Along Came A Spider

CHAPTER 67

RESSURE, pressure," Jezzie sang along with the tune playing loudly inside her head.

The skin was tight against her forehead as Jezzie maneuvered down the winding mountain road without caution or fear. She leaned into every curve, keeping the powerful bike in fourth gear. The fir trees, jutting boulders, and ancient telephone wires were a blur as she sped along. Everything was fuzzy. She felt as if she'd been in free-fall for over a year, maybe for her whole life. She was going to explode soon.

Nobody understood what it was like to be under so much pressure for so long. Even when she was a kid, she had always been afraid of making a single mistake, afraid that if she wasn't perfect little Jezzie, she would never be loved by her mother and father.

Perfect Little Jezzie.

“Good is not good enough,” and “Good is the enemy of great,” her father used to tell her almost every day. And so she was a calculating, straight-A student; she

367 was Miss Popular; she was on every fast track she could find. Billy Joel had recorded a song a few years back, “Pressure. ” That was an approximation for the way she felt every day of her life. She had to make it stop somehow, and now maybe she had a way.

Jezzie downshifted into third as she approached the lake cottage. All the lights were on. Otherwise, everything around the lake seemed at peace. The water was a sleek black table that seemed to merge with the mountains. But the lights were on. She hadn't left them on.

Jezzie got off the bike and quickly went inside. The front door was unlocked. No one was in the living room.

“Hello?” she called out.

Jezzie checked the kitchen, then both bedrooms. No one there. There was no sign that anyone had been in either room. Except for the lights.

“Hey, who's here?”

The kitchen screen door was unlatched. She walked outside and down toward the dock.

Nothing. Nobody.

The sudden burr of a wing beat sounded off to the left. Blurred wings flapped just over the surface of the water.

Jezzie stood at the edge of the dock and let out a long sigh. The Billy Joel song still played in her head. Selfmocking and taunting. “Pressure. Pressure. ” She could feel it in every inch of her body.

Someone grabbed her. Extremely strong arms like a vise were around Jezzie. She held back a scream.

Then something was being put into her mouth.

Jezzie inhaled. She recognized Colombian Gold.

I Very good dope. She inhaled a second time. Relaxed a little in the strong arms that held her.

“I've missed you,” she heard a voice say.

Billy Joel screamed inside her head. “What are you doing here?” she finally asked.

Part Five i

The Second i i Investigation i t@