But too soon Fran would have wished to have such mundane problems.
A strange thing happened as Fran reached to remove the mail from her parents’ mailbox. Even before she touched or saw the purple envelope, she thought of Neil Hurly. She had of course thought of Neil many times over the course of the summer, since he had died of a horrible cancer. But no thought had ever come to her so strong. A cold sweat rose on the back of her neck, and a tear formed in the corner of one eye. She had loved Neil, she thought, and she had never told him. She couldn’t imagine what could be worse in life. Never once, in the weeks following the incident with the chain letter, had she blamed him for what had happened. He had been sick, after all. He had not been evil.
“Miss you,” Fran whispered under her breath. She almost turned and glanced over her shoulder right then, his presence was so strong. He could have been standing right behind her.
It was a pity he wasn’t. He might have stopped her hand.
Fran reached inside the box and took out the mail.
She noticed the purple envelope immediately.
No, Jesus, no, she thought.
Her heart almost stopped. But her hands did not. Dropping all the other letters and bills and assorted junk mail, her fingers tore into the purple envelope and pulled out the letter inside. She began to read.
My Dearest,
You thought you knew me, but you did not. You thought I was your friend, but I am not. I am the real Caretaker, and I am going to take care of you. Listen closely. . . .
Standing alone outside her house, Fran screamed. Her throat was tight; the sound came out pitifully thin and high. It was doubtful her nearest neighbor could have heard. But the sound of her scream was to echo over the next few days, until it became a full-fledged wail. Her scream was the beginning, if the chain of the letters could be said to have a beginning—or an end.
Chapter One
At the time the second wave of chain letters began, Tony Hunt and Alison Parker were trying to decide whether to make love or never speak to each other again. The situation was filled with contradictions. They were alone in Alison’s house. Her parents were not going to be home for several hours. Neither of them was a virgin. In fact, they were each responsible for their mutual lack of virginity. They had been true to each other the few months they had been dating. They were both healthy, and in a sense they were both willing. But neither of them was happy. That was the main contradiction.
Alison thought the problem was Tony’s fault, and although Tony was normally not one to place blame, he thought it was Alison’s fault. It was she, after all, who had decided to go to college three thousand miles away instead of thirty. The situation had arisen only the previous week when Alison had received a rather surprisingly late invitation to attend NYU to study drama. That was New York University in New York City, on the other side of the country from UCLA, where Alison had been planning to go. Alison had already called the airlines. It took a modern jet five hours to get to New York. For Tony that was an awful long way to have his girl fly. He was going to miss her—boy, was he going to.
But Tony was not unreasonable. He could understand that it was a wonderful opportunity for Alison. She had initially applied to NYU and been turned down because the competition to get in their highly rated drama department was unbelievable. He knew there would be great teachers in New York, and she would learn great things. Yet he also knew that UCLA had an excellent drama department, and that when all things were factored in and set down in two lists—one of pros and one of cons—the fact that he was in Los Angeles, and not in New York, should have been a major factor. And that was why he was upset. Because Alison was acting as if she couldn’t understand why he was upset. She was acting as if she didn’t care.
He hoped she was acting. He really did love her, more than he liked to admit to himself.
At present Alison was pacing back and forth between the kitchen and the living room, wearing a towel on her head and a towel around her midsection and nothing else. She often paced when she was angry. Lately she had been wearing out the carpet. He was still fully dressed, but if they hadn’t started fighting, he would have been in bed with her by now. That was another thing that bugged him. She was mad that he hadn’t at least waited until they had had sex to bring up her relocation venture. Damn, he thought, wasn’t that uncool of him. He didn’t have one of those push-button physiologies they wrote about in Cosmopolitan. He couldn’t be intimate when his mind was going ten thousand miles an hour. He wasn’t a space shuttle, for godsake. But turmoil was no obstacle to her.
“We can talk all we want while I’m away,” Alison said. “There are things called phones. People all over the world use them to stay close to the ones they love.”
Tony grunted. “I’ve heard about them. You have to pay for minutes.”
“We don’t have to talk that much,” Alison said.
“You mean, we don’t have to stay that close?”
Alison finally sat on the couch beside him and angrily crossed her legs. The towel on her head was white. The other was pink. It went well with her very tan legs. She glared at him.
“I don’t understand why you’re trying to make me feel guilty,” she said.
“I’m not trying to make you feel guilty.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You are.”
He shrugged. “All right.”
“Don’t just say all right. Answer me. Why are you doing this to me?”
Tony threw up his hands in frustration. “What am I doing to you? You’re doing it to me. You’re leaving me. I’m not leaving you. You have it backward.”
Alison put on her patient face, which at the moment was a mask of poorly concealed exasperation. But he couldn’t help enjoying her expression, maybe because it belonged to her. Her beauty was unusual, her features at odds with one another, but in a way that somehow brought them together into a whole that was greater than its parts. Her big eyes and her wide mouth were classics. The rest of her, though—her button nose and thick eyebrows—was supposed to be out of style. That was what Cosmopolitan would say. But Alison always had style. She had enough for the next sixty years, in his opinion.
And now her style will have a New York flavor.
Her only physical flaw was her left arm. It was badly scarred from her battle with Neil.
“We wouldn’t be three thousand miles apart if you had accepted that football scholarship to Boston,” Alison said with exaggerated patience. “That was your choice, not mine. Boston would have been just up the road. I refuse to accept full responsibility for this separation.”
“They offered me that scholarship seven months ago,” Tony said dryly. “Nobody was going to New York seven months ago. Nobody was even going together then.”
Alison tapped his leg as if she had just received a brilliant idea. “I bet they still want you! Why don’t you give them a call? We can call them right now.” She stood. “I’ll get their number.”
He grabbed her arm, stopping her. “The football team is probably practicing as we speak. I can’t just call them and tell them I want to be their next starting quarterback.” He let go of her arm. “Besides, I told you, I don’t want to play anymore.”
She was impatient. “Why not? You’re a gifted athlete. How many people are born with an arm like yours? Your talent can open up whole worlds for you. God gave you your abilities to use, not to run away from.”
Now she was cutting low. She knew why he didn’t want to play football anymore. In the middle of his fabulous senior season, he’d hurt his back. At first it had seemed like no big deal. In fact, he’d even gone out for track and done well. But backs were funny, his doctor told him. You could injure them and not feel the full impact of the injury for several months. Shortly after graduation and Neil’s death, he started to wake up in the middle of the night in pain. It was mainly in his lower back, but if he turned the wrong way in bed or bent over too far during the day, the p
ain would shoot into his legs like burning needles slipped into his nerves. He was presently seeing a chiropractor three times a week, and that was helping. The chiropractor thought he’d heal up just fine, as long as he avoided being crunched by two-hundred-and-fifty-pound linemen. But Alison thought chiropractors were quacks, and she often hinted that his injury might be psychosomatic. Yeah, right, he thought sarcastically, it was all in his head. Somebody should tell his back that.
But sometimes Tony wondered if his pain was indirectly related to Neil’s death. He often thought about Neil when he lay awake at night. Supposedly time healed grief, but if that was true, time was taking its sweet time. He missed Neil as much as he had the day Neil died.
But sometimes he felt as if Neil were still right there, beside him. Like a hovering angel. He would turn suddenly and expect to catch Neil’s sweet sad smile. Of course he never did. It was all just wishful thinking.
“It seems to me,” Tony said softly, “that we’ve talked for hours about why I don’t want to play anymore. I’m sure you remember. It has something to do with my back.”
“How do you know your back just doesn’t need a little exercise?” Alison asked.
“Having your vertebrae pulverized by oncoming helmets does not constitute exercise.”
Alison shook herself and almost lost one of her towels. “Why is it we can’t talk without you getting sarcastic? You never used to be this way.”
“I guess this is just the way I am.” Tony was suddenly tired of the argument “What do you want to do? If you want to go to New York—go. I won’t stop you.”
“But you will make me feel guilty about it. You don’t mind doing that.”
Tony shrugged. “I guess I’m just feeling sorry for myself.”
“Why?”
Tony looked right at her. A wet curl of her long dark hair hung over her right cheek, near her eye. He reached out and brushed it away, and for a moment he touched her soft skin and a thousand gentle memories flooded his mind. But he didn’t let his touch linger because the memories only made him sad.
“Because I’m going to miss you,” he told her. “I’m going to miss you more than I can stand.”
She softened slightly. “I’m going to miss you, too, Tony. You know that.”
He continued to stare at her. She was so beautiful. She would be just as beautiful in New York. The guys there would surely agree.
“You’ll meet someone else,” he said.
She was offended. “That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s reality. You’re young. You’re pretty. I’ll be on the other side of the country.” He nodded. “It’ll happen—sooner than you think.”
She stood, mad. “You don’t put much stock in my loyalty, do you? What do you think I am, a slut? I can’t believe you just said what you did. You have some nerve.”
Tony wondered if he had said too much. The problem was—he had just spoken his mind honestly. All during high school girls had pursued him. He had no false modesty about his good looks. He was a blond, blue-eyed, all-American boy, built like a stud. Alison had chased after him at first, too, but now that she was suddenly leaving, it was he who was attached. The experience was new to him, and he hated it. The thought of her dating other guys plagued him like a virus, and he couldn’t be free of it. If he imagined her kissing another guy, he would actually become sick to his stomach.
And what made it all worse was that he was being realistic. Long-distance romances just didn’t work, not when you were eighteen years old. She would meet new guys in New York, and that would be the end of Tony and Alison. In a way he was getting what he deserved. He had, after all, stolen Alison from Neil.
But that’s not true. Neil and Alison were never a couple, except in Neil’s head.
Then again, maybe he and Alison were only a couple in his head.
“You’re not a slut,” he said and sighed. “I’m sorry I said what I did.”
She continued to stand. “You’re trying to hurt me.”
“I’m not. I said I was sorry.”
“It’s a great opportunity for me.”
“I understand that.”
“Then why can’t you be happy for me?” she asked.
“I am happy for you. I’m just more unhappy for me. And I can’t understand—Oh, never mind.” He stood. “I should go.”
It was her turn to stop him. “No. Say what you were going to say.”
“It was nothing.”
“I want to hear it. What can’t you understand?”
Tony looked at her once more. The towel on her head had shifted to the right side and now there was a whole handful of wet hair he could brush away. But he couldn’t bear to touch her again. If he did, he knew he wouldn’t be able to leave, and he had to get away. It was better to end things between them now—so she wouldn’t have to dump him later with a Dear John letter.
“I can’t understand how you can just leave me,” he said. When she began to protest, he raised his hand. “No. Let’s not argue anymore. It’s the difference between us. I would never leave you.”
Alison’s eyes moistened, and she clenched her hands in frustration. “I love you just as much as you love me. How can you say that?”
He shook his head. “I’ve got to go.” He turned away. “Have fun in New York.”
She called to him as he walked toward the door, and by now she was crying openly. “What’s that supposed to mean? You’re going for good? I don’t leave for another two weeks. You’re not even going to come back to say goodbye? Tony!”
He paused at the door, keeping his back to her. “You can do what you want,” he said. “You have my permission.”
“I’m not going to do anything!” she cried, moving closer. “I love you. I just want to be with you.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Then stay, Ali. Stay.”
Her face was a mess of tears. Yet she was also wearing her old friend—her pride. Alison was a proud girl. He had recognized that about her not long after they had met. She wanted to be an actress. No, she wanted to be a famous actress. She wanted admirers. He’d had those once. He’d been the toast of the town when he’d led their high school team to the city championship. But being popular had meant nothing to him. Certainly it had not been worth the price of a bad back. That was another difference between them. Another reason why he should break it off now. Her tearful face was suddenly not so soft.
“I have to go,” she said.
“Then go,” he said. He opened the door. “Goodbye.”
“Tony!”
He let the door close behind him without answering her. Had he paused on the porch, he might not have been able to leave. But he didn’t pause, and the chain of letters had fertile ground to begin again.
Chapter Two
That same afternoon Alison Parker had a date with Brenda Paxson to go shopping for clothes for Alison—warm things to wear in the cold East Coast fall and winter. That morning Alison had had fun planning the stores they would visit and the money they would spend. Alison’s mother had given her a gold credit card with the dangerous instruction to buy what she needed. To Alison that was the next thing to heaven. Yet as Alison drove toward Brenda’s house, she was far from a happy camper. She was dismayed by Tony’s reaction to her leaving. She thought he was being immature about the whole matter. He wasn’t acting at all like the guy she had fallen in love with. That Tony had been as cool as an unlit candle and as secure as a rock. This new guy was clinging to her like an emotional cripple. Sure, he was going to miss her. She was going to miss him. But life was like that. People had to go their separate ways sometimes. It didn’t mean they had to break up. God, she hoped not. She wasn’t interested in anybody except Tony. Even when he was in one of his moods, he was still pretty right on, and he was the only guy she had ever really cared about. She had been dying to hold him earlier, but he had walked out on her. He could be really weird at times.
Brenda was standing outside her house, watering the lawn, when Alison
drove up. She had a red bow in her shiny blond hair and ass-kissing black shorts that showed off her lithe figure. She seemed to be happy, and Alison hoped she was. Brenda wouldn’t be starting college with the rest of them. Her parents were having financial difficulties, and she had to work to help out. She was currently employed by a shipping company and making good money. She didn’t seem to mind the work, and Alison wondered if Brenda wasn’t relieved to be taking a break from studying. Brenda had never been one to hit the books.
“You’re early,” Brenda called, throwing down the running hose on the lawn. “I haven’t had a chance to change.”
Alison climbed out of her car and brushed her hair back. It was a warm day, but windy. It had taken her an hour to drive to her friend’s house from her own. They had grown up around the block from each other, but Alison’s family moved to a new housing tract just weeks before the two girls graduated from high school. The tract had been practically deserted back in June, and it had been there that Neil, in the guise of the Caretaker, had attacked her.
Poor Neil, she thought. He’d been so sick at the time.
Better not think about him. She knew Tony still did, which was probably a big part of his problem with her leaving. Neil had been Tony’s best friend, and best friends were not easy to replace.
“You’re dressed as well as you want to be,” Alison said, walking toward her own best friend. “You love nothing better than sliding around the mall scantily clad.”
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