Читать книгу Most Likely To Die - Lisa Jackson - Страница 13

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She hesitated, thought of the opened bathroom window.

“Kris?”

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

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

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

“Exactly, who did know?”

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

“I remember that place.”

“Is it still open?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Don’t let Marmalade out—”

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

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

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

“Two weeks ago. The cable was out.”

“So much for my detecting skills.”

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

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

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

“Yeah, but are you?”

“What?” Dear Lord, was she blushing.

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

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

“Why?”

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

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

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

“I don’t like it.”

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

“Kris—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ross didn’t like what was happening.

Not one little bit.

His family was falling apart.

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

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

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

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

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

Not alone; someone was definitely following her.

A prankster?

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

Someone was messing with his family.

And it was because of the damned reunion.

Remember, Jake Marcott’s killer was never located.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It couldn’t have been that bad.”

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

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

“Nope. Believe me, I tried.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jake had been a student at Western Catholic.

Services were held at St. Ignatius.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“This is important to her.”

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

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

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

“A little late for that, isn’t it?”

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

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

“What more do you want?”

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

“You haven’t filed yet.”

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

“So did I.”

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

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

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

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

“New rule, remember?”

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

The phone blasted again.

“It could be important. My mom—”

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

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

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

“Oh, God…”

“You know Paula.”

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

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

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

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

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

And work it was.

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

J.M.

Big as life.

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

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

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

Which had been perfect.

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

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

She smiled.

Licked her lips.

Oh, how long she had waited.

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

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

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

The killer smiled when she remembered Kristen’s distress.

It had been the beginning.

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

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

Me!

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

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