Lisa Jackson - Most Likely To Die

Dean sat there and watched her practically run to the door and let herself in, not once looking back. He released the tight hold he had on the door handle, then huffed loudly. Women! He’d never understand them.

Don’t just sit here, he told himself. Go home. You messed up big-time with Rachel, and it’s not something you can fix tonight.

Exactly what had he done? He’d been honest with her. Why was that so wrong? He’d thought she felt the same way-that they were in danger of thinking themselves in love, and that before taking their relationship to the next level, they needed to make sure of just where they were headed. Not for his sake, but for hers. He cared too much about Rachel to use her to simply scratch an itch.

Apparently, sometimes honesty wasn’t the best policy.

Rachel spent the next week with two objectives in mind. One: to continue searching for the answer to a twenty-year-old murder case. Two: to spend as little time with Dean McMichaels as possible. The first had been easy enough because it was within her control. The second had proven to be more difficult. Dean acted as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn’t all but told her to back off, that he wasn’t interested in anything serious happening between them. She had to accept the fact that Dean probably flirted outrageously with every woman he met, that the sexual banter they had exchanged was simply par for the course for him. And all that garbage about him once having feelings for her was probably little more than a ploy to get into her pants. After all, he did have a reputation with the ladies, something she’d found out from others who knew him. Since his divorce, he had dated dozens of women. She figured she was just one more “date” to him.

Apparently he had realized she was beginning to fall in love with him, and that was the last thing he wanted. Okay. Fine with her. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t live without him. Her feelings for him hadn’t deepened that much that fast.

Or had they?

If she wasn’t hung up on the guy, why did she feel as if he had slapped her in the face with a major rejection? Why did she get tight knots in her stomach whenever he was around? Why did she catch herself daydreaming about him?

Because you’re an idiot!

Rachel’s cell phone rang. She picked it up from where she had placed it on her desk here at headquarters, checked caller ID, and hesitated when she didn’t recognize the number. Another cell phone coming off a Portland tower.

She flipped open her phone and identified herself immediately.

Silence.

“Hello. Is anyone there?”

Breathing. Heavy breathing.

This is ridiculous. “Look, if you have the wrong number, just say so or hang up.”

“I have the right number,” a disguised voice said. Rachel immediately knew that whoever was on the other end of this conversation was using some type of voice-altering device, just as he or she had done for other calls. Those voice-altering things could be bought just about anywhere for little to nothing or for hundreds of dollars. Trying to trace who might have bought one in the past few months would be time consuming. A fruitless endeavor.

“Who is this and what do you want?” Rachel kept her voice calm and even.

“Someone is going to die.”

Every nerve in Rachel’s body came to full alert. Reacting as the professional she was, she asked, “Is that right? Are you going to kill them?”

“Yes, I am. Just like I killed Jake.”

Rachel’s heart lodged in her throat. Was she really speaking to Jake Marcott’s killer? “Did you kill Haylie and Aurora?”

Laughter. Harsh, anguished laughter.

“Did you kill them?” Rachel demanded, her voice remaining calm, but with a commanding tone.

“That’s for you to find out. You’re the smart policewoman, aren’t you? Find me, if you can. Stop me, if you can.”

“Why are you doing this? Why kill Jake’s friends?”

No response. Rachel realized the caller had hung up.

She sat there for a couple of seconds, her phone in her hand, her heart beating at breakneck speed. Hurriedly, she checked her phone for the number of the last call and hit the Recall button. The phone rang repeatedly. No one answered, which didn’t surprise Rachel.

“Trying to crush that phone with your bare hands?” Dean asked.

Nearly jumping out of her skin, Rachel gasped, then whirled around and glared at him. “You scared the bejesus out of me.”

“Sorry. I seem to make a habit of unnerving you. What’s wrong? Unpleasant phone call?”

Rachel flipped the phone closed and laid it on her desk. “I was talking to Jake’s killer. Or at least he or she claimed to have killed Jake.”

Dean sat on the edge of Rachel’s desk. “No wonder you look pale. Did you recognize the voice?”

“Just like with the other calls we’ve all gotten recently, they used something to disguise their voice.”

Dean nodded. “Could you tell if the caller was male or female?”

“Not really. I tend to think it was a woman, but that’s merely a guess.”

“Working under the premise that it was a woman, exactly what did she say?”

“Not much, just that she had killed Jake and was going to kill someone else.”

“I don’t suppose she told you who.”

“No. And there won’t be any way to trace the call or even pinpoint where it came from. My guess is she was using a prepaid cell phone again. My caller ID showed Portland.”

“Probably, but we’ll run a check and see, just to make sure.” He glanced down at her cell phone. “You tried the number, right?”

“Right. And no one answered.”

Dean placed a lid-covered paper cup on her desk. “White chocolate latte. It’s your favorite, right?”

She eyed the cup as if it were a snake. For the past week, he’d been doing thoughtful little things for her. Peace offerings? Or just business as usual for a notorious flirt?

“Thanks.” She opened the lid, lifted the cup, and took a sip.

“If the person who called you is on the level and did kill Jake, then we have a problem on our hands, don’t we?”

“Yes, we do. The question is, who has she chosen to be the next victim?” Rachel stated the obvious.

“The first thing we do is contact everyone on the reunion committee and warn them to be even more careful than usual.”

“I can do that. There’s no need for you to-”

“Look, honey, let’s get something straight, I’m involved in this, too. Maybe not officially, but I’ve bought into your theory-yours and Kristen’s and Lindsay’s-that whoever killed Jake might have killed Aurora and Haylie and is targeting other girls Jake knew.”

Rachel patted the stack of files on her desk. “I’ve been through these time and time again. I’ve talked to numerous people who were there at the dance that night and I’ve gone over everything I personally remember.” She heaved a heavy, defeated sigh. “I have to admit that I’m as stumped as my dad was. There is just no evidence pointing to any one person. Jake was loved and hated in equal measure, yet nobody had a strong motive to want to see him dead.”

“Other than Haylie, maybe. But she was one of the first suspects cleared twenty years ago, and she was the first new victim.”

“Someone else hated Jake enough to kill him and do it in a spectacular way.”

“Yeah, and it was someone who wanted to look Jake in the eye when they offed him.” Dean glanced at the file folders on Rachel’s desk. “The coroner stated that the shot was at fairly close range and that in order to pin Jake to the tree that way, Jake had to have been right up against the tree.”

“He was probably leaning against the tree while he smoked.”