Paranoid(63)

In that regard, Annessa had been surprised when Lila had settled on Luke Hollander. He wasn’t wealthy and he was only a couple of years older and no longer a football star. Yet, Lila had set her sights on Rachel Gaston’s brother and become Rachel’s best friend.

For a while.

Anyone with any brains could see that she was only using Rachel to get close to Luke. Probably Rachel had known it, too, because their friendship had seemed to fade with time.

Annessa smiled at that. Well, who could blame Rachel? Lila had become her damned stepmother-in-law.

Sick.

Using her key, she unlocked a door to the school yard and stepped outside. It was twilight, the gloom settling in.

The area was completely enclosed, two sides blocked by the wings of the old school. The third boundary, directly across from where she stood, was the old chapel, now crumbling under a sloping roof, its tall spire and silent bell tower knifing into the dusky sky. The final wall of the school yard was a high wooden fence with a locked gate leading to the parking lot of the hospital.

She remembered third grade when she’d fallen from the monkey bars and sprained her ankle. Sister Mary Rosarius, the meanest nun in the school, had hustled her through the gate and along a covered portico to the hospital, all the while muttering that Annessa would be fine, that she shouldn’t be a baby and should stop crying. “Oh, now, don’t blubber. Say a prayer with me,” she’d ordered, walking fast, the skirt of her habit swishing with her strides. “Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus . . .”

Annessa hadn’t prayed and she hadn’t stopped sobbing.

Now she stepped into the yard, where a few insects buzzed in the coming night and a lone security lamp offered dim, uneven light over the tufted dirt where once there had been grass. Shards of broken glass glinted in the bald patch of earth.

She’d spent many hours here, laughing and playing and scheming with her friends. She remembered the bells in that spire tolling for mass, or to signify the end of the school day. Father Timothy had been the principal, and though there were a few nuns employed at that time, most of the staff were laypeople.

She recalled . . .

Scraaape.

What was that?

She froze.

Was it a shoe scuffing the earth behind her?

Whipping around, Annessa expected to see him crossing the patchy yard, a devilish smile slashed across his jaw, his mischievous eyes sparkling.

But the space beneath the porch was empty. Devoid of life. Quiet and still. Grimy windows dark.

Jesus.

Her nerves tightened. She licked her lips. Eyed the entire yard, with its misshapen pieces of broken equipment and shadowy areas where blackberries and weeds had taken root. Her throat was as dry as dust.

They’d gone too far this time. These clandestine meetings always had an edge to them, a little bit of danger that made the sex all the more potent. Cheating on their spouses wasn’t enough; they each liked a little more adrenaline in their bloodstream.

But this—what they’d planned tonight—had crossed a line.

Another line, she reminded herself as a bat flew toward the old tower.

The hairs on her arms lifted and her pulse pounded in her ears.

“Are you here?” she whispered.

She waited.

No response.

Just the wind rustling a piece of paper that danced across the broken concrete walkway.

Annessa was already tense.

She’d read about Violet Sperry’s death, seen the report on the news, heard gossip in the coffee shop.

All she knew was that Violet had been killed by an unknown assailant, murdered in her home. Here in sleepy Edgewater, where the news was so slow that the local paper had to dredge up the fatal accident that had taken the life of Luke Hollander. Her insides turned to ice. She’d been there that night, in the cannery. The noise. The confusion. The sounds of firecrackers booming, or had it been real gunfire? Along with the steady click of pellet guns, the shouts and screams. She’d witnessed Luke go down, seen him bleed out, thought his sister, Rachel Gaston, had actually shot him until she realized she hadn’t been sure. Hadn’t the spark from the real gun been off to Rachel’s side . . . or had she been mistaken? She hadn’t been certain then, and she sure as hell wasn’t now.

She pulled her jacket around her more tightly and wondered how long she would have to wait.

Not long.

She wasn’t going to waste her time.

Creeaak.

The sound echoed through the yard and she shot a quick look over her shoulder to spy the broken, lopsided merry-go-round slowly spinning, rotating on its ancient spindle, casting a moving shadow beneath the solitary lamp.

What the hell?

The merry-go-round was turning from the wind?

But the breeze was slight, not strong enough to push the old structure on its rusting pivot. For a second she thought of the ghost stories they’d told one another as kids, insisting that the chapel was haunted.

“Just kids being kids,” she whispered now, but her skin was prickling and her nerves were strung as tight as the strings of Sister Catherine’s cello.

It’s nothing.

But she decided it was time to go. This was a ridiculous place to meet, anyway.

Why had he even suggested it to begin with?

Why had she agreed?

Oh, yeah, because they each had a connection here, to this complex, and they’d both gone to elementary school here.