Portland, Oregon, March 2006

“So, I’m stuck, is that what you’re saying?” Kristen balanced her cell phone between her ear and shoulder as she leaned back in her desk chair and felt a headache coming on. Though time was definitely running out, she’d held out hope that her friend Aurora had found someone else to be in charge of the damned twenty-year reunion. “No one’s willing to take over the job?”

“You were the valedictorian. If you didn’t want to head up the reunion, you should have gotten at least one B, okay? Like in PE or calculus or something.” Aurora Zephyr laughed at her own joke and Kristen imagined her toothy smile and knowing hazel eyes. Aurora was the one student at St. Elizabeth’s that she’d really kept up with over the years.

“If I’d known this was coming up, I would have.”

“Fat chance. Now give up the whole glass-is-half-empty thing. It’s going to be fun.”

“Yeah, right.”

“What’s got into you? There was a time when you knew how to have a good time. Remember?”

“Good time…” Kristen murmured skeptically.

“You’re just going to organize a big party for kids you knew way back when. Get into it, would ya?”

Kristen sighed and leaned toward her desk. “It’s just that I’ve tried to avoid anything to do with St. Elizabeth’s.”

“I know. Because of Jake. We all feel that way. But it’s been twenty years, for God’s sake. Time to get over it. Bury the past and lighten up.”

“I can try.”

“Hallelujah and amen, sister,” Aurora said and Kristen smiled.

“I’ve already rounded up quite a few volunteers,” Aurora added. “Remember Haylie Swanson?”

That psycho who believed that Jake killed Ian Powers? She wasn’t likely to forget. “She’ll be there?”

“Yep. And Mandy Kim. Her last name is Stulz now.”

Mandy Kim. Another girl Kristen hadn’t trusted in high school.

“We’ve got a few others who will show up. I just told everyone to spread the word. The more people involved, the better. I even called Lindsay Farrell and Rachel Alsace, but they both live too far away to help out.”

“I know.” Kristen still received annual newsy Christmas cards from the women who were supposed to have been her best friends.

“Lindsay’s some hotshot event planner in New York and Rachel’s…geez, wait a minute…I know this…”

“She’s in Alabama. A cop.”

“That’s right,” Aurora agreed slowly. “Like her old man. He was with the Portland Police Department for years.”

Kristen felt the muscles in the back of her neck tense. Mac Alsace had been one of the detectives who had worked on the Jake Marcott murder. Despite his and the Portland Police Department’s best efforts, the “Cupid Killer” case had ultimately gone cold. Kristen had heard that Detective Alsace’s inability to solve the murder of his kid’s friend had driven him to an early retirement.

Jake Marcott’s ghost haunted them all.

Kristen hadn’t seen either Lindsay or Rachel since graduation. She remembered them in their caps and gowns, all surface smiles and unexplained tears. The day had been warm for June; Kristen had sweated as she waited to give her valedictorian speech and later, accepted her diploma from Sister Neva, the Reverend Mother. After the ceremony, she’d found Lindsay and Rachel. They’d hugged, posed for pictures, and sworn to keep in touch, but they hadn’t. Not in that first summer before college, not afterward.

Because of Jake.

So many things had changed, because of Jake.

Kristen leaned forward in her chair to watch the aquarium screen saver on her computer monitor where an angelfish was being chased through lengths of sea grass by a darting neon tetra. “Aurora, you should be running this reunion, not me.”

“No way. You’re not weaseling out of it! I figured I could jump-start it for you, but the reunion is your baby.”

“Fine,” Kristen capitulated. “Why not? Believe it or not, I’ve done some work. I’ve got a couple of places who will cater, if we really elect to have it at St. Elizabeth’s.”

“It’s perfect. We were the last all-girls class to graduate and now the school is closing. It would be weird to hold it anywhere else. I did a quick poll of the first few classmates I contacted and the general consensus is to hold the reunion at the school.”

“If you say so.”

“Good. I’m sending you an e-mail with an attachment. It’s everything I’ve done to date. From there on in, you’re in charge. See you in a couple of hours.”

“You got it.”

Kristen hung up, popped a couple of aspirin for the impending headache, then buried herself in her work, effectively putting anything to do with St. Elizabeth’s out of her head as she polished a human interest story about a man and dog who had spent a year walking from Missouri to Oregon via the Oregon Trail. Once she’d e-mailed the story to her editor, she glanced up from her cubicle. The Elvis clock mounted on the temporary wall over her desk swivelled its hips. As the clock kept time, the King’s hands moved around the old-fashioned dial. Right now, Elvis was pointing out that it was nearly six and Kristen, as usual, was running late. She checked her e-mail, found the note from Aurora, and printed out an Excel file which contained more information than she’d ever want on her classmates.

Slinging her purse strap over her shoulder, Kristen stood up and stretched. She’d been allotted this cubicle while one of the newspaper’s more roomy offices was being remodeled. She’d been with the Portland Clarion for fifteen years, long enough to actually warrant an office-a dubious honor given that it felt as if the “higher-ups” scarcely noticed her.

“I’m outta here.” Kristen closed her laptop, placing it and her Excel printout inside her computer briefcase.

“Big date tonight?” Sabrina Lacey asked, two cubicles over, as she tossed back the remainder of her double espresso, then crumpled the paper cup in her long fingers and discarded the remains into her wastebasket.

“Yeah, right.” Kristen scrounged in her purse for her keys and, once the huge ring was found, headed for the door. Sabrina joined her as she wended her way through the labyrinthine desks, tables, and chairs of the Clarion’s newsroom. It had been her first job out of college, the one she thought she’d use as a stepping stone to bigger and brighter newspapers. Though her position had changed over the years-stretching, evolving, mutating-it said something she wasn’t sure she wanted to examine that she was still here.

“You should go out,” Sabrina, all big brown eyes, cornrows, and metal jewelry, insisted. “Find a guy. Have some fun.”

“I’m married, remember?”

“You’re separated, have been for a year, and last I heard, you were going to divorce Ross’s ass.” Sabrina arched a perfect eyebrow.

“I know, I know. It’s just hard.”

“Nuh-uh. I’ve done it three times.”

“Maybe it’ll get easier after the first one.”

“You’ll never know unless you try.” Sabrina stopped at the hallway leading to the restrooms.

“I’ve got a kid,” Kristen reminded her.

“Who’s nearly grown.”

Kristen snorted. “Sixteen does not an adult make.”’

“You tell her that?”

“Every day. Besides, I do happen to have a date tonight, only it’s with half a dozen women I haven’t seen in twenty years. I got drafted into heading the damned high-school reunion.”

“No way.”

“Drafted,” Kristen stressed. “I didn’t volunteer.”

Sabrina wrinkled her long nose. “Can’t you go AWOL?”

“I’m hoping to pawn the duties off on someone more deserving tonight.”

“Good luck.” Sabrina laughed and moseyed down the hall.

Kristen shoved open the glass doors of the newspaper offices and a blast of frigid air, smelling of the river and exhaust, rolled toward her. Dark clouds gathered over the spires of Portland’s highest buildings, and as she hurried the two blocks to the parking lot where her beat-up Honda was waiting, the sky opened up. Flipping up the hood of her jacket, Kristen made a mad dash to her Honda. The car looked as tired as she felt, and the fun was just beginning.