Brian Freeman - In the Dark aka The Watcher

“Score one for Tish,” Stride said.

“Except you never saw them together, did you? You didn’t know Tish. Why not?”

“Tish says she and Laura had some kind of fight, and she moved to St. Paul by herself after graduation. That would have been in May and June, when Cindy and I began dating.”

“Did Tish say what the fight was about?”

“She claims she doesn’t remember but that it wasn’t anything important. I think she’s lying on both counts.”

“So what was it?”

“I don’t know, but what do teenage girls usually fight about?” Stride asked.

“Boys.”

“That’s my guess.”

“Do you have any idea who it was?”

“Tish says that Laura dated Peter Stanhope for a while. She all but accused him of being Laura’s stalker.”

Serena frowned. “Peter.”

“Sorry, he was up to his neck in this case,” Stride said.

“Why didn’t you tell me? I knew you weren’t happy when I started doing work for Peter’s law firm, but I didn’t realize you had this kind of history with him.”

“It was thirty years ago. I’ve barely spoken to him since then. People change.”

That was a lie. Stride didn’t think anyone really changed. He wasn’t crazy about the idea of Serena taking a job at Peter Stanhope’s law firm, but he also wanted her off the streets. Somewhere safe. The fire in which she had nearly died during the winter hadn’t been an accident. Her career had put her in the path of a stalker, and Stride found himself struggling with his anxiety whenever she was back on the street. Serena was a former homicide cop from Las Vegas, which was one of the toughest beats he could imagine. Her background made her fiercely independent. Even so, he understood now the emotions that Cindy must have felt whenever he left the house and the fear that would have flitted through her brain whenever she picked up the phone. For the spouse of a cop, the call could come anytime.

“Can I tell Peter about Tish and her book?” Serena asked.

Stride shrugged. “If Tish keeps digging, Peter’s going to hear about it sooner or later. You can tell him. For now, I’m not involved.”

“Do you really think that Peter could have killed Laura?”

“I don’t know. It’s possible, but no one wanted to go down that road back then.”

“Because of Peter’s father?”

“Yes.”

“Who worked the case?”

Stride rubbed the scar on his shoulder where a bullet had violated his flesh. The wound twinged like a reminder. “Ray Wallace.”

Serena let out a slow breath. “You think Ray gave Peter a free pass?”

“Maybe.”

“I think you should tell me exactly what happened that night,” Serena said. “Don’t you?”

“Yeah.” Stride steepled his fingers and stared at the fire and didn’t say anything more.

“I could read the police file if you want,” Serena said. “Or talk to Maggie. But I’d prefer to hear it from you.”

Stride ran his hand through his wavy hair, the way he did when he was tense. He thought about the long hair he had worn back then. About Cindy’s fingers running through his hair while they were in the water.

“Cindy and I felt guilty for a long time,” he told Serena.

“About what?”

“About leaving Laura alone that night.”

“You couldn’t possibly have known what would happen.”

“Yes, but it was dark, and it was raining, and kids had been drinking, and we just let Laura go off into the woods. It was stupid. We should have stayed with her.”

Serena waited.

“A few of us were playing softball that night,” Stride continued. “I was there. So was Peter Stanhope. Cindy was supposed to meet me afterward, and the two of us were going to hang out by the lake. I didn’t even know that Laura would be with her, but she and Cindy stopped by the field while we were playing, and then they headed off by themselves. I was a little pissed. I didn’t want Laura around.”

“Why not?”

“That was supposed to be the night. The night. Cindy and I were planning to have sex for the first time.”

“Oh,” Serena said, drawing out the word. “Now I understand.”

“So I wasn’t exactly thinking with my brain.”

“I’m sure.”

“The thing is, Cindy and I talked about it later, and we knew something was wrong, but we didn’t care.”

“What do you mean, something was wrong?”

Stride frowned. “Someone was in the woods that night.”

July 4, 1977

I heard a growl of thunder beyond the trees, as if the storm were an animal getting closer. The path was dark, and that meant the sky over our heads had turned black, shutting out light through the trees. I felt the thick air like a weight on my chest when I breathed. You could almost see humid haze hanging in a cloud over the trail. My skin was dewy with sweat, and my long hair clung to it like vines. I wore a bikini top, shorts, and bare feet.

Laura was jittery as she walked beside me. She kicked impatiently at the dirt with her pink Flyers. Her eyes darted back and forth into the woods, as if she expected to catch someone spying. She wore jeans and a blue checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up past her elbows. Her backpack was slung over one shoulder. She twisted the silver ring on her finger.

“I hope the rain holds off for the fireworks,” I said.

Laura looked up at the tops of the trees. She made a noise in her throat and didn’t reply.

I knew the Fourth of July parties would be washed out. It would be night in less than an hour, but before then, the deluge would begin. The air was perfectly calm now. Nothing moved. The brown birds that normally hopped around us in the dirt, looking for crumbs, had taken shelter. Every birch and pine looked as if it were holding its breath.

The summer storms always came quickly. One moment it would be still, and then in an instant, the wind would come alive, bending the young trees. The heavy clouds would sag open, gushing out rain. The night would turn to day in flashes as branches of lightning cracked from the ground to the sky.

Laura stopped on the trail. I gave her a questioning stare. Her lower lip trembled, and her eyes were frightened.

“What is it?”

She didn’t say anything. The trees around us were already a black parade of soldiers. I followed her eyes, but I didn’t see anything in the shadows.

“What?” I repeated.

“Someone’s there,” Laura said.

I looked again. I took a couple of steps closer to the trees. I didn’t smell anything but pine, like Christmas in July.

“Are you sure?”

“I heard someone,” she insisted.

I thought she was wrong, but it was easy to feel like you weren’t alone in the park. There was a bigness about it. It felt primitive, like we were miles from the city. People came here to do secret things. You never knew who was around.

“Come out!” I shouted. “Hey!”

A violent rustling shook the brush, and I froze, completely startled. A wild turkey lurched out of the woods in front of me, wings flapping excitedly. He was a quivering bundle of striped brown feathers with a cherry-red neck, who beat his way across the path and buried himself in the tangle of leafy bushes.

Laura and I both jumped and screamed. We scrambled away, nearly falling. Laura hugged the strap of her backpack tighter to her body. My heart galloped. It was silly, but it’s the kind of thing that pumps you with adrenaline and leaves you feeling keyed up. When the turkey was gone, we kept walking, but Laura continued to turn every few steps and look nervously behind us.

I could hear boys’ voices ahead of us as we got closer to the softball field. We had parked near the field an hour earlier. I wanted to sit and watch Jonny play, but Laura didn’t want to hang around the boys, and I didn’t blame her. They had beers at every base, and several of them were already drunk. We were the only two girls around, and they didn’t take their eyes off us when we arrived. Some girls preened and puffed up at attention like that, but Laura wilted and wanted to run.