Lisa Jackson - Most Likely To Die

“DeLynn,” she read.

Hurriedly she laid that lily back down and one by one checked the name tags on the others. April. Kristen. Martina. Bella. Lindsay. And Rachel.

“She’s sending us a message.” Rachel looked directly at Dean. “She wants us to know that we’re all going to die, that she’s going to kill each of us, the way she killed Mandy.”

Dean had disposed of the box of lilies while Rachel told Kristen and Lindsay about them, instructing them to let the others know.

This was yet another warning from the killer. They should take every precaution.

“Tell them not to panic, but to be more careful than ever,” Dean had advised.

After saying good-bye to Jeff, who probably wouldn’t remember who had been there and who hadn’t, Rachel and Dean drove straight to the florist, a trendy shop in downtown Portland-the Flower Garden-run by a young couple, Mark and Melanie, in their late twenties. The wife remembered the order.

“Yes, I took the order over the phone,” Melanie said. “Four days ago. She said she would send the money before the date of delivery and call back to let me know exactly when to deliver them. And she did. We received the payment in cash, which I thought was rather odd, but she said she preferred dealing in cash.”

“When did she call back to give you the details about delivery?”

“This morning,” Mark replied.

“Do you recall anything in particular about the woman’s voice?” Dean asked.

Melanie frowned. “No, not really.”

“Just an ordinary woman’s voice,” Mark said.

“Would you recognize her voice if you heard it again?”

Melanie shook her head.

“No, sorry,” Mark said. “We get so many calls.”

“Did you by any chance save the envelope the money came in?” Rachel asked.

“No. I had no reason to save it.” Melanie frowned.

“Did the woman give you a name?” Dean asked.

“Yes, of course.” Melanie thought for a couple of seconds. “I believe she said her name was Elizabeth Saint.”

Rachel groaned.

“Do you recognize the name?” Mark asked.

“Yes, we do,” Dean said. “Thanks for your help.”

Five minutes later, on their way across town to headquarters, while Rachel and Dean were talking about the name Elizabeth Saint being simply a play on words-St. Elizabeth’s-Rachel’s cell phone rang.

The caller ID showed Portland, Oregon. Cell number. No name.

Rachel flipped open the phone. “Hello.”

“Did you get my flowers?” the disguised voice asked.

“Yes.” Rachel motioned to Dean, indicating that the call was from “her.”

“Do you want to know who will be next?”

“Do you intend to tell me?”

Laughter. “Of course not. If I did, it wouldn’t be a surprise, would it?”

“Is there anything I can say or do that will persuade you to stop? Is there something you want that I-we can give you?”

Silence.

“You’re killing for a reason, aren’t you?” Rachel wanted to keep her talking. “Tell me what that reason is.”

“The only thing I want is the satisfaction of seeing all of you bitches dead and buried with the past.”

Buried with the past? “What did we ever do to you to make you hate us so?”

“You know what you did, what all of you did, how all of you treated me.”

“What about Jake? Did he treat you badly, too? Is that why you killed him?”

“Jake deserved to die for what he made me do,” the voice said.

“What did he make you do?”

Silence.

“Tell me. Please. Help me to understand why you-”

Crying. Soft sobs.

“Please, let me help you,” Rachel said.

“It’s too late.”

Conversation over. Phone call ended.

Emitting a nervous huff, Rachel closed her phone. “She all but admitted that she killed Jake. And she said he deserved to die because of what he made her do.”

“Knowing Jake, he could have done anything to this woman, even forced her to have sex with him,” Dean said.

A month ago, it would have been impossible for Rachel to believe that Jake had been capable of something so horrible. But the Jake she had come to know through studying the old Cupid Killer files was not the boy she remembered. It was as if he’d led a double life or at the very least had presented a pretty façade to the world to hide the darkness inside him.

“If he raped her, I can understand her wanting to kill him,” Rachel said. “But why does she want to kill us? Why Aurora and Mandy and Haylie? It doesn’t make sense.”

“We’ve already figured out that this woman is mentally unbalanced.”

“And she is one of us.”

“Probably.”

“DeLynn once had a nervous breakdown and so did Bella. April was into drugs once, and that could have affected her mentally.”

“And DeLynn and April were both within driving distance of New York City when Aurora died and Lindsay was attacked.” Dean turned his Thunderbird onto SW Second Street.

“I don’t want one of them to be our killer.”

“But the odds are that one of them is. And if we’re right about that, then it means whoever she is, she didn’t kill Jake.”

Rachel clenched her teeth and cursed softly under her breath. “None of us knew how to use a crossbow, and Jake was killed by someone skillful enough to hit him dead center in the heart.”

“Then we either have two killers on our hands or…”

“Or we have a man disguising his voice and himself as a woman.”

“Or we have a couple working together or-”

“Okay, let’s say the killer isn’t a woman. What if he was one of the guys at Western Catholic or Washington High?”

“We need to go with the most likely scenario instead of creating a new and less likely one,” Dean told her. “And remember that the person wearing disguises who you think has been stalking you is female. The person who ordered the lilies was female. And all of you think the person making the threatening calls is female. The most logical conclusion is that whoever killed Jake is not our present-day killer.”

“I know. I know. It seems the more information we have, the more confused things are. And so much boils down to the fact that I just can’t picture one of the old gang as a cold-blooded killer.”

“I don’t like the idea any better than you do that one of them is capable of murder, but what few concrete facts we have tell me that we need to concentrate on the reunion committee members.”

“I guess that rules out our doing a further investigation into the possibility that Marilyn or Patrick Dewey might have killed Jake.”

“I didn’t say we should rule out anyone. But motivation is the key factor-in Jake’s murder and in the recent murders. Patrick Dewey is dead, so he can’t be our killer. And why would Marilyn Dewey be killing women she doesn’t even know?”

“God, I am so frustrated!” Rachel admitted quite vehemently. “And I feel so helpless. I should be able to do something to stop these murders now, before someone else has to die.”

“I suppose your dad felt frustrated and hopeless when he couldn’t come up with a viable suspect in Jake’s murder. Even those of us in law enforcement can do only so much. If the evidence isn’t there-”

“It’s there,” Rachel told him. “Damn it, it’s there. We just can’t see it!”

When Kristen and Ross dropped Martina at her house that evening, Ross insisted on walking Martina to her door. And she was grateful for his gentlemanly escort. It wasn’t that she was scared, not exactly. Just unnerved.

A lot of that going around lately, she thought as she inserted the key in the lock of her front door, heard the distinct click, and turned around to wave good night to Kristen and her husband. If she weren’t all alone this week, with Craig out of town on business and the kids away at summer camp, she wouldn’t dread entering her own home. Craig hadn’t wanted to leave, but the trip had been planned weeks ago, before Mandy’s murder. Martina had insisted that he go, reassuring him that she would be fine for the few days he’d be gone.