The next hour was spent ordering and eating any and all foods Italian, organizing committee heads, and catching up. Pictures of husbands, kids, and boyfriends were passed around, and Aurora admitted that her oldest daughter had just married and was talking of starting a family. Aurora had married right out of high school, had her first child at nineteen, and her daughter had followed in her mother’s footsteps right down the bridal path. Aurora didn’t know whether to be elated or horrified. “Don’t get me wrong. I love babies, but me, a grandma? I’m waaay too young.” She was teased mercilessly, and the general mood at the table turned upbeat.

“What about you, Kris?” Aurora asked. “No pictures?”

Kristen shook her head. “Not with me.”

“You’ve got what? One daughter.”

“Mmm. And the usual axiom applies, sixteen going on thirty.”

There were murmurs of understanding.

“You’re married to Ross Delmonico, right?” April asked, interest evident in her features, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

Kristen tried to evade the question. Didn’t want to cop to the fact that she was separated. “Mmm.”

April picked up on the lack of commitment in Kristen’s tone. Her eyes sparked in interest. She plucked a breadstick from the basket in the middle of the table and snapped it in two. “So what’s the deal?”

Kristen had always been a terrible liar. Besides, there was just no reason to hide the truth. It would come out sooner or later. “Ross and I are separated.”

April tossed her lustrous hair over one shoulder. “Are you nuts?” She took a bite from the breadstick. “I met Ross a couple of times when I was working for the law firm. He’s what my daughter would call ‘a hottie.’” Leaning back in her chair, her expression said clearly that she thought anyone who would let Ross Delmonico slip through her fingers must be brain-dead. She chewed on the breadstick. “So, are you getting a divorce?”

Kristen thought about the papers she had yet to file. “I don’t really know,” she hedged, surprised at her reaction. Hadn’t she just hours before practically told Samantha, her coworker at the Clarion, the divorce was a done deal?

“Well, listen,” April said, as if she were teasing, “if you get tired of that guy, throw him my way, will ya?” She laughed at the joke, but there was something about her suggestion that made Kristen feel defensive. Oh, God, she wasn’t becoming one of those women who thought of a man as “hers,” the kind who only held on tighter when another female showed interest, was she? She smiled at April and said lightly, “Who knows?”

“When you figure it out, let me know.”

At that moment the waitress returned and the conversation drifted into safer territory. April turned her attention to one of the yearbooks lying open on the table, and after they ordered refills, the business of the reunion was brought to the fore once more.

Martina, who was married to Craig Taylor, a graduate from Western Catholic, suggested that their class invite the boys from Western who had graduated in the same year. “I think we should make this reunion special. It’ll be the last of its kind, as St. Elizabeth’s will be closing. Wouldn’t it be cool to have the boys that we did everything with there?”

“Ya think?” Kristen asked warily. Nostalgia aside, this was a little too eerie. “It seems like-”

“Like we’re trying to duplicate the dance where my brother died,” Bella said, and everyone grew quiet once again. Her smile had faded and she contemplated the contents of her wineglass. A crease lined her forehead as she thought. “You know, maybe it’s what we need. It could be cathartic.”

“Probably not for Haylie,” DeLynn said.

“Nothing will be.” April frowned. “As I said, she needs help. Serious help. But it’s not our problem.”

Bella glanced over at Kristen. “I’ll go along with whatever the group decides. Please don’t worry about me, and if we’re thinking about Jake, then what would he say? I think he’d tell us to ‘go for it’ and ‘have a bitchin’ party.’”

“She’s right,” Mandy agreed, still writing on her legal pad.

April eyed a bottle of Merlot. “Then why not?” She grinned wickedly. “It’ll be fun.”

Everyone, aside from Kristen, seemed to concur.

Martina said, “Good. I’ll call Laura. Remember her, Laura Triant? She married one of Craig’s friends. Chad Belmont. He graduated when we did and was Western’s senior class president, I think. Chad keeps in touch with a lot of the guys who graduated from Western.” Martina was running with her idea, nodding her head, her black hair gleaming in the dim lights.

They chose a weekend in July that the school had already approved, then they split into committees, each volunteering to oversee the different jobs that needed to be tackled. DeLynn took over contacting classmates, April wanted to work with the caterers, Martina was in charge of dealing with the boys from Western, Kristen, along with being the general coordinator and treasurer, would make certain that the announcements were sent, and Aurora would assist her. Bella was in charge of decorations. No one mentioned Haylie again.

Mandy Kim, the self-appointed secretary, took copious notes, filling in page after yellow page of a legal pad with information. She worked with the same intensity and focus that she’d exhibited when she was listening raptly to one of Sister Clarice’s lectures on world history twenty years earlier.

Some things never change, Kristen thought as she made her own observations and memos on her laptop.

The general consensus was to meet in a month, again at Ricardo’s, where they all would report their progress. In the meantime they’d be in touch via phone and e-mail.

An hour later the check had been paid and almost everyone had left. Only Kristen and Aurora remained.

“See,” Aurora said, as she stuffed her yearbook into a purse large enough to hold a small computer, “admit it, Kris, this went better than you imagined.”

“Okay, okay, you’re right. Aside from the Haylie meltdown and a few tense moments with Bella, it was okay.”

“Better than okay. It was successful. We got a lot of stuff accomplished and we even had some fun, right? I’m thinking the reunion is going to be a blast.”

“We’ll see,” Kristen said.

“It’s just too bad that Rachel and Lindsay couldn’t have been here.” When Kristen didn’t respond, Aurora added, “You’re still in contact with them?”

“We do the Christmas card thing.” Kristen gathered her things. Aurora was right. The meeting had gone better than Kristen had expected and it had been good to see some of her fellow classmates and find out what they’d been doing since graduation. “Hopefully they’ll make it to the reunion.”

“So why not just call them? You’ve got their numbers.”

“I will.” Kristen walked outside with Aurora.

As she shoved her purse and laptop into her Honda she felt a lot more optimistic that the reunion wouldn’t be a total disaster. She wasn’t convinced that it would be “a blast,” but it might have its fun moments.

After all, she thought, as she slid behind the wheel and turned on the ignition, what could possibly go wrong?

Jake Marcott’s killer sat in her car, the engine idling. Parked on a darkened side street, she watched the restaurant parking lot unobserved. Tension tightened every muscle in her body and she felt an old, familiar need course through her veins. Her palms sweated and her pulse jumped in anticipation.

Chill out, she silently told herself, then felt her lips twist wryly as the advice, offered so often by Jake Marcott, rang in her ears. “Bastard,” she muttered, gaze locked on the front door of Ricardo’s. He’d deserved to die, and she again felt the thrill of knowing she’d put him in his grave.

It had been so long.

Though she’d replayed the scene in her mind a thousand times over, the exhilaration she’d once felt had long ago begun to fade. But now, with the reunion on the horizon, the memories had intensified again, the thrill of killing him and getting away with it. She’d waited so long…and now, finally, she would get her revenge.