Most Likely to Die

by Lisa Jackson

  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.

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sp; 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.
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  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.