“Yeah. I feel the same way.”

Silence.

Their smiles disappeared.

“Are you really going to look into Jake’s old files?” Kristen asked.

Rachel nodded. “You’ll never guess who’s one of the two detectives assigned to the Cold Case Homicide Unit.”

“Dean McMichaels.”

“You knew and didn’t tell me!”

Kristen’s smile returned. “I honestly didn’t even think about it. I knew Dean was a detective with the Portland Police Bureau, but I really didn’t know he was working the Cold Case Homicide Unit.”

“He has certainly changed,” Rachel said.

“Has he? How?”

“Well, for one thing, the guy is drop-dead gorgeous.”

“He always was,” Kristen said. “You just didn’t notice because all you could see was Jake.” She sighed. “Like so many of us. You, me, Lindsay, Mandy, and half our class. Were we idiots or what!”

“Jake didn’t love any of us, you know,” Rachel said. “Not even Lindsay.”

“Yeah, I know.” Kristen grimaced. “God, I hate the very thought of opening all those old wounds. I wish Aurora had never talked me into heading up the reunion committee. She told me that because I was valedictorian, it was my duty.”

“Now Aurora’s dead.”

Silence.

The waiter brought the food Kristen had ordered, along with a bottle of wine from the Pearl Wine Shop located on a lower level of the restaurant.

“Kris, if Aurora’s death wasn’t an accident and if that homeless guy didn’t kill Haylie, you do know there’s a possibility that someone-maybe whoever killed Jake-has decided to eliminate the girls who formed the inner circle around Jake.”

Kristen took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “The thought has crossed my mind, but the question is why now? Why wait twenty years? And why kill any of us? What is this person’s motive?”

“Why now, twenty years later? My guess would be the reunion ignited some kind of spark in this person. All of us getting together again stirred up the past for him or her. Why this person would want to kill us-I don’t have a clue.” Rachel reached for her wineglass. “Of course, all of this is merely conjecture on my part, but as a cop, I’ve learned to rely on my gut instincts, and they’re screaming like crazy. I think the only way to find out if my assumptions are correct is to look into Jake’s murder case and find out just who Jake Marcott really was.”

After taking a sip of wine, Kristen nodded. “And it doesn’t hurt that you’ll be working side by side with to-die-for Dean.”

Rachel grinned. “He asked me out.”

“Dean asked you for a date?”

Rachel nodded. “Tonight.”

“You work fast, my friend. You do know he’s one of the bachelors in Portland. Ever since his divorce, he’s played the field, broken a few hearts, and walked away from two incredible ladies, both wild about him, or so I hear.”

“Are you informing me or warning me?”

“A little of both.”

“Did you know his wife?”

“No, not really, but I met her once. A perky little blonde. I think she was a cheerleader in high school. She had her own local thirty-minute TV show for a while. She came here from Sacramento, and I heard she went back there after the divorce.”

“I despised him, you know,” Rachel said as she picked at her plate of edible delights. “When we were kids.”

“I know you two fought like cats and dogs, but I always suspected that was because you two were really hot for each other and neither of you had sense enough to admit it.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Are you telling me that you really weren’t hot for him back then and that you don’t think he was nuts about you?”

“We are talking about the same person, aren’t we? Dean McMichaels. Student at Western Catholic. The guy who lived next door to me and pestered the crap out of me almost every day of my life from kindergarten through high school.”

“Don’t you remember my trying to tell you once that you should forget about Jake and grab Dean before he got away?” Kristen said.

“Yeah, I remember, but at the time I thought you were just trying to steer me away from Jake and cut out some of the competition.”

Kristen and Rachel laughed simultaneously, relieving some of the tension that the mere mention of Jake’s name created.

“Let’s enjoy our meal and forget about everything else for a little while,” Kristen said. “And now that you’re here in Portland and planning on staying until the reunion, we’ve got plenty of time to catch up on everything.”

“Including trying to figure out who might want to kill you and me and Lindsay.”

She sat far enough away from Kristen and Rachel so that they couldn’t see her, but by scooting her chair to the edge of her table, she could watch them from a distance.

She couldn’t believe her good fortune-Rachel had come to Portland four weeks before the reunion, and word was that Lindsay and Wyatt Goddard might come in early, too, a couple of days before the reunion. Everything was working out even better than she had hoped. She wouldn’t have to seek them out, wouldn’t have to make another out-of-town trip the way she had when she went to New York City. All her victims were coming to her. How sweet!

Today, she had followed Kristen from her office, keeping a discreet distance so she wouldn’t notice the car that was tailing her. She’d had no idea Kristen was meeting Rachel for lunch, although she’d heard that Rachel was planning to spend a month with Chief Young and his wife. If by any chance Rachel and Kristen walked by her on their way out of Andina’s today, they wouldn’t recognize her, not in her elaborate disguise. She had begun to enjoy trying out different disguises. She now owned three wigs-blond, red, and black. Today she wore the red wig, along with a pair of frog-eyed glasses and a row of ear studs that made it appear that she had pierced both of her ears at least a dozen times. Purple nail polish and lipstick complemented the outlandish orange and purple gossamer robe that swept behind when she walked.

Look at them sitting there laughing, enjoying themselves, reminiscing about the good old days. They were probably talking about Jake, about how handsome he’d been, what a stud he’d been, how his kisses had tasted, what it had felt like to have him ramming into each of them. She didn’t know for sure that he’d fucked Kristen and Rachel, but knowing him the way she had, she figured he had fucked them all.

But he never loved any of them. Not even Lindsay.

He loved me. Only me.

And I loved him.

Jake, why did you make me do it? Why did you force me to destroy something so precious?

You deserved to die after what you did.

And they deserve to die. All of them.

Two down and four to go.

One by one, they’re each going to join you in hell.

Mandy Kim Stulz felt uneasy. And not for the first time in recent weeks. Overactive imagination, she told herself. No one was watching her, following her, keeping tabs on her comings and goings. At their most recent class reunion meeting, hadn’t everyone been on edge? Kristen, DeLynn, Martina, April, and Bella had each admitted that the deaths of fellow classmates Haylie Swanson and Aurora Zephyr unnerved them more than just a little. After all, both women had died violently in the past two months and both had been on the reunion committee.

And both had known Jake Marcott. One had hated him; the other had adored him.

Stop thinking such nonsense. Haylie had been murdered during a home robbery and Aurora’s death had been an accident. Neither had anything to do with their being on the reunion committee or with Jake Marcott.

But try as she might, somehow Mandy couldn’t shake the notion that the two deaths were more than a horrible coincidence. And she couldn’t forget the sick photograph she’d received in her invitation to the reunion.