Lisa Jackson - Most Likely To Die

Really? Then why did she disfigure your picture?

Lindsay told herself, yet again, that it had to be some kind of accident. Kristen couldn’t possibly be that immature even if she hadn’t gotten over Jake.

Maybe somebody had spilled some red nail polish on Lindsay’s photo, or…

Something.

That was why Lindsay had decided to call her old-perhaps former-friend. To find out what was up. To reassure herself that there was nothing sinister behind the red slash.

“Listen,” she began, “I just got the reunion invitation, and for some reason my picture was-”

“You heard about Haylie, right?” Kristen asked simultaneously.

“What?” they both said, after a brief, startled pause.

“Lindsay…your picture was…what were you about to tell me?”

“There was a red mark slashed through it.”

“Across the face, right? I didn’t do it,” Kristen said in a rush.

“The envelope had your name on the return address.”

“I know, I put the packets together, but the picture didn’t come from me. Somebody tampered with the envelopes and put them in. We all got them.”

“All…who?”

“Me, you, Rachel, Bella, Aurora, Mandy…and Haylie.”

All our old friends, Lindsay thought incredulously. What was going on?

When she asked Kristen, she said, “We think Haylie sent them. She had just lashed out at all of us at the last reunion meeting.”

“Why?”

“Same old thing. Ian. Jake.”

“Still?”

“Some things never change, apparently. She was still a real nutcase.”

“Did you guys confront her and ask her if she sent those pictures, then?”

“We would have if she hadn’t-”

“What?” Lindsay prodded when Kristen cut herself off.

There was a pause. “So you don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“Haylie’s dead, Lindsay.”

She gasped.

Somehow, even now, with years and miles separating her from her old life, her old friends, she was sickened, shocked, at the untimely demise of the girl she once knew. “How…when did it happen?”

“I don’t know exactly when, but the police think it’s been a couple of days at least. She, uh, lived alone, except for a bunch of cats, so nobody found her right away. One of the neighbors noticed a smell…”

“Oh my God.”

“I know. It’s horrible. Lindsay, I’m scared.”

“You’re…scared? Because Haylie died?”

“She didn’t just die. She was murdered-”

“What?”

“-and the police don’t know who did it.”

Murdered. Just like Jake. Lindsay’s thoughts whirled madly as Kristen’s shocking words sunk in. Somebody killed Haylie? And got away with it?

And now somebody is calling me in the middle of the night, and sending me pictures with my face crossed out…

“They think it might have been a random thing.” Kristen’s voice broke through her frantic thoughts. “It wasn’t the greatest neighborhood, and her apartment had been burglarized…”

“But you don’t think so?”

“I…I don’t know.”

Lindsay pondered that.

“Listen,” Kristen said briskly, “you’re not home, are you?”

“No, I’m in New York,” she replied, before she realized that New York was supposed to be home.

But Kristen was talking about Portland, as if she sensed how Lindsay felt about it even now, after all these years. Home. Portland was home.

“Good. You still live there, right?” When Lindsay murmured an affirmative, Kristen said, “You should stay put, then, Lindsay. Just in case you were thinking of coming back for any reason.”

“I was going to come to the reunion.”

“It’s not until July. Hopefully by then the police will have figured out what’s going on with Haylie’s death. But if I were you, I’d stay as far away from Portland as possible until they find out who did it. I’m not even living at home right now. I’m too scared someone will come after me next.”

“Then…what are you doing there now?”

“We just happened to be here packing up some more stuff because there’s no telling how long we’ll have to be away.”

“Where are you staying?”

“I’m at-” Kristen broke off suddenly.

Then she said, her voice laced with trepidation, “I’m afraid to say over the phone. It might be tapped or something.”

“You’re not serious…are you?”

“Yes, I’m serious. Listen, somebody broke into my house and my car, stole some of my old stuff, and tampered with those reunion invitations…”

“I thought you said it was Haylie.”

“I’m pretty positive it must have been. But…well, what if it wasn’t?”

Lindsay shuddered with renewed consternation about those wee-hour phone calls she’d been getting.

“I guess with Haylie gone, we might never know for sure who sent the pictures,” she said slowly.

But she did know that the phone calls couldn’t have come from her. Not if she had been dead for several days.

“I should go. Somebody’s at the door. But listen, Lindsay, if you need to reach me, just try me at work or use the e-mail address on the reunion invitation.”

“But…what should I do about the picture? Do you think I should call the police here in New York?”

“I don’t think so. I mean, what would they do about it? They’d just think it was some stupid, childish prank. Which it probably was. And Haylie probably did it…”

Lindsay could hear the rumble of a male voice in the background, and Kristen said, “Wait, Linds, hang on a second.”

Linds.

She found herself swept by nostalgia at the sound of the familiar nickname. What she wouldn’t give, in this moment, to go back to those innocent high-school days-before everything fell apart. Before Jake’s murder, and New Year’s Eve, and Valentine’s Day, and the baby…

But there was no going back. Especially now.

Jake was dead, and now Haylie was dead, too. Murdered.

“Lindsay?” Kristen was abruptly back on the line, her friend’s formal name back on her lips. “Ross said a couple of detectives just got here and they want to talk to me about Haylie. I’ve got to go.”

“Why do they want to talk to you?”

“I don’t know…because of the picture? Because we were friends years ago? Because I just saw her?”

“Oh, right. You said she came to the reunion committee planning meeting. So she was still spouting off about Ian and Jake?”

“Still. After all these years.”

Lindsay considered that. “You don’t think her death has anything to do with-”

“I don’t know what to think, Lindsay. All I know is that I’m going to be really careful until the police figure out who did this. And you should be, too. I know you probably feel safe in New York, but you never know, even there.”

“Right,” Lindsay agreed absently, thinking about the phone calls, wishing she could tell Kristen-tell someone-about them.

But that would mean revealing that she’d had the baby.

Maybe I should…especially now. Maybe the calls are connected to Haylie’s death. Or Jake’s. Or both. Maybe everything is connected. Maybe I’m not dealing with just a crank caller, but a killer.

“Kristen,” she heard herself say impetuously.

“Yeah?” Kristen sounded impatient; Lindsay heard someone talking in the background on her end again.

The moment, the impulse, were lost.

“Never mind. I’ll let you go. Just be careful, okay?”

“You, too. And listen, quickly, Aurora is supposed to be in New York City sometime this month for a mother-daughter weekend with her oldest-that’s her wedding present.”

“Aurora got married again?”

That probably shouldn’t have been surprising, considering that she’d wed her high-school sweetheart not long after they’d graduated. Those marriages rarely lasted-but Lindsay assumed that if anyone could make it work, it would be Aurora and Eddie.