Wicked Game

Chapter Four

Becca pulled her car into the parking lot through driving rain. Her wipers could scarcely keep up with the deluge, and as she turned off the ignition she watched the neon script lights that read BLUE NOTE blur into an indistinct azure haze. So Scott Pascal and Glenn Stafford owned this brick building on the outskirts of Portland in the area known as Raleigh Hills and uncomfortably close to St. Elizabeth’s campus. She still found it odd that the two had teamed up. In high school Scott was a bit of a show-off, all swagger and winks, a flirt, always hinting of something racy or naughty or indecent, while Glenn…she barely remembered him. He did belong to the group, she decided, but he was on the fringe, always hanging close to The Third, like a little lost puppy, hoping to be noticed. As for The Third, he’d always been a pain, had always rubbed her the wrong way; even his nickname had bothered her.

But it was Hudson who had really occupied her thoughts ever since he called. Maybe it would be good to finally see him, to put that old nostalgia and sense of regret behind her once and for all. She didn’t think he was married, at least he hadn’t said so, but who knew? He could be fat and balding and have had three wives and eight or nine children since she’d last seen him.

Somehow she doubted it.

She figured he was probably one of those men who got better looking as they aged, and as for wives, exes, and children, she’d never heard that he’d been married. So now’s your chance to find out. Her hands gripped the wheel. She seemed to forever be waiting in a car, almost afraid to take a breath, conscious that something unpleasant or just plain bad lay ahead of her. This time she was about to meet her old high school friends. Her “gang.” Her buddies.

Her lover.

Becca inhaled a long breath, held it, let it out slowly. Hudson Walker hadn’t been hers. Yes, she’d made love to him. Yes, she’d wanted him. But he’d been Jessie Brentwood’s right from the start, and after Jessie’s disappearance he’d been Becca’s only briefly, and only because Jessie was gone.

She needed to keep reminding herself of that fact.

Pocketing her keys, she stepped out of her Jetta, locked the door, then flipped the hood of her coat over her hair. Walking rapidly through the rain, she headed for the main entrance of Blue Note while traffic streamed by on a nearby arterial that ran east to west. Three steps across the lot and her feet were soaked through her black pumps. Four more steps and she lost feeling in her toes.

What a night.

Shouldering her way through the double doors, Becca headed toward a small maitre d’s podium. A young woman wearing a body-hugging indigo dress and a bright smile greeted her. “Welcome to Blue Note.”

“Thanks.” Becca pushed her hood off her head. “I’m meeting a group of people here, kind of a reunion. We’re with Glenn and Scott, the owners? I think Renee Walker organized it?”

“You mean Renee Trudeau.”

“Right.” Becca had known Renee was married, but she’d forgotten her last name.

“They’re in the private dining room. Right this way.” The hostess led Becca across a polished herringbone floor and through several “rooms” that were really curtained-off sections of a larger space, which added an intimacy to the restaurant, making it seem more luxurious than Becca would have believed possible. The tables were mostly empty on this Thursday night; the votive candles flickering in crystal holders were welcoming despite the lack of patrons to enjoy the ambience. Soft jazz emanating from discreet speakers was wasted on the lonely chairs while outside wind threw rain against the windows that banked one wall.

“Right here,” the girl said, pushing on the bronze levers to a set of frosted French doors. Inside was a long, distressed black table with heavy carved legs. Around the massive table, seated on taupe armchairs, were Becca’s high school friends, every one of whom turned and looked at her as she entered. Water glasses, a few wine goblets, and a couple of short old-fashioned glasses littered the table.

“Becca!” Tamara called, but Becca was still taking in all of the faces. She saw them in a rush of memories, a dizzying kaleidoscope not unlike one of her visions. It was all she could do to murmur a hello to their chorus of greetings and fumble her way to a seat.

“I wondered when you’d get here,” Tamara said, a friendly smile stretching across her face. Tan in the dead of winter, Tamara was crowned with the same wild red hair she possessed in high school. Flamboyant was the word Becca would use to describe her, then and now. Her arms jingled and glittered with rows of bracelets, her hair curled around a face that showed little aging in the twenty years since she’d been a pain in the neck for the nuns and lay teachers at St. Elizabeth’s.

“Becca Ryan. God, it’s been a while,” a man with blond, short-cropped hair said before Becca could do no more than murmur a hello to Tamara.

Her heart sank. She’d know that voice anywhere even if she didn’t recognize the sharp features of Christopher Delacroix III. The Third hadn’t changed much in the twenty years since Jessie’s disappearance. Older, a bit thicker, maybe, although it looked like all muscle, he still possessed the leadership quality-or should she say “belief that they should all do his bidding”-that had made him their unofficial but indisputable ruler. In the past Hudson hadn’t paid attention to The Third’s despot ways, but he hadn’t challenged him for the role, either. Hudson hadn’t been interested in those group dynamics. A part of the group and yet not. Even then, he’d been his own person and had told The Third to “shove it” more often than not. Somehow, despite his disdain for authority, or maybe because of it, he’d been allowed to stay. And Becca had loved him for it.

“It has been a long while,” Becca admitted. “And it’s Becca Sutcliff now.”

“That’s right, you’re married.” He snapped his fingers as he remembered. “You’re with Bennett, Bretherton, aren’t you?” The Third was a lawyer at another firm, and Becca had spoken on the phone with him a couple of times.

Already Becca was regretting attending this meeting. Two minutes with The Third and she remembered what she’d hated about high school. “I’m widowed, actually.” She didn’t add anything else, didn’t want to expose herself. Let them think what they wanted.

He snorted, intense blue eyes focusing on her. “Divorced, here. Don’t know why I ever thought I could be married to anything other than my job.”

She forced a smile and dared a glance around the table. No sign of Hudson yet, though his sister Renee was seated at the end of the table, her dark hair in the same short style Becca remembered from high school. She gave Becca a tight return smile, but Becca sensed it wasn’t anything personal. Renee seemed her usual uptight, disinterested self.

But she called the meeting, remember? According to Hudson, this get-together was her idea. On the table in front of Renee, near an untouched glass of wine, was a stack of papers-along with a neatly folded newspaper with the picture of the Madonna statue.

Tamara said to the group at large, “Is Hudson going to show?”

“He’ll be here. He’s always running late.” Renee met Becca’s eyes, and for the first time in her life, Becca definitely did not feel invisible to Hudson’s twin.

“Well, of course he’ll show,” the woman at the other end of the table stated emphatically as Becca took an empty chair between Tamara and a man she recognized as Jarrett Erikson, another one of The Third’s buddies. With dark hair and a swarthy complexion, he, along with The Third, had loved mercilessly teasing Mitch and Glenn, referring to Glenn as a “nerd with a complex.”

“We all had to show, didn’t we?” the same woman said. She was petite, blond, and nervous, and clung to the hand of the man seated on her left. Beneath the pendant lights suspended above the table, a huge diamond glittered on her left hand. “Kind of a command performance.” She shot a dark look toward Renee.

Becca took a second to remember her: Evangeline Adamson. “Vangie.” She was seated next to Zeke St. John, who greeted Becca with a silent nod. As Becca remembered, Evangeline had always been chasing Zeke, but Zeke hadn’t seemed to want to commit to a relationship. It appeared now, after over twenty years of clinging to a dream, that she’d finally gotten her wish, as there was no question the ring she was wearing was for an engagement. Zeke, meanwhile, looked a little worse for wear. His chiseled jaw had loosened with age, his athletic build was softer, and his once-dark hair was shot with silver.

Hudson’s best friend, who, when he’d been nineteen, hadn’t given Becca the time of day.

Renee pushed back her chair, its legs scraping over the dark hardwood. “Let’s get to it, okay? We don’t need to wait for Hud.”

“You’re pretty hot about that skeleton those kids found up at St. Lizzie’s,” The Third observed. “That’s what this is about, right? You think it’s Jessie’s.”

Leave it to The Third to cut to the chase and ruin all of Renee’s drama. Becca and the rest of the group turned their collective eyes toward her. “Yes,” she said, but before she could go on, Evangeline cut in.

“It can’t be Jessie. I mean…she ran away, right? She was always running away. She told me she was going to run away.”

Vangie had been one of Jessie’s closest friends, an inner circle among the larger clique, Becca recalled.

Jarrett Erikson’s dark eyes gazed coldly at Vangie. “It’s not like we forgot what you told the police.”

“What did I say?” she demanded, affronted.

“Just that. You were her best friend and Jessie told you she was running away.”

“I wasn’t her best friend.”

“We were all good friends,” Renee put in brusquely, intent on pulling the conversation back to her own agenda. “I was a good friend of hers.”

“Yeah, but Vangie acted like she and Jessie were like this,” The Third said, crossing his fingers.

“I don’t know why you’re picking on me!” Vangie sniffed.

“Hard to believe it’s Jessie,” Zeke cut in. His gaze fell on the way Evangeline’s hand clung to his and he moved it to his lap, as if embarrassed.

A cell phone chirped. The Third reached into his pocket, withdrew a sleek BlackBerry, checked the number, then clicked the phone off. “Sorry.”

Renee said tightly, “Okay, so if it’s not Jessie, then whose bones are they?” She glanced around the table, but no one responded. “Come on. Whether we like it or not, we all know that the body up there is Jessie Brentwood and it’ll only be a few days, maybe even shorter, before the police put two and two together.”

“Is that what this is all about, going to the police?” For a split second, The Third seemed unnerved. He grabbed his short, near-empty glass, jiggled the ice cubes, and took a last swallow before cracking one of the melting cubes between his teeth.

Renee shook her head. “No. But they’re bound to come to us again. It’s what they do.” Her gaze skated around the table, to the faces staring at her. “Come on, we all know this thing’s been eating at us for years. Everyone of us has said, ‘I wonder what happened to Jessie. Where she went.’” Renee took a sip of her wine. “Now it looks like she’s been found. Part of the mystery solved.”

“Nothing’s been eating at me,” The Third pointed out, and he seemed relaxed again. An act? Or for real? “And I don’t know what the hell you mean about a mystery. Vangie’s right. Jessie ran away.”

“Are we all going to order something, or what?” Scott asked, his now-bald pate gleaming in the subdued lighting. Becca realized he scarcely had any hair left and apparently chose to shave it off completely. “How about a couple of bottles of wine? Looks like we could use some refills and a few new glasses. Glenn…” He glanced pointedly at his business partner.

Glenn Stafford looked like he’d been enjoying the fruits of his own kitchen. Once thin to the point of being gaunt, he’d packed on the pounds over the years. His shirt stretched a little tight around his middle, whereas Scott was as lean as he’d been in high school and his face was remarkably unlined. Glenn, on the other hand, had deep furrows dug into his forehead, as if the worries of the world lay on his shoulders. His hair was still its same medium brown shade and it was close-cropped and neat. He sent Scott a black look, then pushed back his chair and headed toward a wooden swinging door that presumably led straight to the kitchen.

“Are we ordering food, or just drinks?” Mitch Bellotti asked cautiously.

“Oh, sure.” Scott nodded emphatically. “Glenn, how about a couple of appetizer sampler plates, show everyone our specialties. That way maybe they’ll come back.”

Glenn managed a scowl as he left the room, and Mitch seemed satisfied. The ex-lineman was even thicker around the middle than Glenn, but then he’d always been on the heavy side. He’d had a love of cars that had translated into a career as a mechanic. He’d also always had a love of women and was twice divorced, according to his own admission. Becca could feel his appreciative eye fall on her, but she ignored it, as much to give him the message as to keep The Third and Jarrett Erikson from exchanging amused glances. In high school, Mitch had been the group’s resident clown, always joking. The Third and Jarrett Erikson had referred to him as the Village Idiot behind his back, and Becca sensed their disparagement of him hadn’t changed over the years.

She slid a sideways look at Jarrett, seated on her left. His black hair and black eyes under beetle brows made him seem as if he were hiding secrets. He’d been the least easy to read in high school, and it looked like nothing had changed.

There were a couple of others who had been part of their group, but more peripherally, and they hadn’t been invited to this command performance, apparently, as the only chair unoccupied was waiting for Hudson.

This group of friends, their core, was made up of the people most affected by Jessie’s disappearance.

But Becca still didn’t get why Renee had so wanted this meeting. It wasn’t like they could do anything about Jessie now. She glanced again at the notes so neatly stacked on the black table in front of Renee. Hudson’s twin. And direct opposite.

The door opened, letting in a whoosh of air that touched the back of Becca’s neck.

“Hey.” Hudson’s voice washed over her and her muscles tightened reflexively as she waited for him to move into her line of vision.

“About time, Walker,” The Third said, gazing Hudson’s way, his eyes assessing him carefully.

Becca attempted to ease her stiff shoulders, afraid she looked as tense as she felt.

“Traffic snarl on Sunset,” he answered.

“You’re coming from the west,” Jarrett said as Hudson walked around the table into Becca’s view.

Faded jeans. Tan suede shirt. Thick, dark hair that brushed his collar. I-don’t-really-give-a-damn attitude still intact.

“Shouldn’t be any traffic that way.” Jarrett eyed him carefully.

“You think I’m lying?”

Jarrett backed off with a shrug. “Just think you’re late.”

“Okay, now that the bull rams have locked horns, can we get over this?” Renee asked.

“After we say hello,” Tamara said. She turned to Hudson and added, “Hudson Walker. You haven’t changed a bit.”

“Oh, there have been some changes, all right.” He took a chair next to Zeke, directly across from Becca, and when his gaze touched hers, Becca remembered all too vividly how those blue, blue eyes could dilate in the dark. There was just something earthy and male about him that couldn’t be missed. Of course, as she’d guessed, he looked even better than she remembered, and she kicked herself for noticing, for the sudden rise in her pulse.

“Hey, Becca.”

“Hi.” She smiled a greeting, hoping she’d hidden her true feelings as he greeted everyone else. Pretending to be unaffected, which was damned hard. He seemed to have grown an inch or two, which was probably all her perception. But along with a cynical, “just dare me” smile, he still had that tall, rangy cowboy style going for him. And it was sexy as hell.

Great.

She’d hoped to be immune to him.

But this more mature, more relaxed, more confident Hudson was even more intriguing than he had been two decades before, as sexy a man as she’d ever want to meet. Whereas Zeke’s good looks and appeal had diminished, Hudson’s had increased.

Renee said, “The thing is, I’m doing a story on the discovery of the remains. A piece about high school and what it’s like when one of your friends disappears and how it can affect you. We’ve all dealt with the same questions for twenty years. Where’s Jessie? What happened to her? Did she leave on her own, or was she taken from us? Now maybe we can find some answers.”

Evangeline stared at her in horror. “You’re not serious!”

Jarrett breathed noisily through his nose. “What a bunch of bullshit. Until you know who’s been rotting in the maze at St. Elizabeth’s, you’re writing fiction. I don’t think the Valley Star is big on conjecture.”

“I can theorize, put my spin on it,” Renee said. “I’ve already talked to the kids who found the bones. Great story. Older brother and friends were trying to scare the littler kids by telling ghost stories in the maze, and then one of the kids sees this bony hand reaching upward.”

“Oh, for the love of God.” Evangeline pressed her lips together. “You’re trying to profit from this?”

Renee regarded her coldly. “I want a purge. I want this behind us all. My way is to write about it. I’ve kept in contact with Jessie’s parents all these years because I was a good friend of Jessie’s,” she said directly to Evangeline, “and I think she died in the maze at St. Lizzie’s and I want to tell that story. For Jessie, and for us all.”

Scott said, stunned, “To your paper?”

“Don’t count me in!” The Third stated, glaring. “Jessie ran away, okay? I don’t believe those bones are hers. And I’ve had more than enough wrangling with the police about it. Those bastards wouldn’t leave us alone.”

“McNally wouldn’t leave us alone,” Mitch corrected.

“Who gives a shit? I’m not doing any of it again.” He reached for his glass, then realized it was empty and let it sit on the table.

“The police will figure it out,” Renee went on. “Those are somebody’s bones, and I’m guessing they’re Jessie’s. It’s all over the news. If I don’t write this piece, somebody else will.”

“Oh, yeah. You’re our savior.” Jarrett was sardonic. “You’re writing the damn thing to make a few bucks.” He waved away her arguments. “Gain some attention. That’s what this is all about, and it’s crap.”

“I’d like to know if the body the cops found is really Jessie.” Hudson met Jarrett’s eyes. “And if so, then I’d like to know what happened to her.”

Renee bit back a hot retort and seemed to relax a bit when Hudson came to her aid. “I’ve been thinking about Jessie a lot lately. Remembering what she said. Doing some research.”

“What kind of research?” Becca asked. The vision she’d had of Jessie on the cliff felt very close. It was all too much of a coincidence, and she was starting to feel claustrophobic.

“The Brentwoods never left the area after Jessie disappeared. They wanted to be where she could find them when she returned, but now they think the bones are hers, too. I told them what I wanted to do and we talked about Jessie at length. I think they want closure, too.” Renee looked thoughtfully at Evangeline. “They remember you and Jessie being tight.”

“Wow. Everybody’s telling me how it was. Funny, I don’t remember it that way.” Evangeline pulled her gaze from Renee’s and looked around the room, obviously trying to distance herself from the missing girl. “Can I get a glass of wine or something?”

Scott nodded, appearing irritated as he glanced at the door to the kitchen. “Glenn should be back any minute.”

Renee wasn’t sidetracked. “Before she disappeared…Jessie was on a search herself. Kind of obsessed about it. Kind of looking into who she was. Trying to figure out what made her tick.”

Was that right? Becca had never heard this before.

“Hudson made her tick,” The Third said with a dirty chuckle. Jarrett laughed and Scott grinned.

Renee, on her own track, went on doggedly, “She lived in a bunch of different places before ending up here. She was adopted by the Brentwoods and they moved around a lot.”

“Chasing after her, probably,” Mitch snorted.

“But she always returned until she attended St. Elizabeth’s. She’s missing for a reason. If those are her bones, something happened to her.”

Scott’s expression darkened. “‘Something?’ You mean, like murder? That’s where you’re going with this, aren’t you? Just like McNally. He acted like we were all in on some kind of conspiracy.” Scott half laughed, almost nervously. “What an idiot. He had a hard-on for Jessie and he never even met her.”

“He probably killed her.” Evangeline was serious. “The cop that gets all obsessed about a girl. It happens. You hear about it. Read about it. See it in the movies, like, all the time!”

“Oh, sure.” Jarrett regarded her disparagingly.

“I thought you didn’t believe she was dead,” Scott pointed out.

“McNally didn’t know about Jessie until after she disappeared,” Hudson reminded Vangie.

“Well, I don’t know. Maybe he did and we just don’t know it,” she sniffed.

“Stick with your theory that she’s still alive,” The Third suggested. “It’s not as kookoo as ‘the sex-crazed cop killed her.’”

This was getting crazier by the minute, Becca thought, the conversation nearly drowning out the background music still straining to offer a calm, relaxed atmosphere while everyone in the room seemed on the verge of freaking out.

Tamara shook her head and twisted up one palm, her bracelets musically jingling. “Well, I don’t think the bones are Jessie’s, either. Sorry,” she said to Renee. “Jessie was just too much of a force, y’know? She’s not dead. She’s out there. She was…different. Don’t you remember? She knew things.”

“Here we go with the mumbo-jumbo stuff.” The Third sat back in his chair and Jarrett followed suit. The perfect lieutenant, Becca thought, liking him less and less and feeling the need to run away. She’d never fit into their crowd in high school, and things hadn’t changed. If anything, she was more of a misfit than ever.

“The last time I had my Tarot read, I swear it was all about Jessie. Remember?” Tamara looked to Renee for verification. “You saw it, too.”

“You believe in that junk?” The Third looked around at the rest of them for support, as if to say, “What a bunch of idiots.”

“Oh, learn to have some fun,” Tamara snapped at him.

“You did that Tarot crap, too?” Jarrett demanded of Renee.

Hudson’s twin waved off his attack. “I’ve done a lot of things. We all have. It’s been twenty years, for God’s sake. And sometimes everything isn’t black and white, you know, not cut and dried. We did the Tarot thing and Tamara asked questions about Jessie.”

“So did you,” Tamara reminded her tartly.

Renee nodded. “It’s kind of what got me going on the Jessie story.”

“So you’re not a true believer?” Scott lifted a brow.

“Oh, shut up,” Tamara said to him with a faint smile. “Tell them what you learned, Renee.”

Renee hesitated, then said, “It was something about how I was about to embark on a quest for knowledge. That someone from my past was reaching out to me. And that I should be warned not to let it take over my life.”

Becca eyed Hudson’s twin with a wary eye. This, from Renee? The journalist? The girl who always had her facts so straight? What was going on here? What was Renee’s real angle?

“And so you decided to chase Jessie’s ghost?” The Third looked from her to his friends as if he thought Renee had gone around the bend.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Renee stated coolly, her dark gaze hard.

Hudson asked her curiously, “How long have you been on this story?”

“A while. It’s just weird the bones have turned up now.”

“A sign?” The Third asked with exaggerated interest.

Renee said, “Maybe one of us should call that cop. McNally. Mac.”

“What?” The Third demanded.

“He knows more about the Jessie case than anyone.”

“That’s just begging for trouble,” Jarrett snarled as a chorus of denials rose up. Becca had to agree with them, though she said nothing. She noticed Hudson remained quiet, too. McNally wasn’t the enemy, no matter what Evangeline theorized.

But something had happened to Jessie. Something bad. Something Becca felt she should know. With a chill she vividly recalled every aspect of her vision at the mall: how Jessie had appeared to her, how the ocean had crashed so loudly she couldn’t hear Jessie’s warning, how Jessie’s toes had touched the edge of the cliff above the raging water. She remembered her own heart quivering fear, and the calm, clear way Jessie had stared at her, called to her…

“Becca?”

She jumped back to awareness and turned to Renee. “Yeah?”

“I asked you what you thought.” She regarded her with narrowed eyes. “Do you think the body is Jessie’s?”

Did she?

“Of course it’s Jessie,” Glenn answered, reentering the room carrying a tray with four bottles of wine, two red and two white. A waiter followed after him with glasses and began placing them around the table. A waitress carried a tray filled with platters of bite-sized seafood, everything from fried calamari to crab and artichoke dip to crostini topped with smoked salmon, heirloom tomatoes, and sliced mozzarella cheese. Samples of fried razor clams, steamed mussels, and barbecued oysters followed.

While the waiters placed small plates, glasses, and napkins around the table, Glenn added, “She didn’t run away. Maybe she was planning to, but something stopped her.”

Tamara eyed the heaping trays of food. “I’m on a tight budget.”

“It’s on me,” The Third said in a bored tone that suggested he always picked up the check and found it tedious.

Glenn shook his head as he took his seat. “Compliments of Blue Note.”

Tamara smiled gratefully.

“Everything’s free at Blue Note,” Scott murmured, then waved away the remark as if he were just kidding.

“I’d love to know if those bones belong to Jessie,” Evangeline said, once the waiters had disappeared back through the doors and she was helping herself to the calamari.

“So the cop didn’t kill her?” Jarrett asked, pretending wide-eyed shock.

“I don’t know,” Evangeline said with an edge. “None of us do.”

“She’s alive.” Tamara was sure.

“Oh, yeah, you would know. Communing with Tarot and the stars and the charts and tea leaves…” Zeke didn’t exactly sneer, but the thought was there. He, too, was loading his small plate, and some of the others were serving themselves.

“You haven’t changed a bit, either, St. John,” Tamara said, running a hand through her fiery curls, bracelets dancing and singing. “And yes, I communicate any way I can, with the spirits and the dead…” She lowered her voice to a whisper and waved her hands over the table in a circle, pretending to make her eyes roll upward.

Becca smiled at Tamara’s charade while Scott, Jarrett, and The Third glowered. The whole event seemed bizarre and surreal, enjoying wine and seafood while talking about the gruesome discovery at the school, bones that might be the last remains of Jessie Brentwood. The trays were passed to her, but Becca declined, her appetite nonexistent.

Renee held up a hand to restore order. “What do you think, Mitch?”

Mitch, plucking an oyster from the tray, straightened as if he’d been pulled on a string. “About Jessie? I always thought Jessie just left. She’d done it before. Everybody knew it. Maybe she just ran away again.” He plopped the oyster into his mouth.

“People usually run for a reason,” Hudson said.

“Like a big-ass fight?” The Third shot back. “What was that fight you two had about again? Jessie got pissed because you were making it with some other girl?”

“Nice,” Tamara said.

“Not even close,” Hudson said. The Third’s slings and arrows had never been able to pierce his emotional armor, and Becca was glad to see that still held true.

Evangeline’s lips tightened. “I wouldn’t put it past her. Running away to make a point. Jessie was sneaky. And mean.”

Becca couldn’t believe her ears. Evangeline had been one of Jessie’s closest friends. “Jessie was a little secretive, maybe-”

“You didn’t really know her,” Evangeline cut in. “She had a…a cruel streak, a really dark side.”

“Oh, yeah, she was Satan,” The Third said in a bored tone.

“I’m not kidding, okay! There were things about her that were just plain…” Evangeline swallowed hard and looked out the window where rain was still running down the panes.

“Plain what?” Zeke demanded.

“Scary. Dark. I don’t know. Vicious or evil or whatever you want to call it.” She glanced around at the table and shrugged. “We all know it. We’re afraid to say it because she went missing and something horrible might have happened to her, but we all know deep inside that there was something very, very wrong with Jessie Brentwood.”

Becca couldn’t stand it a second longer. Her vision hovered and she needed air. She scraped her chair back, startling Jarrett. “Excuse me.” Quickly, she shoved open the frosted doors and headed through the maze of curtained rooms. It was all too close. Too confining. Too…malicious. She walked toward the restrooms, then changed her mind and headed for the front doors, where she stepped out into the cool of the night. The rain had slowed to a thin drizzle and the wind had died, but the air was thick, mist rising off the parking lot. She glanced to a line of parked cars where fir and oak trees defined the edge of the lot. Rain beaded on the hoods, and windshields reflected light from the security lamps blazing overhead. Traffic hummed past and the sound of jazz, muted though it was, filtered into the night.

Becca walked along the front of the building, letting the cold February air clear her head, telling herself that she couldn’t admit to anyone that she’d seen Jessie in a vision; they’d all think she’d gone around the bend. But the vibes she’d picked up in that room had all but stifled her. And the body, found at St. Elizabeth’s. Had Jessie really been killed and buried, right there? Laid to rest in a shallow, horrid grave at the base of the statue? But who would kill her? And why? She rubbed her arms and glanced around the parking lot again. A woman in a long raincoat was walking quickly through the sparse cars, skirting puddles. A slim woman with light brown hair falling from her face, just the way Jessie’s had in the vision.

Becca’s breath stopped in her lungs. Her pulse quickened. It couldn’t be. And yet…

Jessie?

At that moment, the woman turned to face her, and even in the poorly lit lot, it was evident she was not the girl Becca had witnessed in her vision. There was some resemblance, yes, but this woman, now clicking the remote to unlock her car, definitely was not Jezebel Brentwood.

You’re cracking up, Becca.

Seeing ghosts.

If Jessie’s really dead, if the body in the maze is, in fact, Jessie’s…

The door behind her opened and she turned, half expecting Hudson to step outside, but she was disappointed when Mitch Bellotti, unlit cigarette crammed into the corner of his mouth, lighter in hand, walked up to her. “Freaky in there, isn’t it?” he said, flicking his lighter and bending into the flame. He drew deeply on his filter tip.

“Yep.” The door swung shut.

He shot a stream of smoke out of the side of his mouth and reached into the inner pocket of his jacket to withdraw a slightly crumpled pack of Marlboros. “Want one?”

“No, thanks.” She shook her head and the pack disappeared. “I just needed a break.”

“You and me both.” He hitched his chin toward one wing of the restaurant. “I gotta say, all this talk about Jessie and if she’s alive or dead. Buried up at the school, rotting…oh, hell…It’s kinda sick.” He took another long drag and shook his head as he looked at the road where traffic, now thinning, was moving slowly. “I don’t need this.”

Becca made a sound of agreement.

The door opened again, conversation and music flowing into the night. Becca glanced over her shoulder and this time it was Hudson, his expression grim, walking outside. “You okay?” he asked her.

“Yeah. Well…sort of.” She shook her head. “This whole thing is so bizarre. It just kind of got to me.”

Mitch was nodding as he squinted through the smoke curling from his cigarette. On the arterial, an impatient driver of a sports car honked at a minivan still idling at the intersection though the light had turned green. “So, Renee’s bent on getting her story, huh.”

Hudson nodded. “I’d like to know if those bones are Jessie’s.”

“Yeah. Well. I guess.” Mitch shrugged.

Hudson’s gaze found Becca’s. “Coming?”

She nodded and walked through the door he held open.

“I’ll be there in a sec,” Mitch said, but was cut off by the door closing with a soft thud.

And then Becca and Hudson were alone in the foyer. No customers were crowded, waiting in line, and even the hostess had left the podium. From behind the curtains there were a few whispers of conversation underscored by the ever-present canned music wafting through the darkened restaurant.

“Helluva way to meet again,” he offered and his smile had an edge to it, a sarcasm deeper than she remembered. “You want to leave?”

“Now?”

“Mmm.”

“With you?”

He lifted a shoulder.

It sounded interesting, but she knew better. Had been burned before. Hudson Walker was one man she couldn’t trust. And then there was the matter of Jessie. “I thought you said we should get through this.”

He grinned faintly, some of the darkness fading from his expression. “Maybe I was just trying to ditch Mitch.”

“Yeah?” Do not be charmed by him. Do NOT! Remember how he left you. Remember that he never quit loving Jessie. Remember that even now, Jessie exists. Will always be there.

“I think I should stay and hear Renee out,” she said, refusing to be tempted by Hudson. “It is weird…those bones…”

Hudson inclined his head and she started walking toward the doors to the private dining room. Time to step back into the fray. As she reached the door, she called over her shoulder, “Come on, Walker. Let’s just get this over with.”

But he was already on her heels and grabbed the door handle, his big hand covering hers, strong fingers curling around the lever. “Let’s hope Renee isn’t going to be as long-winded as I think she is,” he said, opening the door for them both.

First Becca, Renee thought.

Then Mitch.

And finally, so predictably, Hudson.

Three people had left the room. Didn’t want to hear anything about Jessie.

Renee had been watching. Making mental notes. Something was up with Becca, and in Renee’s opinion, the girl had always been odd, just a little out of step. Even twenty years ago, Rebecca Ryan had hung out with their crowd when she’d been a year younger, the only freshman allowed to run with the sophomores. There hadn’t been any rules, of course, just an unwritten code. Renee had thought it was because the goose had been hopelessly in love with Hudson and had manipulated her way into the group, a prediction that had panned out a year out of high school when Hudson had returned from college and Jessie Brentwood was long gone.

Becca and Hudson had hooked up, been joined at the hip for a while. Renee had seen them from her bedroom window, rolling around naked and groping, flashes of their lovemaking visible through the long, shifting branches of the willow tree.

It had been strange, even desperate, Renee had thought, because her brother, whether he admitted it or not, had never gotten over Jessie Brentwood.

Jessie. Renee glanced over her shoulder uncomfortably. She couldn’t help herself. The secrets she’d learned recently had made her realize she was onto a hell of a story, but she was also plagued by bad feelings that had no substance.

Now Renee wasn’t as sure as she’d once been that Jessie Brentwood had just run away. Maybe she had met with tragedy. Wasn’t that what the strange old lady at the coast had suggested? That Jessie had been marked for death, and that just following her trail marked Renee as well?

Renee had thought the woman was just another nutcase until the bones at St. Lizzie’s had suddenly surfaced. Now she wasn’t sure what was going on. And though it was weird to say, she wanted the help of her friends, those closest to Jessie, to keep her on track and resistant to these strange feelings of…well…fear. A part of her even wanted to give up the story entirely, which was ridiculous. She wasn’t going to let anything scare her off.

But…she was spooked. No question about it. And if she was “marked for death” by God, she was going to find out who and why and wherefore. And her friends were going to help her.