LITMIR.BIZ

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left his message in my school!”

      Jared narrowed his eyes. “Stow it!”

      “You still think it’s a prank,” Garth said, incredulous. “But what if you’re wrong? What if that sicko’s got Faith, and next targets one of those kids?”

      The pump clicked off; however, Michaele stayed put. “What message?”

      “Damn it, Garth,” Jared growled, “you’re out of line here. There’s no evidence of a connection.”

      “And there won’t be, because you refused to take it seriously! You should have taken samples, Jared.”

      “That’s enough!”

      “Hey!” Michaele shouted, smacking the roof of the sedan with her fist. “The next guy who treats me as though I’m this oil spot on the concrete gets a close encounter with this fist. Now one of you tell me what’s going on!”

      For several seconds her demand hung heavily in the air. It was Garth who broke the silence. “I’m sorry, Jared. By remaining silent, I become an accomplice. Michaele, someone left a message at the school yesterday evening. Jared’s convinced that the message was merely a prank in bad taste about Sandy, because of the timing and all. But if the message is true and Faith ran into this guy, you deserve to know what you’re up against.”

      Linking Sandy to her sister had the obvious effect on Michaele. Jared watched her face turn gray; her demeanor resembled something caving in on itself.

      “Sandy was murdered in her own home…her own bed,” she murmured. “Butchered. Oh, God…”

      “Don’t go there,” Jared said, automatically reaching out to steady her. “The only connection is the timing.”

      She brushed him off. “Six years today. Who could forget something so horrible happening here in our town? That poor girl stabbed…her throat cut…and the killer was never caught!”

      “Michaele, listen to me. It’s a prank.”

      “There was something written above Sandy’s bed. Is that what was at the school? ‘Welcome to Hell’?”

      “The numbers were there again,” Garth replied. “But this time he simply wrote ‘I’m back.”’

      “All right, that’s enough,” Jared snapped. “She doesn’t need this.”

      “I’ll decide what I can and can’t handle!”

      Seething, Michaele jerked the nozzle free and slammed it back on the pump. Then she refastened the cap. “I can’t believe this. You had a clue, a warning of trouble, and you kept it from us?”

      “While you’re busy working yourself into a knot, try remembering that crap written at the scene of the crime was published in every paper in Texas, and picked up by the media in half the country,” Jared said coldly. “Perfect fodder for every halfwit copycat in the mood to get some attention.”

      “But you don’t know for sure, and now Faith could be lying out there with her throat cut!”

      Hearing his worst fears voiced, Jared struck back—at the messenger. “Pay her and get the fuck out of here,” he ordered Garth.

      “I need answers,” Garth argued.

      “Get in line.”

      “Those kids are my responsibility. Do you know what their parents are going to say when this gets out? You’ll be lucky not to wind up with a town-wide panic on your hands.”

      Thanks to you. Jared wished he’d gotten that sample he’d taken secretly sent out last night. But because he’d gone home and buried his own bitterness and bad memories in a few beers, the sample hadn’t left until a while ago.

      His delay in replying won a bitter smile from Garth. He began handing Michaele the money for the gas, saying, “You have my sympathies.”

      She waved off payment. “We’re even. If it weren’t for you, I guess I’d still be in the dark—about a lot of things. Just tell me one more thing. Exactly when did you find that message?”

      “About an hour after the last club and practice session let out.”

      She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she looked straight at Jared. “You knew. Something was terribly wrong, and you said nothing. It never crossed your mind that a warning, some kind of outreach to the public might have been in order?”

      Jared felt as though he were standing in a huge vacuum, where everything sane and reassuring was being sucked away. “Listen to yourself. To protect whom? Faith? At the time she was miles from here. How would that have helped her?”

      “You don’t know that. You don’t know anything!”

      As she stormed off, Jared fought the strong urge to hit something.

      “Sorry,” Garth said. “But you deserved that.”

      “I think I told you to take a hike.”

      “You owe me an answer, and I can’t give you much time.”

      Jared knew that, and knew what he was up against. He was a small-town cop, used to settling drunken brawls and officiating over fender benders. His department hadn’t even been able to resolve most of the burglaries that had been on the increase in the past year. This situation with Faith was fast rising out of his league, and Cuddy’s, as well. “Give me another twenty-four hours before you make any announcements. People are going to be upset enough about Faith to make everyone cautious, which is what you want, anyway.”

      “Except for one technicality, namely, the who in the fear quotient. No.” Garth shook his head. “If you don’t have news by noon, or, better yet, have Faith back safe and sound, I’m going to hold an assembly and make an appropriate announcement. We owe them that. There needs to be time to notify parents and assume safeguards.”

      Jared stepped back from the car. He’d lost ground and had to accept it. “Do what you can.”

      “Noon, then. And that’s only if nothing else happens. If we’re contacted again, or—” Garth started the engine and shifted into gear “—well, I don’t suppose I need to tell you that’s when choice will be out of my hands, too.”

      “You’re perfectly clear, all right,” Jared muttered after the departing car.

      Despite Garth’s having complicated things for him, Jared wasn’t totally lacking in sympathy for his friend. It was the situation and the stress that was making him overlook so much—like asking about Garth’s bandaged hand. Hell, had things turned out differently, Garth would be his brother-in-law.

      After the death of Jessica and Sandy’s parents, Garth had been almost a foster father to Jess’s kid sister. Later, once she’d earned her business degree, he’d given her a job at the school despite some minor flack about nepotism. Fortunately, Sandy had proven herself capable, running the entire administrative office, as well as coaching the girl’s twirling team. When the team brought home their first state championship trophy during a dry year when the boys couldn’t win anything for the town, Sandy had been a local heroine. And that was why Faith’s disappearance was going to be so hard on the community: the ex-high school cheerleader inspired the same affection from people.

      Drawing a deep breath, he went in search of Michaele, and found her hunched over her workstation preparing a service form. Jared noted the pronounced shaking of her hands, and the way she kept clenching her teeth as though fighting some emotional onslaught.

      He wanted to hold her, as he had last night, to offer her comfort and maybe take a little for himself. But he knew that trying would set her off. “I’m sorry,” he said instead.

      “I had a right to know.”

      No, she wasn’t going to beat around the bush, he thought. She’d never been that way about anything, except when it came to him. That was one of the many things

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