by Lisa Jackson
Maybe he did. He had to travel in fancy circles these days.
The money had changed Wyatt outwardly, but she could tell, even from the brief time they’d spent together, that it hadn’t changed him inwardly.
He hadn’t lost his sensitive core that had captivated her twenty years ago, would captivate her still, if he’d let her in.
He was going to…
She could tell. Before she dropped the news on him, his walls were coming down. He was making her laugh, trying to put her at ease…
Then I went and ruined everything.
Not that she’d had a choice. She had to tell him; that was why she’d contacted him. He wasn’t going to pretend they were merely catching up; he knew there was something on her mind.
Right, but he thought it was something else.
Would it help if I told you I felt the same way? he had asked.
I never expected that to happen that night. And when you took off afterward, I figured you weren’t interested in someone like me. So I kept it all to myself…
Kept all what to himself? His feelings? He had feelings for her?
She couldn’t help wondering, in the moments before everything fell apart between them, whether there was actually a glimmer of hope.
Was there some way she and Wyatt could—
The ringing of the telephone shattered that thought.
She swiftly finished outlining her lips, set aside her lipstick, and hurried to answer it, checking her watch on the way. Lost in her reverie about Wyatt, she had taken too long to get ready. Now she was late—only by a couple of minutes, but it was probably Isaac on the phone, wondering if she’d forgotten.
“Hey, stranger,” a female voice greeted her.
“Who—oh my God! Aurora?”
“Hey, very good! But would you have known it was me if Kristen hadn’t told you I was going to be calling?”
Truth be told, she had forgotten all about that.
“Are you in New York, Aurora?” she asked, remembering what Kristen had said about their friend’s travel plans. That conversation seemed so long ago.
“Yup, we just got here. Gosh, it’s huge. I’ve wanted to see it all my life, and now here I am. I just wish Eddie could have come, too.”
“Why didn’t he?”
Aurora launched into a brief description of her husband’s duties back home, holding down the fort and shuttling their other kids to their activities.
“He complains, but he’s a great daddy. He’s loved every minute of it. He cried harder than anyone at Tina’s wedding.”
“I’ll bet.” Lindsay found herself thinking of Wyatt again.
She’d never even given him a chance to be a great daddy. And he might very well have been.
But it was too late now.
Their son was grown.
Wyatt had been robbed.
“So when can we get together?” Aurora asked. “Are you busy tonight?”
“Actually, I’m supposed to be somewhere right now.”
“Hmm…tomorrow, then? Or Saturday? We wanted to see a Broadway show, but we don’t have tickets yet. Everything we want to see is sold out.”
“This is a busy time of year,” Lindsay told her. “But what did you want to see? Maybe I can pull some strings.”
“Are you serious?”
Lindsay grinned, noting that Aurora sounded like her old animated self. “Sure. Just tell me which shows you’re interested in, and I’ll try to get a pair of tickets. They might not be the greatest seats, but—”
“Are you kidding, Linds? Any seats would be great. You’re such a doll to do this.”
Linds.
There it was again—the affectionate old nickname that was such a stark reminder of the girl she used to be.
Nobody called her that now. Strange, because shortening somebody’s name was a natural thing to do when you were close to someone.
Then again, nobody was as close to her as those girls—her high-school friends—had once been. You didn’t bond that intensely with others as a grown woman; there wasn’t enough time in the day as it was. And anyway, you weren’t in a phase of your life where you were insecure and dependent on other people.
But you still needed friends.
And Lindsay was more conscious now than ever of the loneliness in her life.
Maybe it’s not just about longing for friends.
Maybe what you need is a different kind of companionship. Something more lasting. More…
Passionate.
Again, Wyatt Goddard popped into her head.
No, he had never really left. Thoughts of him were always there now, lurking just beyond her consciousness, ready to intrude at any given moment.
Hmm…it was really turning out to be quite a week for Lindsay Farrell when it came to catching up with old friends, the killer thought.
First Kristen, then Wyatt, and now Lindsay had just agreed to a Friday night dinner date with Aurora.
She’d even sounded enthusiastic when she agreed with Aurora’s request that they dine at Sardi’s, one of the most touristy restaurants in town, over in the theater district.
But then, she always was a fake and a liar, so what do you expect?
She checked her watch, wondering where Lindsay was off to now. She’d said she was meeting an old friend.
It couldn’t be Wyatt, could it?
No. She’d had Lindsay’s phone tapped all week, and as far as she knew, the only contact she’d had with him had been in messages. They weren’t supposed to see each other until Saturday, when they had their little family reunion up in Connecticut.
A plan was already forming in her mind for that special occasion.
A daring plan, and one that deviated pretty drastically from her vow not to harm anyone other than the targets on her original list.
But now that the idea had sparked, it was pretty hard to ignore.
It was the perfect way to get to Lindsay, to make her suffer what people—some people, anyway—considered to be “a fate worse than death.”
That had been Caroline Marcott’s pathetically wailed phrasing at her son’s wake on that long-ago February day.
Was losing a child really a fate worse than death?
She wouldn’t know.
Maybe she’d soon find out, though. Through Lindsay.
Yes, she’d see that Lindsay suffered that so-called fate worse then death—and then she would suffer death itself.
And then we’ll decide which was worse, she thought.
Oh, wait a minute, Lindsay…you won’t be around for that part.
I guess I’ll just have to decide on my own, won’t I?
Her lips curved into a wicked smile as she hurried out of the hotel room and onto the street, hoping to get to Lindsay’s building in time to tail her to wherever she was going.
“You don’t seem like yourself tonight,” Isaac observed, setting down his margarita glass and studying Lindsay from across the small table, which held an untouched basket of chips and a bowl of salsa.
Lindsay blinked. “I don’t?”
“No. Normally, you would scarf down those chips in a hurry and ask for more. I’d assume it was because you had eaten dinner before you came, if you weren’t so quiet.”
“Sorry,” she said, and made an effort to smile at him. “I guess I’m just thinking about work.”
“No, you aren’t.” Isaac’s gaze was intent. “Who is he?”
She frowned. “What makes you think there’s a he?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Is it a she?”
“No.”
He swung his arm and snapped his fingers in feigned disappointment. “I was convinced for a second there that the only reason you dumped me was because you played for the other team.”
She winced even as she grinned. “I didn’t dump you, Isaac. It was mutual.”
“I’d have kept it going if you wanted to.”
Maybe that was true. Maybe it wasn’t.
It didn’t matter now
.
He had moved on to Kylah…but not, by the sounds of it, past Rachel.
Oh, well.
That was somebody else’s problem now.
And you have enough of your own, she reminded herself, her mind clouding over again at the thought of Wyatt. And Leo.
She was almost tempted to confide in Isaac. He, after all, was far removed from the world she’d left behind twenty years ago. There was no danger that he’d spill her secret.
But you don’t have to worry about that anymore, anyway. Wyatt knows.
Yes, and he was the reason she had kept it so carefully hidden all these years. Because she didn’t want it to get back to him.
Now that he knew what she had done…
Well, there really wasn’t a compelling reason to protect her past so adamantly.
Sure, her parents would be disappointed. But they had mellowed through the years, and anyway, their approval didn’t carry the weight it had when she was living under their roof, dependent on their bank account.
Her old friends would be shocked.
Jake would have been, too.
But his imagined reaction was moot. He had been dead for two decades. And even if he had lived, she wouldn’t possibly still be trying to shield him from the evidence of her fling with somebody else, would she?
Not unless they were married or something…
And she and Jake Marcott never in a million years would have gotten married.
She knew that now.
Jake didn’t have the qualities she’d want in a husband.
Jake didn’t even have the qualities she wanted in a boyfriend.
But she never let on about that—about what kind of person he had really turned out to be. You didn’t speak ill of the dead.
“So who is he?” Isaac asked again, thoughtfully nibbling the curved triangular edge of a tortilla chip.
“He’s just someone I used to know, back in Portland,” she heard herself admit.
Must be the tequila.
“Old boyfriend?”
“Not really.”
“Did he get back in touch with you?”
“I did, actually.”
“Have you seen him, or just talked to him?”
“Seen him.”
“And you wish you hadn’t, right? Because things have fizzled?”
“No, that’s not it at all.”
“I didn’t think so.” Isaac nodded. “There was still something there, right? And it scared the hell out of you?”
“There’s more to it than that.”
“There always is. Is he married?”
“No!”
“In prison?”
“No!” She shifted her weight uncomfortably. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“I can tell. Let me just say one thing, and then I swear I’ll change the subject. You haven’t seen this person in years, and he was someone you once cared about. You’re not married, he’s not married…or in jail. An added bonus.”
She barely cracked a smile at his weak joke.
“All I’m saying is that I can see how someone like you would get scared off and walk away. And you shouldn’t do it. Take it from me, Lindsay. You don’t want to have regrets. If I ever had another chance with Rachel—”
“It isn’t like that at all,” she cut in.
“In some ways, it is. We all lose people we love, Lindsay. Not all of us are lucky enough to find them again. If we do, we shouldn’t let go that easily.”
“You’re talking about you and Rachel, not me and—”
“You’re right,” he said, his dark features having taken on the potent expression he always wore when Rachel’s name came up. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m just—”
“Obsessed?”
She meant it lightly, but his scowl told her this wasn’t a joking matter. Not to him.
Not any more than Wyatt was to her, but for far different reasons.
“Let’s just drop it,” she said. “Okay?”
“Definitely.”
And they tried to talk about other things. Her job, his work as a computer-software engineer, his new girlfriend, the Yankees, the weather.
But none of it banished the ghosts of the past that swirled around their table, and Lindsay was grateful to call it a night.
Isaac offered to walk her home, but she declined. She lived only a few blocks east of here, and it was hardly on his way; he had to go west to take the subway downtown.
They parted with a promise to get together again soon, but she wasn’t entirely sure that they would.
As she made her way along the narrow block leading east from Lexington Avenue, a vaguely uneasy feeling crept over her.
The street wasn’t deserted; not in this neighborhood at this hour on a beautiful night in May. The block was lined with luxury apartment high-rises and a smattering of older brick buildings, some with security-gated storefronts on the ground floor. Colorful annuals tumbled from stray planters and the occasional windowbox, and every so often the sidewalk blocks were broken by a carefully tended young tree.
A few people were out and about: an elderly man leaning heavily on a cane, a young couple strolling holding hands, a stout middle-aged woman walking a pair of impossibly small dogs joined by a single leash.
Lindsay snuck a glance over her shoulder and glimpsed a dark figure about a third of the way down the block behind her. It seemed to dart into a doorway abruptly…
Almost as if the person didn’t want me to see him.
But it was probably just her imagination.
Whoever it was must have happened to arrive at his destination just as she looked back. Paranoia made her think he was trying to hide from her.
She turned her head forward again and walked on, much more quickly, looking over her shoulder all the way home.
That was a close call.
The killer crouched in the shadows beside a tall yellow brick apartment building, trying not to breathe in too deeply. A foul-smelling garbage can was just a few feet away.
What if she had seen you?
Relax. Even if she did, she wouldn’t recognize me.
The wig, the thick glasses, the padding…
It was an apt disguise. Such an apt disguise that she didn’t even recognize herself whenever she caught a glimpse of her reflection in a plate-glass window as she passed.
That was a strange feeling—being invisible right in plain sight.
But it shouldn’t have been.
Not for her.
Wasn’t that the reason all this had started in the first place?
Yes. And now it was almost time to bring it full circle.
What goes around comes around…
Hearing the voice echoing in her head, bringing with it a vague memory of something painful, she tried to remember who it was who’d said that to her.
One of her teachers?
Sister Neva?
Oh.
It was Jake, she realized. Well, wasn’t that a coincidence.
“What goes around comes around,” he’d said, laughing at her as she’d cried.
Now, looking back, she couldn’t remember what she was crying about—only that he’d hurt her, in return for some perceived injury she’d supposedly inflicted on him.
Trembling, hiding in the building’s shadows beside the smelly garbage can, she closed her eyes and saw Jake Marcott’s smirking face.
What goes around comes around.
Yes, it sure does, Jake, she told him now, remembering the satisfying whiz and thwack of the arrow as it slammed into him, pinning him against the tree. Remembering the look of shock on his face as he glanced in horror at the slowly spreading red stain on the front of his shirt, then up at her.
He asked why, in a voice that was almost too weak to discern.
Why, indeed.
She didn’t bother to answer his pathetic question.
There wasn’t time; she had to get away, back to the others. She had to prepare herself to react to the
shocking, so-called tragedy that was about to strike them all.
And anyway, there was no reason to explain it to Jake. He should have known why.
It was his own fault. His, and theirs—the girls whose lives had, in some way or other, been intertwined with Jake’s, and, fatefully, with her own.
Jake had paid the price for his sins.
Haylie had, too.
And one by one, the others would join them, forever becoming part of the legend of St. Elizabeth’s school.
Oh, yes, what goes around comes around, she thought gleefully, brazenly stepping out of the shadows after all, into the pool of light from a street lamp.
She gazed down the block, hoping to see Lindsay scuttling off like a frightened child.
She was already gone.
Oh, well. It was enough, for now, to know that she was poised at the perimeter of Lindsay Farrell’s charmed life.
Poised like the wrecking ball that would soon claim the old school where it had all begun.
And when it came time for release, she would swing in with all her might, destroying everything in her path.
Chapter 20
Lindsay would have known Aurora Zephyr anywhere.
Spotting her old friend perusing the wall of famous caricatures just inside the entrance at Sardi’s on Forty-fourth Street just off Broadway, she stopped short and took in the sight of her.
She had the same dark curly hair, the same crinkly hazel eyes that widened in delight when she turned and saw Lindsay.
“Oh my God! Look at you!” she squealed, hurrying over to embrace her. “You’re so sophisticated!”
“I am?” Lindsay looked down at the trim black suit she still wore from a long day at the office. There had been no time to run home and change.
“God, yes! Especially standing next to me!” Aurora had a point, but Lindsay would never admit it to her.
Slightly overweight in a bright colored dress, sheer tan panty hose, and a pair of low-heeled white pumps that were at least a few years old, her friend fit right in with the hordes of tourists crowding the lobby area of the famous restaurant.
“You look terrific, Aurora,” Lindsay told her. Maybe not sophisticated, but who cared about that? Her old friend truly was a breath of fresh air, and Lord knew she needed one tonight.
“Oh, come on, I’m an old frump. I’m going to be a grandmother before the year is out, you know. I never thought I’d live to see the day, but here it comes.”