Her stupid heart was slamming against her ribs. “Great.”

“How about later tonight?”

“Sure, after dinner,” she said, frustrated that she’d just made plans with Tamara. “I’ve got plans earlier, but we could meet somewhere…?”

“How about my place, you remember where it is? The old ranch?”

Like it was yesterday.

“Sure do. I’ll be there, sometime after eight,” she said and found that her damned hands were shaking as she hung up. “Maybe thirteen’s too mature,” she confided to the dog as she dashed to the bedroom to change.

She met Tamara at the small restaurant with its faux stucco walls painted as if they were in a Mexican villa, complete with views of an azure ocean and fishing boats. As if here, on the top of Capital in the south hills of Portland, they had a view of the Sea of Cortez. She tried not to keep looking at her watch or rush the meal, but found it hard to enjoy the platter of fajitas they shared or the piped-in peppy, upbeat, almost frantic music.

Not long after the sizzling platter of shrimp and vegetables was served, of course, the subject turned to Jessie.

“Do you think she’s dead?” Tamara asked. She was on her second margarita while Becca sipped through the ring of salt on her first.

Becca shrugged. She was tired of the question. Tired of not knowing.

“I think she’s just messing with us, like she always did.” Tamara spooned shrimp, onions, and peppers into a warm flour tortilla. “Just because Jessie went missing and just because she attended St. Elizabeth’s doesn’t mean she’s dead.”

“Then who is?”

“God knows.” She licked her fingers. “What did you think of Vangie and Zeke?”

“Déjà vu all over again.”

Tamara snorted. Her red hair caught in the lights high overhead as a waiter called out orders in Spanish to a line cook, visible through an open window to the kitchen. “She was sure flashing that ring. Think it’s real?”

“She acted like she and Zeke were engaged.”

“Wonder if she’s gotten over her jealousy?” Tamara lifted a brow. “She sure as hell kept him on a short leash in high school.”

Becca remembered Evangeline pining after Zeke in high school, attending every game or wrestling match in which he competed, and there were a lot, as Zeke had been a star, all-league athlete in something…baseball?

“Weird, huh, to wait all these years-almost twenty-and still be hung up on the same guy? She should have her head examined, or maybe her palm read, see what’s up with her love line.”

Becca smiled faintly. “Think it’ll show in her palm?”

“Laugh if you will. There’s a reason that astrology and alternative religions or beliefs are still around after centuries and centuries. There’s something to them.”

“You’ve got Renee believing.”

Tamara shook her head. “Renee…I don’t really know what it is with her, she’s the last person I would have thought would look into alternative spirituality. She saw somebody else who spooked her.”

“A woman at the beach.”

“I don’t know what she said that got Renee going, but she’s got a lot to deal with. Her job and Tim-the guy’s practically a stalker, or so she says. She caught him with someone else and basically told him to take a hike, and now he acts like they have to stay together.”

“Through good times and bad.”

“She told you?” Tamara gave her a look.

“We had coffee and wine at Java Man.”

“Thank God I’ve never been married. Engaged twice and once I nearly ran off to Reno with a guy, but I managed to regain my senses first.”

The people at the next table began arguing about their kid’s inability to quit texting messages from her cell phone throughout what the dad insisted was “a family meal. Quality time.”

Glancing at their table, Tamara leaned a little closer over the table toward Becca, whispering, “My point is-it’s got to be worse when you really go through with it. When you walk down the aisle, exchange I dos and plan for your future and family.”

“Been there, done that,” Becca murmured.

“Oh, sorry. I’m an idiot.”

“It’s all right. It never would’ve worked with Ben.”

Tamara raised her margarita to Becca, then took a long swallow. Setting the glass back down, she eyed it critically. “I have to lay off these, they are no good for you, I mean no good. I only drink alcohol when I’m really stressed, like I am about all this Jessie stuff. Much as I believe in ghosts, it’s a little eerie for everyone to think she might be one of the souls who can’t pass over.”

“What are you talking about? You still think she’s alive.”

The waiter returned with the check. They paid the bill and were out the door, walking toward their cars, fighting gusts of late-February wind, the Mexican music following them outside when Tamara said, “Okay, I confess, I had an ulterior motive for meeting tonight. And it’s not completely about Jessie or whoever’s bones were found in the maze.”

“Thank God.”

“Well, maybe. Maybe not.” Tamara fished in her oversized bag for a set of keys. “It’s Hudson. I picked up the vibe between the two of you at Blue Note. Something’s still there, isn’t it?”

Becca couldn’t lie, but she couldn’t admit she’d never gotten over him. “What do you mean?”

“Didn’t you guys ever get together? I always thought you did. I mean a few years after Jessie disappeared, not in high school or anything. I think Vangie said something once.”

Evangeline had always been a gossip.

“I ran into Hudson and Zeke a time or two after high school,” Becca admitted as they reached her Jetta. “And Hudson and I hung out some. Renee knew. Vangie, too, I guess.”

“Just hung out?” Tamara arched a brow.

Becca shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”

“But you still have feelings for him? I mean, come on. I pick up this stuff as a matter of course. You and he were sending out shock waves the other night, so I just want to know, is it on again? Are you seeing him? I don’t want to get in the way, if that’s the case.”

“I’m…not…well…we’re…” She didn’t know how to admit that she was on her way to meet him, that she was thrilled about the chance to be alone with him again, but that she also knew it might be emotional suicide. She’d loved him so much, with that schoolgirl fanaticism that could be fatal.

“What?” Tamara demanded as the wind, icy with winter, kicked up.

“I’m on my way to his place now,” Becca finally admitted, lifting her hands in surrender. A hank of her own hair blew across her face as the wind chased wet leaves across the parking lot.

“Ahh…” Tamara nodded and let out a long sigh as she opened the door of her Mazda. “I was hoping my radar was wrong, but it rarely is. Say hi for me. And if it doesn’t work out, let me know. He’s the best of the bunch. By a looonnnnggg shot. We were all kind of jealous of Jessie back in high school, weren’t we?”

“Yeah, a little.”

“So…if you’re involved with Hudson-”

“We’re not involved.”

“Not yet,” Tamara said. “Then maybe I should set my sights on The Third.”

Becca groaned.

“Or Mitch. They’re both single.”

“So is Jarrett, I think.”

“I’m not a masochist,” Tamara said, swallowing a smile, “but please, please, don’t ask me about sadism.”

She sketched a wave and slid behind the wheel of her car.

Becca, parked two spots over, did the same, nosing her Jetta out of the lot, heading west toward Hudson’s and wondering if she was about to make the biggest mistake of her life.