Most Likely to Die

by Lisa Jackson

  Mandy’s mother had disappeared into the nursery to look after her granddaughter, leaving her forlorn husband in the hands of Mandy’s siblings. Jeff continued in remote-control mode, shaking hands with sympathetic friends and acquaintances who had stopped by the house after the funeral. His father stayed at his side while his mother oversaw the refreshments being served by kind neighbors.

  As if a gravitational pull had drawn them together, Lindsay and Wyatt stood in the corner talking to Kristen and Ross while Rachel and Dean approached the two couples. After another round of hugs and tearful sighs, the three old friends turned to the men in their lives for support. Ross draped his arm across Kristen’s shoulders, while Lindsay clung to Wyatt’s hand. As if he sensed she needed his touch, Dean eased his arm around Rachel’s waist.

  “I don’t see how Jeff is making it,” Kristen said. “He’s lost without Mandy. Those two were so in love.”

  “He’s numb right now,” Dean said. “But heaven help him when the medication wears off.”

  A revolving door of mourners came through the Stulz home in the next hour, most strangers to Rachel. If not for Dean to lean on, she wasn’t sure she would have been able to endure this post-funeral affair. When he caught her staring at Bella Marcott, Dean alerted her to what she was doing. She had managed not to focus for more than a minute or two on DeLynn and Martina, but April had caught Rachel looking at her. Rachel had nodded and then glanced away.

  As she had studied each woman, she’d asked herself, “Is she capable of cold-blooded murder?”

  Bella made her way through the crowd, stopping directly in front of Rachel. “Did you want to say something to me? I noticed you were staring at me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rachel said. “That was rude of me. I’ve caught myself wondering which one of us will be next. You, me, DeLynn, Kris—”

  “What do you think, Bella?” Dean asked.

  “I’d rather not think about it,” Bella said. “It’s frightening to believe that someone is killing us off, one by one. Do the police have any idea who killed Mandy and if her death is connected to Haylie’s murder or Aurora’s death in New York?”

  “We have a few theories,” Dean replied. “And sooner or later, we’ll catch the killer.”

  “Jake’s murderer was never caught,” Bella said.

  “Not yet.” Rachel’s gaze meshed with Bella’s and she openly studied Jake’s sister.

  “Do you really think you can solve a twenty-year-old crime?”

  Rachel nodded. “Yes, I do, especially if my theory that whoever killed Jake is killing again, murdering the women who were closest to Jake.”

  “What an odd theory. Why would anyone want to kill Jake’s women?”

  Such a peculiar thing to say, Rachel thought. Jake’s women. But she supposed that’s what they’d all been in one way or another.

  One of the Stulzes’ neighbors, a middle-aged lady with blue, Bette Davis eyes came up to Rachel. “I’m sorry to interrupt. There’s another floral delivery, but when I told the young man to bring the flowers in and find a place for them anywhere in the living room, he said the flowers were to be delivered directly to Sergeant Rachel Alsace.”

  A quiver of uncertainty rippled along Rachel’s spine.

  “Want me to see what this is all about?” Dean asked.

  “No, I can handle it.” She turned back to Bella. “If you’ll excuse me.”

  “Certainly.”

  Rachel headed for the door where a twentysomething delivery boy stood holding a large white box. As she neared him, she sensed Dean directly behind her. She glanced over her shoulder and smiled at him.

  Focusing on the delivery boy, she said, “I’m Rachel Alsace.”

  “I was told to deliver these directly to you.” He handed her the box, which Dean reached out and took from him. The boy jumped back, startled by Dean’s unexpected maneuver. “No need to tip me. It’s been covered…when the flowers were ordered.”

  Dean and Rachel looked at each other, neither saying a word. While he held the box, she removed the lid. Inside were seven lilies, each tied with a white ribbon, similar to the lilies and yards of white ribbon used in the spray that had covered Mandy’s coffin. Attached to each ribbon was a card, and on each card was written a name. Rachel picked up the first lily and read the card.

  “DeLynn,” she read.

  Hurriedly she laid that lily back down and one by one checked the name tags on the others. April. Kristen. Martina. Bella. Lindsay. And Rachel.

  “She’s sending us a message.” Rachel looked directly at Dean. “She wants us to know that we’re all going to die, that she’s going to kill each of us, the way she killed Mandy.”

  Chapter 31

  Dean had disposed of the box of lilies while Rachel told Kristen and Lindsay about them, instructing them to let the others know.

  This was yet another warning from the killer. They should take every precaution.

  “Tell them not to panic, but to be more careful than ever,” Dean had advised.

  After saying good-bye to Jeff, who probably wouldn’t remember who had been there and who hadn’t, Rachel and Dean drove straight to the florist, a trendy shop in downtown Portland—the Flower Garden—run by a young couple, Mark and Melanie, in their late twenties. The wife remembered the order.

  “Yes, I took the order over the phone,” Melanie said. “Four days ago. She said she would send the money before the date of delivery and call back to let me know exactly when to deliver them. And she did. We received the payment in cash, which I thought was rather odd, but she said she preferred dealing in cash.”

  “When did she call back to give you the details about delivery?”

  “This morning,” Mark replied.

  “Do you recall anything in particular about the woman’s voice?” Dean asked.

  Melanie frowned. “No, not really.”

  “Just an ordinary woman’s voice,” Mark said.

  “Would you recognize her voice if you heard it again?”

  Melanie shook her head.

  “No, sorry,” Mark said. “We get so many calls.”

  “Did you by any chance save the envelope the money came in?” Rachel asked.

  “No. I had no reason to save it.” Melanie frowned.

  “Did the woman give you a name?” Dean asked.

  “Yes, of course.” Melanie thought for a couple of seconds. “I believe she said her name was Elizabeth Saint.”

  Rachel groaned.

  “Do you recognize the name?” Mark asked.

  “Yes, we do,” Dean said. “Thanks for your help.”

  Five minutes later, on their way across town to headquarters, while Rachel and Dean were talking about the name Elizabeth Saint being simply a play on words—St. Elizabeth’s—Rachel’s cell phone rang.

  The caller ID showed Portland, Oregon. Cell number. No name.

  Rachel flipped open the phone. “Hello.”

  “Did you get my flowers?” the disguised voice asked.

  “Yes.” Rachel motioned to Dean, indicating that the call was from “her.”

  “Do you want to know who will be next?”

  “Do you intend to tell me?”

  Laughter. “Of course not. If I did, it wouldn’t be a surprise, would it?”

  “Is there anything I can say or do that will persuade you to stop? Is there something you want that I—we can give you?”

  Silence.

  “You’re killing for a reason, aren’t you?” Rachel wanted to keep her talking. “Tell me what that reason is.”

  “The only thing I want is the satisfaction of seeing all of you bitches dead and buried with the past.”

  Buried with the past? “What did we ever do to you to make you hate us so?”

  “You know what you did, what all of you did, how all of you treated me.”

  “What about Jake? Did he treat you badly, too? Is that why you killed him?”

  “Jake deserved to die for what he made me do,” the voic
e said.

  “What did he make you do?”

  Silence.

  “Tell me. Please. Help me to understand why you—”

  Crying. Soft sobs.

  “Please, let me help you,” Rachel said.

  “It’s too late.”

  Conversation over. Phone call ended.

  Emitting a nervous huff, Rachel closed her phone. “She all but admitted that she killed Jake. And she said he deserved to die because of what he made her do.”

  “Knowing Jake, he could have done anything to this woman, even forced her to have sex with him,” Dean said.

  A month ago, it would have been impossible for Rachel to believe that Jake had been capable of something so horrible. But the Jake she had come to know through studying the old Cupid Killer files was not the boy she remembered. It was as if he’d led a double life or at the very least had presented a pretty façade to the world to hide the darkness inside him.

  “If he raped her, I can understand her wanting to kill him,” Rachel said. “But why does she want to kill us? Why Aurora and Mandy and Haylie? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “We’ve already figured out that this woman is mentally unbalanced.”

  “And she is one of us.”

  “Probably.”

  “DeLynn once had a nervous breakdown and so did Bella. April was into drugs once, and that could have affected her mentally.”

  “And DeLynn and April were both within driving distance of New York City when Aurora died and Lindsay was attacked.” Dean turned his Thunderbird onto SW Second Street.

  “I don’t want one of them to be our killer.”

  “But the odds are that one of them is. And if we’re right about that, then it means whoever she is, she didn’t kill Jake.”

  Rachel clenched her teeth and cursed softly under her breath. “None of us knew how to use a crossbow, and Jake was killed by someone skillful enough to hit him dead center in the heart.”

  “Then we either have two killers on our hands or…”

  “Or we have a man disguising his voice and himself as a woman.”

  “Or we have a couple working together or—”

  “Okay, let’s say the killer isn’t a woman. What if he was one of the guys at Western Catholic or Washington High?”

  “We need to go with the most likely scenario instead of creating a new and less likely one,” Dean told her. “And remember that the person wearing disguises who you think has been stalking you is female. The person who ordered the lilies was female. And all of you think the person making the threatening calls is female. The most logical conclusion is that whoever killed Jake is not our present-day killer.”

  “I know. I know. It seems the more information we have, the more confused things are. And so much boils down to the fact that I just can’t picture one of the old gang as a cold-blooded killer.”

  “I don’t like the idea any better than you do that one of them is capable of murder, but what few concrete facts we have tell me that we need to concentrate on the reunion committee members.”

  “I guess that rules out our doing a further investigation into the possibility that Marilyn or Patrick Dewey might have killed Jake.”

  “I didn’t say we should rule out anyone. But motivation is the key factor—in Jake’s murder and in the recent murders. Patrick Dewey is dead, so he can’t be our killer. And why would Marilyn Dewey be killing women she doesn’t even know?”

  “God, I am so frustrated!” Rachel admitted quite vehemently. “And I feel so helpless. I should be able to do something to stop these murders now, before someone else has to die.”

  “I suppose your dad felt frustrated and hopeless when he couldn’t come up with a viable suspect in Jake’s murder. Even those of us in law enforcement can do only so much. If the evidence isn’t there—”

  “It’s there,” Rachel told him. “Damn it, it’s there. We just can’t see it!”

  When Kristen and Ross dropped Martina at her house that evening, Ross insisted on walking Martina to her door. And she was grateful for his gentlemanly escort. It wasn’t that she was scared, not exactly. Just unnerved.

  A lot of that going around lately, she thought as she inserted the key in the lock of her front door, heard the distinct click, and turned around to wave good night to Kristen and her husband. If she weren’t all alone this week, with Craig out of town on business and the kids away at summer camp, she wouldn’t dread entering her own home. Craig hadn’t wanted to leave, but the trip had been planned weeks ago, before Mandy’s murder. Martina had insisted that he go, reassuring him that she would be fine for the few days he’d be gone.

  She shouldn’t be so silly. No one could get inside her house. Not with sturdy locks on all the windows and doors. Not with a security system in place.

  As soon as she entered the foyer, she tapped the code into the keypad to disarm the security system, then hurriedly locked the door behind her. Releasing a relieved breath, she walked down the hall and into the kitchen. She had left a table lamp on in the foyer and the over-the-sink fluorescent on in the kitchen.

  Using the handy step stool she kept in the pantry, Martina stood on it to reach an upper cupboard. After retrieving the box of candy she kept out of sight and hopefully out of mind, she set the box on the counter, opened it, and chose a piece of caramel nougat.

  She knew she shouldn’t be indulging this way, but food was her drug of choice. Always had been. That’s why now, twenty years after high school, she was fifty pounds heavier.

  She shouldn’t be doing this. She had stayed on her diet for two months now and lost fifteen pounds so she would look good at the reunion.

  But with all that had happened lately—the deaths of three old friends and the constant threat that she or another friend was next—Martina needed the consolation that only candy could give her. If she drank, she’d be downing a glass of whiskey right now. If she smoked, she’d be puffing away on a cancer stick.

  Attending the funeral of a dear old friend was reason enough for her to turn to the habitual crutch she could count on for comfort. Food. Especially candy.

  Just as she was swallowing the last bite of the sweet concoction, the phone rang.

  Startled, Martina cried out and threw her hands up and over her mouth.

  Get a grip. It’s just the phone. Yes, but what if it’s “her”?

  But what if it’s Craig?

  She checked the caller ID. Portland. No name.

  Damn!

  Just don’t answer it.

  The phone rang ten times, then stopped.

  Martina popped another piece of candy into her mouth, then picked up the box and headed for the den.

  The phone rang again.

  Unnerved, her hands trembling, she dropped the box and the candy fell haphazardly all over the kitchen floor. Leaving the scattered pieces where they were, she checked the caller ID.

  Portland. No name.

  The phone rang ten times. Silence. Immediately, it rang again. Ten times. Silence. Then it rang again.

  Martina held her hands over her ears. Stop calling me!

  When the ringing continued, driving her crazy, she finally jerked the portable phone off its base and screamed, “Leave me alone!”

  Laughter.

  The person on the other end of the line was laughing at her.

  “What’s wrong, Martina?” the disguised voice asked. “Are you upset that you’ve blown your diet by eating candy?”

  “What! How did you know?” Martina rushed to the windows over the sink and peered out into the darkness.

  “You should have answered on the first ring. That way, you wouldn’t have spilled your candy all over the floor.”

  Oh, God! She’s out there, watching me. Looking in the window.

  But Martina couldn’t see anyone. Just the empty driveway, the basketball hoop attached to the front of the garage, and her youngest child’s old bicycle.

  “You can’t see me, but I can see you,” the voice taunted
.

  Martina hung up the phone and immediately dialed Rachel’s cell number. The minute Rachel answered, Martina spoke rapidly, fear in her voice. “She’s here. At my house. Outside watching me. Please, help me!”

  Rachel assured Martina that she and Dean were on their way. Martina hung up the phone, then hurriedly punched in the code and Stay on the security keypad beside the back door.

  There. She felt safer. If anyone tried to break into the house, the alarm would go off.

  The phone rang.

  Martina screamed.

  The phone kept ringing. Over and over and over again.

  Martina slumped down onto the floor, sitting in the middle of the scattered pieces of candy, and hugged herself as she rocked back and forth.

  I’m safe. No one can get inside my house. No one can hurt me.

  The phone continued ringing.

  Rachel helped Kristen and Ross put Martina in their car.

  “Go home with Kris,” Rachel said. “You’ll be safe there. Dean and I will take care of things here.”

  As soon as she had received Martina’s desperate call for help, Rachel had phoned for police backup, and the closest squad car to Martina’s home had been sent out. Then she had phoned Kristen and asked that she and Ross meet them at Martina’s.

  “She’s going to need a place to stay tonight,” Rachel had said. “And I want you to get in touch with Craig and tell him to come home, that his wife needs him.”

  Martina slid into the backseat of Kristen’s car, then reached out and grabbed Rachel’s arm. “She was here. In my yard. Looking through the window. Find her, Rach. Find her and stop her before she kills again.”

  Rachel grabbed Martina’s hand and squeezed hard. “I’ll do my best. I promise.”

  Ross shut the door, closing Martina safely inside, then he turned to Rachel. “We’ll take care of her and get in touch with her husband, tonight if possible.”

  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?”