Carol Steward - In His Sights

“Dee Owens doesn’t know anything more than what the cops tell her. Quit worrying. I’m keeping tabs on her—and that ridiculous Web site. Just lay low! Stop sending e-mails. If I were you, I’d get out of the country while you can.”

“I would if I could, believe me. If I could count on you to clean up this mess once and for all, that is. Dee may not know anything yet. All she needs is another chance to dig deeper. Get rid of her. Now!”

Dee and her friend Steff Kessler, director of alumni relations, spent the afternoon brainstorming ideas to counteract the scandals. They figured out a way to pull a list of distinguished alumni from the college database and they drafted a letter requesting alumni get involved. Dee hadn’t been this encouraged in weeks. Excited to move forward with the campaign as soon as possible, she left a message for Edgar.

She tidied her desk after Steff headed back to her office in the library. Dee reviewed her notes, jotting additional suggestions in the margins as she waited for Edgar to return her call. At a little after five o’clock, she decided Edgar wasn’t going to call. Dee placed the drafted letter into her briefcase.

As soon as Dee closed her office door the phone rang. She hurried back inside, dropped the purse back into the chair and lifted the receiver, hoping it was Edgar returning her call. “Deandra Owens, how can I—”

The caller interrupted Dee. Static mingled with hushed words. “Miss Owens, you must help—” the woman said before her Southern accented voice cut out.

“What?” Dee waited a few seconds then tried to get the caller’s attention. “Hello?”

“Those…on the reunion Web site—” The caller was interrupted by yelling and commotion on her end.

Dee could hear doors slamming, then more static. “Hello?” She considered hanging up but couldn’t. Two words had her hooked—Web site. How could anyone know she’d just taken over as Webmaster? “Hello, are you there?” She looked down at the caller ID, which read “unknown number.”

“Just a moment, please,” the caller whispered, “Mother and Father don’t want me calling, but something is wrong.”

“Who is this? Are you okay?” Dee heard the squeak of metal on metal. “Hello? What’s your—”

She heard someone in another room yelling, but couldn’t tell what was said.

“Miss Owens,” the caller whispered, “you must find out who is pretending to be Josie.”

“Pretending? What makes you think—”

The caller was gone.

Dee stared at the phone, willing it to ring again. Surely the caller would phone back. She had to. Dee needed more information.

Josie? Racking her brain, Dee recalled a girl in her dorm with the name Josie. What was her last name? Were there other Josies at Magnolia College ten years ago?

There was something familiar about the caller’s voice. Logically speaking, it could be any well-bred Southern woman, but Dee couldn’t shake the feeling that they knew each other.

She waited a few moments, hoping the mystery woman would call again. When it was clear that wasn’t going to happen, Dee logged into the Web site and reread all of the posts. The only Josie to leave a message hadn’t given a last name. Dee had assumed at the time it was from the Josie she remembered, but maybe there had been another Josie enrolled at Magnolia College. The post said Josie had taken a whirlwind tour of Europe after graduation and mentioned a daughter. But why would someone pretend to be someone else on a college reunion Web site? And why was this caller so sure it wasn’t the real Josie? Maybe it was simply a case of mistaken identity.

While she was logged on, Dee searched the Web site, wondering how the caller had gotten her contact information. Unless this was the person who’d hacked into the site and found Dee’s name as the administrator, she had no clue how she could have known. After another hour, Dee finally gave up waiting to hear back from the frantic woman.

Grabbing her belongings again, she went down the back stairs of the administrative building, toward Kessler Library, noticing the new memorial garden that Cassie Winters had planted after her brother’s murder. She also noted the new emergency phones dotting the sidewalks across campus.

Walking past the new library’s construction site, Dee felt an odd sense of stepping back in time, to her own college days again, when they’d all felt perfectly safe walking across campus any time of day. All that had changed with recent events.

The air smelled like rain, bringing back memories of dashing to class, soaking wet.

She felt a few raindrops and walked faster.

She’d never liked studying at the library. Something about the huge old building gave her the chills. That feeling was heightened now, since a body had been uncovered on the library’s grounds.

Maybe it was just that she was thinking so much about the skeleton lately, who the victim was, and what she’d gone through. Not fifty feet from where she stood, Dee realized. Glancing over her shoulder, Dee noticed a dark shadow behind the row of azaleas that Cassie had planted in the memorial garden.

She picked up her pace, her heels clicking on the sidewalk. As a chill went up her spine, Dee looked to the left, then the right. The few students out walked in groups, ducking under trees to stay dry. All except one person—a short and slight figure wearing a dark, hooded sweatshirt. The person turned away from her, then walked toward the music school. Dee let out a sigh of relief. Even though the campus was well lit, she still had an eerie feeling. Her imagination was probably getting the best of her, she told herself. Just in case, when she was done at the library, she’d call the campus security office and request an escort to take her back to her car, another of the changes the college had put into place recently.

She replayed the phone conversation over in her mind, focusing hard to think of something she’d missed. The woman had had a very strong Southern accent and a formal speech pattern. But that was little help—Georgia was full of women with Southern accents.

Dee glanced back at the music building as she went up the steps to the library. She didn’t spot anyone, though it was difficult to see much with the lush undergrowth of palmettos and Spanish moss hanging from the live oak.

After stepping through the heavy oak doors, she passed the front desk. “Ma’am, would you scan your campus ID card?”

Dee kept an eye on the entrance as she dug through her purse for her wallet. “I know it’s here somewhere.”

The student working behind the desk said, “If you don’t have it with you, I need to have you fill out a community ID. It’s part of our new security policy.”

“I just got a new card—I hope it’s in this purse.” With a sigh of relief, Dee pulled her staff ID card from her wallet and brushed it past the scanner. “Are the yearbook archives still in the basement?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Dee hurried downstairs. At a table in a quiet corner facing the exit, Dee piled decade-old school yearbooks and newspapers from when she attended Magnolia College around her and started through them, recalling events she’d almost forgotten.

She laughed quietly at the costume contest pictures from her freshman year. The girls on her dorm floor had gone in the pajama party theme. She and Steff Kessler wore their freshly curled hair in banana clips on the back of their heads. Jennifer Pappas had her toothbrush tangled in dental floss hanging around her neck like a necklace; Josie Skerritt’s curling iron was twisted and dangling from her hair. That was her last name—Skerritt! Trying to place the other girls in the photo, she looked closer. Payton…Payton Bell and Alicia Whittaker.