“Not-gasp-a job!”

“Very funny. There are things I could do. I just haven’t worked in a long time because… well, there were the kids, and then… well, I didn’t have to. David always gave me a very generous allowance. I will say that for the man.”

Lucy crossed her legs under the table and Cass could feel the slight breeze stirred up by her cousin’s foot, which was bouncing with nerves and tension.

“You’re right, though. You are tired, and I am a totally thoughtless, immature, self-centered bitch for not even taking that into consideration. I’m sorry. I was only thinking of myself.”

Lucy forced a smile, then stood up and patted Cass on the back. “Finish your soup, then go ahead and turn in. I’ll go up and change. I’m sorry I wasn’t more considerate. I don’t know what I was thinking.” She tried to lighten up. “Well, of course, I obviously wasn’t thinking. I’m really sorry.”

Lucy began rinsing out glasses at the sink. Her shoulders were bunched and tight. Cass could tell even from looking at her back that Lucy was trying not to cry.

“I’m sorry, too. Sorry I didn’t realize how hard this situation has been for you.”

“I think you’ve had other, more important things on your mind.”

“Well, look, Luce, how ’bout we go for an hour. Would you be content with just an hour? I honestly don’t think I’d last much longer than that.”

“It’s okay. Really. You should go to bed.”

“Oh, hell, Lucy.” Cass finished the last bit of soup. “I can get changed in a flash.”

“Are you sure? You don’t have to…”

“I’m sure. The soup revived me. Besides,” Cass pointed to Lucy’s hot pink Capri pants, “we can’t let those go to waste.”

“Well, yay! I’ll come home the minute you tell me you’re ready to leave, I promise.” Lucy’s face lit up. “Now, you run upstairs and take a real quick shower while I straighten up the kitchen a bit.”

“I’ll be down in twenty minutes.”

“I’ll be up in fifteen to do your face.”

There were a surprising number of people still standing around the bar in the tent that had been erected in the Clarks ’ backyard to celebrate the festivities surrounding the demolition of the old high school and the dedication of the new one. Beyond the tent, a wooden dock, weathered gray, separated the back of the property from the bay.

“Hey, Cass. Over here,” someone called when Cass and Lucy entered the tent.

Cass nudged Lucy with her elbow. “There’s Connie-remember her from basketball?”

“Sure.” Lucy nodded, then waved. “Hi, Connie!”

“Is that Lucy Donovan? For heaven’s sake, girl, come right on over here…”

Cass ordered a club soda and lime for herself and a beer for Lucy from the young bartender, and joined in the conversation with several old classmates.

“I can’t believe you’re a cop,” someone in the group teased. “Aren’t you the one who used to sneak beers from that refrigerator in your aunt’s basement and go sit out on the jetty and toss ’em back?”

“That was Lucy,” Cass denied with a straight face.

“Liar, liar, pants on fire.” Lucy laughed. “I heard that.”

Cass spent several long minutes admiring the photographs of old friends’ children, a few more catching up with classmates who had moved away and returned for the weeklong festivities. She hadn’t realized that so many people had gotten so involved with this old school-new school thing. To her, it was little more than one old building coming down, a newer one going up. But then again, she wasn’t as sentimental as some.

The recent killings were the main topic of conversation, much as she’d suspected they might be, but as the evening wound down, the chatter became lighter, less intense, more personal. Signaling Lucy by pointing to her watch, Cass made it clear it was past time to go. True to her word, Lucy said her good-byes and looped an arm through Cass’s.

“You are the best, you know that?” Lucy told her. “I had such a good time. It was fun to see everyone again, I don’t know why I didn’t keep in touch with those girls. Thanks, Cassie. I owe you.”

“Drive me home and we’ll call it even.” Cass tossed the car keys and Lucy caught them with one hand.

“Poor Cassie, hunting serial killers by day, being dragged around town by her selfish, loony cousin by night.” Lucy got behind the wheel of Cass’s car and slid the key into the ignition. “God will reward you for your good deed.”

“I hope it’s with a good night’s sleep.”

Here and there throughout the tent or around the bar, classmates had gathered to catch up with one another’s lives. Just inside the tent, a group of middle-aged men gathered at a round table. They’d spent most of the night talking about the old times, and doing a little catching up as well. Many of them had remained close enough to the shore towns to come back every summer with families of their own, often returning to the same houses in which they’d grown up. Some still lived in those towns. Others had left the Jersey coast to seek their fortunes elsewhere.

In groups of threes and fours, they struggled to be overheard above the music, which was loudest this close to the speakers.

“Howard, how’s your sister doing these days?”

“Hey, Ebberle, that your Corvette parked out there? You trying to recapture your youth, or what?”

“Did you see Debbie Ellis? Can we say face-lift?”

“Check out the rock old Paulie’s young wife is sporting. You know he never gave Patsy a rock that big…”

He was standing halfway between the table and the bar, listening to some idle chatter, when he saw her, and his heart stopped beating in his chest.

“… so I said, listen, Hal, you can give me a better deal than that on this boat. You know she’s been sitting in dry dock for- Hey, buddy, you all right?”

His companion tapped him on the back.

“You’ve gone white as a sheet, like you’ve seen a ghost.”

The friend followed his gaze across the bar.

“You’re looking at Bob Burke’s girl there? Yeah, she’s a cop here in Bowers Inlet now. And a damned fine one, too. I hear she’s won all kinds of commendations. She’s living in the old Marshall place on Brighton, old lady Marshall left the house to her and her cousin.”

“She’s beautiful. She looks so much like her mother.” He somehow managed to get the words out.

“Oh, no, no. You’re looking at the other girl. That’s the cousin, Kimmie Donovan’s daughter. You must remember Kimmie if you remember Jenny. The Marshall sisters? They were some ten years, maybe fifteen years or so ahead of us, I don’t recall exactly. Kimmie married Pete Donovan… used to race cars on Sunday nights down on Lagoon Lane?”

He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“But you’re right, man, it’s unbelievable how much Kimmie’s girl looks like Jenny. It’s all that dark hair. Boy, she was a looker, that Jenny Marshall. Damned shame, wasn’t it, about her and Bob… they had another daughter who was killed, too. Bastard. Wiped out that whole family, or tried to. Cassie was lucky to get out of there alive, that’s for sure. Damned shame. I hope that bastard Wayne Fulmer rots in hell for what he did to that family. I heard he died about ten years back, still in prison. Stomach cancer, I heard. I hope he suffered. I hope he suffered real bad. He got off easy, you ask me.” The companion took a long swig of his beer.

“They should have turned him over to us, you know? We would have known what to do with that bastard, after what he did to Jenny and Bob and that little girl of theirs. Boy, that was a summer to remember, wasn’t it? First that wacko Fulmer goes nuts and all but wipes out the Burkes, then all those women got themselves killed. Damned Bayside Strangler.” He took another sip of his beer. “Hell of a thing for the town to be remembered for, isn’t it? And now it’s déjà vu all over again, like they say. I told my kid she goes no place without three or four other girls and a couple’a guys while we’re down here. You never know what this bastard is thinking…”