, I like the way you think.”

After Rachel’s call telling her about the threatening message she had received from someone who claimed to have killed Jake, Mandy thought twice before taking Emily out for her afternoon stroll. But she couldn’t stay cooped up in the house, scared to go anywhere without Jeff. Doing that would be handing over control of her life to some lunatic. Besides, what could happen to her in broad daylight, in their neighborhood and in a park filled with other women and children?

As with so many days here in Portland, the sky was overcast and gray, a hint of rain in the air. But being late June, the breeze was warm and balmy.

Enjoy this daily ritual with your daughter, she told herself. Don’t allow fear to control your actions. She had heard other mothers say that their children picked up on their moods and always acted up whenever they sensed something was wrong with Mom. Emily had been cranky all afternoon. Mandy had taken her temperature, which had been normal, and had asked her if she felt bad or hurt anywhere.

Emily had frowned at her and shook her head, then proceeded to knock down a house constructed of colorful building blocks, a project they had worked on for over an hour after lunch. And then Emily had refused to go down for her nap, screaming her head off when Mandy placed her in her crib and left the room.

But now, outside in her stroller, rolling along the sidewalk, Little Miss Spoiled Rotten was smiling and waving at everyone they passed. For Emily’s sake if not for her own, Mandy couldn’t allow the fact that someone might be stalking her to bring her life to a standstill. But try as she might, she couldn’t quite get Rachel’s warning phone call off her mind. Was the person who had spoken to Rachel really Jake Marcott’s killer? Had this person killed Haylie and Aurora? Would they kill again? Or had the call been some terrible hoax?

“Afternoon, Mandy,” elderly Mrs. Johnson said as they met her at her mailbox. The white-haired woman glanced up at the sky. “Looks a bit like rain. You brought along an umbrella, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I always do.” Mandy patted the pouch attached to the back of her daughter’s portable stroller. “We’re just going over to the park, so if it starts raining, we can be back home in no time.”

Clasping her mail in one hand, Mrs. Johnson stared down at Emily. “She’s growing like a weed and getting cuter every day.”

“Thank you. We certainly think she’s a little beauty.” Mandy waved at her neighbor but kept pushing Emily along. As much as she loved Mrs. Johnson, once in a conversation with her, you might be trapped for a good twenty or thirty minutes.

Moving at a steady pace, Mandy reached the neighborhood park in five minutes. As she strolled along the brick sidewalk shaded by towering trees and lined with colorful summer flowers, she remembered how often she had jogged through here in the past and spotted mothers with their young children. Oh, how she had envied those women. But now, with the blessing of Emily, she was one of them. A mother.

When they reached the kiddie swings, Mandy removed Emily from the stroller and set her in one of the swings, double-checking the safety harness. Only one other parent and toddler were using the swings. Mandy recognized the divorced dad who had gotten custody of his two-year-old.

“Hi, Tim.” Mandy waved at her neighbor, who lived in a two-story Colonial only three houses down from her.

“Afternoon,” he replied. “You two might not get to stay long. I think we’re going to get some rain. Joey and I are heading out in a few minutes.”

Before Tim and Joey left for home, Mandy and Tim chatted about their children, about this year’s Rose Festival, and about the Neighborhood Watch. When the wind picked up and the sky grew darker, Mandy considered leaving despite the fact that they had just arrived. But Emily was enjoying herself so much, Mandy decided to give them a few more minutes. After all, windy and gloomy didn’t necessarily mean rain. Not in Portland.

Ten minutes later, Mandy realized the park was all but deserted. Time to go. As she released the swing’s safety harness, she felt the first drop of rain.

“Drat.” She removed Emily from the swing-despite her pouting protest-slipped her into the stroller, and then pulled the umbrella from the pouch. When she tried to open the umbrella, the strong wind blew it inside out. As she struggled with the unruly umbrella, she felt someone approach her from behind. A long-fingered hand reached out and grabbed for the umbrella handle. Mandy cried out, horrible thoughts flashing through her mind. She released the umbrella, whirled around, and grasped the handlebars of the collapsible stroller, intending to run.

“Mandy, it’s all right,” a familiar voice said. “It’s me.”

She glanced over her shoulder. With her heartbeat roaring in her ears and her pulse racing like mad, she gasped for air when she recognized the person standing behind her, working diligently to turn Mandy’s umbrella right side out.

What is she doing on this side of town, in this park, at this time of day?

“You really shouldn’t be out here with a storm brewing.” She handed the umbrella to Mandy as small, soft raindrops peppered down from the sky.

“Emily loves our afternoons in the park so much that I hate for her to miss them.”

Why is she staring at me that way? Mandy wondered. There’s something odd about her being here and something strange about the way she’s acting.

“Well, you’d better head for home now. As it is, you’re going to get drenched.”

A streak of cloud-to-ground lightning zigzagged through the sky behind them. Mandy gasped. When the deafening boom of thunder followed, Emily let out a yelp and then started crying.

Clutching the umbrella in one hand and the stroller handle in the other, Mandy glanced back and said, “You’re right. We’d better head for home. See you later.” Every instinct Mandy had screamed, “Get away. Run. Run for your life.”

Don’t be ridiculous. You two have known each other since high school. You’re on the reunion committee together. She’s not the type of person who could kill another.

Or is she? It’s not as if you two have stayed close all these years.

Just as she gave the stroller a quick push, intending to flee, Mandy suddenly realized it was already too late. Something came down and around her from behind, circled her throat and jerked her backward. She clawed at the silk scarf tightening around her neck, but the harder she fought, the more powerful her attacker’s hold became, strong and fierce enough to subdue her.

How could I have been such a fool? Why didn’t I stay home today? Why didn’t I try to get the Mace out of the diaper bag? Are you listening, God? Don’t let her kill me. Please, I don’t want to die! What will happen to Emily if I die?

Rachel stood in the doorway of police headquarters and watched the late-afternoon thunderstorm. She really hated getting out in this mess, but she had promised Aunt Laraine she’d come home early today. They planned to go shopping for Uncle Charlie’s birthday present while he attended his Shriners meeting.

“Need to borrow an umbrella?” Dean asked as he walked up beside her.

“No, thanks, I brought one with me.”

He skimmed his gaze over her. “Where is it?”

She huffed. “In my car.”

He chuckled.

“Why don’t I walk you to your car?” He popped open a large black umbrella.

“Hey, McMichaels,” the desk sergeant called.

“Yeah, what’s up?” Dean replied.

“Call for you.” He held up the telephone receiver. “It’s the chief. He said to ask you why you aren’t answering your cell phone.”

Dean patted his belt where he usually kept his cell phone, then groaned when he realized it wasn’t there. “Wait for me, okay?” He handed her the umbrella.

Rachel waited. Not because she had promised she would. Not because she wanted Dean to walk her to her car, but because she was curious as to why Uncle Charlie had called Dean.

After closing the umbrella, she walked over to where Dean stood talking quietly to Charlie.

“I must have left the damn thing upstairs on my desk.” Dean listened then, frowning at whatever Charlie had told him.

Rachel could tell by the expression on his face that something was wrong. Her gut tightened. Dean groaned as if he were in pain. Whatever had happened, it must be something terrible.

“Yeah, she’s still here. I’ll tell her.” Pause. “No, I can’t do that.”

Rachel tugged on Dean’s arm and when he looked at her, she mouthed the question What is going on?

“Yes. I know. I understand,” Dean said to Charlie. “So the baby is fine, right?” Pause. “No way we can ignore the implications, not this time.”

Dean handed the phone back to the desk sergeant, then turned to face Rachel.

“What? Who?” she asked.

He grasped her shoulders. She sucked in a deep breath, waiting for the news the way a condemned prisoner awaits execution.

“Mandy Kim-Mandy Stulz’s body was found in her neighborhood park thirty minutes ago. It appears she was strangled.”

At first Rachel couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. Stunned by the news and yet at the same time not completely surprised, she stared at Dean. Then she started trembling. He ran his hands down her arms and back up again.

“Rachel?”

“Yes. I-I heard you. Why were you asking Uncle Charlie about Emily?”

“Emily?”

“Mandy’s baby.”

“Oh, the baby. She’s fine. Someone found her alone in the park, in her stroller, screaming like a banshee. When this person looked around for the baby’s mother, she found Mandy’s body behind some bushes.”

“It’s happened.” Rachel’s voice sounded odd, even to her own ears. Solemn. Soulful. Sad. “The person who called me has killed again.”

“We can’t be certain of that. Not until all the facts are in.” He squeezed her shoulders.

“I know it.” She placed her fist over her belly. “I know it in here. The person who killed Haylie and Aurora and tried to kill Lindsay in New York is the same person who killed Mandy.”

Chapter 29

The flashlight’s glow traveled along the row of senior lockers, then stopped on Mandy Kim’s. Soon this display would be complete. Item by item. Added with loving care. And with Mandy now dead, one more of the girls in Jake’s harem had joined him in hell.

She smiled, thinking of Jake burning in an eternal fire, tormented endlessly. The way he had tormented her. A frown replaced her smile as memories crept in around her, like dark shadows with treacherous tentacles reaching out to grab her. She shuddered.

“Go away,” she whispered. “Leave me alone. I don’t want to remember.”

But the frightening shadows grew darker and more sinister, quickly enveloping her, grasping her in their evil clutches.

“No, no, please don’t, Jake. It hurts when you do that.”

“Hush, baby, hush. We don’t want anyone hearing us, do we?”

She felt him push himself inside her, stretching her, hurting her. She whimpered loudly. “No, please. Don’t. Stop.”

He held his hand over her mouth to quiet her cries as he rammed into her again and again and again.

She couldn’t bear it. Stop! No! Go away! Leave me alone!

“I love you, baby. I love you best of all,” Jake said.

She fought the black shadows of memory, pushing them back, fighting them off as she had once tried to fight off Jake. Slowly, painfully, the shadows released her and settled around her, seemingly satisfied that she was now crying.

Jake used to wipe away her tears.

The tears he had caused.

The tears all the girls in his life had caused.

They thought he cared about them, maybe even loved them. But he hadn’t. He had loved only her. But why hadn’t he told them how much he loved her? Why hadn’t he made them include her in their elite little group? Why had he needed any of them when he’d had her?

Shoving Mandy’s small diaper bag under her arm, she swiped the tears from her eyes and her damp cheeks. It wasn’t fair that after all these years, he could still make her cry. But not for much longer. Once they were all dead and St. Elizabeth’s had been turned into a heap of rubble and buried with Jake and their past, she would be free.

But free for what?

Free from the past? Free from the memories? Free from the bitter hatred she felt?

With Mandy’s bag under her arm and the flashlight in one hand, she walked directly to the locker marked with Mandy’s name and number, just as it had been back in high school. She undid the snap on the diaper bag and rummaged around inside, searching for any personal items of Mandy’s. If she’d had time after strangling Mandy, she would have taken the items and left the bag in the stroller pouch. But with little Emily screaming her lungs out, she’d had to work quickly. She hated leaving the toddler alone in the park in the middle of a storm, but it couldn’t be helped. If Mandy hadn’t made it so difficult to get inside her house, the deed could have been done there.

She yanked a set of keys out of the bag. The shimmering metallic trophies jangled like bells as she shook them.

She placed the large, heavy-duty flashlight on the concrete floor, adjusting the attached stand so that the beam directly hit Mandy’s locker. She opened the door and placed Mandy’s keys inside on the upper shelf, then rummaged around in the diaper bag until she found a compact and lipstick. She added those two items to the locker.

So like Mandy to take a compact and lipstick with her on a short afternoon trip to the park with her child. The little bitch had always been preoccupied with her appearance. Every strand of her shiny black hair in place. Her make-up perfect, her perfume expensive, her fingernails and toenails manicured. Even in her St. Elizabeth’s uniform, she had managed somehow to look neater and cuter than the average student.

“Mandy’s a living doll,” Jake had said. “I’m thinking about making her my own little China doll.”

“Your China doll is on her way to hell to see you,” she said aloud, the sound of her voice echoing in the cavernous basement beneath the old school.

After removing all the personal items from the diaper bag, she tossed it aside. She closed Mandy’s locker, then reached down, picked up the flashlight, and shined it up and down the row on the other lockers.

Three down and four to go.

Maybe I should kill at least one of them before the reunion. But which one? Lindsay isn’t here in Portland and I don’t dare risk another trip to New York, even using the fake ID. And I have other plans for Rachel during the next couple of weeks. A little game of cat and mouse. Perhaps I should find a way to get to Kristen. No, damn it, that husband of hers is practically attached to her side twenty-four-seven.

No matter, I can take them all out the night of the reunion, if it comes to that. One by one. I simply have to devise a foolproof plan. And if I get lucky and the opportunity arises to eliminate any one of them before the reunion, all the better.

But until then, I’m going to make Rachel Alsace’s life miserable.

The heavy rainstorm had all but destroyed any possible evidence from the scene of the crime. Rachel stood under the huge black umbrella Dean held and watched as the Oregon State Crime Lab technician team packed up and headed for their vehicles. They had stayed out of the team’s way, but during the investigation, Dean had been unable to persuade Rachel to leave. She had tried to make him understand that she couldn’t leave, that she needed to do something-anything-even knowing that there was little she could do at this point.

“Come on, Rach,” Dean said. “Let me take you home. You need a hot bath and a good night’s sleep.”

She shook her head. “What I need is to find out who killed Mandy.”

“Then let’s go somewhere, get a cup of coffee or a stiff drink and talk.”

“All right. Coffee sounds fine to me.” Her senses numb, her mind focused on a single objective-to find the killer before someone else died-she let Dean lead her to his Thunderbird parked across the street.

Dean opened the car door, held the umbrella over her until she was seated, then closed the umbrella and locked her safety belt. When he got behind the wheel, Rachel turned to him. He ran a hand through his wet hair and flicked raindrops from his fingertips onto the floorboard.

“I don’t understand any of this,” Rachel said. “Why kill Mandy? I don’t think she ever had an enemy in the world. She was always so nice to everyone.” Rachel heaved a deep, sorrowful sigh. “Poor little Emily. That sweet child has now lost a second mother. And Jeff…”

“I know, honey. I know.” Dean reached over and took her hand in his. “This has turned into a nightmare for you…for us.”

When he squeezed her hand, she squeezed his and held on tightly for a full minute before pulling her hand free, leaning her head back, and closing her eyes.

“The killer warned me that she-or he-was going to strike again. If only I’d had more time to figure out who and why and-”

“You warned each of the reunion committee members and Lindsay, everyone who received a doctored invitation. What more could you have done?”

Dean started the car and pulled out into the late-night traffic. The windshield wipers swished back and forth, fighting the pelting rain. Rachel stared sightlessly out the window, her mind filled with a hundred and one what ifs and if onlys.

The one question foremost in her mind-Who had hated Jake Marcott enough to kill him?-was followed by other questions she couldn’t answer. Was the person who killed Mandy and possibly Aurora and Haylie the same person who killed Jake? If so, why wait twenty years to kill again? The whole thing was one giant jigsaw puzzle with several key pieces missing.

Behind every crime was a motive. Sometimes an illogical motive, but a motive all the same. Why would anyone want to kill the members of the reunion committee?

Because they didn’t want the class of ’86 to come together again? Could it be that simple? No, of course it couldn’t. Besides, Lindsay had been attacked and she wasn’t on the committee. No, but she had been Jake’s girlfriend. So was the killer eliminating committee members or the girls Jake had dated or-no, not the girls Jake dated. He hadn’t dated Haylie or Aurora or Mandy. And although she and Jake had been friends, they’d never dated.

Scratch the girls he dated. Scratch committee members only. Each victim had known Jake, but not all had dated him or loved him. Haylie had hated him. So what was the common denominator? What was the one thing that united them?

Mentally sorting through her knowledge of each victim, Rachel reached a conclusion rather quickly. Each woman had attended St. Elizabeth’s, and they had all been a part of the same clique.

Did that mean anyone who didn’t fall answer to that description was safe from the killer? Maybe. But until Rachel could prove her theory, it was best to err on the side of caution.

“There’s an all-night diner about three blocks from here,” Dean said. “Want to stop there or-”

“Sure, that’s fine.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“What?”

“If you’re thinking you could have somehow prevented what happened to Mandy, stop thinking it. There’s no way you could have saved her.”

“If I could just figure out who might hate all of us enough to want us dead…after all these years.”

Dean pulled into the small parking lot adjacent to the diner, killed the motor, and turned to Rachel. “If we have only one killer-and that’s not a definite-then I’d say we have a mental case on our hands. Pinpoint someone who is mentally unstable and we just might have a suspect.”

“That’s it! We’ll run a background check on everyone who graduated in eighty-six from all three high schools and-”

“Wait up, honey. Who is going to do this investigation? As officers of the law, we’re limited as to what we can and can’t do. Besides, even if we were able to cut through all the red tape, it could take six months or longer to get the kind of information we need on that many people.”

“Damn. You’re right. Okay, then we’ll start with the people who were the closest to Jake, especially those on the reunion committee. That’s only four people. I think it’s safe to eliminate Kristen and Lindsay, since they’ve both been targeted by the killer.”

“I tend to agree with you, but as an objective investigator, I’d say check them out, too. Never eliminate someone for personal reasons.”

“You’re right, but-”

“If you’re eliminating suspects, drop Bella Marcott from the list. She’s Jake’s little sister and she adored the guy.”

Rachel reached for the door handle. “Come on, let’s brainstorm over some hot coffee. Maybe a shot of caffeine will boost our mental powers enough to plot a course of action.”

Mandy’s autopsy report confirmed what the ME had told the investigators at the scene of the crime-she had been strangled. Ligature strangulation. There had been bruises, abrasions, and contusions found on Mandy’s neck due to the use of excessive force during the act. Excessive force was quite common when a killer used either his bare hands or a rope or scarf.

Rachel reread the autopsy report. Using all his official influence, Chief Charlie Young had managed to get a rush job done on Mandy’s autopsy-five days. Unheard of as a general rule. And during those five days, Mandy’s friends had banded together to help Jeff and Emily, each taking turns staying at the house with them and others bringing food and fielding phone calls.

And on each of the five days, Rachel had received a phone call from the killer. Or at least the disguised voice claimed to be the killer. The caller knew things about the St. Lizzy’s students that only someone who had been around in the old days would know. If only she could recognize the voice. If only the caller would say something that would identify him or her. But the messages were succinct, each taunting Rachel, telling her that she was no better at solving murder mysteries than her father had been.

This morning’s call had ended with Rachel losing her temper, something she seldom did.

Just as she flipped her cell phone closed and slammed it down on her desk, Dean approached her. She felt his presence before she actually saw him. Whether she recognized the sound of his distinctive walk or had smelled a hint of his light citrus aftershave, she wasn’t sure.

She looked up into those now-familiar golden eyes and knew immediately that something was up. Her heart lurched as fear radiated through her. Please, dear God, don’t let it be bad news.

“Another call from our self-proclaimed killer?” Dean asked.

Rachel huffed. “Yeah.” She kept her gaze connected to his. “Whatever it is, just tell me.”

“I tried to set up an appointment with Mrs. Dewey, but she refuses to see us.”

“What? Why?”

After Mandy’s murder, Dean and Rachel had postponed their trip to Salem to question Patrick Dewey’s widow about her husband and the fact that his bow had been used in Jake’s murder. Then yesterday, Dean had suggested they make the trip today.

“The only reason her son gave me for her refusal was that she had nothing new to add to what she’d told the police twenty years ago,” Dean said.

“Did you tell her son why we-?”

Rachel’s cell phone rang again. She tensed instantly.

Dean eyed the phone lying on her desk. “Want me to get it?”

She shook her head. “Our killer calls only once a day.” She lifted the phone, flipped it open, and breathed a sigh of relief when she recognized the caller ID name and number.

“Hello, Lin,” Rachel said. The day after Mandy’s murder, Rachel had called her old friend from their days as cops together on the Chattanooga P.D. Lin McAllister now worked for Powell’s Private Security and Investigation, one of the most prestigious firms in the country.

“I’ve got the information you requested on those six women,” Lin said. “We did a rush job just for you.”

“Thanks. I owe you one.”

“You owe me more than one. A job like this took several days of Powell’s brainpower, as well as calling in a few favors and bypassing some laws.”

“If I could afford to pay you what this info is worth, I would.”

Lin laughed. “Wait until you read the report, then decide what it’s worth. I sent each report as a separate e-mail attachment. Check your e-mail as soon I hang up.”

“Was there anything that stood out, anyone that appeared suspect for any reason?” The last thing Rachel wanted was for one of her old friends to have a suspicious skeleton in her closet, but if there was information that might point to them as being capable of murder…

“Just about anybody over the age of thirty-five probably has a secret or two,” Lin said. “Your friends are no different, but nothing that sent up a red flag.”

“Thanks.”

“Sure thing. Look, take care of yourself. I don’t want to hear that you’ve become a victim of this resurrected Cupid Killer.”

A shiver of foreboding tingled along Rachel’s nerve endings. “I’ll be careful.”

After she ended the conversation and placed the phone on her desk, she turned on her laptop computer and waited for it to boot up. “I need a printer I can connect to,” she told Dean. “My old Chattanooga P.D. friend who’s now with Powell’s Private Security agency got the info I wanted.”

“You know, it’s just wrong somehow that a private agency can get hold of information the police can’t legally obtain, at least not without going through an act of Congress.” Dean motioned to Rachel. “You can use the captain’s secretary’s printer. Tracy won’t ask too many questions.”

Fifteen minutes later, with six reports in one hand and her closed laptop in the other, Rachel headed to Dean’s office cubicle. When she didn’t see him at his desk, she looked around, searching for him. He came toward her, a cup of coffee in each hand. She placed her laptop on his desk, set the reports on top of the computer, and pulled up a chair from a nearby empty desk.

Dean handed her a cup.

“Thanks.” She accepted the coffee, then sat.

Dean put his cup on his desk, then pulled out his chair and sat beside Rachel.

“How do you want to do this-you take three and I take three or we read each one together?”

“It’s your call,” he told her.

“You take Lindsay, Kristen, and Bella. I’ll take April, DeLynn, and Martina.”

She handed Dean three of the six reports, then pulled up the fourth one and began reading. As she read and then reread portions of each report, she felt as if she were invading the privacy of her old friends. There were things in her life that she would rather keep private.

“Finished?” Dean asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“I suggest that we shred these reports,” Dean said. “Keep them on your laptop for the time being, but we don’t want to share this info with anyone else. Not yet, possibly not ever.”

“Agreed.” Rachel realized that he felt as she did-that these reports revealed things no one else needed to know. Not unless one of these six women turned out to be a murderer.

He glanced around, checking to make sure their conversation would be private. “I can make this quick,” he told her. “Lindsay’s as clean as a whistle, except for the illegitimate son she gave away nineteen years ago.”

Rachel smiled. “She and Mandy were always the good girls.”

“So were you, honey.”

Rachel shrugged. “I just didn’t have the guts to do anything bad.”

“No, that wasn’t it. You were just too smart to do anything really stupid.”

“I had a crush on Jake. That was pretty stupid.”

“That was youthful foolishness.”

She cleared her throat. “DeLynn had a nervous breakdown right after college and attempted suicide. She spent two years in therapy. And April Wright had an abortion our senior year of high school, then in college she got hooked on drugs, but she turned her life around a few years later and has been clean and sober ever since.”

“Kristen did some drinking and used marijuana in college. That’s it for her, except for one police report about a minor road rage incident five years ago.”

“Martina went through a court-appointed anger management course,” Rachel said. “It seems she had a problem with a neighbor and wound up painting red polka dots on his chartreuse green house. That was eight years ago.”

“There seems to have been an epidemic of teenage pregnancies,” Dean said. “Bella got an abortion, too, which is surprising, considering that her parents were staunch Catholics. I’d have thought she would have done as Lindsay did and have the baby, then give it up for adoption.”

“Poor Bella.” Rachel shook her head. “April put out in high school because she thought it was the only way to get a boyfriend. I knew she was having sex with several different guys. But Bella having an abortion surprises me. I had no idea she had a boyfriend, that she ever dated for that matter. She was more than a year younger than the rest of us, just a kid really.”

“Bella had some severe emotional problems after Jake’s murder.” Dean laid the three reports down on top of his desk. “It seems her parents put her into therapy for a couple of years.”

Rachel heaved a deep sigh. “I don’t know what I expected these reports would prove. I guess I hoped something would show up that would point us in the right direction.”

“All the reports proved is that nobody’s perfect.”

“Two nervous breakdowns, one road rage, one illegitimate child, two abortions, one drug addiction, one suicide attempt, one anger management class. Nothing that shouts ‘I’m capable of cold-blooded murder.’”

“So what now?” Dean asked. “Dig deeper? Move on to the guys who were closest to Jake or-?”

“You’d be on that list.”

“Yeah, I would.”

“You didn’t kill Jake.”

“No, I didn’t kill him, but…” Their gazes linked, the connection sexually charged. “If he had ever hurt you, I would have.”

Chapter 30

As she pulled a small, rusty metal cart behind her, the bag lady with the stringy gray hair hanging down in her eyes came up alongside Rachel. Several people walked between them as they hurried along the sidewalk, and eventually Rachel moved ahead of the pitiful old woman. But it seemed she could not escape. Either the woman was following Rachel or by some odd coincidence they were heading in the same direction. After several blocks, Rachel’s instincts warned her that the bag lady was indeed tailing her. The poor thing probably wanted to ask for a handout. Just as Rachel reached the red light where she would cross the street, she paused on the curb and turned to face her stalker.

The woman had disappeared.

Odd.

As she crossed the street, Rachel kept glancing over her shoulder. Sensing that someone was watching her, she felt a nervous foreboding.

When she stepped up on the curb onto Second Avenue, she looked back once again. No bag lady. Instead a bucktoothed redhead in thick glasses, wearing a Stetson and boots, appeared as if out of nowhere, her step quick and agile. The unattractive cowgirl wannabe hurried past Rachel, not even bothering to apologize when she brushed into her in passing.

Shivering with an unnatural fear, Rachel stopped dead still and looked in every direction. Strangers surrounded her. Unknown faces stared at her. Weird-looking women in costumes that hid their true identity gawked at her.

Suddenly a tall, handsome young man came toward her, his dark hair and blue eyes heartbreakingly familiar. Jake Marcott smiled at her. Rachel sucked in a deep, terrified breath. A deadly arrow stuck out of Jake’s bloody chest.

The walking dead.

No, this isn’t real. I’m hallucinating.

Rachel woke suddenly, startled for several seconds, uncertain about her surroundings. She lay there, darkness encompassing her, her heartbeat thumping maddeningly inside her head. The residue from her nightmare mingled with reality when she realized she was in the guest bedroom in Charlie and Laraine Young’s home in Portland.

It had been a dream. Just a dream.

No, it had been a nightmare. The gray-haired bag lady stalking her. The ugly, rude, redheaded cowgirl. Jake Marcott’s smiling corpse. None of them had been real.

She shoved back the covers, slid to the edge of the bed, and sat there for a couple of minutes, allowing herself time to awaken completely. Her mind whirled with thoughts, some coherent, others jumbled and confused. Standing solidly on the wooden floor, she stretched her arms over her head, then down to touch her toes. Awake and slightly shaken by the nightmare, she went into the bathroom, flipped on the overhead light, and turned on the faucet. After dashing cold water in her face, she stared at her pale reflection in the vanity mirror.

Her eyes widened. Her mouth gaped. Realization dawned as the water trickled over her cheeks and seeped down her throat. Oh my God! Dreaming about Jake-about his bloody corpse-wasn’t surprising, all things considered. But why a bag lady and an ugly cowgirl?

Because during the past few weeks, she had actually encountered both a dirty old bag lady and an unattractive redhead wearing a Stetson and boots. And there had been a plump blond nanny strolling along with a baby buggy, too. All three of them rather weird.

Disguises!

Each of them had been wearing a disguise. The bag lady, the ugly redhead, and the plump blonde.

Had they all been the same person?

Of course!

Someone was stalking Rachel, keeping tabs on her, playing some sort of sick game.

Rachel dried her face with a hand towel and returned to the bedroom to get her cell phone. She glanced at the digital clock on the nightstand. Five-thirty. Would he be awake at this hour? Probably not.

She flipped open her phone and typed in a text message, then sent it to Dean.

When you wake up, contact me. We need to talk.

Within minutes she received a reply.

I’m awake. Call me. Or come over to my place.

Immediately she called him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked the minute he answered.

“Someone has been stalking me for the past few weeks.”

“Why are you just now telling me?”

“Because I just now realized it,” she said. “I can’t believe it took me this long to realize what was going on. Even though she was wearing disguises and changing them to throw me off, I should have sensed something.”

“Slow down, honey. You lost me at the word disguises.”

“My stalker was changing her looks, wearing different disguises when she followed me.”

“Are you sure about this?”

Rachel blew out an aggravated breath. “I’m not sure of anything. It’s five-thirty in the morning. I had a horrible nightmare in which Jake’s smiling corpse appeared to me. I have to go to Mandy’s funeral this afternoon and…” She clicked her tongue. “I’m just a little scared.”

“Want me to come over there?”

“No, you’d just wake up Charlie and Laraine.”

“How about I pick you up and we go somewhere for an early breakfast?”

“Give me thirty minutes to grab a shower,” she told him. “I’ll leave Laraine a note telling her where I’ve gone. I’ll meet you out front.”

“Wait inside, just to be safe, until you see me drive up.”

“You don’t think she’s outside this time of the morning, just waiting for a chance to attack me, do you?”

“I don’t think she wants to kill you,” Dean said. “At least not yet. She’s playing with you, tormenting you. And she’s bold about it, too. She took a chance every time she put on a disguise and followed you. What if you’d recognized her?”

“I wish I had. I wish I’d realized what was happening, but my mind has been so cluttered with facts about Jake’s old murder case and about Mandy’s recent murder that I couldn’t see what was right under my nose.”

“So now you know. You’re aware of what’s been happening. You’ll be on the lookout for her.”

Rachel’s heartbeat accelerated, the thought of actually coming face-to-face with the mystery woman unsettling.

“Rach?”

“Huh?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little rattled. Sometimes nightmares have a way of seeming a little too real.”

“What are you wearing right now?”

“What?”

“Do you have on a gown or PJs or do you sleep in the raw?”

Startled by his question, it took her a full minute to realize what he was doing and why. “Not very subtle, McMichaels. It’s obvious you’re trying to get my mind off the stalker.”

“Yeah, that and I’m curious as to whether you’re naked right now.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m wearing a ratty old Alabama T-shirt.”

“I like a woman who goes for comfort in her sleepwear.”

“Do you now?”

“In case you’re interested, I sleep in my briefs.”

“Why would I be interested?”

“For the same reason I’m curious about you.”

“Look, let’s end this silly game right now.” She wasn’t good at flirtatious game playing. She was an up-front, what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of woman. If he came right out and asked her to have sex with him, she probably would. “Pick me up in thirty minutes.”

“I’ll be there, honey. With bells on.”

Dean studied her as she sat there, her small, delicate hands wrapped around a white coffee mug, her gaze focused on the black liquid inside. Just looking at her turned him inside out. He couldn’t get her out of his mind. Why didn’t he just tell her that he wanted her? The worst that could happen was that she’d say no. And it wasn’t as if he’d never been rejected before. But she wasn’t just any woman. This was Rachel.

Besides that, she wasn’t going to stay in Portland. She was here for only two reasons-the reunion and reopening the Cupid Killer case. For twenty years, he hadn’t been a blip on her radar, and truth be told, he hadn’t consciously thought about her all that often, so why couldn’t he just accept that they were friends and nothing more? Once that had been enough, or at least he’d convinced himself that it was. But he wasn’t a horny teenage boy having sex with other girls while he thought about one girl in particular.

The good girl I would have died to protect. Would have killed to protect.

They had eaten the daily special-bacon, eggs, and toast-and discussed Rachel’s nightmare and its implications. The bottom line was that neither of them wanted to believe that someone from the old gang had killed Jake and had now resurfaced and was killing again.

“When we get to headquarters, I’ll try to find out if one of the girls flew to New York around the same time Aurora did,” Dean said.

“And if one of them did?”

Dean grimaced. “Then we find out why she was there.”

Rachel sipped on the coffee. “And if none of them were in New York when Aurora was killed and Lindsay was attacked, then what?”

“Then we look elsewhere. Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“This woman you’ve seen wearing various disguises could be not only wearing costumes to hide her true identity, she could use a fake ID,” Dean said. “It’s not that difficult to get hold of a fake driver’s license, and that’s all she’d need to board a plane from Portland to New York City.”

“Damn! If she did that, then what’s the point of checking?”

“I’m just saying maybe she used a fake ID. I’ll still check the flights for the time around Aurora’s trip.”

Four hours and five cups of coffee later, Dean stopped by Rachel’s desk at downtown headquarters. “Good news and bad news,” he said.

“Let’s hear the good first.”

“I spoke to Patrick Dewey’s son. He’s promised to talk to his mother again and see if he can’t persuade her to see us. It seems she’s selling her house and is in the middle of packing up and clearing out. He’s not sure how she’ll react when he talks to her again.”

“That’s the good news?”

Dean grinned. She loved his cocky grin. It made her want to kiss him.

“It could be good news, if Mrs. Dewey will talk to us. We’ve run into a dead end on the Cupid Killer case, just as your dad did twenty years ago. Without a new lead of some kind…” Dean threw up his open palms in a that’s-it gesture.

“We’re grabbing for straws thinking Mrs. Dewey might be able to shed some new light on the old case, aren’t we?”

“Probably.”

Rachel frowned. “So, what’s the bad news?”

“Both April Wright and DeLynn Vaughn could have been in New York City when Aurora was killed and Lindsay was attacked.”

“What do you mean they could have been?”

“April was visiting her sister in Bridgeport, Connecticut, an easy drive to New York City. And DeLynn was in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on a business trip. It would have been a longer drive, but doable.”

“Crap!”

“My sentiments exactly.”

“I just don’t see either April or DeLynn as a killer.”

“We could be barking up the wrong tree, you know. Checking to see if any of the reunion committee members were in New York when Aurora was killed was just a thought. It doesn’t prove anything that April and DeLynn both just happened to be within driving distance at the time.”

“I almost wish you hadn’t checked. At least not until after the funeral. I’ll have to find a way not to stare at them during the service and wonder if either of them is actually capable of murder.”

She cried as many tears as the rest of them did at Mandy Kim Stulz’s funeral service. Poor Jeff. He was little more than a zombie, obviously zoned out on medication. His parents flanked him, his father’s arm around Jeff’s shoulder, his mother holding his hand and weeping softly. And Mandy’s parents-such a sad little couple, clinging to each other, trying to be brave for the sake of Mandy’s siblings. An older sister and brother were both keeping an eye on their elderly parents.

She would have preferred to skip the morbid service, but if she had, people would have wondered why. No one suspected her, and she intended to keep it that way. She had gotten away with murder twenty years ago, hadn’t she? And although Rachel and Dean suspected Aurora’s death hadn’t been accidental and the homeless man hadn’t really killed Haylie, they had no proof that she had killed them.

How absolutely wonderful that Lindsay Farrell was here, on Wyatt Goddard’s arm, no less. To think that all these years she had believed the child Lindsay had given birth to had been Jake’s. An understandable mistake. After all, none of them had known that Lindsay had been cheating on Jake with Wyatt.

Do you hear that, Jake? All the while you thought Lindsay was yours and yours alone, Wyatt was screwing her.

She had to control the urge to laugh out loud.

And you never knew that I found someone else, too. Someone kind and understanding. Someone who loved me. Someone who didn’t judge me harshly and didn’t blame me for loving you and hating you at the same time.

If only things could have been different. If she could have kept her baby.

It might not have been your child, Jake. It might have been his.

She let her gaze travel over the mourners. Discreetly, of course. With a damp Kleenex pressed against her cheek, she faked her grief, putting on quite a performance. Nothing over the top. Just a few tears escaping now and then, enough to convince everyone that she was deeply saddened by Mandy’s death. She watched the others, especially Lindsay, Kristen, and Rachel, and mimicked their actions. Except she didn’t take part in the comforting, caring hugs they shared. Just as it had been in the past, she was close to them, an arm’s length from their inner circle. And yet she might as well have been a million miles away for all the good it did her. They wouldn’t let her in now any more than they would have back then when she had so longed to fit in.

But soon-very soon-there would be no inner circle, no little clique of popular girls.

They’ll all be dead-every last one of them.

And when the bulldozers destroyed St. Elizabeth’s, swept away the rubble and buried the remains, she and she alone would be left standing, her thirst for revenge sated, her enemies punished, all the wrongs made right at last.

In the past twenty years, Rachel had made friends in both Chattanooga and in Huntsville, but none of her more recent relationships had been as strong as the bond she had forged in high school with Kristen and Lindsay. Being with them again was like turning back the clock and reverting into teenagers who shared everything with one another. Well, almost everything. Lindsay had kept her pregnancy a secret. God only knew how. Maybe it was because she and Kristen had both known that Lindsay wasn’t having sex with Jake and just assumed she was still a virgin.

Rachel made herself a promise-she was not going to lose track of Kristen and Lindsay, not ever again. She was going to stay in touch often.

Mandy’s mother had disappeared into the nursery to look after her granddaughter, leaving her forlorn husband in the hands of Mandy’s siblings. Jeff continued in remote-control mode, shaking hands with sympathetic friends and acquaintances who had stopped by the house after the funeral. His father stayed at his side while his mother oversaw the refreshments being served by kind neighbors.

As if a gravitational pull had drawn them together, Lindsay and Wyatt stood in the corner talking to Kristen and Ross while Rachel and Dean approached the two couples. After another round of hugs and tearful sighs, the three old friends turned to the men in their lives for support. Ross draped his arm across Kristen’s shoulders, while Lindsay clung to Wyatt’s hand. As if he sensed she needed his touch, Dean eased his arm around Rachel’s waist.

“I don’t see how Jeff is making it,” Kristen said. “He’s lost without Mandy. Those two were so in love.”

“He’s numb right now,” Dean said. “But heaven help him when the medication wears off.”

A revolving door of mourners came through the Stulz home in the next hour, most strangers to Rachel. If not for Dean to lean on, she wasn’t sure she would have been able to endure this post-funeral affair. When he caught her staring at Bella Marcott, Dean alerted her to what she was doing. She had managed not to focus for more than a minute or two on DeLynn and Martina, but April had caught Rachel looking at her. Rachel had nodded and then glanced away.

As she had studied each woman, she’d asked herself, “Is she capable of cold-blooded murder?”

Bella made her way through the crowd, stopping directly in front of Rachel. “Did you want to say something to me? I noticed you were staring at me.”

“I’m sorry,” Rachel said. “That was rude of me. I’ve caught myself wondering which one of us will be next. You, me, DeLynn, Kris-”

“What do you think, Bella?” Dean asked.

“I’d rather not think about it,” Bella said. “It’s frightening to believe that someone is killing us off, one by one. Do the police have any idea who killed Mandy and if her death is connected to Haylie’s murder or Aurora’s death in New York?”

“We have a few theories,” Dean replied. “And sooner or later, we’ll catch the killer.”

“Jake’s murderer was never caught,” Bella said.

“Not yet.” Rachel’s gaze meshed with Bella’s and she openly studied Jake’s sister.

“Do you really think you can solve a twenty-year-old crime?”

Rachel nodded. “Yes, I do, especially if my theory that whoever killed Jake is killing again, murdering the women who were closest to Jake.”

“What an odd theory. Why would anyone want to kill Jake’s women?”

Such a peculiar thing to say, Rachel thought. Jake’s women. But she supposed that’s what they’d all been in one way or another.

One of the Stulzes’ neighbors, a middle-aged lady with blue, Bette Davis eyes came up to Rachel. “I’m sorry to interrupt. There’s another floral delivery, but when I told the young man to bring the flowers in and find a place for them anywhere in the living room, he said the flowers were to be delivered directly to Sergeant Rachel Alsace.”

A quiver of uncertainty rippled along Rachel’s spine.

“Want me to see what this is all about?” Dean asked.

“No, I can handle it.” She turned back to Bella. “If you’ll excuse me.”

“Certainly.”

Rachel headed for the door where a twentysomething delivery boy stood holding a large white box. As she neared him, she sensed Dean directly behind her. She glanced over her shoulder and smiled at him.

Focusing on the delivery boy, she said, “I’m Rachel Alsace.”

“I was told to deliver these directly to you.” He handed her the box, which Dean reached out and took from him. The boy jumped back, startled by Dean’s unexpected maneuver. “No need to tip me. It’s been covered…when the flowers were ordered.”

Dean and Rachel looked at each other, neither saying a word. While he held the box, she removed the lid. Inside were seven lilies, each tied with a white ribbon, similar to the lilies and yards of white ribbon used in the spray that had covered Mandy’s coffin. Attached to each ribbon was a card, and on each card was written a name. Rachel picked up the first lily and read the card.

“DeLynn,” she read.

Hurriedly she laid that lily back down and one by one checked the name tags on the others. April. Kristen. Martina. Bella. Lindsay. And Rachel.

“She’s sending us a message.” Rachel looked directly at Dean. “She wants us to know that we’re all going to die, that she’s going to kill each of us, the way she killed Mandy.”

Chapter 31

Dean had disposed of the box of lilies while Rachel told Kristen and Lindsay about them, instructing them to let the others know.

This was yet another warning from the killer. They should take every precaution.

“Tell them not to panic, but to be more careful than ever,” Dean had advised.

After saying good-bye to Jeff, who probably wouldn’t remember who had been there and who hadn’t, Rachel and Dean drove straight to the florist, a trendy shop in downtown Portland-the Flower Garden-run by a young couple, Mark and Melanie, in their late twenties. The wife remembered the order.

“Yes, I took the order over the phone,” Melanie said. “Four days ago. She said she would send the money before the date of delivery and call back to let me know exactly when to deliver them. And she did. We received the payment in cash, which I thought was rather odd, but she said she preferred dealing in cash.”

“When did she call back to give you the details about delivery?”

“This morning,” Mark replied.

“Do you recall anything in particular about the woman’s voice?” Dean asked.

Melanie frowned. “No, not really.”

“Just an ordinary woman’s voice,” Mark said.

“Would you recognize her voice if you heard it again?”

Melanie shook her head.

“No, sorry,” Mark said. “We get so many calls.”

“Did you by any chance save the envelope the money came in?” Rachel asked.

“No. I had no reason to save it.” Melanie frowned.

“Did the woman give you a name?” Dean asked.

“Yes, of course.” Melanie thought for a couple of seconds. “I believe she said her name was Elizabeth Saint.”

Rachel groaned.

“Do you recognize the name?” Mark asked.

“Yes, we do,” Dean said. “Thanks for your help.”

Five minutes later, on their way across town to headquarters, while Rachel and Dean were talking about the name Elizabeth Saint being simply a play on words-St. Elizabeth’s-Rachel’s cell phone rang.

The caller ID showed Portland, Oregon. Cell number. No name.

Rachel flipped open the phone. “Hello.”

“Did you get my flowers?” the disguised voice asked.

“Yes.” Rachel motioned to Dean, indicating that the call was from “her.”

“Do you want to know who will be next?”

“Do you intend to tell me?”

Laughter. “Of course not. If I did, it wouldn’t be a surprise, would it?”

“Is there anything I can say or do that will persuade you to stop? Is there something you want that I-we can give you?”

Silence.

“You’re killing for a reason, aren’t you?” Rachel wanted to keep her talking. “Tell me what that reason is.”

“The only thing I want is the satisfaction of seeing all of you bitches dead and buried with the past.”

Buried with the past? “What did we ever do to you to make you hate us so?”

“You know what you did, what all of you did, how all of you treated me.”

“What about Jake? Did he treat you badly, too? Is that why you killed him?”

“Jake deserved to die for what he made me do,” the voice said.

“What did he make you do?”

Silence.

“Tell me. Please. Help me to understand why you-”

Crying. Soft sobs.

“Please, let me help you,” Rachel said.

“It’s too late.”

Conversation over. Phone call ended.

Emitting a nervous huff, Rachel closed her phone. “She all but admitted that she killed Jake. And she said he deserved to die because of what he made her do.”

“Knowing Jake, he could have done anything to this woman, even forced her to have sex with him,” Dean said.

A month ago, it would have been impossible for Rachel to believe that Jake had been capable of something so horrible. But the Jake she had come to know through studying the old Cupid Killer files was not the boy she remembered. It was as if he’d led a double life or at the very least had presented a pretty façade to the world to hide the darkness inside him.

“If he raped her, I can understand her wanting to kill him,” Rachel said. “But why does she want to kill us? Why Aurora and Mandy and Haylie? It doesn’t make sense.”

“We’ve already figured out that this woman is mentally unbalanced.”

“And she is one of us.”

“Probably.”

“DeLynn once had a nervous breakdown and so did Bella. April was into drugs once, and that could have affected her mentally.”

“And DeLynn and April were both within driving distance of New York City when Aurora died and Lindsay was attacked.” Dean turned his Thunderbird onto SW Second Street.

“I don’t want one of them to be our killer.”

“But the odds are that one of them is. And if we’re right about that, then it means whoever she is, she didn’t kill Jake.”

Rachel clenched her teeth and cursed softly under her breath. “None of us knew how to use a crossbow, and Jake was killed by someone skillful enough to hit him dead center in the heart.”

“Then we either have two killers on our hands or…”

“Or we have a man disguising his voice and himself as a woman.”

“Or we have a couple working together or-”

“Okay, let’s say the killer isn’t a woman. What if he was one of the guys at Western Catholic or Washington High?”

“We need to go with the most likely scenario instead of creating a new and less likely one,” Dean told her. “And remember that the person wearing disguises who you think has been stalking you is female. The person who ordered the lilies was female. And all of you think the person making the threatening calls is female. The most logical conclusion is that whoever killed Jake is not our present-day killer.”

“I know. I know. It seems the more information we have, the more confused things are. And so much boils down to the fact that I just can’t picture one of the old gang as a cold-blooded killer.”

“I don’t like the idea any better than you do that one of them is capable of murder, but what few concrete facts we have tell me that we need to concentrate on the reunion committee members.”

“I guess that rules out our doing a further investigation into the possibility that Marilyn or Patrick Dewey might have killed Jake.”

“I didn’t say we should rule out anyone. But motivation is the key factor-in Jake’s murder and in the recent murders. Patrick Dewey is dead, so he can’t be our killer. And why would Marilyn Dewey be killing women she doesn’t even know?”

“God, I am so frustrated!” Rachel admitted quite vehemently. “And I feel so helpless. I should be able to do something to stop these murders now, before someone else has to die.”

“I suppose your dad felt frustrated and hopeless when he couldn’t come up with a viable suspect in Jake’s murder. Even those of us in law enforcement can do only so much. If the evidence isn’t there-”

“It’s there,” Rachel told him. “Damn it, it’s there. We just can’t see it!”

When Kristen and Ross dropped Martina at her house that evening, Ross insisted on walking Martina to her door. And she was grateful for his gentlemanly escort. It wasn’t that she was scared, not exactly. Just unnerved.

A lot of that going around lately, she thought as she inserted the key in the lock of her front door, heard the distinct click, and turned around to wave good night to Kristen and her husband. If she weren’t all alone this week, with Craig out of town on business and the kids away at summer camp, she wouldn’t dread entering her own home. Craig hadn’t wanted to leave, but the trip had been planned weeks ago, before Mandy’s murder. Martina had insisted that he go, reassuring him that she would be fine for the few days he’d be gone.

She shouldn’t be so silly. No one could get inside her house. Not with sturdy locks on all the windows and doors. Not with a security system in place.

As soon as she entered the foyer, she tapped the code into the keypad to disarm the security system, then hurriedly locked the door behind her. Releasing a relieved breath, she walked down the hall and into the kitchen. She had left a table lamp on in the foyer and the over-the-sink fluorescent on in the kitchen.

Using the handy step stool she kept in the pantry, Martina stood on it to reach an upper cupboard. After retrieving the box of candy she kept out of sight and hopefully out of mind, she set the box on the counter, opened it, and chose a piece of caramel nougat.

She knew she shouldn’t be indulging this way, but food was her drug of choice. Always had been. That’s why now, twenty years after high school, she was fifty pounds heavier.

She shouldn’t be doing this. She had stayed on her diet for two months now and lost fifteen pounds so she would look good at the reunion.

But with all that had happened lately-the deaths of three old friends and the constant threat that she or another friend was next-Martina needed the consolation that only candy could give her. If she drank, she’d be downing a glass of whiskey right now. If she smoked, she’d be puffing away on a cancer stick.

Attending the funeral of a dear old friend was reason enough for her to turn to the habitual crutch she could count on for comfort. Food. Especially candy.

Just as she was swallowing the last bite of the sweet concoction, the phone rang.

Startled, Martina cried out and threw her hands up and over her mouth.

Get a grip. It’s just the phone. Yes, but what if it’s “her”?

But what if it’s Craig?

She checked the caller ID. Portland. No name.

Damn!

Just don’t answer it.

The phone rang ten times, then stopped.

Martina popped another piece of candy into her mouth, then picked up the box and headed for the den.

The phone rang again.

Unnerved, her hands trembling, she dropped the box and the candy fell haphazardly all over the kitchen floor. Leaving the scattered pieces where they were, she checked the caller ID.

Portland. No name.

The phone rang ten times. Silence. Immediately, it rang again. Ten times. Silence. Then it rang again.

Martina held her hands over her ears. Stop calling me!

When the ringing continued, driving her crazy, she finally jerked the portable phone off its base and screamed, “Leave me alone!”

Laughter.

The person on the other end of the line was laughing at her.

“What’s wrong, Martina?” the disguised voice asked. “Are you upset that you’ve blown your diet by eating candy?”

“What! How did you know?” Martina rushed to the windows over the sink and peered out into the darkness.

“You should have answered on the first ring. That way, you wouldn’t have spilled your candy all over the floor.”

Oh, God! She’s out there, watching me. Looking in the window.

But Martina couldn’t see anyone. Just the empty driveway, the basketball hoop attached to the front of the garage, and her youngest child’s old bicycle.

“You can’t see me, but I can see you,” the voice taunted.

Martina hung up the phone and immediately dialed Rachel’s cell number. The minute Rachel answered, Martina spoke rapidly, fear in her voice. “She’s here. At my house. Outside watching me. Please, help me!”

Rachel assured Martina that she and Dean were on their way. Martina hung up the phone, then hurriedly punched in the code and Stay on the security keypad beside the back door.

There. She felt safer. If anyone tried to break into the house, the alarm would go off.

The phone rang.

Martina screamed.

The phone kept ringing. Over and over and over again.

Martina slumped down onto the floor, sitting in the middle of the scattered pieces of candy, and hugged herself as she rocked back and forth.

I’m safe. No one can get inside my house. No one can hurt me.

The phone continued ringing.

Rachel helped Kristen and Ross put Martina in their car.

“Go home with Kris,” Rachel said. “You’ll be safe there. Dean and I will take care of things here.”

As soon as she had received Martina’s desperate call for help, Rachel had phoned for police backup, and the closest squad car to Martina’s home had been sent out. Then she had phoned Kristen and asked that she and Ross meet them at Martina’s.

“She’s going to need a place to stay tonight,” Rachel had said. “And I want you to get in touch with Craig and tell him to come home, that his wife needs him.”

Martina slid into the backseat of Kristen’s car, then reached out and grabbed Rachel’s arm. “She was here. In my yard. Looking through the window. Find her, Rach. Find her and stop her before she kills again.”

Rachel grabbed Martina’s hand and squeezed hard. “I’ll do my best. I promise.”

Ross shut the door, closing Martina safely inside, then he turned to Rachel. “We’ll take care of her and get in touch with her husband, tonight if possible.”

Kristen hugged Rachel. “Don’t be alone at any time. I know you carry a gun and are able to defend yourself, but…We all need somebody to watch out for us. I’ve got Ross. Lindsay has Wyatt.” Kris’s gaze crossed Martina’s front yard and paused on Dean McMichaels where he stood talking to four patrol officers. The two squad cars had arrived before Rachel and Dean, but Martina had refused to open the door until Rachel arrived. “Dean’s a good man. Let him look after you. Okay?”

“Don’t worry about me. Just take care of yourself and Martina.”

When the Delmonicos left, Rachel walked over to Dean. With her eyes cast downward, she waited until the officers said their good-byes and headed toward their squad cars, then she looked directly at him.

“How’s Martina?” Dean asked.

“Frightened to death.”

“We found footprints under the kitchen windows,” he said. “I’ve got somebody on their way here to photograph them and make casts. The prints are slightly distorted, as if the person tried to erase them but didn’t have time to completely get rid of all the prints.”

“So, we wait for your crime scene tech person and in the meantime guard the scene?”

“Yeah, around back,” Dean said. “I’ll want Hughes to check for fingerprints on the windows, too.”

Rachel and Dean spent the next twenty minutes, while they waited for crime scene investigator Phil Hughes, making several phone calls. One by one, they telephoned the members of the reunion committee. The purpose of these calls was twofold. One: to warn them to be extra careful. Two: to see if they were at home. Of course, any one of them could have been here at Martina’s and made it home by now. But they had to check, to make sure everyone was accounted for tonight.

Lindsay was with Wyatt in their hotel room. Bella answered on the fourth ring. She was home and said she was just stepping out of the shower. DeLynn didn’t answer her home phone but answered her cell phone. She was at her mother’s, picking up her twins. April didn’t answer either her home phone or her cell phone.

“Just because she’s not answering her phone doesn’t make April a suspect,” Dean said.

“No, but…I can’t stand this!” Rachel’s nerves were on edge. She had worked quite a few murder cases over the years, first in Chattanooga and then in Huntsville, but the victims had been strangers. Everything was different when the victims were people you knew. Old friends. And complicating matters even more was the fact that the most obvious suspects were also old friends.

Dean slipped his arms around Rachel and pulled her into a comforting embrace. At first she stiffened, unsure of herself and of Dean. It had been a long time since she’d leaned on someone for any kind of support or counted on someone to be there for her. When he rubbed his big hand over her back and nuzzled the top of her head with his chin, she relaxed into him. Loving the way he held her so protectively, she eased her arms around his waist and laid her head on his chest.

And that’s the way Phil Hughes found them. Embracing in the dark.

Phil cleared his throat.

Rachel started to jerk away from Dean, but he draped his arm around her shoulders as he turned her to face Phil. The crime scene tech carried quite a bit of equipment, which he set down on the driveway.

“The footprints are under the kitchen windows,” Dean said. “Need help setting up your camera?”

“Nah, I’m fine,” Phil replied, a sheepish grin on his face.

“Then get to it,” Dean told him. “We don’t want to be here all night.”

“Got something better planned?” Phil winked at Dean.

“Get your dirty mind out of the gutter,” Dean said.

Phil chuckled as he headed toward the kitchen windows.

“Check the window frames for prints,” Dean called to Phil.

“Will do.”

Being careful not to disturb the shoe tracks, Phil shined his flashlight on the double windows. He dusted both windows, including the glass panes. When his brush didn’t remove enough powder, Phil blew off the excess and studied the dusted surfaces.

“I don’t see anything. Either our guy was wearing gloves or he didn’t touch the windows.”

Finished with the first chore, Phil then placed the frame his camera rested on above the shoeprints, the frame pointing directly down. The crime scene tech used this type of camera because it showed the ratio of the negative to the original. This meant the original footprints could be reproduced in their precise size.

When Phil finished photographing the tracks, he set about making moulages by spraying the ground under the window with a fixative.

“I’ll need some water,” Phil said. “To mix the plaster. Once that’s done, you two can go on. Damp as it is tonight, it could take an hour or two for the plaster to set.”

“What’s your guess as to shoe size and type of shoe?” Rachel asked.

“Looks like an athletic shoe of some kind. Maybe a size eight or nine. Small for a man. I’d say there’s a good chance these are a woman’s footprints.”

She had waited until after midnight before she drove to St. Elizabeth’s, the lure to return here too powerful for her to deny. But it wasn’t all that great a risk, was it? Not when no one had any idea that she had created a shrine to the past here at the old school. She always parked behind the building where no one would see her car. Being careful and ever vigilant, she never took her own safety for granted.

She made her way down into the basement. Using a high-beam flashlight with a stand attachment, she illuminated the row of lockers. If things had gone as she’d planned this evening, she would have a souvenir from Martina to place in her locker. But the woman was smarter than she’d given her credit for being.

When she had telephoned her tonight, as she stood in the shadows of Martina’s backyard, she had planned on luring Martina outside so that she could kill her.

Are you upset that you’ve blown your diet by eating candy? You should have answered on the first ring. That way, you wouldn’t have spilled your candy all over the floor.

She had been so sure that after she let Martina know she could see her, that she was watching her, Martina would open the back door and search for her. But no, instead of coming outside looking for her caller, Martina had slumped down on the floor and refused to answer the phone again, after she apparently had called Rachel.

You were too smart for me this time. But next time…

The reunion was now less than a week away. It would be only days until they all united at St. Elizabeth’s. The senior classes from St. Lizzy’s, Western Catholic, and Washington High. All the boys and girls now approaching middle age. Twenty years and a lifetime of experience lay between those teenagers and the men and women they were now.

But she would bet her life that none of them had forgotten Jake Marcott or the night he had died.

You’re unforgettable, Jake.

But you knew that, didn’t you?

I certainly haven’t forgotten you. I remember how much I loved you and how much I hated you. And I’ll never forgive you for making me kill my baby.

Our baby.

If you’d taken me to a real doctor for the abortion, I wouldn’t be sterile. You took everything from me. Everything.

Now I’m going to take everything away from them. Those smug girls who thought they were better than me. Those lucky women who found men to love them and had babies and have lived wonderful lives.

Rachel and Dean sat inside his T-bird, the windows rolled down and the top back, but before he got a chance to start the engine, Rachel said, “Kris wears a size seven shoe, or at least she used to. And I believe Lindsay wears a six and a half.”

“I thought you had ruled them out completely as suspects.”

“I have. I was just thinking out loud, running over shoe sizes in my mind.” She turned in the leather seat, her safety belt unsnapped. “I wear a six.”

“Cinderella feet.”

“What?” She eyed him quizzically.

“Tiny feet. Glass slipper,” he said by way of explanation.

“Oh.” Then she charged ahead, still on the subject of shoe size. “I have no idea what size shoes the others wear. We can rule out Martina. She couldn’t fake being that terrified. So that leaves DeLynn, April, and Bella.” Looking directly at Dean, she asked, “Have you ever paid any attention to their feet?”

“No, I can’t say that I have.”

“DeLynn is tall and slender. I’d think she’d wear at least an eight. And I seem to recall that April has rather large feet. Maybe a size nine. I have no idea about Bella.”

“Why don’t we wait until Phil has a definite size for us before we play this guessing game,” Dean said. “Once we know a definite size, we can investigate.”

“What do you think they’d do if we asked to see in their closets to look at their shoes?”

Dean reached across the console and grasped Rachel’s shoulder. “Let it rest for tonight. Phil will call us in the morning. In the meantime, we both need some R & R after the day we’ve had. I’ll take you home-”

“I don’t want to go home.” The words flew out of her mouth before she gave the implication any thought. “I-I’m not offering or asking for anything more than just not to be alone. Understand?”

He nodded. “Buckle up.”

He fastened his seat belt. She did the same. Then he started the engine and zoomed the T-bird out into the nighttime traffic. The wind whipped around them, warm and balmy. When he kicked the sports car into high gear, all of Rachel’s senses came into play: The feel of the evening breeze. The sound of the T-bird’s motor and the hum of traffic. The mixed and mingled scents of the big city. The blurred lights and buildings as they zipped by at high speed. The taste of desire and fear in her mouth.

Neither of them spoke on the drive from Martina’s house to Dean’s apartment. Screeching into his designated slot, he parked the Thunderbird in an underground garage. After bringing up the windows and top, he got out, rounded the hood, and opened the door for her. She looked up at him and smiled. He held out his hand.

She put her hand in his and climbed out of his car. “Nothing like death to make you need to prove just how alive you are,” she said.

“Is that what you think this is all about?” He raked the back of his hand over her cheek.

She sucked in her breath. “Maybe, at least in part.”

“And the other part would be?” He took her hand and led her away from the locked car and toward the elevator.

“Needing sex,” she admitted.

He punched the Up arrow button and the elevator doors swung open. Once inside, he hit the Six button, the doors closed, and the elevator began its ascent.

“Nothing personal about it?” he asked, waving his hand between them. “You and me or you and anybody, as long as-”

She put her hand over his mouth. “It’s not like that and you know it.”

They gazed at each other, the connection between them sizzling. She eased her hand away from his mouth.

“I don’t understand you, Rachel. I thought you weren’t into meaningless one-night stands.”

“You’re the one who said we shouldn’t mistake need and want for love,” she told him. “You’re the one who didn’t want to get involved.”

The elevator stopped and then opened on the sixth floor. Without saying a word, Dean waited for her to exit; then he got out, took her hand again, and silently led her to his apartment door.

He took his key ring from his pocket, unlocked the door, and reached around her to flip on the overhead light in the small entry hall. She felt him behind her, his chest to her back, his breath warm on her neck.

“Come into my parlor.”

Said the spider to the fly. Shivering, she hesitated for a millisecond, then when he nudged her into action, she entered his bachelor flat. Nothing fancy. White walls. Wooden floors. Sturdy, masculine furniture. Not overly expensive. Not cheap.

“Come on in and make yourself at home,” he said. “Want something to drink?”

She shook her head.

“So how do we play this?” he asked. “Up-front and honest? Or subtle and coy?”

“I’m not good at playing games.”

“Honey, you sure as hell could have fooled me. I think you’ve been playing a game with me for weeks now.”

“No, I haven’t. Really. I-I-” She turned and walked toward the door. “This was a mistake, wasn’t it? I thought you wanted me, maybe even needed me tonight. I guess you should just take me home.”

Before she knew what was happening, Dean came up behind her, whirled her around, and shoved her up against the wall. He lowered his head and brought his mouth down on hers, taking her in an all-consuming, conquering kiss that both startled and excited her. With his big, hard body pressing against her, she felt his arousal and knew without a doubt that he wanted her.

And she wanted him. God, how she wanted him!

Rachel pushed against his chest until he ended the kiss. They stared at each other, their lips parted, their breathing ragged.

“We don’t have to talk,” she said breathlessly. “We don’t need to analyze this.”

“No, honey, we don’t.”

He swept her up into his arms, kicked his half-closed bedroom door wide open, and carried her to his unmade bed. They tore at each other’s clothes until within minutes they were both naked. Shoes, belts, his slacks, her blouse, and various other items lay scattered on the floor and foot of the bed.

Dean stared at her, visually eating her up as if she were his favorite food. She looked right back at him, appreciating his lean, hard body.

“I knew you’d be perfect,” Dean said as he cupped each of her breasts. “I’ve wanted to see these beauties since I was fourteen.”

She smiled. “Better late than never.”

He released her abruptly. “Wait right here. I’ve got a box of condoms in the bathroom.”

“Do you think we’ll need a whole box?” she asked teasingly.

“Honey, the way I feel about you, we may need more than one box.”

Hours later, as dawn light seeped through his apartment windows, Dean rested on one elbow and stared at the woman asleep beside him. Rachel. His Rachel.

Had she meant it when she’d told him that she loved him? Or had she spoken the words in the heat of the moment? Three times! He hadn’t thought he still had it in him to go three times, not at the ripe old age of thirty-eight. But by God, he had. And he was hard again. Wanted her again.

He kissed her navel. She stirred. He kissed the musky triangle of blond curls between her thighs. Her eyelids popped open.

“Liked that, did you?” he teased.

She ruffled his hair. “I like everything you do to me. Everything.”

“Are you too sore for a little more everything?” he asked as he came up and over her, straddling her hips.

“You know, I could get used to being the object of your desire.”

“Permanently?” he asked, but kept his tone light.

She lifted her arms up and around his neck, drawing him down to her. She kissed him. He rubbed his sex against hers. She sighed into his open mouth.

“What would permanently entail?” she inquired.

Should he tell her that he’d meant it when he had repeatedly told her that he loved her and find out if she really did love him? Should he risk her rejection and ask her to marry him?

“I was thinking-after a proper courtship-we might get engaged and then eventually married and in a year or two after that have a couple of kids and-”

“Why wait?” She spread her legs and lifted her hips, inviting him in, as she pressed her lips against his neck. “I don’t need a proper courtship. A few more dates and then you can buy me a traditional diamond ring.”

“A diamond ring, huh? How big?” He thrust deeply inside her.

She gasped with pleasure. “Really big,” she sighed.

He laughed. “I was talking about the ring.”

Smiling, she said, “So was I, you arrogant, conceited-”

She gasped when he retreated and thrust into her again as he lifted her buttocks in his hands and claimed her completely.

“Oh, Dean…!”

An hour later, Dean’s alarm went off, waking both of them. Just as he leaned over and kissed her, his phone rang.

“Who the hell?”

“You’d better get it,” she said. “It could be Phil Hughes or even Uncle Charlie.”

Dean picked up the phone on his nightstand, not bothering to check the caller ID. “Hello.”

“Lieutenant McMichaels?”

A woman’s voice. Dean sat up in bed. “Yeah, this is he.”

“I’m Marilyn Dewey. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“No. No, ma’am, you didn’t.”

“My son has convinced me that I should talk to you.”

“Yes, ma’am, I’d certainly appreciate it if you’d let me drive up to Salem and ask you a few questions about the old Cupid Killer case.”

“I-I’m in the middle of moving from my house into a condo near my elder son and everything is a mess here.”

He heard reluctance in her voice. And something else. Trepidation?

“Mrs. Dewey, you could come here to Portland, if you prefer. Your son could come with you.”

Rachel punched Dean in the ribs and mouthed the name Marilyn Dewey.

“No, no, I’d rather not,” Mrs. Dewey said. “You come here. Next week.”

“Why wait?”

“Why hurry? Jake Marcott was killed twenty years ago.”

“The Portland P.D. believes there is a possibility that Jake’s killer has resurfaced and recently killed three of Jake’s old friends, three girls Jake once knew quite well.”

“That’s not possible,” Marilyn said.

“What do you mean?”

“Jake Marcott’s killer is dead.”

Chapter 32

The Dewey home, in a suburb of Salem, was in an older neighborhood with well-kept lawns and neat houses, most built in the sixties. A robust, auburn-haired Pat Dewey Jr. met Rachel and Dean at the door and invited them into his mother’s living room.

“Mom,” he said to the plump, rosy-cheeked lady with sad brown eyes and gray-streaked auburn hair, “Lieutenant McMichaels and Sergeant Alsace are here.”

Marilyn Dewey looked up at them from her wheelchair and motioned to the nearby plaid sofa. “Please, have a seat.” She glanced around at the numerous stacked boxes that littered the room. “And excuse this mess. You know I’m in the middle of moving.”

Putting a pleasant expression on her face, Rachel shook hands with Marilyn. “Thank you so much for seeing us.”

Dean nodded. “We really appreciate this.”

He and Rachel sat on the sofa facing Marilyn. Her son stood behind her wheelchair, one hand on her shoulder. “Go ahead, Mom. Tell them what you know.”

Marilyn Dewey looked down into her lap where she held her clasped hands, her fingers knotted and swollen. “If Patrick were alive, I’d never…I’ve kept his secret all these years.”

Rachel scooted to the edge of the sofa. What secret?

“Patrick was a good man,” Marilyn said. “A good husband and father.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Dean glanced up at Pat Jr. before focusing on Mrs. Dewey. “Just take your time in telling us what you know.”

“Patrick wasn’t with me the night that Marcott boy was killed.” The words rushed out of her in one long, run-together sentence.

Rachel and Dean exchanged questioning glances.

Silence hung over the room like a heavy fog.

“Are you saying that when the police questioned you twenty years ago, you lied?” Rachel asked.

“Yes, I lied for my husband. Patrick told me that if I didn’t give him an alibi, the police would dig deeper and he’d be in big trouble,” Marilyn explained. “I asked him why he needed an alibi, and he said I was better off not knowing, to just do as he asked and everything would be all right.” Tears welled up in her eyes.

Pat Jr. squeezed his mother’s shoulder reassuringly. “It’s all right. You’re doing just fine. Tell them the rest of it.”

Marilyn swallowed hard. “I was a young woman with two children and no job. I didn’t even graduate from high school. I needed Patrick.” She paused, sighed heavily and looked pleadingly at Rachel. “And I loved him.”

“We understand,” Rachel said. She did understand why a woman would lie for her husband. But understanding didn’t mean approval.

“I lied to the police about two things. Patrick was not with me the night the Marcott boy was murdered. And the crossbow that he reported stolen wasn’t stolen. He-he hid it in the garage, inside this big old toolbox that had belonged to his father.”

Rachel tensed. “Do you know why he reported the crossbow stolen?”

Marilyn shook her head. “I asked him, but he wouldn’t tell me. We never discussed it-none of it-ever again. Not until…” Tears streamed down her face.

Pat Jr. whipped out a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to his mother. She wiped away the tears and wadded up the handkerchief in her trembling hands.

“Patrick had throat cancer. He’d been a heavy smoker all his life,” Marilyn said. “A few days before he died, he told me he had to clear his conscience before…He needed to bare his soul to me, to beg me to forgive him.”

Rachel held her breath. Dean didn’t move a muscle. A deadly soft anticipation filled the room.

“Patrick killed that boy,” Marilyn said. “That Marcott boy.”

“Did he tell you that he killed Jake Marcott?” Dean asked, his voice sympathetically gentle.

“Yes. He said that he planned it a few weeks beforehand and that’s why he reported the crossbow stolen, so that when he used it…”

“Why did your husband kill Jake?” Rachel asked.

Marilyn hesitated, then said, “There was a girl, you see. A girl that Patrick had been seeing.” She paused as if the truth were too terrible for her to utter aloud. “My husband had an affair with a teenage girl.”

Oh my God! Rachel’s mind worked at lightning speed, putting together the missing pieces to a twenty-year-old puzzle.

Marilyn Dewey wept, her heart breaking anew because her husband had been unfaithful to her all those years ago. “This girl had been involved with the Marcott boy, too.” Marilyn looked up at her son and grasped the hand that clutched her shoulder.

Pat Jr. leaned down and hugged her.

She regained her composure and continued. “Patrick said this boy had been cruel to the girl, that he’d mistreated her badly, that he deserved to die. The only way to stop the boy from continuing to abuse the girl was to kill him.”

“Did your husband tell you the girl’s name?” Rachel asked, hoping beyond hope that he had.

Marilyn shook her head. “No.” She glanced from Rachel to Dean and then up at her son. “Even on his deathbed, he wanted to protect her.”

Several days following Rachel and Dean’s interview with Marilyn Dewey and a follow-up interview that was officially recorded, the Portland P.D. had permanently closed the cold case file on the Cupid Killer murder. Chief Charlie Young made the wise decision to delay making the news public until after the St. Elizabeth’s reunion. And Dean had managed to persuade the powers that be not to press charges against Mrs. Dewey, a woman in her sixties who suffered from crippling arthritis. In Rachel’s opinion, the woman had suffered enough, and Dean agreed. It seemed they agreed on a great many things.

If only Mrs. Dewey could have given them the girl’s name…

Everything made sense now. All except one of the old puzzle pieces had been placed together. Patrick Dewey had been having an affair with a girl Jake had also been involved with, a girl Jake had abused. Patrick had plotted Jake’s demise and killed his rival in a spectacular way. The expert bowman had shot Jake directly in the heart with “Cupid’s arrow.”

But what had happened after Jake’s murder? Had the girl turned against Patrick? Or had Patrick ended the secret affair?

Rachel had thought surely someone other than Patrick Dewey and the girl had known about their affair. Where and when had they met? A local motel? Somewhere out of town? Had someone possibly seen the girl with Patrick?

She had racked her brain trying to figure out a way to unearth this girl’s identity, but in the end, she realized that the span of twenty years worked against their discovering the truth. Would any motels or hotels still have records from twenty years ago? And even if they did, Patrick would hardly have used his real name. And she certainly couldn’t expect any former hotel employee to remember a man and teenage girl who had secret rendezvous in 1986.

As each day had passed, Rachel’s frustration level had risen. If not for Dean’s wonderful calming effect on her, she wasn’t sure she’d have made it through without a major meltdown. As she lay in Dean’s arms each night, she wondered how she’d gotten so damn lucky. She could regret not finding love with Dean years ago, but there was no point in looking back. Today was all that mattered. For Dean and her and for their old high-school friends. Jake Marcott’s murder case had been solved; the murderer was dead. But the recent murders remained unsolved, the killer still out there, ready to kill again.

Tonight was the night. Everything was in order. Every detail planned. They would all be here, the classmates from the graduating classes of 1986. The alumni from St. Elizabeth’s, Western Catholic, and even some graduates from Washington High School. The police had brought in bomb-sniffing dogs and the authorities had done what they thought was a thorough search of the building. But no one remembered the old basement area under the gymnasium. She doubted that there was anyone still alive who knew about that subterranean level that could be reached only through the basement of the school itself and not directly from the gym. The only reason she knew the location was because her great-uncle had once been the custodian, back in the sixties, and he’d told her about it.

If the police had searched down there, they would have found her secret room, the senior lockers, and the souvenirs from Mandy, Aurora, and Haylie. If that had happened, she would have had to formulate a new plan rather quickly, perhaps continue the executions beyond tonight’s event. But as luck would have it, she didn’t have to change her plans.

After helping the decorating committee set up tables and chairs in the old gym and spread colorful streamers from the bleachers and rafters, she had separated from the others as they left for the afternoon and had made her way into the basement. Several days earlier, she had brought everything she would need for tonight and stored it all down here. And when she reappeared tonight, dressed to the nines, no one would be the wiser.

If no one got in her way, if nothing interfered with her plans, three people would die tonight: Kristen, Rachel, and Lindsay. Whichever one she could get to the easiest would be the first to die.

Giggling happily, she danced around and around in the forgotten cellar beneath the gym, Patrick Dewey’s old Beretta in her hand. He had given it to her, all those years ago-an unregistered pistol-to use as protection.

“If that bastard ever tries to rape you again, shoot him,” Patrick had said.

Dear, sweet, loving Patrick.

He had truly cared about her. And she’d never had the heart to tell him that although she hated Jake with every fiber of her being, she also loved him.

Patrick wouldn’t have understood.

If you hadn’t been at my side that night, I wouldn’t have had the courage to kill Jake and end the nightmare my life had become. You were my white knight, Patrick, my avenging angel.

Rachel gave herself one final inspection in the full-length mirror on the back of the closet door. Here she was, wearing an ankle-length teal green satin dress that clung to her curves and accentuated her breasts, preparing to attend her twenty-year class reunion. A reunion marred by the recent murders of three classmates and an all-too-real threat that others were in danger. If she’d had her way, they would have canceled tonight’s affair, but with so many people actually looking forward to the reunion dance and so many having come in from out of state, the committee had decided they didn’t have much choice but to continue with the event as planned.

Checking her watch-six-fifteen-she heaved a deep sigh and picked up the tiny diamond hoops from the dresser and inserted them into her pierced ears. Dean was picking her up at six-thirty, which gave her just enough time to collect her thoughts and calm her jittery nerves.

When her cell phone rang, she gasped. Cursing herself for being so nervous, she flipped open the phone and checked the caller ID.

“Hello, Dean,” she said playfully, trying to act as if she weren’t worried sick.

“Listen, honey. I need you to get down to headquarters immediately.”

“Why? What’s happened?”

“I just got a call from Pat Dewey. He and his mother are in Portland and they’re about two miles from headquarters. It seems when she finished cleaning out her bedroom closet this afternoon, intending to either pack or trash what was left, she came across some photographs that were in an old suitcase that her sons had brought down from the attic.”

“Photographs of what?”

“Of whom,” Dean corrected. “She isn’t sure who the person in the photos is, but she thinks it could be the girl Patrick had the affair with twenty years ago.”

“Holy shit!”

“Yeah, tell me about it.”

“Could Pat describe the girl to you? Could you-”

“He couldn’t give me a description,” Dean said. “It seems his mother won’t let him see the pictures.”

“What? Why?”

“He thinks it’s because the girl in the photos is probably naked. He told me that his mother said she will hand those photographs over only to you.”

“Because I’m a woman.”

“Yeah, that would be my guess.”

“I’ll get to headquarters as soon as possible, but in late Saturday afternoon traffic, it’ll take me a good thirty minutes.”

“Just drive carefully.”

“I’ll try.”

Lindsay would rather be anywhere than here. With the old gymnasium decorated so nicely, it reminded her far too much of the last time this building had hosted a special dance. The Valentine’s Day dance of 1986. Only back then, everything had been decked out in red, white, and pink, with paper hearts and fat little Cupids adorning every nook and cranny. If Wyatt weren’t at her side tonight, she would have run out the door as fast as she could and gotten as far away from St. Elizabeth’s as humanly possible.

“We didn’t have to come here tonight.” Wyatt placed his arm around her waist as he whispered in her ear.

“Yes, we did. I did.” She turned and smiled at him. A forced smile. “I’ve been running from the past far too long. I ran from you, from our son…and from Jake’s memory. I need to do this, so that I can lay his ghost to rest.”

“Whatever you need to do to vanquish Jake’s ghost and put the past behind us, I’ll help you. Just say the word and-”

“Go outside with me,” she told him. “I need to go back inside the labyrinth, to the spot where Jake was killed. Where I found him.”

“Are you sure?” Wyatt asked. “Why put yourself through that kind of torture?”

“I can’t explain it. It’s just something I need to do.”

“All right. Do you want to go now or wait until later?”

“Now, before I lose my nerve.”

As they headed for the exit, they ran into April Wright. “Where are you two going? Not leaving so soon, I hope.”

“No, we’re just going to get a breath of fresh air,” Lindsay lied. “We’ll be back before things really get started.”

“You’d better be careful out there,” April said. “You wouldn’t catch me wandering around outside in the dark. Not tonight. Not with somebody out there just waiting to take potshots at us.”

“It’s not dark yet. There’s plenty of daylight left,” Wyatt said. “Besides, Lindsay won’t be alone, not for a single minute.”

“Well, that’s good to hear.”

Wyatt cupped her elbow and led her out of the gym and onto the school grounds. “I think it’s this way, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she replied, “right over there.”

Hidden deep inside the maze of hedges, the huge oak tree towered high into the evening sky. Beneath the oak, the sculpture of the Madonna still resided in a place of honor. This was where she’d found Jake. The arrow that had pierced his heart had pinned him to the tree.

Suddenly flashes of memory popped into Lindsay’s mind, like an accelerated movie clip. She saw Jake’s sightless eyes staring at her. The blood on his shirt. The still-smoldering cigarette lying at his feet. She could hear her own screams as she rushed toward him, praying that he was still alive.

But he was dead.

Lindsay shivered uncontrollably.

Wyatt wrapped her in his strong, comforting arms. “Let it go. You’re here with me now and you’re safe. You’ve confronted the demons from the past. It’s over.”

She sobbed against his chest while he soothed her. He allowed her several minutes to recover, then grasped her hand and said, “It’s time to get back to the dance.”

Marilyn Dewey sat in her wheelchair, a small manila folder clasped in her weathered, arthritis-crippled hands. She looked up the moment the door to the captain’s office opened and Rachel walked in. Rachel nodded at Dean, who stood in the corner, then went straight to Marilyn.

Rachel pulled out a chair, dragged it directly across from Marilyn, and sat down facing the other woman. “I believe you have something you want to show me.”

Marilyn’s dark, soulful eyes lifted, and she stared directly at Rachel. “He took pictures of her.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Nude pictures.”

“You found them today?” Rachel nodded to the envelope in Marilyn’s lap.

“They were in Patrick’s old suitcase…one he hadn’t used in years.”

“May I see the photographs?” Rachel held out her hand, trying her best not to push, not to be overly eager. But God in heaven, these old pictures could reveal the identity of a murderer and thus prevent any future deaths.

Marilyn lifted the envelope, as careful with it as if it were made of spun glass, and handed it to Rachel. “He-he wrote things on the back of each photograph. Things about her.”

Rachel released a chest-tight breath as she clasped the envelope. “Would you prefer that Lieutenant McMichaels and I look at these-”

“No,” Marilyn cried. “Not him. Only you.”

“All right, only me. Do you want me to look at them in another room?”

“Yes, please.”

Pat Dewey placed both hands on his mother’s quivering shoulders.

“Stay here,” Rachel told Dean as she headed for the door.

He nodded.

Rachel closed the door behind her, went straight to the captain’s secretary’s desk, sat down, and opened the envelope. With her hands trembling and her heartbeat strumming in her ears, she turned the envelope upside down and shook out the contents. A stack of old Polaroid photos fell into her waiting hands.

Oh, God! Oh, God!

She turned the photos over and groaned when she immediately recognized the naked girl in the first picture. Sitting demurely on the edge of a bed, her index finger stuck seductively in her mouth, she stared at the camera. Wide-eyed, but far from innocent.

Rachel hurriedly looked through the two dozen snapshots of the teenager, each pose slightly different, obviously all the pictures were not taken at the same time. She read a few of the notes on the backs of the photos, then one in particular caught her eye.

Merciful Lord!

That one final missing piece in the puzzle fell into place.

Rachel stuffed the photos back in the envelope, got up, and rushed into the captain’s office.

“Put a call in to the patrol cars closest to St. Elizabeth’s and send them over to the school,” Rachel said. “The killer is there right now. Lindsay and Kristen are in immediate danger!”

Chapter 33

Lindsay excused herself to go to the restroom. Martina and Kristen were coming out as she was going in. When she walked into the locker room, which you had to go through to reach the girls’ restroom, she saw several old classmates standing around talking, but once in the restroom, she was alone. A shiver of apprehension raced up her spine. The eerie quiet inside the stall unnerved her. She hurried, relieving herself quickly; then in her haste, she wound up pulling a run in her stockings when her fingernail caught in the nylon. Drat!

If she weren’t such a stickler for hygiene, she might have forgone washing her hands and gotten the hell out of this poorly lit, spooky bathroom. But good habits took precedent over a case of nerves. Just as she turned on the faucet, she caught a glimpse of someone in her peripheral vision, someone just entering the ladies’ restroom.

“Hello, Lindsay,” the familiar voice said. “You look as beautiful tonight as you did the night Jake died.”

She whirled around to face the woman who stood only a few feet away, a pistol in her hand.

Dean drove like the proverbial bat out of hell on the trip from downtown to St. Elizabeth’s. On the drive over, Rachel had kept in contact with the patrolmen who had been sent to the site of the reunion. Only a few minutes before Dean screeched to a halt in front of the gymnasium, Officer Kyle Williams reported that a woman named Lindsay Farrell was missing and her boyfriend was on the verge of tearing the place apart, brick by brick.

Lindsay did as she was told, afraid not to, realizing that her would-be killer wouldn’t hesitate to shoot her.

“I’d prefer we did this in private, but if you force me to, I’ll shoot you right here, right now,” she said.

Lindsay realized she meant it and knew that the only way to buy herself some time-and keep herself alive-was to cooperate. But only up to a point. Her abductor was so involved in keeping them out of sight as she led her out a back door of the gym and through the covered open corridor leading into the school building that she didn’t notice as Lindsay opened her evening bag and began dropping items. Items that wouldn’t make any noise as they hit the ground.

Shades of Hansel and Gretel, Lindsay thought. But one does what one has to do when in the clutches of a wicked witch.

Where on earth is she taking me? Lindsay wondered as she was led down a flight of wooden stairs and into the basement.

Not wanting to create a panic that would complicate the situation, Rachel and Dean called for backup, including the SWAT team, then sent the patrol officers off to search for Lindsay while they spoke to Wyatt, Martina, Craig, Kristen, and Ross. Dean told his friends what he’d told the officers: “If you find them, do not try to confront her. Call me and let me handle it.”

They separated into groups so they could cover more ground twice as fast. After Dean handed flashlights to the men, Ross and Kristen went in one direction, while Wyatt, Craig, and Martina went in another. As they hunted for Lindsay, the reunion went on as if this unnerving drama weren’t happening simultaneously.

Rachel knew that if they didn’t find Lindsay soon, it would be too late. If only Marilyn Dewey could have discovered those photographs yesterday instead of today.

“Lindsay found Jake’s body inside the labyrinth that night,” Rachel said. “What if that’s where she’s taken Lindsay, back to the scene of the crime?”

“She’s just twisted enough to do something like that.” Dean aimed his flashlight toward the rows of tall hedges. “Let’s go.”

As Rachel and Dean started into the labyrinth, Ross and Kristen emerged from the pathway that led into the maze.

“Seems we had the same idea,” Dean said.

“Apparently,” Ross replied.

“We didn’t find anyone,” Kristen said. “Now what? I thought for sure that’s where she would take Lindsay.”

“Let’s separate again and continue searching.” Rachel did her best to keep her voice calm, despite the growing anxiety she felt.

Lindsay removed the last of the dollar bills-four in all-that she’d placed in her small evening bag. Before she could release the money and allow it to sail softly to the floor, the final clue to mark her trail, the madwoman at her side stopped abruptly in front of a stack of wooden crates and aimed her flashlight straight ahead.

She stuck the gun in Lindsay’s ribs. “Move behind the crates.”

Lindsay did as she was told.

Her abductor forced her forward as she shined her flashlight at an old wooden door half hidden behind the crates. When she reached around Lindsay and turned the doorknob, Lindsay considered putting up a fight. But the feel of the deadly weapon pressing painfully into her ribs made her think twice.

“Where are you taking me?” Lindsay managed to say, fear vibrating her voice.

“Somewhere no one will find you, not until after Rachel and Kristen join you.”

Lindsay hazarded a glance at the woman she had known since they were teenagers, and wondered why she had never realized how unstable she was, how unstable she had probably always been.

While her captor concentrated on opening the door and at the same time keeping her gun against Lindsay’s side, Lindsay opened her palm and dropped the last dollar bill.

Please, dear God, let Wyatt realize I’m missing. Let him be searching for me.

What was that sound? Was that music she heard? Yes, it was. She couldn’t quite make out the tune, but there was music coming from behind the door.

Nudging the gun deep into Lindsay’s side, her captor ordered, “Move it. Now!”

Lindsay stepped over the concrete threshold and entered a brightly lit, dank-smelling room. So engrossed in the sight before her, Lindsay barely heard the door close behind her.

My God!

At least a dozen Coleman lanterns, lined up on the floor in front of a row of old lockers, illuminated the cavernous room.

Lockers? The senior lockers from St. Elizabeth’s? Was that possible?

“It took quite some effort to move the lockers in here,” she told Lindsay. “But it was well worth it, don’t you think?” She urged Lindsay forward, forcing her to walk past the lockers to the opposite side of the room.

Lindsay noticed her name on one locker. Rachel’s, Kristen’s, and Martina’s on three others. Those four lockers were open and empty. The others were closed.

“Only four more to go,” she said, smiling at Lindsay. “And then it will all be complete. Just in time for the wrecking ball.”

“Why? I-I don’t understand.”

Wyatt, you are searching for me, aren’t you? You’ve called Rachel and Dean. You’ve told the police that I’m missing.

“All you need to know is that you’re going to die.”

“Why? What did I ever do to you to make you hate me? What did any of us do?”

“Keep walking until you reach the far wall, then turn around slowly.”

Continuing to move toward the wall, her back to her abductor, Lindsay pleaded, “Tell me what we did to make you hate us.”

“You and the others were such little snots, excluding me from everything, shutting me out, making me feel worthless.”

“But we didn’t mean to make you feel that way.” Keep her talking. Buy yourself all the time you can. “I’m sorry. Truly I am. If I could do anything to make it up to you, I would.”

“Did you know that I hated you the most back then? And I still do. I want you to suffer before I kill you. I want you to know just a little of the pain I’ve felt all these years. Now, turn around and look at me. I want to watch your face when I shoot you.”

Lindsay paused, then turned and stared directly at the woman who intended to kill her.

“Will you tell me why you hate me the most?” Try not to think about her threat to make you suffer. You cannot give in to your fears.

“Because Jake wanted you more than he wanted me.”

Rushing forward, insane hatred marring her facial features, Bella Marcott shoved Lindsay up against the wall, the gun almost touching Lindsay’s belly. As her shoulder hit the concrete, Lindsay caught a glimpse of the huge red heart painted on the wall behind her. A morbid reminder of a long-ago St. Valentine Day’s dance.

And the music…The song coming from the portable CD player on the floor near the lockers was a familiar tune. “Can’t Fight This Feeling” by REO Speedwagon. Once upon a time, it had been her and Jake’s song.

When her gaze connected to Bella’s, she saw malicious anger and sheer madness in her eyes. Eyes so very much like Jake’s.

Kristen and Ross crossed paths with Wyatt twice during their frantic search. The first time he’d been with Martina and Craig, but now he was alone. Alone and angry and blaming himself for Lindsay’s abduction.

“You couldn’t have gone to the ladies’ room with her,” Kristen said, doing her best to comfort him.

“No, but I should have insisted that we find you so you could go with her.”

Kristen placed her hand on Wyatt’s shoulder and rubbed reassuringly. “We’re going to find her.”

Wyatt covered his mouth as he drew in a deep breath, barely holding his emotions in check. “If we don’t find her soon…”

Bella will kill her. Kristen knew what he was thinking, what they were all thinking. It seemed unbelievable that Jake’s own sister had been responsible for his death, even if she hadn’t actually released the arrow from the crossbow and nailed him through the heart.

“Come on.” Kristen tugged on Wyatt’s arm. “Ross and I are going to search the side entrance into St. Elizabeth’s that connects to the gym. Why don’t you take a look at the back entrances? I know the police officers have already checked, but they could have overlooked something.”

Wyatt stared at her, a crazed expression on his face as if he were on the verge of unraveling, but he nodded, indicating he had understood her. Then he turned and headed for the back of the old school.

“He’s half out of his mind,” Kristen said.

“I would be, too, if you were the one missing.”

Kristen reached out and caressed her husband’s cheek. How close they’d come to losing each other, to letting their marriage and their love slip away from them.

“We’re going to find her-alive.” Kristen pointed the beam of her flashlight straight in front of her, aiming it toward the covered breezeway between the gymnasium and the school building.

Ross kept pace with her, slowing when she slowed, speeding up when she did. As they walked along the corridor between the two structures, Kristen stopped suddenly.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” She shot a beam of light toward the concrete walkway where something white had caught her eye. “What’s that?” She bent over and picked up the Kleenex, then inspected it thoroughly. “Someone blotted their lipstick on this.”

“Anyone could have dropped it.”

“This is a pink lipstick. Lindsay was wearing pink.”

“Kristen, don’t-”

“She could have dropped it on purpose, as a clue.”

“Okay, maybe you’re right. But-”

“I’m calling Rachel.” Using her free hand, Kristen flipped open her cell phone.

“How does it feel knowing you’re going to die?” Bella pointed the gun directly at Lindsay’s heart.

“I’m afraid. Is that what you want to hear? I’m terrified. I don’t want to die.”

Bella smiled. “Jake didn’t have time to be scared, not until the very last minute when he realized I was going to kill him.”

“You killed Jake?” But how was that possible? Lindsay wondered. Hadn’t Rachel and Dean told her and Kris, in strictest confidence, that a man named Patrick Dewey had killed Jake?

“You couldn’t have killed Jake.” Lindsay spoke without thinking.

Bella glared at her. “What makes you say that?”

“He-he was your brother. You loved him.”

“And he loved me.”

What would Bella do if I rushed her? Would she shoot me? Could I jump her before she could fire? If I did, maybe I could wrestle the gun away from her. I have to do something. I can’t stand here against this big red heart and wait for her to kill me.

Holding the pistol in both hands, Bella kept it aimed at Lindsay. “You thought he loved you, but he didn’t. You were as big a fool as the others.”

“You’re right. I was a fool.” Agree with her. Say whatever you think she wants to hear. Lindsay clutched her small evening bag, holding it against her waist.

“Too bad you didn’t realize that twenty years ago.” Bella smiled, the tilt of her lips bordering on a snarl. “I think you should know that I plan to shoot you more than once. I’m going to start with your legs and then your arms and then…” Bella’s sick laughter echoed in the underground dungeon.

Sour, salty bile rose up into Lindsay’s throat. A rush of pure fear flooded her senses. This couldn’t be happening. It had to be a horrible nightmare. She couldn’t die. Not now. Not when she and Wyatt had reconnected. Not when they had just found their son.

“What makes you think I’ll stand here and let you use me for target practice?”

Bella stared quizzically at Lindsay. “Because I have a weapon and you don’t.”

“If you’re going to kill me anyway, what do I have to lose?”

“It’s your choice.” Bella shrugged. “If you try anything, I’ll kill you now. Play by my rules and you might live another hour.”

Their tense gazes locked.

“You think maybe someone will find you if you can just buy enough time, don’t you? It’s not going to happen. No one knows about this part of the basement. It’s my little secret. Of course, once the building is leveled, it is possible they’ll find your bodies in the rubble. Yours and Kristen’s and Rachel’s.”

This basement hideaway, the row of old lockers, the music from the past all blurred together, the entire scene surreal. Lindsay’s mind whirled with thoughts and questions and silent prayers.

When Lindsay shut her eyes as she made a final plea to God-I don’t want to die!-Bella screamed, “Open your eyes and look at me!”

Shivering, fear clutching her fiercely, she looked at Bella.

“Now, that’s better.” Bella glanced at the row of lockers. “I think I’ll put your evening bag and maybe your earrings in your locker.”

It’s now or never, Lindsay thought. While she’s not looking…

Lindsay lunged at Bella, who whipped around, aimed the gun and fired. The bullet barely missed Lindsay’s foot, hitting the floor and blasting shards of old concrete across Lindsay’s leg. As the pieces scattered, several nipped her foot and leg. Yelping in pain, she dropped her evening bag as she jumped and quickly backed into the wall behind her.

As her heartbeat thundered in her ears, Lindsay waited for the next shot-the one that could end her life.

Rachel stared at the brick school, dark and foreboding, looking exactly like what it was-an abandoned old building. Dean had sent the patrol officers in pairs to the front and back entrances but had heard nothing from them. It would take time to do a thorough search of every room, including the basement.

Rachel’s phone rang. She answered on the third ring.

“Rach, come to the side entrance of the school, the one closest to the gym,” Kristen said. “We’ve found something in the open corridor.”

Within minutes, Rachel held a lipstick-stained Kleenex in her hand.

“We found it right here,” Ross said, pointing to the exact spot, only a couple of feet from the side entrance. “We tried the door and it seems to be locked.”

Dean shined his flashlight through the panes of the half-glass double doors. “Rachel, come take a look.”

He kept the light pointing straight down on the floor inside the hallway. There lying on the floor was what looked like another tissue.

“We have to get in there right now.” Rachel’s instincts and training told her that time was of the essence.

Using the end of his flashlight, Dean broke the glass in a lower pane, carefully stuck his hand inside, and released the interior lock. “It was locked from the inside,” he said, “which means someone came through this way and locked it.”

When Kristen and Ross followed Dean and Rachel, Dean turned to them and said, “Wait here. And call Rachel if you see or hear anything unusual.”

The couple simultaneously nodded agreement.

“Where do we go from here?” Dean asked Rachel. “Up or down or forward?”

“You check the up stairs and I’ll check the down,” she said. “If we don’t find anything, we’ll move forward into the building.”

“I’ll contact Officer Williams while I’m checking out the stairs,” Dean said.

Rachel opened the door that led into the basement, shined her flashlight on the wooden staircase, and took several steps downward. There lying on the fifth step was what looked like a credit card. Rachel stooped to pick it up, took a good look at it, and hurried back up the stairs. After closing the door, she called out to Dean, who rushed down from the top of the upper staircase.

“Take a look. It’s Lindsay’s driver’s license.”

With her back against the wall and her foot and leg bleeding, Lindsay tried to think rationally. But how was that possible? She was in the clutches of a crazy person, someone who had already killed three other women.

“Bella, you don’t have to do this. You aren’t yourself,” Lindsay said. “You need help.”

Bella’s serene smile unnerved Lindsay.

“I needed help twenty years ago,” Bella said. “If someone had stopped Jake…if they had kept him from hurting me…”

“How did Jake hurt you?” Keep talking. Buy time. Pray that someone finds you before it’s too late.

“Patrick knew. He cared when no one else did.”

“Who was Patrick?”

Bella’s smile widened. Her eyes glazed over. “Patrick loved me. When I told him about Jake…I should have told Patrick first when I found out, not Jake. Patrick wouldn’t have made me do it. He would have let me keep my baby.”

“Baby? You were pregnant? You had a child by this man named Patrick?”

“I wanted my baby, but Jake said I couldn’t have it. He made me have an abortion. Patrick said that was wrong. That’s why he killed…no, that’s not right. Patrick wanted to kill Jake for what he did to me. But I wanted to kill Jake myself. I remember touching the bow, watching the arrow fly through the air. Jake couldn’t believe what I’d done. He just stared at me.”

“Bella, you didn’t kill Jake. You couldn’t have.”

Bella shook her head. “You’re wrong. Don’t try to confuse me.”

“You might have wanted to kill Jake, but you didn’t.”

“I did! I killed him!” Clutching the gun in both hands, Bella walked toward Lindsay, stopping less than three feet from her. “I killed Jake. And I killed Haylie and Aurora and Mandy. And I’m going to kill you.”

Lindsay’s legs shook so badly that she could barely stand. Sweat peppered her face and seeped through her bra and panties.

I don’t want to die.

I’m not going to die!

Dean called in the patrol officers and gave them instructions, then he and Rachel went down into the basement. They followed a trail of items, scattered ten to fifteen feet apart. Another tissue, then the empty tissue pack. A credit card, and then dollar bills.

Good girl, Lindsay. You didn’t panic. You used your head and left us clues.

When the final clue ended near a solid block wall, Rachel clenched her teeth. “This doesn’t make any sense. It’s as if they disappeared into nowhere.”

Dean waved his flashlight all around the area, searching for an opening of any kind. He nudged Rachel when the light fell on the top of what appeared to be a door half hidden behind a stack of mildewed wooden crates.

While Dean kept the door spotlighted, Rachel inspected it, then pressed her ear against it. “Listen.”

Dean leaned against the door. “It’s music.”

“Do you know what song that is? It’s Lindsay and Jake’s song.”

“Son of a bitch!”

Dean handed Rachel the flashlight, then tried the door, which opened without any trouble whatsoever, without him exerting an ounce of extra pressure. And the old door didn’t creak, made hardly a sound.

“Someone has been using this door fairly often,” Dean said quietly, then motioned to Rachel as he pulled his regulation Glock from his shoulder holster. “Stay behind me.”

They moved slowly, cautiously, into another room of the basement, the area illuminated by a dozen lanterns placed in a row in front of a line of old lockers. My God, those are our lockers from senior high, Rachel thought. How is that possible?

A portable CD player lay on the floor, the popular tune from the mid 1980s filling the air with sweet music and words of love.

Standing at the far end of the long, narrow room was Lindsay, her trembling body outlined by a huge red heart painted on the block wall directly behind her. Bella stood a couple of feet in front of Lindsay, her back to Dean and Rachel, a pistol pointed directly at Lindsay.

“Jake didn’t love you,” Bella said. “He didn’t love any of you.”

“You’re right,” Lindsay said, her voice quivering. “He-he didn’t love any of us.”

“He loved me,” Bella shouted. “But he made me kill my baby and he didn’t make you kill your baby. Tell me why! It wasn’t fair!”

“Why-why did Jake make you kill your baby?” Lindsay asked.

“Because he knew it might be his.”

Lindsay gasped.

“We’d been lovers since I was twelve years old. I didn’t want to do it with him, not at first. It hurt. But he forced me. He told me he loved me. He promised me…But he lied. He kept making me do it. Over and over again. And then he made me kill my baby. He took me to some quack doctor who cut my baby out of me and ruined me forever.”

Dean crept closer and closer to the madwoman with the gun, one slow, nerve-wracking step after another. Rachel held her breath when she realized that Lindsay saw Dean.

“That’s why I had to kill him,” Bella said. “He had to be punished for what he did to me. Patrick said that he was going to kill Jake, but I told him that I wanted to do it, that it was my right to kill him.”

Don’t let on that you see Dean, Rachel thought. Please, Lindsay, don’t give him away. Your life depends on it. She’s insane. She’ll kill you, just as she killed Haylie and Aurora and Mandy.

“I didn’t realize that you knew how to use a crossbow,” Lindsay said, her gaze fixed on the gun less than twenty-four inches from her heart.

That’s it, Linds, keep her talking, keep her distracted until Dean can get closer. Just a few more feet.

“I didn’t know anything about crossbows,” Bella admitted. “Patrick was an expert bowman. He knew how to kill Jake.”

“I thought you said you killed Jake.”

“I did. I hated Jake.”

“How did you kill him?”

“You know how. With a bow and arrow. I was there, hidden in the hedges, waiting and watching. Jake was leaning against the old oak tree, smoking a cigarette. We caught him by surprise. Patrick had his crossbow and…No, that’s not right. I had the crossbow. I killed Jake.” She shook her head. “But Patrick cocked the bow. I watched him. I was hiding, and when Patrick aimed and fired at Dean, I did it with him. No, that’s not right. I was watching when the arrow hit Jake in the heart. But I killed him.” She screamed the final words as she grasped the gun with both hands. “And I’m going to kill you. All of you.”

“Bella!” Dean called her name.

She whirled around and fired. The bullet zoomed past Dean and cracked a chunk out of the wall behind him. Bella Marcott snapped back around and aimed the gun at Lindsay.

“Don’t!” Dean cried. “Put the gun down.”

A second shot rang out in the dank, cavernous room. Lindsay screamed. The music from a long-ago night continued playing. Rachel rushed forward as Bella crumpled to the floor, facedown, a single bullet wound in the back of her head.

Rachel wrapped her arms around a nearly hysterical Lindsay. “It’s all right. You’re safe. Bella’s dead.”

Gulping for air, Lindsay wept as she asked, “She was crazy, wasn’t she? She thought Jake raped her. And she kept talking about this man named Patrick. Jake didn’t rape her, did he? He wasn’t the father of the child she aborted, was he? Jake wasn’t like that. Was he?”

“Hush, now,” Rachel said soothingly. “I’ll explain everything later. All that matters is that you’re safe. And this nightmare is finally over for all of us.”

Epilogue

New Year’s Eve 2006

Wyatt and Lindsay Goddard hosted a New Year’s Eve party in the penthouse apartment they rented overlooking downtown Portland. Lindsay had wanted a second home here in Oregon so that she could visit not only her family but her dear friends, Kristen and Rachel, as often as she liked. The couple had been married in November, a small, elegant wedding, with Kristen and Rachel as attendants and Leo as Wyatt’s best man. Their relationship with their son was building slowly, and although he had spent Christmas with his adoptive family, he was here now with Lindsay and Wyatt for New Year’s.

Kristen and Ross seemed truly happy, Rachel thought, almost as happy as she and Dean were. Amazing how a person’s life could completely change-for the better-in less than a year’s time. Actually, in a little over six months. When she had returned to Portland for the twenty-year class reunion, intent on finding Jake Marcott’s killer, she’d had no idea how everything would turn out in the end. She certainly hadn’t counted on falling madly in love with the bane of her teenage existence. And neither she nor any of her classmates would have imagined that Jake had begun raping his younger sister when she was only twelve and had forced her have an abortion at sixteen. Poor Bella. Poor crazy Bella. To the very end, she had truly believed that she, not Patrick Dewey, had killed Jake. In her delusional mind, she had hated Jake so vehemently and wanted him dead so badly that somehow, over the years, she had convinced herself that she had actually shot him.

Nothing could change the past. No power on earth could give back Haylie and Aurora and Mandy to the people who loved them. And that fact alone was reason enough to celebrate life, to make a toast to the bright and happy new year that lay ahead. Life was for the living. Savor every precious moment.

“Am I the only one who feels just slightly guilty to be so happy?” Lindsay asked.

Kristen and Rachel had joined their hostess in the kitchen to help her replenish the snack trays that their husbands and the two teenagers had wiped clean.

Kristen sighed. “I know what you mean. Here we three are with so much to be thankful for and several of our old classmates are gone. Aurora will never see her grandchildren, and Mandy won’t be around to see her daughter grow up. And poor Haylie.”

“If only we had known twenty years ago what Jake was really like, what he was doing to his sister.” Rachel shook her head. “Maybe we could have helped Bella and prevented what happened this past summer.”

“We can’t change the past,” Kristen said. “All we can do is appreciate how lucky we all are and not waste precious time on regrets.”

“Hear, hear.” Lindsay removed a sheet of mini quiches from the oven.

“I know one thing for sure-Ross and I will never again take each other and our marriage for granted,” Kristen said. “We know that from here on out, we’re going to have to work at it every day and find ways to compromise. But it’s worth whatever we have to do because in the end all that matters is that we love each other.”

“You’re right about that.” Rachel had not gone into marriage with Dean believing everything would be perfect. But Kris was right-in the end all that truly mattered was that they loved each other. “I gave up my job in Alabama and moved here permanently to be with Dean and I know I’ll never regret making that decision.”

Lindsay removed the warm mini quiches from the baking sheet onto the serving tray. “My being married to Wyatt seems like a dream. When I think about how many years we wasted, how many years I-”

“No regrets,” Rachel said. “We all made mistakes in the past, the biggest one being the fact that we were all infatuated with Jake Marcott. Let’s just chalk up our stupidity to having been young and foolish.”

Kristen and Lindsay smiled sadly and nodded.

“Leo is going to spend his spring break with us,” Lindsay said.

“That’s wonderful,” Kristen and Rachel responded simultaneously.

“I know we will always have to share him with his mother-and yes, she is his mother in all the ways that truly matter-but Wyatt and I are just grateful to have him in our lives.”

“Have you and Wyatt thought about having another child together?” Rachel asked.

“I’ve thought about it,” Lindsay admitted. “But I haven’t discussed it with Wyatt.”

The distinctive chimes of the grandfather clock in the foyer announced the three-quarter hour.

“It’s almost midnight,” Kristen said. “We’d better join our men if we want a New Year’s Eve kiss.”

Leaving the mini quiches in the kitchen and leaving all the unhappiness and tragedy in the past where it belonged, the three old friends walked into the living room and into the arms of the men they loved.

As those final countdown moments drew near, the small, intimate group of old friends came together, champagne and sparkling grape juice glasses in their hands. Rachel noticed Kristen’s daughter, Lissa, nonchalantly making her way closer to Leo, whom she’d been flirting with all evening. Now, that would be a pair, Rachel thought.

Dean leaned down and whispered in her ear, “That is grape juice in your glass, isn’t it?”

“Of course. You know I wouldn’t drink anything else, not now.”

“What are you two lovebirds whispering about?” Kristen asked. “I can understand Lindsay and Wyatt acting like newlyweds since they just got married last month, but you two have been married since September. Really, now!”

Everyone laughed, happiness filling the room.

Rachel looked to Dean for approval before sharing their wonderful news. He nodded. She took a deep breath, exhaled, and said, “We’re pregnant.”

The women shared hugs and kisses. The guys shook Dean’s hand and slapped him on the back. The two teenagers stood side by side and smiled at each other. Then they all lifted their glasses and made a toast-to Rachel and Dean, to good friends, and to the future.

The clock struck midnight. A new year dawned.

Leo turned to Lissa and kissed her on the cheek. She threw her arms around his neck and planted one right on his mouth, then hand in hand they walked to the windows to watch the fireworks bursting brightly in the dark sky.

Dean pulled Rachel into his arms. “Happy New Year, Mrs. McMichaels.” He laid his hand over her still-flat belly. “I love you and I love our little rug rat.”

Then he kissed her passionately as the other two couples followed their lead.

Dear Reader,

How great is it that you picked up a copy of MOST LIKELY TO DIE? I hope you enjoyed the girls of “St. Lizzy’s,” and their love stories set in a background of tense suspense. I was more than thrilled to write my portion of the book and to be able to set the bulk of the story in Portland, Oregon. Portland is special to me as it was the closest “big city” to the small logging town where I grew up, so I felt right at home introducing you to the area!

I’ve got lots of great news on the horizon. For those of you who didn’t get a chance to read the hardcover edition of SHIVER last year, the paperback will soon be available. In March 2007, you can visit Our Lady of Virtues Hospital, an abandoned mental hospital that puts the weird goings-on at St. Elizabeth’s to shame. SHIVER is Detective Reuben Montoya of the New Orleans Police Department’s story. You remember Montoya. He was first introduced in HOT BLOODED and has popped up in my New Orleans books ever since. Now, the cocky, brash detective gets his own tale, one that involves a twenty-year-old mystery and a beautiful, spunky woman, Abby Chastain, who is ultimately tied to the old hospital. I think you’ll like it.

In April 2007, right on the heels of the publication of the paperback edition of SHIVER, is my next hardcover novel, ABSOLUTE FEAR, the sequel to SHIVER. If you finished SHIVER, then you know there were some loose ends left at the end of the book. ABSOLUTE FEAR answers those questions and brings in some new characters: Defense Attorney Dennis Cole and Eve Renner, his lover, the woman who claims he tried to kill her. He’s been incarcerated and now he wants the truth and vengeance, not necessarily in that order. ABSOLUTE FEAR is an edge-of-your-seat thriller, a tense story of lies, deceit and betrayal. I think it’s the perfect follow-up to SHIVER!

Also, I’ve got a special surprise for all of you who loved IF SHE ONLY KNEW. I have a new novel, ALMOST DEAD, that brings back some familiar faces from San Francisco. Remember Cissy Cahill, Marla’s daughter in IF SHE ONLY KNEW? Well, it’s ten years later and Cissy’s back with a sexy husband and an innocent baby. Once again Cissy’s life is turned upside down. Everything she holds true turns out to be false. Her marriage is a sham. Both she and her child are in life-threatening danger, and people around her start dying. Fortunately Anthony Paterno of the San Francisco Police Department is on the case, but he might just be too late. ALMOST DEAD is a bizarre, twisted tale that’s guaranteed to keep you up late. Look for this original paperback in August 2007! In the meantime, please turn the page for an excerpt of SHIVER!

Again, thanks for picking up a copy of MOST LIKELY TO DIE. If you want to contact me about any of my books, you can do so through my website: www.lisajackson.com.

In the meantime, keep reading!

Lisa Jackson

Twenty years earlier

Our Lady of Virtues Hospital

Near New Orleans, Louisiana

She felt his breath.

Warm.

Seductive.

Erotically evil.

A presence that caused the hairs on the back of her neck to lift, her skin to prickle, sweat to collect upon her spine.

Her heart thumped, and barely able to move, standing in the darkness, she searched the shadowed corners of her room frantically. Through the open window she heard the reverberating songs of the frogs in the nearby swamps and the rumble of a train upon faraway tracks.

But here, now, he was with her.

Go away, she tried to say, but held her tongue, hoping beyond hope that he wouldn’t notice her standing near the window. On the other side of the panes, security lamps illuminated the grounds with pale, bluish light, and she realized belatedly that her body, shrouded only by a sheer nightgown, was silhouetted in their eerie glow.

Of course he could see her, find her in the darkness.

He always did.

Throat dry, she stepped backward, placing a hand on the window casing to steady herself. Maybe she had just imagined his presence. Maybe she hadn’t heard the door open after all. Maybe she’d jumped up from a drug-induced sleep too quickly. After all, it wasn’t late, only eight in the evening.

Maybe she was safe in this room, her room, on the third floor.

Maybe.

She was reaching for the bedside light when she heard the soft scrape of leather against hardwood.

Her throat closed on a silent scream.

Having adjusted to the half-light, her eyes took in the bed with its mussed sheets, evidence of her fitful rest. Upon the dressing table were the lamp and a bifold picture frame; one that held small portraits of her two daughters. Across the small room was a fireplace. She could see its decorative tile and cold grate and, above the mantle, a bare spot, faded now where a mirror had once hung.

So where was he? She glanced to the tall windows. Beyond, the October night was hot and sultry. In the panes she could see her wan reflection: petite, small-boned frame; sad gold eyes; high cheekbones; lustrous auburn hair pulled away from her face. And behind her…was that a shadow creeping near?

Or her imagination?

That was the trouble. Sometimes he hid.

But he was always nearby. Always. She could feel him, hear his soft, determined footsteps in the hallway, smell his scent-a mixture of male musk and sweat-catch a glimpse of a quick, darting shadow as he passed.

There was no getting away from him. Ever. Not even in the dead of night. He received great satisfaction in surprising her, sneaking up on her while she was sitting at her desk, leaning down behind her when she was kneeling at her bedside. He was always ready to press his face to the back of her neck, to reach around her and touch her breasts, arousing her though she loathed him, pulling her tightly against him so that she could feel his erection against her back. She wasn’t safe when she was under the thin spray of the shower, nor while sleeping beneath the covers of her small bed.

How ironic that they had placed her here…for her own safety.

“Go away,” she whispered, her head pounding, her thoughts disjointed. “Leave me alone!”

She blinked and tried to focus.

Where was he?

Nervously she trained her eyes on the one hiding place, the closet. She licked her lips. The wooden door was ajar, just slightly, enough that anyone inside could peer through the crack.

From the small sliver of darkness within the closet, something seemed to glimmer. A reflection. Eyes?

Oh, God.

Maybe he was inside. Waiting.

Gooseflesh broke out on her skin. She should call out to someone, but if she did, she would be restrained, medicated…or worse. Stop it, Faith. Don’t get paranoid! But the glittering eyes in the closet watched her. She felt them. Wrapping one arm around her middle, the other folded over it, she scraped her nails on the skin of her elbow.

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

But maybe this was all a bad dream. A nightmare. Wasn’t that what the sisters had assured her in their soft whispers as they gently patted her hands and stared at her with compassionate, disbelieving eyes? An ugly dream. Yes! A nightmare of vast, intense proportions. Even the nurse had agreed with the nuns, telling her that what she’d thought she’d seen wasn’t real. And the doctor, cold, clinical, with the bedside manner of a stone monkey, had talked to her as if she were a small, stupid child.

“There, there, Faith, no one is following you,” he’d said, wearing a thin, patronizing smile. “No one is watching you. You know that. You’re…you’re just confused. You’re safe here. Remember, this is your home now.”

Tears burned her eyes and she scratched more anxiously, her short fingernails running over the smooth skin of her forearm, encountering scabs. Home? This monstrous place? She closed her eyes, grabbed the headboard of the bed to steady herself.

Was she really as sick as they said? Did she really see people who weren’t there? That’s what they’d told her, time and time again, to the point that she was no longer certain what was real and what was not. Maybe that was the plot against her, to make her believe she was as crazy as they insisted she was.

She heard a footstep and looked up quickly.

The hairs on the backs of her arms rose.

She began to shake as she saw the door crack open a bit more.

“Sweet Jesus.” Trembling, she backed up, her gaze fixed on the closet, her fingers scraping her forearm like mad. The door creaked open in slow motion. “Go away!” she whispered, her stomach knotting as full-blown terror took root.

A weapon! You need a weapon!

Anxiously, she looked around the near-dark room with its bed bolted to the floor.

Get your letter opener! Now!

She took one step toward the desk before she remembered that Sister Madeline had taken the letter opener away from her.

The lamp on the night table!

But it, too, was screwed down.

She pressed the switch.

Click.

No great wash of light. Frantically, she hit the switch again. Over and over.

Click! Click! Click! Click!

She looked up and saw him then. A tall man, looming in front of the door to the hallway. It was too dark to see his features but she knew his wicked smile was in place, his eyes glinting with an evil need.

He was Satan Incarnate. And there was no way to escape from him. There never was.

“Please don’t,” she begged, her voice sounding pathetic and weak as she backed up, her legs quivering.

“Please don’t what?”

Don’t touch me…don’t place your fingers anywhere on my body…don’t tell me I’m beautiful…don’t kiss me…

“Leave now,” she insisted. Dear God, was there no weapon, nothing to stop him?

“Leave now or what?”

“Or I’ll scream and call the guards.”

“The guards,” he repeated in that low, amused, nearly hypnotic voice. “Here?” He clucked his tongue as if she were a disobedient child. “You’ve tried that before.”

She knew for certain that her plight was futile. She would submit to him again.

As she always did.

“Did the guards believe you the last time?”

Of course they hadn’t. Why would they? The two scrawny, pimply-faced boys hadn’t hidden the fact they considered her mad. At least that’s what they’d insinuated, though they’d used fancier words…delusional…paranoid…schizophrenic…

Or had they said anything at all? Maybe not. Maybe they’d just stared at her with their pitying, yet hungry, eyes. Hadn’t one of them told her she was sexy? The other one cupping one cheek of her buttocks…or…or had that all been a horrid, vivid nightmare?

Scratch, scratch, scratch. She felt her nails break the skin.

Humiliation washed over her. She inched backward, away from her tormentor. What was happening to her was her own fault. She’d sinned somehow, brought this upon herself. She was the one who was evil. She had instigated God’s wrath. She alone could atone. “Go away,” she whispered again, clawing more frantically at her arm.

“Faith, don’t,” he warned, his voice horrifyingly soothing. “Mutilating yourself won’t change anything. I’m here to help you. You know that.”

Help her? No…no, no, no!

She wanted to crumble onto the floor, to shed her guilt, to get away from the itching.

Fight! an inner voice ordered her. Don’t let him force you into doing things that you know are wrong! You have will. You can’t let him do this to you.

But it was already too late.

Close to her now, he clucked his tongue again and she saw its pointy, wet, pink tip flicking against the back of his teeth.

In a rough whisper, he said, “Uh-oh, Faith, I think you’ve been a naughty girl again.”

“No.” She was whimpering. There it was…that horrid bit of excitement building inside her.

“Oh, Faith, don’t you know it’s a sin to lie?”

She glanced to the wall where the crucifix of Jesus was nailed into the plaster. Did it move? Blinking, she imagined Jesus staring at her, his eyes kind but silently reprimanding in the semidarkness.

No, Faith. That can’t be. Get a grip, for God’s sake.

It’s a painted image, that’s all.

Breathing rapidly, she dragged her gaze from Christ’s tortured face to the fireplace…cold now, devoid of both ashes and the mirror above it, now an empty space, the outline visible against the rosebud wallpaper. They said she broke the mirror in a fit of rage, that she’d cut herself. That her own image had caused her to panic.

But he’d done it, hadn’t he? This devil whose sole intent was to torture her? Hadn’t she witnessed the act? She’d tried to refuse him, and he’d crashed his fist into the looking glass. Mirrored shards sprayed, hitting her, then crashed to the floor like glittery, deadly knives.

That’s what had happened.

Right?

Or not? Now, feeling the blood beneath her nails, she wondered.

What’s happening to me?

She stared at her bloodied hands. Her fingernails, once manicured and polished, were broken, her palms scratched, and farther up, upon her wrists, healed deep gashes. Had she done that to herself? In her mind’s eye she saw her hands wrapped around a shard of glass and the blood dripping from her fingers…

Because you were going to kill him…trying to protect yourself!

She closed her eyes and let out a long, mewling cry. It was true. She didn’t know what to believe any longer. Truth and lies blended, fact and fiction fused, her life, once so ordinary, so predictable, was fragmented. Frayed. At her own hands.

She edged backward, closer to the window, farther from him, from temptation, from sin.

Where was her husband…and her children, what had happened to her girls?

Terror burrowed deep into her soul. Confused and panic-stricken, she blinked rapidly, trying to think. They were safe. They had to be.

Concentrate, Faith. Get hold of yourself! Zoey and Abby are with Jacques. They’re visiting tonight, remember? lt’s your birthday.

Or was that wrong? Was everything a lie? A macabre figment of her imagination?

She took another step backward.

“You’re confused, Faith, but I can help you,” he said quietly, as if nothing had happened between them, as if everything she’d conjured was her imagination, as if he’d never touched her.

Dear Lord, how mad was she?

She spun quickly, her toe catching on the edge of a rug. Pitching forward, she again caught her reflection in the window and this time she saw him rushing forward, felt his hands upon her.

“No!” she cried, falling.

Glass cracked.

Blew apart as her shoulder hit the pane.

The window broke, shattering. Giving way.

With a great twisting metal groan, the wrought-iron grate wrenched free of its bolts.

She screamed and flailed at the air, trying to reach the windowsill, the filigreed barricade that hung from one screw, the bricks, anything! But it was too late. Her body hurtled through the broken panes, pieces of glass and wood clawing at her arms, ripping her nightgown, slicing her bare legs.

In a split second, she knew that it was over. She would feel no more pain.

Closing her eyes, Faith Chastain pitched into the blackness of the hot Louisiana night.

Dear Reader,

Lisa Jackson, Beverly Barton, and I have more in common than the New York Times bestseller list and a passion for spine-chilling suspense fiction. We happen to share one of the most creative editors in the business: John Scognamiglio. It was John’s idea to team us up for this novel, and I wholeheartedly welcomed the chance to collaborate, under his wing, with two of the industry’s foremost romantic-suspense writers. I’m honored to have known Lisa and Beverly for many years. Not only am I a longtime fan of their writing, but I adore them both as down-to-earth, generous, and genuine women…who just happen to be famous authors!

So I had definitely been looking forward to this collaboration, and was particularly inspired when we settled on a class reunion theme, because it rang true to my own life. To this day, I remain close to a tight-knit circle of high school friends back in my hometown, and I could envision myself in these characters’ shoes as they reconnect with each other and their past. In fact, I happen to be facing a milestone class reunion myself this year…but I’m not saying which one!

Living in the New York City area, I could easily relate to Lindsay’s character in particular. I thoroughly enjoyed making her-and my favorite city-come alive within these pages. My loyal readers will recognize some of my trademark elements in her segment, including an unexpected twist and a couple of secondary characters who aren’t quite what they seem to be.

One of them is Isaac Halpern, Lindsay’s ex-boyfriend who, we learn here, is obsessed with a mysterious woman named Rachel. Of course, there is far more to Isaac’s obsession-and Rachel’s absence-than Lindsay suspects. Isaac will resurface this May in my upcoming suspense novel DON’T SCREAM. Set primarily in a small town in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, the novel features a group of sorority sisters who swore one another’s silence about the terrible truth behind a shocking tragedy. Now, ten years later, they’re approaching their thirtieth birthdays and have long since gone their separate ways to pursue careers, motherhood, marriage, and money. But three of them are about to come together again…for the funeral of the fourth. And so it begins. Someone knows the sisters’ darkest secret. Someone who will see to it that each in turn gets what she deserves: a private surprise birthday party…drenched in her own blood.

Turn the page to read an excerpt from DON’T SCREAM. And be sure to visit my website at www.wendycorsistaub.com to learn more about my other thrillers, or e-mail me at corsistaub@aol.com. I love to hear from readers!

With warmest regards,

Wendy Corsi Staub

September

Ten years earlier

“…and I do solemnly swear that I will never ever tell another living soul what happened here tonight…”

“And I do solemnly swear that I will never ever tell another living soul what happened here tonight,” the female voices echo dutifully; none without a quaver.

Brynn’s is most tremulous of all, barely audible even to her own ears. She prays Tildy won’t notice and single her out to repeat the pledge solo. If that happens…

What will I do?

What can I do?

She’ll just have to go along with it, the way she’s gone along with all of this, right from the start. Against her better judgment, against her conscience, and, ultimately…

Against the law?

Tildy says no. Adamantly. She insists that they haven’t broken any laws.

“It’s not like we’ve murdered someone,” she hissed when Brynn balked at the proposed plan. “Anyone in our situation would do the exact same thing.”

Brynn highly doubts that, but she can’t bring herself to say it.

There was a time when Brynn Costello-apple of her daddy’s eye, valedictorian of her high school class, dean’s list candidate for her first four semesters at Stonebridge College, Zeta Delta Kappa pledge-would have stood up to all of them. Even Matilda Harrington.

So why didn’t you?

Why are you standing here in the woods in the middle of the night being sworn to secrecy?

This can’t really be happening. If anyone ever found out…

But nobody will find out.

They’re not going to tell.

Anyway, Tildy was right when she pointed out that what happened isn’t their fault.

Still…

I just want to get out of here, go back to the sorority house, and forget this ever happened.

Or, better yet, just go home.

Home.

Swept by a wave of nostalgia, Brynn swallows hard over a lump in her throat. She longs for worn oak floors, oval braided rugs, chintz slipcovers. The savory aroma of fresh-brewed coffee and onions frying in olive oil. The radio in the background, sock-hop standards and sixties anthems of the local oldies station. Clutter, and laundry, and people coming and going…

Home.

But the seaside, blue collar household on Cape Cod is two hundred miles and a world away from the campus nestled in the Berkshires, the mountains of western Massachusetts.

And there’s no going back-not the way Brynn yearns to do.

Before her thoughts can meander down the fateful path that ultimately led to Stonebridge College, she’s dragged back to the present. Tildy, apparently deciding their oath needs something more to make it official, solemnly declares, “So help me God.”

“So help me God,” the others obediently intone.

Not Brynn. She just moves her lips, refusing to invoke God. Not under these circumstances.

“Now we’ll sing the sorority song,” Tildy commands, lifting her hand to push her blond hair back from her face. Her sorority bracelet, a silver rope of clasped rosebuds, glints in the moonlight. They’re all wearing them-including Rachel-and each is personalized with dangling silver initial charms.

Brynn manages to join the others in singing. The in-grained lyrics she secretly always considered embarrassingly hokey now seem bittersweet as she forces them past the lump in her throat.

We’ll always remember

That fateful September.

We’ll never forget

The new sisters we met.

We’ll face tomorrow together

In all kinds of weather.

ZDK girls, now side by side

May travel far and wide.

But wherever we roam

Sweet ZDK will be our home.

The sisters’ voices give way to the hushed nocturnal woodland descant: chirping crickets, a rushing creek, and the September breeze that gently rustles the maple boughs high above the clearing.

Then another sound reaches Brynn’s ears…

The faint, yet resonant crack of a branch splintering underfoot.

She clutches her friend Fiona’s arm, asking in a high-pitched whisper, “Did anyone hear that?”

“Hear what?” Tildy’s tone is sharp.

“Shhh!” Standing absolutely still, afraid to breathe, Brynn listens intently.

They all do.

There is nothing.

Nothing but crickets, the creek, a gust stirring the leaves overhead. Just like before.

After a long, tense moment, Cassie says, “I don’t hear anything, Brynn.”

Brynn doesn’t either. Not now.

But someone is there.

She can feel it.

Someone is lurking in the shadows among the trees, listening.

Perhaps even watching…

And recognizing.

September,

Present day

Cedar Crest, Massachusetts

It happened ten years ago this week, just after Labor Day…and just a few miles from here.

In fact, if one knows where to look one can pinpoint up in the greenish-golden Berkshires backdrop, beyond the row of nineteenth century rooftops, precisely the spot where it happened.

And I know where to look…because I was there. I know exactly what really happened that night, and it’s time that-

“Oh, excuse me!” The elderly woman is apologetic, having just rounded the corner from Second Street. “I didn’t mean to bump into you…I’m so sorry.”

She looks so familiar…

It takes just a split second for the memory to surface. Right, she used to be a cashier at the little deli down the block. The place that always had hazelnut decaf. Yes, and she was always so chatty.

What was her name? Mary? Molly?

What is she doing out at this hour? The sky is still dark in the west, and none of the businesses along Main Street are open yet.

Don’t panic. She probably doesn’t even recognize you. Just smile and say something casual…

“Oh, that’s all right, ma’am.”

Good. Now turn your back. Slowly, so that you don’t draw any more attention to yourself.

Good. Now get the heck out of here, before-

“Excuse me!”

Dammit! The old lady again.

What can she possibly want now?

“You must have dropped this when I bumped you.” With a gnarled, blue-veined hand, she proffers a white envelope.

“Oh…thank you.”

Could she have glanced at the address on the front before she handed it over? If she did, could she have recognized the recipient’s name?

“It’s going to be a nice day today.” She gestures at the glow in the eastern sky, above the mountain peaks. “We needed that rain, though, at this time of year.”

“Mmm hmm.” Just nod. Be polite.

“Well…enjoy the day.”

“I will.” But not as much as I’ll enjoy tomorrow. “You, too.”

With a cheerful wave, the woman turns and makes her way down the block.

The post office is just a few doors in the opposite direction. These last two envelopes-the ones to be delivered right here in town-must go out in this morning’s mail.

It’s important that they be mailed from here, so that the recipients will realize that the sender is nearby.

The timing is just as crucial. All four cards need to arrive at their destination tomorrow, on the anniversary.

The others went out first thing yesterday morning-one to Boston, one to Connecticut. That excursion was uneventful. It was raining, and there were no witnesses…

Unlike today.

Now isn’t the time to start taking chances. Not after months of painstakingly laying the groundwork. Not when it’s finally about to begin at last.

Millie.

That’s her name.

The post office can wait. The first pickup won’t be for at least another hour.

What a shame, Millie.

What a shame you weren’t more careful.

Dear Reader,

When our wonderful editor, John Scognamiglio, asked me to participate in writing a novel with fellow writers Lisa Jackson and Wendy Corsi Staub, I couldn’t say yes fast enough. After all, who wouldn’t want to collaborate with two of the most talented suspense/thriller authors in the business? Lisa came up with the basic idea and created the background for the story and the characters. She wrote the first third of the novel, telling the story from St. Elizabeth’s alumna Kristen Delmonico’s point of view. Then Wendy took the book from Portland, Oregon to New York City, and gave us Lindsay Farrell’s story. I came in for the final chapters, taking readers down South where Rachel Alsace lives in Huntsville, Alabama, and then back to Portland for the twenty-year reunion that brings these old friends together for the first time since high school.

Police detective Rachel Alsace once worked for the Chattanooga P.D. with another female officer, Lindsay (Lin) McAllister, and now Lindsay is a private detective for the Powell Agency in Knoxville, Tennessee. Rachel takes note of a serial killer case making headlines in many area newspapers-The Beauty Queen Killer case-because she knows her old friend has been personally involved in tracking this vicious murderer.

When Chattanooga millionaire Judd Walker’s wife, a former Miss Tennessee, was murdered, Lindsay assisted the lead detective on the case. During the investigation she found herself falling in love with the victim’s husband, a man on the edge of self-destructing. Filled with agonized grief and a mad thirst for revenge, Judd hired the Powell Agency, headed by his long-time friend Griffin Powell, to conduct an independent search for his wife’s killer. Four years and numerous murders later, the Beauty Queen Killer is still on the loose, and Judd has still not come to terms with the death of his wife.

Look for Lindsay McAllister and Judd Walker’s story in my next romantic thriller, THE DYING GAME, April 2007. And for those of you who have been clamoring for Griffin Powell’s story, I have good news. You will get the chance to learn more about this to-die-for billionaire P.I. and his mysterious past as he works with Lindsay and Judd to track down a killer who has outsmarted not only the Powell Agency for four years, but also local law enforcement and the FBI. All of Griff’s secrets will be revealed as he’s drawn into a very deadly and a very personal new game of murder in his own novel coming in February 2008.

I always love to hear from readers. You can e-mail me at bbarton@beverlybarton.com. For more information about my books and me or to sign up for my e-mail newsletter, go to my website at www.beverlybarton.com.

Thank you for reading MOST LIKELY TO DIE. Now, take a sneak peek at the prologue of THE DYING GAME!

Warmest regards,

Beverly Barton

The intensely bright lights blinded her. She couldn’t see anything except the white illumination that obscured everything in her line of vision. She wished he would turn off the car’s headlights.

Judd didn’t like for her to show houses to clients in the evenings and generally she did what Judd wanted her to do. But her career as a realtor was just getting off the ground, and if she could sell this half-million-dollar house to Mr. and Mrs. Farris, her percentage would be enough to furnish the nursery. Not that she was pregnant. Not yet. And not that her husband couldn’t well afford to furnish a nursery with the best of everything. It was just that Jennifer wanted the baby to be her gift to her wonderful husband and the nursery to be a gift from her to their child.

Holding her hand up to shield her eyes from the headlights, she walked down the sidewalk to meet John and Katherine Farris, an up-and-coming entrepreneurial couple planning to start a new business in Chattanooga. She had spoken only to John Farris. From their telephone conversations, she had surmised that John, like her own husband, was the type who liked to think he wore the pants in the family. Odd how considering the fact that she believed herself to be a thoroughly modern woman, Jennifer loved Judd’s old-fashioned sense of protectiveness and possessiveness.

When John Farris parked his black Mercedes and opened the driver’s door, Jennifer met him, her hand outstretched in greeting. He accepted her hand immediately and smiled warmly.

“Good evening, Mr. Farris.” Jennifer glanced around, searching for Mrs. Farris.

“I’m sorry, something came up at the last minute that delayed Katherine. She’ll be joining us soon.”

When John Farris raked his silvery blue eyes over her, Jennifer shuddered inwardly, an odd sense of uneasiness settling in the pit of her stomach. You’re being silly, she told herself. Men found her attractive. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t do anything to lead them on, nothing except simply being beautiful, which she owed to the fact she’d inherited great genes from her attractive parents.

Jennifer sighed. Sometimes being a former beauty queen was a curse.

“If you’d like to wait for your wife before you look at the house, I can go ahead and answer any questions you might have. I’ve got all the information in my briefcase in my car.”

He shook his head. “No need to wait. I’d like to take a look around now. If I don’t like the place, Katherine won’t be interested.”

“Oh, I see.”

He chuckled. “It’s not that she gives in to me on everything. We each try to please the other. Isn’t that the way to have a successful marriage?”

“Yes, I think so. It’s certainly what Judd and I have been trying to do. We’re a couple of newlyweds just trying to make our way through that first year of marriage.” Jennifer nodded toward the front entrance to the sprawling glass and log house. “If you’ll follow me.”

“I’d be delighted to follow you.”

Despite his reply sending a quiver of apprehension along her nerve endings, she kept walking toward the front steps, telling herself that if she had to defend her honor against unwanted advances, it wouldn’t be the first time. She knew how to handle herself in sticky situations. She carried pepper spray in her purse and her cell phone rested securely in her jacket pocket.

After unlocking the front door, she flipped on the light switch, which illuminated the large foyer. “The house was built in nineteen-seventy-five by an architect for his own personal home.”

John Farris paused in the doorway. “How many rooms?”

“Ten,” she replied, then motioned to him. “Please, come on in.”

He entered the foyer and glanced around, up into the huge living room and to the right into the open dining room. “It seems perfect for entertaining.”

“Oh, it is. There’s a state-of-the-art kitchen. It was completely gutted and redone only four years ago by the present owner.”

“I’d like to take a look,” he told her. “I’m the chef in the family. Katherine can’t boil water.”

Feeling a bit more at ease, Jennifer led him from the foyer, through the dining room and into the galley-style kitchen. “I love this kitchen. I’m not much of a cook myself, but I’ve been taking gourmet cooking lessons as a surprise for my husband.”

“Isn’t he a lucky man.”

Jennifer felt Mr. Farris as he came up behind her. Shuddering nervously, she started to turn and face him, but suddenly and without warning, he grabbed her from behind and covered her face with a foul-smelling rag.

No. No…no, this can’t be happening.

Had she been unconscious for a few minutes or a few hours? She didn’t know. When she came to, she realized she was sitting propped up against the wall in the kitchen, her feet tied together with rope and her hands pulled over her head, each wrist bound with individual pieces of rope that had been tied to the door handles of two open kitchen cabinets.

Groggy, slightly disoriented, Jennifer blinked several times, then took a deep breath and glanced around the room, searching for her attacker. John Farris loomed over her, an odd smile on his handsome face.

“Well, hello, beautiful,” he said. “I was wondering how long you’d sleep. I’ve been waiting patiently for you to wake up. You’ve been out nearly fifteen minutes.”

“Why?” she asked, her voice a ragged whisper.

“Why what?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“What do you think I intend to do?”

“Rape me.” Her voice trembled.

Please, God, don’t let him kill me.

He laughed. “What sort of man do you think I am? I’d never force myself on an unwilling woman.”

“Please, let me go. Whatever-” She gasped, her mouth sucking in air as she noticed that he held something shiny in his right hand.

A meat cleaver!

Sheer terror claimed her at that moment, body and soul. Her stomach churned. Sweat dampened her face. The loud rat-a-tat-tat of her accelerated heartbeat thundered in her ears.

He reached down with his left hand and fingered her long, dark hair. “If only you were a blonde or a redhead.”

Jennifer swallowed hard. He’s going to kill me. He’s going to kill me with that meat cleaver. He’ll chop me up in little pieces…

She whimpered. Oh, Judd, why didn’t I listen to you? Why did I come here alone tonight?

“Are you afraid?” John Farris asked.

“Yes.”

“You should be,” he told her.

“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”

He laughed again. Softly.

“Please…please…” She cried. Tears filled her eyes and trickled down her cheeks.

He came closer. And closer. He raised the meat cleaver high over her head, then swung it across her right wrist.

Blood splattered on the cabinet, over her head, and across her upper body as her severed right hand tumbled downward and hit the floor.

Pain! Excruciating pain.

And then he lifted the cleaver and swung down and across again, cutting off her left hand with one swift, accurate blow.

Jennifer passed out.