Most Likely to Die

by Lisa Jackson

  “I thought the entire ‘you’ve found your birth mother’ was some crazy hoax that a pervert had played on me,” Leo told them. “When Mr. Lester came to see Ma and told her about you two…It’s a lot to take in.”

  “We don’t want to rush you,” Lindsay said. “If you can’t find a place in your life for us, we’ll understand. But we wanted you to know that we care, that we’d very much like to get to know you, for you to get to know us.”

  “Not necessarily as your parents,” Wyatt interjected as he glanced at Betty Cellamino. “If you’ll give us a chance, we’d like to be your friends. But it’s up to you.”

  “I—I think I’d like to get to know both of you.” Leo stared directly at Lindsay. “But nobody will ever take Ma’s place. She’ll always be my mother.”

  Intense pain and unbearable sadness enveloped Lindsay, but she bore it as best she could and even forced a fragile smile when she looked at her son. “Just being given a chance to be a part of your life is more than I’d ever expected.” It was all she could do not to reach out and grab him. Her arms ached to hold her child.

  Betty Cellamino nudged Leo forward. Reluctantly, he held out his hand to Lindsay. She opened her arms. Leo hesitated. Betty gave him another nudge. He walked into Lindsay’s open embrace, his long, lean body stiff as a poker.

  Lindsay hugged him. Briefly. But it was enough. For now.

  When Leo stepped back, Wyatt wrapped his arm around her shoulders and held her close. When his lips brushed her temple, she sighed. After twenty long years, both the man she had always loved and their child were back in her life.

  At eight-thirty West Coast time, Rachel placed a telephone call to her father’s old partner on the Portland Police Bureau. Charlie Young was now the chief of police, a man only a few years younger than her father would have been had he lived. The first few years after Rachel had moved to Tennessee with her mother after her father’s death, Charlie and his wife, Laraine, had kept in touch on a regular basis. Charlie had wanted to keep tabs on Rachel, his old friend’s only child. And despite the fact that her parents had divorced a few years before her father’s deadly heart attack, her mother and Laraine Young had remained good friends.

  When she heard Charlie’s gravelly voice, the sound brought back memories from her teenage years when she had been like a daughter to the childless Youngs.

  “Uncle Charlie, it’s Rachel.”

  “Well, hello, girl. How are you?”

  “I’m fine. How are you and Aunt Laraine?”

  “Older, fatter, and grayer.” He chuckled.

  “I—I’m thinking about coming to Portland for a visit.”

  “Hmm…Coming back in July for the reunion at St. Elizabeth’s.”

  “Probably, but I may come in before July.”

  “You’ll stay here with us, of course. Laraine wouldn’t let you stay anywhere else.”

  “I’d love to, but do you think you can put up with me for five or six weeks?”

  “That long, huh?” He chuckled again. “Are you planning on taking a leave of absence or—”

  “I’m on leave already,” she told him. “I was wounded in the line of duty a few weeks ago.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m getting there.”

  “Then hop on the next plane and come on out here.”

  “Uncle Charlie?”

  “Yes?”

  “I want to ask a favor.”

  “Sure thing. What do you need?”

  “I would like to take a look at the files from the Jake Marcott murder case.”

  Charlie Young let out a long, low whistle. “Why do you want to do a thing like that? That case is colder than the polar ice cap.”

  “Let’s just say that all this talk about a high-school reunion has brought back a lot of memories. Besides, I’ll need something to occupy my time while I’m there.”

  “You’re not still pining away over that Marcott boy, are you? I’m sure your dad never told you that we found out a few not-so-pleasant things about that kid.”

  “No, I’m not still pining away over Jake,” she assured her dad’s old partner. “And when I get to Portland, I want you to tell me all about those not-so-pleasant things you found out about him.”

  Chapter 24

  Portland, Oregon, June 2006

  Nearly two weeks after Rachel spoke to Charlie Young, she arrived in Portland, the town where she had grown up. The City of Roses. Originally, she had thought she could just pick up and go, but she’d been wrong. First of all, her doctor had refused to allow her to travel until after her scheduled checkup, and then she’d had to okay leaving the state with her captain at the Huntsville Police Department. Odd how she’d done a complete turnaround about going back to Portland for the St. Lizzy’s reunion. When Aurora had called her back in March, she’d been totally uninterested. No way in hell. The past was better left there, along with all the memories, both good and bad.

  Now, Aurora was dead.

  An accident.

  Or was it?

  Haylie was dead, too.

  A victim of a robbery gone bad.

  Or was there more to her death than met the eye?

  Those e-mails from Kristen and Lindsay had piqued Rachel’s curiosity, her law-enforcement training kicking in and making her ask a hundred and one unanswered questions about the deaths of two old friends. If she’d been smart, she’d have simply accepted both deaths for what they probably were, what the police in Portland and in New York City had accepted. But a niggling doubt in the back of her mind kept bothering her, kept eating away at her until she had known what she had to do. Go back to Portland, under the guise of a St. Lizzy’s alumna returning to the city for a long-overdue visit before the twenty-year class reunion.

  Adding to the two untimely deaths of old classmates were the not-so-coincidental situations with Lindsay and Kristen. Lindsay had been attacked by an unknown assailant in her own apartment, and Kristen had been—and possibly still was being—stalked by some unknown person.

  And what about those marred senior photographs? The dead women had each received one of the ruined invitations.

  Rachel could not accept that two deaths, an attack, and a stalking, all of the victims her old friends, all four women connected to Jake Marcott and St. Lizzy’s, were mere coincidence. No, it didn’t wash. There was something wrong with the scenario, and her gut instincts told her that in some crazy way it had something to do with the reunion, with her group of friends from high school, and with Jake Marcott. He was the common denominator. A boy who had been loved and hated in equal measure. A boy who had been shot through the heart with an arrow—Cupid’s arrow—at their senior high Valentine’s Day dance.

  She had arrived at PDX, Portland International Airport, and picked up her rental car yesterday. Then the twenty-minute drive through town had allowed her to see just how much had changed and yet how so many things remained the same. The Willamette River, which flows northward to the Columbia River, divided the city into east and west sides; the west side waterfront was the business section of town, with Northwest Twenty-third a trendy area with boutiques, shops, and restaurants. Where the Blitz brewery had existed, now the area was referred to as “The Pearl District” with trendy condos and lofts.

  Uncle Charlie and Aunt Laraine now lived in a gorgeous new house in a new neighborhood. Uncle Charlie had been at work when she arrived, but Aunt Laraine had welcomed her with open arms and shown her to a guest bedroom and bath on the ground level.

  “You’ll have your own key, of course,” Laraine had said. “And you can come and go as you please. There’s a side entrance and a kitchenette, too. We bought this place when Mother moved in with us.” Laraine had sighed heavily. “We lost Mother three years ago. But she lived a good life. She was eighty-nine.”

  Despite how much she had wanted to go directly to Charlie’s office and get started with going through the old files on the Jake Marcott case, Rachel had spent the rest of the day with Laraine.
But at dinner that evening—yesterday evening—she had brought up the subject with Charlie.

  “Well, if you’re that determined, I suppose I don’t see what harm it’ll do for you to spend some time going through all the old records,” Charlie had said. “It’s been a cold case for nearly twenty years, so it’s not like you’re stepping on anybody’s toes. Plus it was your dad’s case, and you are a police officer.”

  So, this morning she had awakened early, showered, and dressed in a pair of tan slacks, pale blue silk blouse and lightweight navy blazer, comfortable loafers, and an oversized shoulder bag. After breakfast with Charlie—coffee and an apple Danish—they headed for downtown.

  Headquartered at 1111 SW Second Avenue, the Portland Police Bureau was larger than Huntsville’s, but the office space had a familiarity that put Rachel at ease. And it helped that several of the older officers had worked with her dad and they remembered her from the old days.

  “I’m going to turn you over to one of our detectives in the Cold Case Homicide Unit,” Charlie told her. “He’ll authorize you to have access to any and all material from the Marcott case. Like you, he had a connection to Jake.”

  “Oh?” Rachel wondered which one of her former acquaintances had gone into law enforcement as she had. One of the St. Lizzy’s girls? Or maybe a Western Catholic or Washington High grad?

  Charlie led her to a cubicle in the back where a man sat, his head down as he peered over The Oregonian, a statewide newspaper.

  Charlie cleared his throat. The man glanced up. Rachel’s heart skipped a beat. She stared into a set of golden brown eyes the color of rich, dark honey. He grinned. What a wickedly flirtatious grin.

  The man stood to his full six-two height and held out his big hand. “Hello, Rachel. It’s been a long time.”

  She studied his handsome face. Square jaw. Hawkish nose. High cheekbones. And a mane of thick wavy sun-kissed brown hair.

  “Dean McMichaels?”

  “Yeah. Don’t tell me you didn’t recognize me.”

  “No…yes, I mean, not at first.”

  “Well, since no introductions are necessary, I’ll turn her over to you, Dean.” Charlie put his arm around Rachel’s shoulders and gave her a paternal hug. “If you need anything, honey, just let me know.” He looked right at Dean. “You treat her right, you hear me?”

  “Yes, sir.” Dean saluted Charlie, who chuckled, hugged Rachel again, and walked away, leaving her to face the boy who had made her life a living hell when they were kids.

  “Have a seat.” Dean indicated the swivel chair at his desk.

  Rachel sat. He propped his hip against his desk and faced her. “So, why do you want to put yourself through the misery of looking at all those old records about Jake’s murder?”

  “I don’t know,” she lied. “I’m on leave from work—” When he raised a speculative eyebrow, she explained, “I was wounded in the line of duty and won’t be going back to active duty for another month. As I said, I’m on leave and Kristen and Lindsay wanted me to come to the reunion, and Uncle Charlie and Aunt Laraine insisted I stay—”

  “Cut the crap,” he said. “This is Dean, remember. You can’t lie to me. You couldn’t when we were kids and you still can’t.”

  “What I remember when we were kids and teenagers is your tormenting me to death.”

  He leaned forward, just enough to put them face-to-face, less than a foot separating them. “Ever ask yourself why I picked on you the way I did?”

  “Because we couldn’t stand each other. You were such a little shit. Pulling my hair, stealing my purse, calling me names, laughing at me, making fun of me for having a crush on Jake.”

  “You were too good for a guy like Jake,” Dean said as he got up off the desk. “Want some coffee before I give you a tour and we find you an empty desk somewhere?”

  “Coffee’s fine.” She followed behind Dean, the act reminiscent of when they’d been preteens and had lived next door to each other. Even then she’d wanted to do everything the boys did and hated being told she couldn’t do something because “you’re just a girl.” How many times had she heard Dean say those fighting words?

  He stopped at the coffeemaker, poured the strong dark brew into two disposable cups, and handed one to her. “Black okay?”

  She nodded. “What did you mean when you said I was too good for Jake?” As she recalled, Dean and Jake had been buddies.

  “There was a lot more to Jake Marcott than you knew. He had a dark side, believe me.”

  “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead?”

  “You aren’t still hung up on Jake, are you?”

  Rachel took a sip of coffee. God, it was awful. Way too strong. And bitter. “Jake hasn’t been a blip on my radar for most of the past twenty years. Do I remember him? Yes. Do I occasionally think of him? Yes. Do I remember what it felt like to have a major teenage crush on him? Of course I do. But there was never anything more than friendship between Jake and me. And there have been several men in my life since then, including a former husband.”

  “Divorced?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Kids?” she asked.

  “Nope. But we did fight for custody of Brighton, our cocker spaniel. She won custody.”

  When he grinned, Rachel’s stomach flip-flopped. God, what was wrong with her? Why was she reacting this way? For pity’s sake, this was Dean. Dean McMichaels.

  “What about you?” he asked. “Got any little rug rats?”

  “No children.” I lost a baby four months into my pregnancy. Six years ago.

  “Guess that means we’re both footloose and fancy free.”

  “I guess it does.”

  “How about dinner tonight?”

  “What?” Her eyes widened in absolute shock. Had Dean McMichaels just asked her for a date?

  “I’m not a guy who wastes time with subtleties,” he told her. “I’ve been divorced four years, been through two semi-serious relationships since then, and have been free as a bird for the past six months. Unless you’ve got a jealous boyfriend back home in Alabama, I’m putting my hat in the ring.”

  She stared at him, still in a state of shock, still not quite comprehending that this drop-dead gorgeous police detective who was putting the moves on her was Dean McMichaels. “Dinner, huh? Okay.” Why not? He was right—they were both footloose and fancy free. And it wasn’t as if she had to worry about the thirty-eight-year-old Dean pulling her hair, teasing her unmercifully, or telling her that she couldn’t play with the boys.

  “You’re staying with the chief and Mrs. Young, right?”

  Rachel nodded.

  “I’ll pick you up at seven this evening.”

  His grin widened, showing off his perfect white teeth.

  “Seven’s fine.” She swallowed hard, wondering if she’d lost her mind. The last thing she had expected when showing up with Charlie this morning was finding out Dean McMichaels was now a detective with the Portland Police Bureau. And right up there running a close second of unexpected happenings was agreeing to go out on a date with him. “About the records on the Marcott murder case…”

  “Are you going to come clean and tell me why you’re really going through the records of the Cupid Killer cold case file?”

  “Maybe. When we get better acquainted and I know I can trust you.”

  Kristen Delmonico couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching her. A few months ago, she would have thought herself paranoid, but not now. Not since someone had invaded her privacy, forcing her to leave her own home and flee into the arms of her almost-ex-husband. A great deal had changed since she and their daughter Lissa had moved in with Ross, the least of which was the impending divorce. After admitting that they still loved each other, she and Ross had agreed to give their marriage a second chance. So far, so good. Ross showered her with attention and had become a diligent father, keeping close tabs on their only offspring. The unseen, unk
nown stalker who had been plaguing Kristen for a couple of months now had brought out all the protective instincts in Ross, and she had to admit that she didn’t mind having a big, strong man around, no matter how independent and self-reliant she had always been.

  No one is going to attack you in the middle of the day at a downtown restaurant. It’s broad daylight. There are dozens of people surrounding you.

  Yeah, well, there had been dozens of people surrounding Aurora when she’d fallen beneath a subway train in New York City. You didn’t have to be alone in your home, the way Haylie had been, to become a murder victim.

  A homeless man robbed and killed Haylie. Aurora accidentally fell into the path of a subway train.

  Kristen hoped that if she told herself often enough, she would eventually begin to believe it. There was no lunatic methodically killing members of their old high-school gang, the bevy of little planets that had circled around the sun god, Jake Marcott.

  Then what about the photos slashed with red?

  Stop thinking crazy thoughts like that, she told herself. Unless someone followed you from your office, no one knows where you are or who you’re meeting.

  Maybe some guy at the bar was looking at her or maybe someone at a nearby table thought they knew her and was staring at her. Any number of reasonable explanations came to mind as to why she felt she was being watched.

  “Kris?” A female voice with just a hint of a Southern accent called her name.

  She looked up to see Rachel Alsace walking toward her. She would have recognized Rach anywhere, anytime, and yet she was different. Not just older. There was a confident swagger to Rachel’s walk. A chin held high, shoulders back, I-am-a-force-to-be-reckoned-with attitude. Rachel had always been a bit of a tomboy, dressing casually, keeping her blond hair short, not wearing very much make-up or jewelry. This new and improved version still had short hair, but with soft curls that framed her face, and her make-up flattered her fair skin. A pair of small, fat gold hoops shimmered against her earlobes.

  “Rachel.” Kristen shot up quickly and grabbed her friend’s hands. “Girl, you look fabulous.” She’d never have dreamed Rachel would turn out to be such a looker.