Most Likely to Die Read online

  Or was it a night when Jake was having second thoughts? Thoughts about hooking up with his old girlfriend, the one he really did love?

  But Lindsay was here, without Jake, wan and tense, acting as if she couldn’t wait to disappear. Kristen tried to shake off her worries. Even though Jake and Lindsay had been broken up before Christmas, Kristen still felt a little strange dating him. Her relationship with Lindsay had definitely suffered because of it. “Look, Linds, if this is uncomfortable for you—”

  “What?”

  “I mean, me being with Jake.”

  Lindsay scanned the area. “Are you? With him?” she asked, then shook her head impatiently as Kristen’s face reddened. “Look, I don’t have time for this.” She hurried away, silk skirts rustling, heading inside.

  Fighting back a burning guilt, Kristen turned toward the parking lot. She was pretty sure she loved Jake, and that made it okay. And Jake hadn’t left her. He was here, somewhere, probably with Dean and Nick checking out Chad’s new car. Or he could be drinking stolen beers with them…or…Her gaze skated to the maze behind the cloister, those imposing, thick, impenetrable hedgerows planted in an intricate pattern.

  She felt something. A warning. A tiny shift in the atmosphere that caused her scalp to prickle.

  Suddenly she was sure something horrible was about to happen.

  Lindsay barely made it to the bathroom. She flew past two girls adding layers of gloss to their lips, stepped into the stall, and ralphed up all of the contents of her stomach into the toilet.

  “Oooh…yuck…” one of the girls said and they both hurried out, muttering about people who shouldn’t drink.

  As the bathroom door banged shut behind them, sweat broke out on Lindsay’s forehead. Her mouth tasted foul, but once she’d retched, she felt immediate relief. Just as all the pamphlets had told her she would.

  How she wished her sickness were the result of alcohol!

  Oh, Lord, how am I ever going to get through this? she wondered desperately.

  One day at a time.

  She placed a hand over her flat abdomen and thought about the child growing inside her. All because of one night. One stupid night. How had she been so foolish? What had she been thinking? She, an A student who knew all about the facts of life. Then one night, because she was feeling down, she’d tossed away all of her values and dreams for one evening of passion.

  She closed her eyes and drew in a shaky breath. Breathing deeply, she made her way out of the stall. Stumbling to the sink, she splashed cold water over her face. Too bad about her make-up, too bad about college, too bad about the rest of her life. You’re going to be a mother. Alone in the bathroom, she leaned her head against the cool tiles covering the wall.

  So how was she going to tell her parents? Her mother would be heartbroken, her father bitterly disappointed that his only daughter had gotten herself “knocked up.” How could she explain it to anyone? She barely understood it herself.

  Slowly, she released a tense breath.

  She couldn’t cower in the restroom all night. She had to go out and face the truth. No more time for pretend. This was real. She looked at her reflection. Dark hair coiled onto her head, sleek blue dress showing off her figure, and an antique diamond necklace her grandmother had bequeathed her—the princess, heiress to the Farrell Timber fortune.

  And pregnant.

  Wouldn’t Nana be proud?

  Well, there was more to her than Barbie Doll looks.

  It was time to face the damned music.

  She had to talk to Jake.

  Squaring her shoulders, uncaring that some of her hair had fallen free of the plastered curls, mindless of the fact that her face was nearly devoid of any residual make-up, she hurried outside and into the night.

  She’d lied to Kristen a few moments before.

  She knew exactly where Jake was.

  It was time for a showdown.

  Eric Connolly was a boob. An idiot. A cretin! No two ways about it, and Rachel was stuck with him, at least for the remainder of the night. She watched as he, thinking he was so funny, poured a little gin into a cup of punch before taking it over to Sister Clarice…oh, Jesus.

  Save me, Rachel thought, heading in the opposite direction. She needed some air, some space, and the appearance of not being with Eric when Sister Clarice took a sip, recognized the taste and smell, then grabbed Eric by the back of his scrawny neck and called his folks…as well as hers.

  Rachel inwardly groaned and glanced at the doors leading to the back parking lot. She’d seen Jake Marcott walk through them not ten minutes ago and he hadn’t returned. His date, Kristen, was standing on the edge of the crowd, alternately checking the doors and scanning the dance floor as if she were looking for him, as if he’d ditched her. But Lindsay Farrell had gone outside along with a few other kids. Rachel had seen Jake’s sister Bella and Wyatt Goddard slide outside. Nick and Dean, Jake’s friends, had exited earlier, and now dateless Aurora Zephyr had wandered outside behind DeLynn Vaughn and Laura Triant.

  It was almost as if the party was moving outside.

  She bit her lip and thought of Jake. What was he doing? Her heart ached a bit and she reminded herself she was here with Eric the Clown.

  Sure, Eric was cute.

  Even funny.

  But he was just so over the top. So stuck on himself.

  She glanced around again and noticed Haylie Swanson bearing down on her.

  Oh, God, not now.

  Haylie was still in major bereavement mode: black dress; black hair ribbons; black armband; sad, sad eyes. Ever since Ian had died, she’d worn her grief like a noble mantle. But, Rachel knew, hidden in the folds of Haylie’s sorrow was a slow, burning, and intense anger, a hatred for the boy who had escaped injury while Ian had given up his life.

  Rachel wanted to avoid Haylie, but there was no hope for it.

  “I thought I saw you over here,” Haylie said, not cracking a smile, her lips painted a dark purple, as if she were some kind of wannabe Goth.

  “Hi.”

  “You with Eric?” Haylie wrinkled her nose a bit.

  “Umm-hmm.”

  “Why?”

  “What?”

  “Why did you invite him? He’s sooo immature.”

  Rachel lifted a shoulder. Didn’t want to be part of this conversation even though Haylie was only echoing her own thoughts.

  “You would have been better off to come alone. Since that bastard already has a date.”

  “That bastard?” Rachel repeated.

  Haylie’s gaze skewered her. “I know you’re in love with Jake,” she said, little white lines of fury creasing around a mouth the color of bing cherries. “God, Rach, you wear your heart on your sleeve. Everyone knows.”

  Rachel cringed. How could anyone know, much less everyone? Hadn’t she hidden her feelings for him? She thought of Lindsay and Kristen, her two best friends who had both already dated and professed their love for Jake. Did they know? Oh, God, this was terrible. Mortified, she felt herself blush a deep, incriminating red.

  One of Haylie’s eyebrows raised a fraction. She was satisfied by Rachel’s reaction…so she’d been guessing about Jake. Haylie didn’t know anything. Nor did anyone else. Haylie had just made a wild stab and had come up with a bull’s-eye!

  Leaning closer, a slight gleam in those night-dark pupils, Haylie said, “It’s just such a waste, Rachel, because he’s a loser. A murderer. He killed I an, y’know.”

  Oh, Rachel knew. The whole county knew. Haylie made it her mission to make certain that every living soul in the greater Portland area was aware that Jake Marcott had literally gotten away with murder.

  “Not now, Haylie,” Rachel said.

  “Then when? When is he going to pay?”

  “The police don’t think there was foul play.”

  “The police are idiots! They’ve covered it up.” Haylie was nodding now, agreeing with herself. Thankfully the music was loud enough that no one else heard.

&n
bsp; “Why would they bother?”

  “Because they just don’t give a damn.”

  At that moment Eric returned, smelling of marijuana. Haylie cast Rachel a withering glance as she sniffed loudly, whether to indicate she’d smelled the sweet scent of the wicked weed or because she was into her near-tears act again, Rachel didn’t know.

  Rachel felt bad about Ian. Everyone did. Especially Jake. But Ian was gone and there was no bringing him back. No amount of accusations, railing at the gods, praying to Jesus, or crying and wringing of hands could return Ian to this earth. There had been memorials, services, and dozens upon dozens of flowers and candles left at the corner where the accident had taken place. Rachel and her classmates had cried buckets of tears, said hourly rosaries, and prayed for Ian and his family. It was sad. Tragic. Horrible. But in Rachel’s estimation, there was no conspiracy. It was just an awful accident that would hopefully help everyone learn not to drink and drive.

  Ian had been behind the wheel. Like Jake, he’d not been wearing a seat belt. His blood alcohol level had been in the stratosphere and there had been traces of prescription drugs in his blood as well. He’d taken a corner much too fast and paid the ultimate price. Both boys had been thrown from the car; Jake had ended up in intensive care with broken ribs, a fractured shoulder, concussion, and ruptured spleen. But he’d survived. To live with the guilt of knowing somehow he’d been spared.

  Everyone mourned Ian Powers, but Haylie’s grief had turned to bitter anger. She claimed that Jake, not Ian, had been behind the wheel of Ian’s car.

  Haylie checked her watch, sent Rachel a final knowing glance, then turned and headed toward the back of the gym.

  “Head case,” Eric observed as the song ended and he spied Sister Clarice bearing down on him. “Crap!” His gaze darted around the gym. “Look, Rach, I’ll be right back. I’ve, uh, got to go to the john,” he said and half jogged through the crowd, trying to lose himself as the nun, like a patient lion stalking prey, slowly but surely followed after him.

  Rachel wanted to melt into the floor. Since that was impossible, she turned and headed outside as another song, Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark,” trailed after her into the cold winter night.

  She should just call it a night. Make some lame excuse to Eric and find a ride home. Instead, she kept walking, searching the area for Jake.

  Geez, how dumb is that? Ditch your date and go looking for a boy who doesn’t see you as a girl, only as a “friend” he can use?

  A few kids were scattered in the shadows, hidden from the eyes of the chaperones inside. Some were smoking, others drinking, others making out. But nowhere did she see Jake.

  Don’t try to find him, Rachel, that’s a huge mistake. Huge.

  She ignored the warnings running through her mind and let her gaze skate away from the few kids hiding for whatever reasons.

  Keeping to the shadows, she walked around the corner of the cloister to the gardens, where a hundred-year-old maze of laurel, photinïa, and arborvitae crowded the dark sky and hid the moon.

  It was a place to hide.

  A place to avoid the people she didn’t want to see.

  A place to figure out how to find her pride.

  Coward, she thought, but wasn’t about to risk her shot at a scholarship and graduating with honors because of that dweeb Eric. God, why had she been so foolish, so damned desperate for a date, to invite him? She’d known enough about Eric to realize he relished his role of class clown at Washington High and yet, determined to go with a date, she’d invited the oaf to the dance. Now she was embarrassed as hell. It would have been better to come single. For the love of God, she should have known better. She was a levelheaded girl, the daughter of a cop, for God’s sake, and if not a straight-A student, then consistently on the honor roll.

  But in her own way, she was as much of a moron as Eric.

  Because of Jake.

  Always Jake.

  Though no one knew it. She fingered the locket at her throat, the one she always wore, the one no one had ever guessed held not only tiny pictures of her mother and father, now divorced, but of Jake as well…hidden behind the little heart cutout of her father.

  And Jake, she knew, didn’t even know she was alive.

  How long had she been in love with him? Three years? Four? Since eighth grade at St. Madeline’s?

  She’d dreamed of him and told no one about her secret fantasies, not even her best friends, Kristen and Lindsay. Because she couldn’t. Lindsay had dated Jake for two years and once they’d broken up, he’d turned to Kristen, never once looking at Rachel, his friend, the girl who tutored him when he was failing. The girl who befriended his younger sister, Bella. The girl who took care of his dog when he went hunting. Good old reliable Rachel, who had covered for him when he’d been in the accident over Christmas vacation that had ended Ian Powers’s life.

  She hadn’t really lied to anyone. Not really. She just hadn’t admitted to seeing Jake earlier that night.

  You’re a fool, Rachel, she told herself as she marched toward the maze, a great place to hide, a spot where neither Eric Connolly nor anyone else who mattered would find her.

  Kicking off her high heels, she sighed. She’d never had much use for killer shoes, and she didn’t care that the hem of her dress was dragging along the grass. Too bad. Her mother would be furious, of course; though the dress was a hand-me-down, it was still good and could be used again.

  Tough!

  What she wouldn’t give for her sweats and running shoes. She would be so out of here!

  And go where, Rach?

  She heard her mother’s tired voice as if the woman were walking right next to her instead of pulling a double shift at a local diner.

  You can’t run from your problems.

  Rachel turned into the maze, past a statue of the Madonna with her arms stretched and palms turned upward, as if to cradle the next poor soul to pass.

  Rachel kept right on walking.

  She had to think ahead. Of her future. One definitely without Jake. She had big plans. And nothing, not even her feelings for Jake, was going to stop her.

  Kristen headed toward the center of St. Elizabeth’s campus, the garden area where a deep, frigid labyrinth of trimmed laurel hedges, pruned trees, benches, and statues separated the school grounds from the convent and chapel where the nuns lived and prayed. Fog was beginning to rise, causing the light from the moon to reflect oddly, as if the silvery orb were fuzzy with some otherworldly halo.

  The temperature dropped.

  The wind picked up.

  Kristen’s skin crawled as she passed the weird gargoyles of the topiary and the walls of foliage. Her premonition about something bad about to happen hadn’t left her. She turned a corner and darkness suddenly consumed her as she met a dead end. Far in the distance, the music stopped, the background noise of drums and guitars fading into silence.

  Where was she going?

  Why was she exploring this maze tonight?

  She heard a footstep behind her.

  She wasn’t alone.

  Her heart trip-hammered.

  Ffftttt!

  Something sizzled through the night.

  And then a gasp, a strangled cry, like a wounded animal, a gurgling, primal groan.

  She jumped backward.

  What the hell was that?

  Her blood turned to ice. She started running along the grassy pathways, guided by the eerie light of the moon. Her high heels fell off, but she raced barefoot, barreling down blind alleys, bouncing off prickly bushes. Don’t panic! Don’t panic! Don’t panic!

  But she was already frantic, leaves and branches tearing at her arms, her hair falling around her face, her heart pounding out a terrified cadence.

  Where was the sound coming from?

  She careened around another sharp corner, stubbed her toe on the end of a bench, and yelped as she hurtled through the maze. It was too dark to see the lights from the school—the hedge was too high to peer ov
er—but she kept running. In circles? Toward the center of the labyrinth? Or out of the damned maze?

  Blood was oozing from her toe, through the ripped nylon of her panty hose.

  Run! Run! Run! Get help!

  She tore around a sharp corner just as a scream of pure terror ripped through the shivering shrubbery.

  Her heart froze.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered, her stomach wrenching.

  In the weird moon glow she spied Jake Marcott, his body pinned to the trunk of the gnarled oak at the very center of the maze. His face was white, his eyes wide. A crimson stain covered the ruffled shirt of his tux, a thick arrow at its center. Blood dripped from the corners of Jake’s mouth and his head hung forward at an impossible angle, his dead eyes wide and staring.

  Kristen took a step forward. This was a joke…a sick, awful, twisted joke. Jake couldn’t be…he wasn’t…“Oh, no…oh, no…”

  Lindsay Farrell, her hands covered in blood, her dress splattered and stained, was crumpled at Jake’s feet. Her hair had fallen out of its pins, the long, dark coils curling at her bare shoulders. She lifted her head, her eyes filled with tears that streaked her face with black mascara.

  “Why?” she cried as the sounds of shouts and frantic, thundering feet echoed through Kristen’s brain.

  Help is coming. Maybe it isn’t too late. Maybe Jake can be saved! Maybe he isn’t dead yet!

  She started to run to him, but Lindsay, her face twisted in fury, forced herself clumsily to her feet and barred her path.

  “Why, Kristen?” Lindsay demanded again, her voice a razor-sharp whisper, her face twisted in fury and pain. “Why did you kill him?”

  Chapter 1

  Portland, Oregon, March 2006

  “So, I’m stuck, is that what you’re saying?” Kristen balanced her cell phone between her ear and shoulder as she leaned back in her desk chair and felt a headache coming on. Though time was definitely running out, she’d held out hope that her friend Aurora had found someone else to be in charge of the damned twenty-year reunion. “No one’s willing to take over the job?”