“Two weeks ago. The cable was out.”

“So much for my detecting skills.”

“Nancy Drew doesn’t have to worry that you’ll take her job?” Kristen teased and to her surprise, he lifted a dark eyebrow, surprised at her joke.

“Nancy’s safe.” He walked toward her, and in her mind’s eye she remembered making love on the sandy shore of a lake hidden high in the Cascades. It had been near dusk, mist had risen off the clear water, and as they’d kissed and pulled off each other’s clothes, it had seemed that they were the only two people in the universe.

She swallowed hard, licked her lips, and felt her skin flush. Ross had always had that effect on her. Always. Obviously, it hadn’t changed.

“Yeah, but are you?”

“What?” Dear Lord, was she blushing.

“Safe?” He moved close enough that she could smell the rainwater on his skin, hear the creak of leather as he reached around her to place the flashlight on the counter near the sink. The back of his hand brushed against her bare arm and she flinched, as if burned.

“I think we’re blowing this all out of proportion,” she said, stepping away from him. He leaned a hip against the edge of the stove and stared at her. Damn the man, sometimes she thought he could read her mind. “Look, if anyone really wanted to harm me, I would be dead by now. Someone’s just trying to freak me out.”

“Why?”

She tossed her towel on the counter, annoyed that her pulse had skyrocketed. “That’s a good question. I don’t have an answer yet.”

“Are you going to talk to members of the committee?”

“Of course. Don’t worry, Ross, I’ll take it from here.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Well, neither do I, but there it is.” She glanced at the clock on the counter. “Geez, I’ve got to run. I’m gonna be late.”

“Kris-”

“Look, if you really want to help,” she called over her shoulder, half running down the hall, “find the damned cat and let her in. Otherwise she’ll be out in the rain all day.”

She shut the bedroom door behind her and waited, shoulders pressed against the panels of the door, her breath held tight in her lungs until she heard him leave. The back door opened and closed, his truck’s engine roared to life. She let out a sigh. What was it about Ross that made her so crazy? Thinking sexy thoughts about him one minute, wanting to wring his neck the next? “Because you’re an idiot,” she muttered, turning on the spray in her shower, then stripping out of her pajamas.

And there’s a part of you that still loves him.

That thought hit her hard. Ridiculous. Whatever she’d felt for Ross Delmonico was long, long dead. She stepped under the spray and turned the faucet to allow a blast of cold water to hit her full force.

She gasped as the icy needles of water hit her skin.

She would have no more hot, sensual thoughts of Ross Delmonico even if she had to take a hundred cold showers.

Ross didn’t like what was happening.

Not one little bit.

His family was falling apart.

He turned off the radio, flipped on the windshield wipers, and reluctantly turned his black truck toward the freeway. First there was his daughter. Lissa was on a fast train to trouble with her attitude toward school and that scumbag of a boyfriend of hers. He’d been a horny teenager. He knew what that kid was thinking.

Then there was what was happening with Kristen and the damned reunion. He’d been against the thing from the start, figuring it would just stir up her old, unresolved feelings about Jake Marcott. But he’d had no say in the matter. It was her life, which she’d so angrily pointed out on more than one occasion.

He let it go, deciding he’d fought the ghost of Jake Marcott long enough. But now someone else wasn’t letting it lie. Someone else was resurrecting the past.

Ross waited at the ramp signal to northbound I-5, seeing the taillights of thickening traffic, hearing the rush of engines and tires, but driving on automatic, by rote, his mind going over bit by bit what he’d learned in the last twelve hours.

What the hell had Kristen been thinking, going back to the school at night? Alone, for God’s sake.

Not alone; someone was definitely following her.

A prankster?

No way. The light turned green and Ross stepped on the accelerator, threading into the steady stream of traffic heading into the Terwilliger Curves, a section of the freeway known for its winding path through the hills. He held the steering wheel so hard his knuckles bleached white.

Someone was messing with his family.

And it was because of the damned reunion.

Remember, Jake Marcott’s killer was never located.

Ross braked as a semi beside him eased a little close to his lane. The trucker kept control of his rig and Ross gunned it, moving past the eighteen-wheeler.

He saw the exit for Macadam Avenue and jockeyed into position for the off-ramp. He knew what he had to do.

His daughter wouldn’t like it and his wife would throw one helluva hissy fit. But it was just too damned bad. Until this mystery was solved-and maybe even after it was-Ross intended to insert himself back into their lives.

“So…how did the, what did you call it-‘the reunion meeting from hell’? Yeah, that was it. How’d it go?” Sabrina asked once Kristen had settled into her chair. Because of Ross, Kristen was running late. Damn the man. She remembered the concern that etched across his face as he’d stared at the photo and felt warmed.

She had to mentally shake herself. Don’t buy into it. Where was he when you needed him? When Lissa needed him? And who the hell does he think he is that he can just barge into your life and start handing out advice?

“It went,” she said, answering Sabrina’s questions. “Not great, but it went.” She shoved her purse into a drawer and pressed her computer’s ON button.

Sabrina was leaning both hips against the edge of her desk, long legs stretched out in front of her, and pointing a manicured nail in Kristen’s direction. “You survived.”

“Barely.” Kristen rolled her chair away from her computer monitor.

“It couldn’t have been that bad.”

Kristen thought of Haylie’s outburst and the eerie note and tape left in her car. “It was pretty bad.”

“But you couldn’t pawn off the responsibility of running the thing?”

“Nope. Believe me, I tried.”

“Give yourself a chance, you might just have some fun with this,” Sabrina said, a slow smile spreading across her face.

“Think so? Well, get this, you might be invited.”

“Me?” Her black eyebrows drew together. “I didn’t go to St. Lizzy’s.”

“No, but your husband went to Western. Graduated the same year I did, right? Class of ’86?”

Sabrina’s grin slowly fell. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“The vote was to ask the Western boys to join us, so, being as you’re the spouse, you too could be a part of the festivities. Hey! I could work it out so that you could be in charge of decorations or name tags or-”

Sabrina had pushed herself off the edge of her desk. She held her hands in front of her in the classic “stop” position. “Okay, okay. I get the picture. Don’t be signing me up for any committees, and don’t let anyone talk to Gerard. He’s got enough on his plate already.”

“I think someone from Western, probably Craig Taylor or Chad Belmont, will be contacting him.”

She groaned as her phone rang and she turned her attention back to work.

The rest of the day was uneventful. Kristen polished up a couple of stories, turned them in to the editor, then, when things were at a lull, thought more about the tape, marred photo, and the night of Jake Marcott’s death. Surely the newspaper had articles about what had happened that night, the murder and subsequent investigation. She only had to look. At four o’clock, she began searching all the old computer records, but the information went back only twelve years. Eventually, she made her way downstairs and into the basement. In a windowless room with the fluorescent lights humming overhead, she sat on a stool at a small desk and stared into the viewer until she found the first story on Jake’s murder, printed the day after the dance.