Kristen left them to argue the merits of pepperoni versus vegetarian and headed to the den. Her cell phone had died on her again, so she replugged it into the charger and sat at her desk. Bracing herself, she punched out Aurora’s number on the landline. Aurora answered on the second ring.
“Hi. It’s Kris. I got your messages.”
“What the hell is-”
“Enough already. I got a doctored invitation, too, and I didn’t send it. I wasn’t going to bother sending one to myself but it came, just the same.”
“You call that slash mark ‘doctored’? It wasn’t just a little mark, Kris, it was like someone pressed hard with a red pen, intent on making a scar. It was drawn to look like a goddamned knife wound.”
“I know, but I didn’t do it.”
“If you didn’t send them, who did?”
“That’s the point. I don’t know. I took the invitations to the post office, but I just grabbed the stack that I’d left on the table and dumped them in the mail slot. I never double-checked them. I think someone was in my house, long enough to take out information from the packets and put them into new envelopes.” She thought hard, her mind clicking ahead. “If so, the labels probably don’t match the others unless the person who did this has the database for our mailing list.”
“You think it’s someone from the committee?” Aurora was rattled.
“I don’t know who it is.” She then went on to tell Aurora everything that had happened. Aurora listened without interruption as Kristen explained about her house probably being broken into, the box of her school paraphernalia missing from the attic, and how she suspected someone was stalking her.
“Mary, Jesus, and Joseph,” Aurora murmured at the end, and Kristen imagined her making the sign of the cross over her fairly large bosom.
“I’m scared to death for my family. I’m calling the police in the morning, after I figure out who else got the mutilated invitations. You said in your phone call that it isn’t everyone on the committee who received one?”
“So far, it’s only a few of us. For example, I got one, but DeLynn didn’t. Nor did Martina, but Bella got one and so did Mandy.”
“What about Laura?”
“No. Same with April. They got the real deal. No tampering. Their pictures weren’t slashed with a red marker.”
“Probably the same marker used on the picture of Jake and me that was left on my car.”
Aurora sucked in a quick breath. “Oh, shit, you’re right. This is going from beyond weird to downright scary.”
Kristen couldn’t have agreed more. Just talking about it made her blood run cold. She thought of the person she’d seen lurking on the other side of the street. A person staring at her house. Casing the place. Because he wanted to break in and steal junk from her high school days?
Shivering, she wrapped one arm around her abdomen. “What about people who aren’t on the reunion committee? Graduates who didn’t volunteer?”
“No way of knowing unless they call one of us-you, probably, as your name is listed on the invitation. The girls who moved farther away wouldn’t have received theirs yet,” Aurora said. “Geez, Kristen, I was just talking to Lindsay, right before I got the mail. It was fun, reconnecting, y’know? Then I hung up and went to the mail and there it was. Freaked me out.”
“I know. I just don’t get what this is about. Are they mad because we’re finally getting it together and putting on the reunion?”
“You mean, you think someone’s trying to stop it from happening?”
“Maybe…or maybe…this is about Jake?”
Aurora sucked in a breath. “You think his killer’s involved?”
“No…I don’t know…But this reunion’s stirred someone up, that’s for sure. He or she has been waiting a long time. Twenty years. Now here’s his chance, his venue to make whatever psychotic statement he wants to.”
“Who would do that?”
“Someone with serious psychoses.”
“But why?”
“I’ve been asking myself that since the night I found the tape and picture in my car.” She heard a click in the receiver, indicating someone was calling in. Caller ID flashed a message that Swanson H was trying to get through. “Hey, Aurora, I’ve got to go. Haylie’s on the other line.”
“You think she received one of the bad ones?”
“I don’t know. But when I find out, I’ll call you back.”
“Do.”
Haylie Swanson was about the last person Kristen wanted to speak with, but considering the circumstances, she knew she needed to talk to all of her classmates. Bracing herself, she clicked over to the second line. “Hello?”
“Jesus H. Christ, Kristen, why don’t you ever call me back?” Haylie demanded, her voice rising with a harsh, unrestrained fury. “I left three goddamned messages!”
“Haylie…I didn’t get them. Really.”
“Oh, sure! Your machine picked up,” she said, nearly accusing Kristen of lying.
“Oh…I haven’t heard those messages. I usually use my cell.”
“It’s your home number listed in the damned invitations, Kris,” she pointed out, so angry her voice trembled. She was breathless, as if she’d been running, and Kristen imagined her, a bundle of raw nerves, pacing on the other end of the line. “So what’s with the reunion picture? The one with my face marked up?” Haylie demanded, then Kristen heard the click of what sounded like a cigarette lighter.
“You got one, too,” Kristen said, almost whispering.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Several people got the marred invitations, we’re not really sure who, but Aurora, Mandy, Bella, me, and now you…”
“Oh…so people connected to Jake Marcott,” she said, as if the answer were obvious.
Kristen nearly fell off the chair. “Connected to Jake?”
Haylie snorted. “Well, you were dating him at the time he was killed, and Bella is his sister. I’m connected through Ian.”
“That’s kind of far-fetched, Haylie.” Maybe the woman really was having a nervous breakdown. Or maybe she was behind it all.
“Jake and Ian were friends,” Haylie explained with extreme impatience. “And whether you want to believe it or not, Jake was at the wheel the night of the accident. Jake killed Ian! I was in love with Ian, and I was once friends with Jake.” She inhaled on her cigarette. “We’re all connected to him.”
“You think the people who knew Jake are…targets?” Kristen asked, her nerves stretching as she thought about it.
“I studied everything there was to study about Jake. I made it my mission, Kris.”
“What about Mandy and Aurora?” Kristen argued. “Neither one of them dated him that I know of.”
“But they wanted to! Everyone had a thing for him, and I don’t get it. I never got it. He was bad, Kristen, really, really bad. There was a black spot in his heart, I’m telling you.”
“So anyone who ever wanted to date him is also getting marked-up invitations? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It’s all about people connected to him!” Haylie insisted. “Mandy Kim was one of the girls who helped Jake with his homework, got him through some of his tough classes, and he and Aurora worked together for a while at the pet store…you know the one, it used to be in kind of the Burlingame area, at the corner above Riverside Abbey.”
Kristen knew the area, south of the freeway, near the Terwilliger Curves. Crosby’s Critters. The place had changed hands half a dozen times, if Kristen remembered correctly. It had gone from pet store to athletic equipment sales, then became an insurance company and a Thai restaurant, and even a few other things that Kristen couldn’t recall. Now it was a coffee shop.
“You don’t believe me,” Haylie accused.
“I don’t want to believe it,” Kris said honestly. “I don’t like it.”
“I didn’t like getting that invitation.”