“We’re worried about his wife, that’s all.”
“Oh, nothing to worry about. She’s fine. I’m pretty sure she called in here and he talked to her.”
Emily felt a surge of relief. She thanked her, swung open the refrigerator, and looked at the foil-wrapped turkey.
Mandy Crawford is fine. I’m in trouble here. What do I do with this thing? I can’t make soup for twenty!
She retrieved a large kettle from the rack over the island and started filling it with water. She wrestled with the turkey carcass, snapping the bones and cramming it into the pot. Two cups of mirepoix, a cup of rice, and some salt and pepper, and she was done.
It wasn’t going to be the best turkey soup anyone ever made, but there would be a lot of it.
“Hi, honey,” Emily said as Jenna came into view, a ratty old robin’s egg blue robe wrapped around her slender body. “Maybe Santa will bring you a new robe.”
Jenna twisted her hair into a knot on her head and wrapped a thin, white towel around it.
“Only if I’m good.” She smiled at her mother.
Emily held the image of her daughter in her mind’s eye. She had a lithe figure that thankfully proved at twenty-two that she had her mother’s good genes, and not her dad’s. She had perfect teeth—without the utter sameness of a row of orthodontia-manufactured smiles. And she was smart.
“I thought you might have left for your father’s,” Emily said, stirring the kettle.
Jenna took a seat on a bar stool next to the island that held the Viking range Emily had splurged on when she remodeled the kitchen, a project as complicated as a murder investigation. “I’m going in the morning. How could I miss your famous turkey soup?”
Her change in plans had nothing to do with turkey soup, of course. Jenna, having been away at college and now traveling with the sorority job, had a new perspective about the most important relationship she’d ever had—the one with her mother. Certainly there had been the silly fights over boys, but that was long ago. The worries about who she was with and when she’d be home had abated. The talk about whether she should go to law school or find something that didn’t keep her so close to the dregs of society had waned.
“Like me, Jenna,” Emily once said as the two of them toured the Cascade campus when Jenna was eighteen. “Don’t be like me. Some jobs come with a high price. I know.”
Jenna watched her mother as she turned the peppermill over the bubbling soup pot. She wanted to burst forth with the words: “Mom, I love you. Mom, you’ve always been there for me.”
Instead, Jenna teased her.
“The soup looks a little watery.”
Emily made a face and reached for the yellow box of cornstarch. “I can fix that,” she said.
“You can fix anything, Mom.”
Neither mother nor daughter had a care in the world just then. Neither noticed that a pair of eyes had fastened onto them…onto their every move.
He had come for her.
His warm breath mixed with the cold air outside the big white Victorian. White puffs of vapor rose above him where he stood watching the scene through the backyard windows. He almost heard their laughter as the mother and daughter passed from one room to another, enjoying their lives.
Yes, they had lives.
He’d stalked her online. That was easy enough, of course. She’d left a trail all over the Internet—Web sites, blogs, e-mails. He knew so much about her—her shoe size, her best friend’s flailing love life, her plans for life after Cascade University. Seeing her in the flesh was the necessary step. A precursor to the plans that were forming like a disease, for which he alone held the cure.
He aimed a penlight at the photo of the three young women, all blond, all pretty.
Yes, it was her.
The girls were posed in front of a Greek revival mansion that had been their home away from home. It was summertime. They wore shorts and strappy tank tops and flip-flops. No cares. Just bright, shiny futures. They were blue-eyed Barbies, with perfect plastic skin and figures that only a doll maker could conjure.
He focused on their smiles. Their obvious joy was like an ice pick to his gut.
“I’ll wipe that smile off her face,” he thought looking at the girl in the center. “She’s the reason. She’s the leader.”
He told himself when he first got on the airplane in California that it was only to see her, to confront her. He wanted to tell her that her stupid decision had catastrophic results.
“Better be more careful next time,” he’d planned to say. “Some one else might not be as reasonable as I am.”
His interior monologue made him grin as he stood outside in the cold, watching. Waiting. Thinking of what she’d done. What they all had done.
He’d known the kind of pain that few endure. He was proud that he’d sequestered all of that. In the past, he’d done his share of handing out hurt like it was an appetizer to be enjoyed by the recipient. One little poisonous bite at a time was all he needed to find relief from his pain. One gulp. All of that had been a long time ago. But something was stirring inside and he knew that the girl in the center of the photo had become a kind of lightning rod for his anger.
He wrestled with it. Fought it hard. That night as he watched her from across the street, he knew that in the end, he’d have no choice. He’d argue it in his head over and over, and ultimately the dark part of him, the part hidden from all who thought they knew him, was about to become unleashed…again.
He looked down at the photo one more time and knew Jenna Kenyon would be the last to die.
Chapter Two
It was 8:05 A.M., the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, and the Cherrystone Sheriff’s Department smelled of donuts and coffee. Gloria had brought in a dozen from the bakery across the street, as she did at least five times a month. The donuts were good—sugary, greasy, and lighter than air, of course—making them nearly impossible to resist. Only one person in the department seemed to care about the net result of too many donuts on a cop’s waistline. Emily, of course. At least bagels were a somewhat healthy choice. Why not bagels? Emily knew that her own willpower to stay away from the donuts was a better solution than making a directive that Gloria stop bringing them in.
Although past forty, Emily Kenyon wasn’t ready to “give up” and let the forces of nature and donuts take over her body.
She barely had time to acknowledge the donuts with her usual “Gloria, you shouldn’t have!” before being accosted by Jeanne Parkinson, the county clerk.
“Emily,” Jeanne said, her breath short and her hands fluttering. “Mandy’s still not at work.”
Emily glanced at the wall clock. “It’s only ten past the hour.” She peeled off her coat, gloves, and scarf. Her cheeks were bright pink from the walk from her cruiser to the back door. It was the coldest day of the year, just 18 degrees. The crusty berms of snow on the sidewalk had frozen solid. The sky had cleared.
“It doesn’t make any difference,” Jeanne said. “Mandy always came five minutes early. She missed her baby shower yesterday and she’s still not here. I tell you, something’s wrong. She’s missing.”
“Who’s missing?” It was Jason Howard, donut in hand, sugar on his upper lip.
“We don’t know who’s missing,” Emily said. “Or rather, if anyone is missing at all.”
“She’s missing,” Jeanne said. “I know it. I couldn’t sleep a wink last night.”