by Stacy Juba
"It smells delicious." Her face aflame, Kris shuffled to the window. Sunlight shimmered over the snow enveloping the parking lot. The sky couldn't have been deeper blue.
"Have any plans today?" Eric asked.
"To call your grandmother and firm up her quotes for the story. Maybe drop by your parents' house. Irene told me they have some of Diana's paintings."
"I've seen them in the storage room. I could take you if you want."
"Only if it's no trouble. I don't want to waste your time if you've got something better to do." Kris bit her lip, which felt naked without her standard shade of Plum Passion. She was treating him like a stranger.
"Nothing except correct papers. That can wait. We'll pick up your car, then stop by your place so you can get changed."
During breakfast, Kris loosened up a little. Eric made a mean French toast. He’d sandwiched the bread together, stuffing it with apples and sour cream, then dusted on confectionery sugar.
She looked across the table at him. "This tastes great. You must take after your mom and grandmother."
"I do okay. Luckily, they send me leftovers."
"Does being an only child make you closer to your parents?"
"We're close, but my dad and I used to argue a lot. He wanted to be a musician. When I was a kid, he had me playing every instrument. It got to be a chore."
"That's right, he was in a band. He must be proud of you."
"He'd be prouder if I took it more seriously," Eric said. "In college, he told me that my friends were holding me back. He pressured me into lead vocals, and you know how that turned out. That's why I quit submitting to publishers. Dad would get more disappointed with the rejections than I did. Finally, I told him that he had to stop living his life through me."
"How did you get interested in teaching?"
"I planned to study music in college, but my high school band teacher suggested combining it with an education major. After I graduated, he had an opening for an assistant and my old principal gave me a job. Mom was relieved I wouldn't be touring the country in a run-down van. Dad wasn't thrilled, though."
"That's too bad."
Eric pushed back his chair and started clearing the table. "I always thought there would've been less pressure if I'd had a brother or sister, but I might've been jealous with another kid around. Even my mom and Diana had sibling rivalry. Mom felt left out that Diana and her father were so close. That Diana shared his talent for art."
Funny, she'd assumed Diana would envy Cheryl, not the other way around.
"I can sympathize," Kris said. "My mother favors my sister over me. She's buddy-buddy with Holly, but doesn't know what to say to me."
"Why do you think that is?"
"I don't know. She and Holly have stuff in common, I guess. Mom and I don't." Kris rose and slid the orange juice into the refrigerator.
Eric brushed his fingers over her cheekbone. "About last night ..."
Her heart gave a tight squeeze. "Look, let's keep this low-key around your parents."
"Of course, but maybe we should mention that we're dating. We don't want them to think we're sneaking around. They both like you, so don't worry."
"It's just ... I'm not usually like that. I don't know what came over me. I hope you haven't lost respect for me."
"It was unusual for me, too, but it wasn't a one-night stand, Kris. I want it to be much more." His voice thickened. "But I can't deny that you drive me crazy."
He moved her forward and pressed her against the refrigerator. His masculine cologne rushed through her senses. Kris clutched the milk carton to her side as his palms framed her face. Her mouth opened and invited his kiss. Her body flushed and tingling, she tugged his shirt out of his waistband.
"You drive me crazy, too," she murmured.
"I guess we'll have to do something about that." Eric backed her toward the bedroom.
***
Kris fed her cat, showered and changed, and then Eric drove to Brandywine Estates. As he parked in the driveway, she surveyed the neighborhood by daylight. It must've looked odd when the Soares first moved in, without other houses built. Now most homes had closed-up swimming pools in back and snowmen in front.
Eric gestured to a Ford on the street. "Looks like they have company. Wonder who's here."
Kris recognized the chipped green paint and dented rear fender. "Damn. It's Bruce, the guy writing the story on Diana."
"My mother didn't mention an interview."
"I have a feeling it was unplanned."
They hurried into the living room. Loud voices drifted from the kitchen.
"Come on," Eric said.
"I hate to wimp out, but it might be better if we wait here," Kris whispered. "That time you confronted me at the paper, I told him the funeral home screwed up an obit. If he sees who you really are, he'll make my life hell with my editor."
"He sounds like a jerk."
"Good observation," Kris said.
They listened against the wall, trading tense glances.
"Look, we have no comment," Michael said. "Leave us alone."
"If Diana worked in that dive, she was no innocent," Bruce was saying. "She probably knew her killer."
"How dare you imply that my sister wasn't innocent," Cheryl snapped. "You don't care about the truth. You only care about selling papers."
"That's it," Michael said. "I want you out of here."
"All right, all right, I'm leaving. I can get the story done without you." Bruce slammed the door.
Fists clenched, Kris resisted the urge to chase him. Bruce had no respect for people. She and Eric waited until the car started, then entered the kitchen. Kris couldn't look the Soares in the eye as she visualized what she and their son had done a couple hours earlier.
Cheryl lifted a packet of roast beef and set it back down on the counter. Michael smiled at them and raked a hand through his golden hair.
"We saw you pull up," he said. "What're you two doing here?"
"I invited Kris to look at Diana's paintings in the storage room," Eric said.
"I'm glad you stayed in the living room, Kris. It's better for you to keep out of it."
"It was hard to stay quiet," she said. "I wanted to kill him. Do you know if Bruce saw me, too?"
"He might have," Michael said. "I don't know."
Cheryl pushed past Michael, wringing her hands. He glanced at her. "Honey?"
She seized a bag of potato chips and pitched it across the room. "I can't take this anymore. I can't."
"Honey-"
She wheeled on Kris, tears filling her eyes. "Why did you have to come into our lives? Now you've got my mother convinced you're a miracle worker, and poor Diana will be lambasted in the papers again. Why did you have to dredge this up?" She stormed out.
Too numb to move, Kris stared after her. She'd admired Cheryl, felt comfortable around her. She had thought Cheryl liked her, too. Now that she was involved with Eric, his mother's approval meant even more.
Eric slid an arm around her waist. "Mom’s just frustrated."
"Maybe she's right," Kris said.
"You'll see the story before it runs. You'll make sure it's not damaging."
"I can't guarantee that. Your mother said she might talk to my editor, but I don't know if she has. It probably won't matter."
"Easy. Calm down."
"Cheryl left a message with whoever answered the newsroom phone," Michael said. "She didn't want to put you in the middle, Kris, so she called when you weren't there. She hasn't gotten a reply from your editor yet."
Kris studied his handsome face. Michael hadn't shown an ounce of surprise at Eric touching her. Had Cheryl suspected their relationship, too? Perhaps that had contributed to her outburst. She didn't want her son dating the nosy reporter who was digging up trouble.
"Dad, we're gonna go downstairs."
Michael nodded. "Good luck. And Kris, Eric's right. Don't worry about my wife. That guy just upset her."
"Thanks," she said.
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Kris followed Eric down the wooden steps into the cellar. She sat on a sagging Colonial loveseat, hugging herself from the blast of cold. The Soares had left the basement unfinished, the skeleton of a living room with its scratched coffee table and faded wing chair set up between support beams. Fluffy pink insulation latticed the ceiling.
Eric crouched beside her and rested his hands on her knees. "Forget about it. Mom has a short fuse."
"She hates me."
"She hates that her little sister was killed, and that she's as helpless now as she was then. Come on, we came to see the paintings." He swept the bangs out of her eyes and kissed her cheek.
They maneuvered through the storage room in back of the basement, past broken bicycles, cardboard boxes overflowing with board games and dusty trunks. Scents of mildew and mothballs lingered in the air.
Eric switched on the weak light bulb. He raised the white bed sheets off a painting, sending up thick clouds of dust. Mammoth creatures sprang across the canvas, wings flapping like metal whips, teeth bared, red eyes dripping blood. Hissing snakes wreathed their heads. Eric uncovered another similar scene.
"The Furies," Kris said. "I've read about them. They were goddesses who punished the wicked for their crimes, coming up from hell and chasing sinners across the face of the earth."
"I wish they'd punish Diana's murderer."
Icy chills raced up Kris's spine. "Could that be why she painted them? Because she knew someone had committed a crime? Maybe she knew something that got her killed."
"Or they could just be paintings," Eric said.
He was right. She was overanalyzing it. Hadn't Jared told her about another weird painting?
"It's enough to give you nightmares," Eric said.
Kris stiffened. She should have anticipated he would bring up the subject.
"I was worried about you last night," he went on. "Does that happen often?"
"Eric, please. I don't want to discuss it."
Abruptly, he draped the sheets over the paintings.
"You don't understand," she said.
"That's because you won't tell me."
"I barely know you."
"Funny, after the past twelve hours, I figured we knew each other pretty well. I'd like to know each other on an emotional level, too. Wouldn't you?"
That stalled her. Kris opened her mouth and closed it. She couldn’t tell him she had caused her cousin’s death and lied about it. He wouldn’t respect her anymore, and she could hardly blame him.
He slipped her into his arms. "If you don't want to talk about your nightmares, you don't have to, but I want to hear about your life. How you wound up at the paper. What you did before. More about your mother and sister. You've got an advantage over me. You've interviewed my whole family. At least let me interview you."
Kris sighed. She supposed she could offer him the edited version of her life. "Okay, you win. I'll bore you with the tale of Kris Langley, Crime-Fighting Obit Writer."
"I'd like that story," he said with a grin.
***
Kris wandered her apartment Monday morning, forgetting why she had walked into a room, unable to focus on anything but Eric. They had talked for hours in her apartment until their stomachs growled and they ordered pizza. They matched each other intellectually as well as physically. If only she had gone to public high school, she might have met Eric years earlier. For so long, they had lived in the same town, unaware of the other’s existence. Kris couldn't worry how Cheryl Soares viewed the relationship. It would be nice if they made up, but she was dating Eric. Not his mother.
She brought herself down from her high at the newspaper. Kris located Bruce's story in the central network directory. She swore under her breath as she read the first line.
FREMONT - Every night, Diana Ferguson piled on makeup, dressed in a tight sweater and jeans, and headed out to the smoke-infested Rossi's Bar.
There, she served cocktails to married men who had taken off their wedding rings, and underage college boys who had flashed fake ids. Usually, the 21-year-old went home to her widowed mother after work.
But on Jan. 20, Diana never came home. Two nights later, she was found dead in the woods behind Fremont State.
To this day, her murder has never been solved. Although other violent crimes have occurred in the Greater Fremont area, including the recent homicide of college student Scott Miles at a party, this is the only one that remains unanswered.
While old boyfriends were reportedly questioned in the case, there was never an arrest. Lieutenant Gerald Frank, the detective on the case when Ferguson was killed, admits that she probably knew her killer.
"The victim and the offender are usually at least somewhat acquainted," he said.
Kris had read enough. If Bruce were here, she'd lash a right hook across his perfect cheekbones. According to the erasable schedule board mounted on the wall, he wasn't due in that evening.
Jacqueline slipped up behind her in a long wool coat. She closed matching gloves around her fingers. "I see you've found the story. It'll be Thursday's centerpiece for the front. Bruce says you haven't given him your part."
"No one told me the deadline," Kris said. "You can't use this copy, Jacqueline. Most of it isn't substantiated." Dex listened from his desk, his newspaper lowered.
"That's not your concern. I don't have time to deal with this right now." Jacqueline started to leave, then swung to face Kris again. "By the way, I just got off the phone with Cheryl Soares. I told her that editorial assistants do not edit byline stories. She wanted you to approve the final version."
At least Cheryl had retained some trust in her.
"She's worried the story will be off-base," Kris said. "She's right. This is biased lazy reporting."
"Maybe you're the one who's biased. Now do your job. Bruce says you've been dragging your feet." Jacqueline spun on her heel and strode out of the newsroom.
Kris seized a hardcover dictionary off her desk. She wanted to throw it across the room in Barbie’s wake. That article couldn't appear in print as written. It couldn't.
Dex straddled a chair beside her. "What's going on? Bruce sensationalizing again?"
She slammed down the book, disrupting a pile of faxes. "Yes, and it'll hurt Diana Ferguson's family. I thought journalism was about integrity. Neither one of them cares about the truth. All they care about is their damn headline."
"Let me take a look." Dex was quiet as he read the screen. He sat back. "I must've told the kid a dozen times to use narrative. He listens to me now?"
She waved an arm toward her computer. "This story isn't objective. Bruce is inventing things."
"Jacqueline will take out that lead."
"It doesn't matter. Between the lines, people will think Diana brought on her own murder. He's doing this to piss me off."
"I hate to put this family through the wringer again. Last time, I couldn't do anything. This is supposed to run Thursday?"
Kris nodded, latching onto a small seed of hope.
"Jacqueline won't be back tonight," Dex said. "She's meeting with her divorce lawyer. Tomorrow's her day off. If you can rewrite the story, I'll run it early."
"You mean, go behind Jacqueline's back?" Slowly, the ramifications sank into her consciousness. At the least, this decision would cause Dex major aggravation. It could also cost him his career.
"Why not? I won't last here much longer. I may as well make a difference while I can." Dex didn't meet her gaze.
He had never told her about his rocky footing at the paper. "Dex, are you sure?"
"This is what it's all about, the power of the press, but I don't know how it'll affect you. Jacqueline is gonna be ticked. Is it worth it?"
Kris remembered Irene, nurturing a ferret instead of her deceased daughter. Cheryl confiding her sorrow at the bookstore. Eric holding her in his arms. She forced the newspaper out of her mind. She couldn't think about how she might never be happy in a job again.
"Yeah," Kris said. "It's wort
h it."
Chapter Seventeen
Trail Is Cold, But Unsolved Murder Still Hot Case
By KRIS LANGLEY and BRUCE PATRICK, Staff Writers
FREMONT - Every January, Irene Ferguson places geraniums beside her daughter's headstone. She crouches on the frozen ground, forever haunted by a parent's worst nightmare.
Twenty-five years ago, her daughter, Diana, went off to work at a popular bar. She never came back.
Irene Ferguson called Diana's friends and printed a description in the newspaper. Two nights after Diana disappeared, her mother got the phone call. Diana had been found bludgeoned to death in the woods behind Fremont State College. Her body was wrapped in a garbage bag. Her car had been discovered behind the former Salvatore's Restaurant, now the Horseshoe Pub.
Her mother's only solace would have been to see Diana's killer locked up behind bars. But that never happened.
Today, the Diana Ferguson case remains the Fremont area's only unsolved mystery. Although suspects were questioned, police never had enough evidence to make an arrest.
Lieutenant Gerald Frank, who investigated the murder, estimates that between five and 10 percent of homicides are true mysteries.
"We had no confessions, no eyewitnesses, not even the crime scene as Diana was probably killed somewhere else," he said. "These are the cases you carry with you to the grave."
Diana was last seen alive shortly after 9 p.m., police said. After waitressing at Rossi's Bar, she met friends at the former Campus Pizzeria. She left the college hangout with her former boyfriend, who says she dropped him off at his apartment. From there, police don't know what happened to Diana.
According to Frank, 80 percent of murders are committed by people close to the victim. He doubts that Diana was killed by a stranger.
"Although it's possible that Diana was in the wrong place at the wrong time, the victim and the offender are usually at least somewhat acquainted," he said. "And let me tell you, most murders are about stupid things."
He points to a case in Boston in which a man stabbed his cousin with a butcher knife over a Thanksgiving turkey leg. In a tragedy closer to home, Scott Miles, a 19-year-old Fremont State student, was stabbed to death at a party last month. Rick Huber, a 22-year-old classmate, allegedly jammed a knife into his chest as they both liked the same girl.