LITMIR.BIZ

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you?” she asked the shifting branches dancing and waving in front of her. “Who the hell are you?” She flicked on her headlights and there was nothing there. With shaking arms, she turned the car around and pointed toward the exit. In her rearview mirror a figure emerged from the maze.

      Becca hit the accelerator, blinking hard. In that second the image was gone.

      But someone was there! Someone had followed her!

      Someone who hated her.

      A sob edged across her lips and she drove down the long, bumpy lane of the campus. A rabbit caught in the headlight’s glare hopped quickly through the brambles. Becca sped by. Barely hitting her brakes, she charged into the traffic of the main road, determined to get as far away from St. Lizzie’s as possible.

      Sometimes it’s easy to find them. Sometimes it’s child’s play.

      I watch the taillights of her car disappear into a blanket of rain.

      Rebecca, wicked girl, you are predictable. Of course you would come to the maze. Of course you would follow her footsteps.

      Frightened, aren’t you? You know you’re different. That you’re one of Them. You sense it, like I sense you.

      Have you guessed it yet?

      I see you shiver and quake and tremble. I hear you cry out. Do you know I’m here? Watching. Waiting.

      Do you know your fate, devil’s spawn?

      And now you run…RUN…

      Go ahead…run as fast as you can, Rebecca.

      I watch the taillights of your car disappear as you flee and I can’t help but smile through the rain. Your escape is futile and you know it.

      I will catch you.

      When it is time.

      Chapter Seven

      “Detective…”

      Mac, who’d had a telephone pressed to his ear waiting for the county prosecutor to answer, looked up to see Lieutenant Aubrey D’Annibal give him the high sign from his office, a glass-walled cubicle at the end of the squad room. Dropping the phone, Mac headed into the lieutenant’s office without a word, and D’Annibal closed the door behind him.

      D’Annibal had smooth, silvery white hair, piercing blue eyes, and a love for Armani suits that was paid for by his wealthy wife’s substantial trust fund. He was also damn good at his job, and he expected excellence from all members of his staff. Mac watched as he hooked a leg over the corner of his desk and folded his hands together.

      Lecture time. Not a good sign.

      “Just got off the phone from the lab,” he said with only a trace of his West Texas drawl audible. “They’re sending PDFs on a couple of pictures of those bones you’re so interested in.”

      “Yeah?” At long last. It had been nearly a week since the body had been located, but the lab had been “backed up.” Which was nothing new. In the meantime, Mac had been forcing himself to be patient.

      D’Annibal rubbed his jaw slowly, a gesture that meant he was deliberating on how to deliver his next news. Mac braced himself, and after a moment, the lieutenant said, “You know, I wasn’t here when that girl disappeared. I hadn’t moved to the great state of Oregon from Texas yet. I was making my way through the ranks, proving myself, following the path, keeping my aim in sight. Meanwhile, you were out here stirring up a heap of trouble for yourself. Claiming murder without a body. Accusing the students at a private school, some of whom were quite well heeled and whose families were well respected, of killing a young girl—a runaway. From what I understand, you were a regular town crier about it all. That about right?”

      “There’s some truth in there,” Mac admitted, though he could feel how rigid the cords in his neck had become.

      “You really tore up the turf. Lots of people didn’t like your ways. High-handed. Bullish. Misconceived. Obsessive. Lots of words were bandied about. None of them too complimentary.”

      Mac nodded, wondering how long this was going to take. He, above anyone else, remembered what had come down. And yes, he’d been too gung-ho, too convinced on too little evidence, he thought now, in this glassed-in office that suddenly felt stuffy. “Has the lab nailed down the girl’s age from the bones?”

      “Give me a moment,” D’Annibal said. “I’ve got to get some things straight. I’ve got to hear a few things from you.”

      Mac held back his frustration as best he could but was having a helluva time with it. Mentally counting to ten, he asked, “What do you want to hear?”

      “I want to hear that you won’t go off half-cocked. I want to hear that you won’t act like you want to pistol-whip innocent people. I want to hear that you’ll conduct a proper investigation.”

      “I’ve never pistol-whipped anyone, sir.” Mac was having difficulty reining in his temper.

      “Only with accusations,” his boss agreed.

      “Oh, hell, what do you want me to say?”

      “That if I turn this investigation over to you, Detective, you’ll treat it, and everyone you interview, with respect. I don’t want some indignant ass-wipe whining to me about police brutality. And I know”—he lifted a palm against Mac’s protests—“that you aren’t physical. But you’re a badger, and I don’t want you badgering.”

      Mac’s pulse began a slow pounding and he was vaguely aware of a phone ringing on the other side of the closed door. “You’re giving me the investigation?”

      The lieutenant hesitated and Mac waited. He couldn’t believe it. Could—not—believe—it. After all the sideways looks, hidden sneers, and snickering, the case was coming back his way. Maybe they didn’t believe the remains were Jessie’s, but Mac felt it in his marrow.

      “It’s yours if you want it.” He didn’t wait for a response. “I think we both know your answer.”

      Jesus! About time. “Is that all?” Mac asked, anxious to get to work. Anxious to pick up where he’d been forced to leave off, so many years ago.

      “Not quite. I’ve been reminding you about all this for a reason. There was some…resistance to putting you on the case again, and information was deliberately withheld until a decision was made.”

      It wasn’t like D’Annibal to tiptoe, but then Mac could imagine what kind of meetings went on behind closed doors concerning putting him in charge of this case. He decided to push the issue a bit.

      “How old was the deceased when she died? Do we know that yet?” he asked.

      “About sixteen.”

      “Those remains are Jezebel Brentwood’s,” Mac said. I’ll eat a kangaroo if they’re not.

      “No corroborating evidence.” But D’Annibal didn’t sound like he disagreed. This was the first time the lieutenant had acknowledged that Mac might be right. Since he’d come to the Laurelton PD, like everyone else in the department, D’Annibal had been interested first in keeping Mac’s hopes in line, second in entertaining the myth that sixteen-year-old Jezebel Brentwood had simply run away. But these remains had revealed another, more obvious answer—the same one Mac had expounded for years: Jessie Brentwood had been killed.

      “How long have those bones been in the ground?” Mac asked.

      “More than ten years, probably closer to twenty.”

      “Then they’re Jessie’s until I hear differently,” Mac told him flatly.

      “All you have to do is prove it.”

      “Piece of cake.” He expected another lecture about running on assumptions rather than facts, but the lieutenant surprised him by keeping his own counsel. But D’Annibal had more to say, apparently, because his

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