Lisa Jackson - Most Likely To Die

She shouldn’t be so silly. No one could get inside her house. Not with sturdy locks on all the windows and doors. Not with a security system in place.

As soon as she entered the foyer, she tapped the code into the keypad to disarm the security system, then hurriedly locked the door behind her. Releasing a relieved breath, she walked down the hall and into the kitchen. She had left a table lamp on in the foyer and the over-the-sink fluorescent on in the kitchen.

Using the handy step stool she kept in the pantry, Martina stood on it to reach an upper cupboard. After retrieving the box of candy she kept out of sight and hopefully out of mind, she set the box on the counter, opened it, and chose a piece of caramel nougat.

She knew she shouldn’t be indulging this way, but food was her drug of choice. Always had been. That’s why now, twenty years after high school, she was fifty pounds heavier.

She shouldn’t be doing this. She had stayed on her diet for two months now and lost fifteen pounds so she would look good at the reunion.

But with all that had happened lately-the deaths of three old friends and the constant threat that she or another friend was next-Martina needed the consolation that only candy could give her. If she drank, she’d be downing a glass of whiskey right now. If she smoked, she’d be puffing away on a cancer stick.

Attending the funeral of a dear old friend was reason enough for her to turn to the habitual crutch she could count on for comfort. Food. Especially candy.

Just as she was swallowing the last bite of the sweet concoction, the phone rang.

Startled, Martina cried out and threw her hands up and over her mouth.

Get a grip. It’s just the phone. Yes, but what if it’s “her”?

But what if it’s Craig?

She checked the caller ID. Portland. No name.

Damn!

Just don’t answer it.

The phone rang ten times, then stopped.

Martina popped another piece of candy into her mouth, then picked up the box and headed for the den.

The phone rang again.

Unnerved, her hands trembling, she dropped the box and the candy fell haphazardly all over the kitchen floor. Leaving the scattered pieces where they were, she checked the caller ID.

Portland. No name.

The phone rang ten times. Silence. Immediately, it rang again. Ten times. Silence. Then it rang again.

Martina held her hands over her ears. Stop calling me!

When the ringing continued, driving her crazy, she finally jerked the portable phone off its base and screamed, “Leave me alone!”

Laughter.

The person on the other end of the line was laughing at her.

“What’s wrong, Martina?” the disguised voice asked. “Are you upset that you’ve blown your diet by eating candy?”

“What! How did you know?” Martina rushed to the windows over the sink and peered out into the darkness.

“You should have answered on the first ring. That way, you wouldn’t have spilled your candy all over the floor.”

Oh, God! She’s out there, watching me. Looking in the window.

But Martina couldn’t see anyone. Just the empty driveway, the basketball hoop attached to the front of the garage, and her youngest child’s old bicycle.

“You can’t see me, but I can see you,” the voice taunted.

Martina hung up the phone and immediately dialed Rachel’s cell number. The minute Rachel answered, Martina spoke rapidly, fear in her voice. “She’s here. At my house. Outside watching me. Please, help me!”

Rachel assured Martina that she and Dean were on their way. Martina hung up the phone, then hurriedly punched in the code and Stay on the security keypad beside the back door.

There. She felt safer. If anyone tried to break into the house, the alarm would go off.

The phone rang.

Martina screamed.

The phone kept ringing. Over and over and over again.

Martina slumped down onto the floor, sitting in the middle of the scattered pieces of candy, and hugged herself as she rocked back and forth.

I’m safe. No one can get inside my house. No one can hurt me.

The phone continued ringing.

Rachel helped Kristen and Ross put Martina in their car.

“Go home with Kris,” Rachel said. “You’ll be safe there. Dean and I will take care of things here.”

As soon as she had received Martina’s desperate call for help, Rachel had phoned for police backup, and the closest squad car to Martina’s home had been sent out. Then she had phoned Kristen and asked that she and Ross meet them at Martina’s.

“She’s going to need a place to stay tonight,” Rachel had said. “And I want you to get in touch with Craig and tell him to come home, that his wife needs him.”

Martina slid into the backseat of Kristen’s car, then reached out and grabbed Rachel’s arm. “She was here. In my yard. Looking through the window. Find her, Rach. Find her and stop her before she kills again.”

Rachel grabbed Martina’s hand and squeezed hard. “I’ll do my best. I promise.”

Ross shut the door, closing Martina safely inside, then he turned to Rachel. “We’ll take care of her and get in touch with her husband, tonight if possible.”

Kristen hugged Rachel. “Don’t be alone at any time. I know you carry a gun and are able to defend yourself, but…We all need somebody to watch out for us. I’ve got Ross. Lindsay has Wyatt.” Kris’s gaze crossed Martina’s front yard and paused on Dean McMichaels where he stood talking to four patrol officers. The two squad cars had arrived before Rachel and Dean, but Martina had refused to open the door until Rachel arrived. “Dean’s a good man. Let him look after you. Okay?”

“Don’t worry about me. Just take care of yourself and Martina.”

When the Delmonicos left, Rachel walked over to Dean. With her eyes cast downward, she waited until the officers said their good-byes and headed toward their squad cars, then she looked directly at him.

“How’s Martina?” Dean asked.

“Frightened to death.”

“We found footprints under the kitchen windows,” he said. “I’ve got somebody on their way here to photograph them and make casts. The prints are slightly distorted, as if the person tried to erase them but didn’t have time to completely get rid of all the prints.”

“So, we wait for your crime scene tech person and in the meantime guard the scene?”

“Yeah, around back,” Dean said. “I’ll want Hughes to check for fingerprints on the windows, too.”

Rachel and Dean spent the next twenty minutes, while they waited for crime scene investigator Phil Hughes, making several phone calls. One by one, they telephoned the members of the reunion committee. The purpose of these calls was twofold. One: to warn them to be extra careful. Two: to see if they were at home. Of course, any one of them could have been here at Martina’s and made it home by now. But they had to check, to make sure everyone was accounted for tonight.

Lindsay was with Wyatt in their hotel room. Bella answered on the fourth ring. She was home and said she was just stepping out of the shower. DeLynn didn’t answer her home phone but answered her cell phone. She was at her mother’s, picking up her twins. April didn’t answer either her home phone or her cell phone.

“Just because she’s not answering her phone doesn’t make April a suspect,” Dean said.

“No, but…I can’t stand this!” Rachel’s nerves were on edge. She had worked quite a few murder cases over the years, first in Chattanooga and then in Huntsville, but the victims had been strangers. Everything was different when the victims were people you knew. Old friends. And complicating matters even more was the fact that the most obvious suspects were also old friends.

Dean slipped his arms around Rachel and pulled her into a comforting embrace. At first she stiffened, unsure of herself and of Dean. It had been a long time since she’d leaned on someone for any kind of support or counted on someone to be there for her. When he rubbed his big hand over her back and nuzzled the top of her head with his chin, she relaxed into him. Loving the way he held her so protectively, she eased her arms around his waist and laid her head on his chest.