Kristen hugged Rachel. “Don’t be alone at any time. I know you carry a gun and are able to defend yourself, but…We all need somebody to watch out for us. I’ve got Ross. Lindsay has Wyatt.” Kris’s gaze crossed Martina’s front yard and paused on Dean McMichaels where he stood talking to four patrol officers. The two squad cars had arrived before Rachel and Dean, but Martina had refused to open the door until Rachel arrived. “Dean’s a good man. Let him look after you. Okay?”

“Don’t worry about me. Just take care of yourself and Martina.”

When the Delmonicos left, Rachel walked over to Dean. With her eyes cast downward, she waited until the officers said their good-byes and headed toward their squad cars, then she looked directly at him.

“How’s Martina?” Dean asked.

“Frightened to death.”

“We found footprints under the kitchen windows,” he said. “I’ve got somebody on their way here to photograph them and make casts. The prints are slightly distorted, as if the person tried to erase them but didn’t have time to completely get rid of all the prints.”

“So, we wait for your crime scene tech person and in the meantime guard the scene?”

“Yeah, around back,” Dean said. “I’ll want Hughes to check for fingerprints on the windows, too.”

Rachel and Dean spent the next twenty minutes, while they waited for crime scene investigator Phil Hughes, making several phone calls. One by one, they telephoned the members of the reunion committee. The purpose of these calls was twofold. One: to warn them to be extra careful. Two: to see if they were at home. Of course, any one of them could have been here at Martina’s and made it home by now. But they had to check, to make sure everyone was accounted for tonight.

Lindsay was with Wyatt in their hotel room. Bella answered on the fourth ring. She was home and said she was just stepping out of the shower. DeLynn didn’t answer her home phone but answered her cell phone. She was at her mother’s, picking up her twins. April didn’t answer either her home phone or her cell phone.

“Just because she’s not answering her phone doesn’t make April a suspect,” Dean said.

“No, but…I can’t stand this!” Rachel’s nerves were on edge. She had worked quite a few murder cases over the years, first in Chattanooga and then in Huntsville, but the victims had been strangers. Everything was different when the victims were people you knew. Old friends. And complicating matters even more was the fact that the most obvious suspects were also old friends.

Dean slipped his arms around Rachel and pulled her into a comforting embrace. At first she stiffened, unsure of herself and of Dean. It had been a long time since she’d leaned on someone for any kind of support or counted on someone to be there for her. When he rubbed his big hand over her back and nuzzled the top of her head with his chin, she relaxed into him. Loving the way he held her so protectively, she eased her arms around his waist and laid her head on his chest.

And that’s the way Phil Hughes found them. Embracing in the dark.

Phil cleared his throat.

Rachel started to jerk away from Dean, but he draped his arm around her shoulders as he turned her to face Phil. The crime scene tech carried quite a bit of equipment, which he set down on the driveway.

“The footprints are under the kitchen windows,” Dean said. “Need help setting up your camera?”

“Nah, I’m fine,” Phil replied, a sheepish grin on his face.

“Then get to it,” Dean told him. “We don’t want to be here all night.”

“Got something better planned?” Phil winked at Dean.

“Get your dirty mind out of the gutter,” Dean said.

Phil chuckled as he headed toward the kitchen windows.

“Check the window frames for prints,” Dean called to Phil.

“Will do.”

Being careful not to disturb the shoe tracks, Phil shined his flashlight on the double windows. He dusted both windows, including the glass panes. When his brush didn’t remove enough powder, Phil blew off the excess and studied the dusted surfaces.

“I don’t see anything. Either our guy was wearing gloves or he didn’t touch the windows.”

Finished with the first chore, Phil then placed the frame his camera rested on above the shoeprints, the frame pointing directly down. The crime scene tech used this type of camera because it showed the ratio of the negative to the original. This meant the original footprints could be reproduced in their precise size.

When Phil finished photographing the tracks, he set about making moulages by spraying the ground under the window with a fixative.

“I’ll need some water,” Phil said. “To mix the plaster. Once that’s done, you two can go on. Damp as it is tonight, it could take an hour or two for the plaster to set.”

“What’s your guess as to shoe size and type of shoe?” Rachel asked.

“Looks like an athletic shoe of some kind. Maybe a size eight or nine. Small for a man. I’d say there’s a good chance these are a woman’s footprints.”

She had waited until after midnight before she drove to St. Elizabeth’s, the lure to return here too powerful for her to deny. But it wasn’t all that great a risk, was it? Not when no one had any idea that she had created a shrine to the past here at the old school. She always parked behind the building where no one would see her car. Being careful and ever vigilant, she never took her own safety for granted.

She made her way down into the basement. Using a high-beam flashlight with a stand attachment, she illuminated the row of lockers. If things had gone as she’d planned this evening, she would have a souvenir from Martina to place in her locker. But the woman was smarter than she’d given her credit for being.

When she had telephoned her tonight, as she stood in the shadows of Martina’s backyard, she had planned on luring Martina outside so that she could kill her.

Are you upset that you’ve blown your diet by eating candy? You should have answered on the first ring. That way, you wouldn’t have spilled your candy all over the floor.

She had been so sure that after she let Martina know she could see her, that she was watching her, Martina would open the back door and search for her. But no, instead of coming outside looking for her caller, Martina had slumped down on the floor and refused to answer the phone again, after she apparently had called Rachel.

You were too smart for me this time. But next time…

The reunion was now less than a week away. It would be only days until they all united at St. Elizabeth’s. The senior classes from St. Lizzy’s, Western Catholic, and Washington High. All the boys and girls now approaching middle age. Twenty years and a lifetime of experience lay between those teenagers and the men and women they were now.

But she would bet her life that none of them had forgotten Jake Marcott or the night he had died.

You’re unforgettable, Jake.

But you knew that, didn’t you?

I certainly haven’t forgotten you. I remember how much I loved you and how much I hated you. And I’ll never forgive you for making me kill my baby.

Our baby.

If you’d taken me to a real doctor for the abortion, I wouldn’t be sterile. You took everything from me. Everything.

Now I’m going to take everything away from them. Those smug girls who thought they were better than me. Those lucky women who found men to love them and had babies and have lived wonderful lives.

Rachel and Dean sat inside his T-bird, the windows rolled down and the top back, but before he got a chance to start the engine, Rachel said, “Kris wears a size seven shoe, or at least she used to. And I believe Lindsay wears a six and a half.”

“I thought you had ruled them out completely as suspects.”

“I have. I was just thinking out loud, running over shoe sizes in my mind.” She turned in the leather seat, her safety belt unsnapped. “I wear a six.”