These scratches are going to take awhile to heal. A thick layer of makeup covers them somewhat, but it doesn’t look natural.

  It would be a good idea to lay low for a few days, at least.

  All things considered, though, Cassandra Ashford was another success.

  True, she was supposed to die at home, just as Tildy did.

  But this was better. Much better.

  Her being tucked away up in Maine, miles from civilization, has bought some time. It throws everyone off for a bit. Maintains the element of surprise.

  So, thank you for running scared, Cassie. I didn’t think you had it in you to shake things up that way.

  Chances are, nobody’s going to find her for awhile. Those cabins don’t have housekeeping services. Hers is one of the most secluded, and there won’t be many people around there after today, anyway.

  Plus, she paid rent for the rest of October. The receipt was on a table in the cabin, made out to a Marsha Johnson.

  Marsha…

  No doubt a sly tribute to Marshmallow, her beloved horse.Marshmallow is also the password for her online e-mail account. That wasn’t hard to guess. Trial and error, and…bingo! You’re logged in.

  Ah, Cassie. You should have galloped away on horseback. If you had, I might not have found you.

  Because, of course, you can’t plant a homing device on an animal without some groomer eventually finding it.

  Poor Cassie. She had no way of ever guessing that the surprise party invitation wasn’t the only thing left behind on her car that day at Glenwood Springhouse.

  Now, to further delay the identification of her body whenever it is found, her car has been moved to a remote part of the camp, the homing device removed.

  There was some satisfaction in watching the car go sailing over the edge of a ravine, landing in a crumpled heap in the dense woods at the bottom.

  And, yes, I left it there, Cassie.

  You know why? Because it’s just a heap of metal…not a person, for God’s sake.

  Funny, how the decade-old ache hasn’t subsided a bit now that yet another so-called sister has paid for what she did.

  If anything, it’s grown more intense; the need for vengeance more urgent than ever before.

  But, once again, there’s nothing to do but settle in and wait.

  Quincy Hiles is in the passenger’s seat for a change, with Mike at the wheel as they sit in late-afternoon holiday weekend traffic on the Mass Pike.

  He’s mulling over their provocative conversation with Isaac when his phone rings.

  It’s Deb Jackson.

  “Where are you?”

  Greeted with only that brusque question, Quincy provides an equally brusque answer. “On the road.”

  “Listen, something just happened with Wilmington.”

  “What happened?”

  “We went over there to bring him in for more questioning…”

  “Yeah.” That’s nothing new; they’ve been on him relentlessly, determined to get him to crack.

  “So his mother said he was still in bed.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s going on?” Mike asks, eavesdropping on Quincy’s end of the conversation.

  Quincy holds up his index finger as Deb goes on, “We told her to go wake him up. She went up there and the next thing we know, there’s a hysterical scream.”

  “What happened?”

  “Wilmington’s dead, Quincy. He slit his wrists.”

  Quincy emits a shocked expletive.

  “What?” Mike asks. “What the hell happened?”

  “That’s not all,” Deb goes on breathlessly in Quincy’s ear. “He left a note. And you’re not gonna believe this…”

  “What are we going to do?” Brynn asks, elbows propped on the kitchen table, forehead buried in her hands.

  “I don’t know.” Fee is uncharacteristically desolate, staring into space, cell phone in hand. “I just wish Cassie would return our calls.”

  “I know.” She pauses, trying to phrase her next words.

  “What if,” she says carefully, “we went to the police—wait, don’t interrupt,” she adds when Fiona opens her mouth, “and we didn’t tell them anything about what happened with Rachel? What if we just told them what’s going on now, and that somebody is obviously threatening us, and let the police take it from there?”

  “How long do you think it’s going to take them to figure out that what’s going on now has something to do with something that happened in the past? Specifically, when we were in college?”

  Brynn shakes her head. Fiona is right. She just keeps sending it around and around her thought processes, hoping to come up with some new spin on things.

  But no matter how you look at it, there’s no way they can go to the police without incriminating themselves. If not right away, then eventually.

  “Hang in there, Brynn.” Fiona gives her hand a pat.

  “If Cassie would just call us back…You did leave her a message on her cell phone voice mail, right?”

  “Three.”

  “I swear, I really can’t take much more of this…And Garth is going to be home in a couple of hours, and I don’t know how I’m going to keep this from—”

  “Just calm down, will you?” Fiona almost sounds like her take-charge self again.

  Almost. But her green eyes are tinged with uncharacteristic trepidation.

  “Cassie said she was going to take off, remember?” Fee goes on. “And she told Alec the same thing.”

  “That doesn’t mean she’s safe.”

  “No, but we both know there’s no reason for us to start panicking until we know for sure something’s happened to—”

  “Stop!” Brynn holds up a hand to cut her off. “Don’t even say it, Fee. I can’t stand it.”

  “I’m sorry.” Fiona takes a cigarette from her pack, toying with it for a moment before holding it up and asking Brynn hopefully, “Can I—?”

  “God, no.” The mere thought of smoke turns her stomach.

  Fiona puts away the cigarette.

  They fall silent again, listening to Caleb and Jeremy laughing together as they build a Lego city in the living room.

  Brynn hugs herself, still quaking from her latest bathroom bout with nausea. This time, it has nothing at all to do with her pregnancy and everything to do with what she found inside the parcel left by her front door.

  There was an identical one at Fee’s door.

  Both packages contained framed copies of their sorority composite picture from ten years ago.

  Four smiling faces are circled in thick black marker: Brynn’s, Fiona’s, Cassie’s, and Tildy’s.

  And both Cassie’s and Tildy’s are crossed out with an ominous, blood-redX .

  “He was about to blackmail her to get the cash he needed to save his mother’s house.”

  Deb is talking about Ray Wilmington and Matilda Harrington.

  “He admitted that in his suicide note?” Quincy tilts the phone out from his ear so that Mike can hear, too.

  “He sure as hell did admit it. And you know why?”

  “Why, what?”

  “Why he could blackmail her?”

  Quincy hates guessing games. “Cut the crap and tell me, Jackson.”

  “You’re not going to believe this,” Deb says again, obviously sitting on something that’s going to blow the case wide-open, and relishing Quincy’s suspense.

  “Try me.”

  “Because not only did he find out that Matilda Harrington was sneaking around with a married man—”

  Bingo,Quincy thinks.

  “—but because of who that married man happens to be.”

  “Wilmington knew who he was, then?”

  “Everyoneknows who he is.”

  Deb pauses.

  If Quincy was in a room with her, he’d be tempted to collar her and shake her right about now.

  “Who is he, Jackson?”

  Deb announces almost gleefully, “The holier-than-thou Republican governor who’s supposed to be running for president; the one with the wife and triplets. Troy Allerson.”

  PART IV

  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR FIONA

  CHAPTER 18

  Amazing, Brynn can’t help but think as the month wears on, how daily life can whisk you along like a moving sidewalk.

  Regardless of where your head and heart are, regardless of almost constant apprehension, you just keep moving forward physically, propelled through each day from dawn to dusk with almost disconcerting normalcy.

  It’s been over a week now since she got home from the Cape.

  Over a week since both she and Fiona received that bone-chillingly altered composite sorority picture.

  At least they’ve both heard from Cassie since they said good-bye to her that Saturday in Boston, when she said she was thinking of going into hiding.

  Apparently, that’s what she’s done.

  She’s sent a couple of reassuring e-mails to Brynn and Fiona:

  Hi, guys, just wanted to let you know I’m safe. Let me know that you are, too.—Cassie

  Me again. Still hanging in there. Hoping to come home soon.—Cassie

  Just checking in. Hope you guys are okay. Miss you.—Cassie

  Brynn wrote back every time, telling Cassie that she and Fiona are fine.

  But Tildy…

  Tildy is gone.

  Every time she thinks about what happened to her, Brynn wants to scream, cry, faint, vomit.

  But, miraculously, she doesn’t do any of those things…

  Well, except vomit. Mostly in the mornings.

  Garth has yet to catch on, though. For him, things seem to be status quo.

  His flight was delayed several hours on Monday night because of a mechanical failure. There was trouble with one of the engines before takeoff; he called from the plane to say it was being repaired. Predictably, he was a nervous wreck—too nervous, at least, to note any tension in Brynn’s voice.

  By the time he got home late that night, she was asleep. She was dimly aware of him leaning over to kiss her, whispering, “I’m home,” but she was too exhausted to fully wake up.

  Nor did he stir when she woke to find him sleeping beside her in their bed—just before she ran to the bathroom.

  The past week the Saddlers have resumed their usual routine: Garth coming and going from campus; Brynn carting the boys around, doing the housework, making meals.

  All the while, she can think of little but that ominous picture she hid behind stacked sweaters on the top shelf in her closet.

  But she can’t do anything about it.

  Unless she wants to risk upsetting the already precarious balance of her life.

  And she doesn’t dare. Not right now, anyway.

  So, like Fiona, she’s come to realize that there’s simply nothing the two of them can do now.

  Nothing but wait.

  Feeling, every second, as though they’re playing out their lives in the crosshairs of an invisible rifle scope.

  “That’s it. Emily…You’re fired.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.” Seated at her desk, Fiona waves her hand at the girl. “Get your stuff and go.”

  “But—”

  “You’re fired,” she repeats.

  “Who are you supposed to be, Donald Trump?” Emily protests, her intended sarcasm largely overshadowed by blatant dismay. “You can’t fire me for one little mistake. That’s not f—”

  “I can, I did, and I’ll mail your last paycheck. Get moving.”

  Emily hovers in the doorway of Fiona’s office another split second before she turns and scurries away. Moments later, Fiona hears her close the outer door.

  “Good riddance,” she mutters, and lights a cigarette with a shaking hand. Screw the no-smoking rule.

  She realizes Emily left behind her open can of Diet Pepsi on Fiona’s side table, where she set it—without using a coaster, of course.

  I doubt she’ll be back for it.

  I doubt she’d even come back for her paycheck if I don’t mail it.

  Maybe I shouldn’t.

  Fiona inhales a stream of smoke—and with it, all right, maybe a bit of remorse. But it doesn’t last for long.

  She’ll send Emily her paycheck, but she won’t feel bad about firing her. This has been a long time coming.

  And it wasn’t about just one little mistake, as Emily claimed. She’s made plenty.

  But this one, in particular, is unforgivable.

  Emily forgot to send out an important client document. She took it with her to Mail Boxes Etc., and lost it somewhere along the way. Then she apparently forgot all about it.

  “What do you mean, youforgot? ” Fiona demanded of Emily, who shrugged.

  Fiona was already having a bad day before this happened. A bad week, really.

  All right, perhaps the worst week she’s ever had in her life.

  What with that creepy picture showing up on her doorstep, Cassie still in hiding but sending e-mails, Brynn calling her every five minutes, skittish and apparently just making sure Fiona is still alive, and her own birthday looming just days away…

  And then there’s James.

  He hasn’t returned her calls in the last few days.

  He had an assistant return them…as though he assumed she might be calling him about something business-related.

  Of course, she had to pretend that she was.

  She even tried e-mailing him, yesterday—a simpleHi, what’s up? —but there’s been no reply.

  So, yes, she’s been in a foul mood.

  And, yes, Emily was on the receiving end of the inevitable fallout just now.

  But she deserves it. She screwed up.

  And now I’m going to have to deal with an irate client, and a million stupid, mindless administrative details Emily should have been taking care of.

  She doesn’t need any of that. Especially not now.

  The phone rings.

  Speak of the devil,she thinks dismally. It’s probably her client.

  The phone rings again.