Twenty-Five Years Ago Today (19 page)

He moved her forward and pressed her against
the refrigerator. His masculine cologne rushed through her senses.
Kris clutched the milk carton to her side as his palms framed her
face. Her mouth opened and invited his kiss. Her body flushed and
tingling, she tugged his shirt out of his waistband.

"You drive me crazy, too," she murmured.

"I guess we'll have to do something about
that." Eric backed her toward the bedroom.

***

Kris fed her cat, showered and changed, and
then Eric drove to Brandywine Estates. As he parked in the
driveway, she surveyed the neighborhood by daylight. It must've
looked odd when the Soares first moved in, without other houses
built. Now most homes had closed-up swimming pools in back and
snowmen in front.

Eric gestured to a Ford on the street. "Looks
like they have company. Wonder who's here."

Kris recognized the chipped green paint and
dented rear fender. "Damn. It's Bruce, the guy writing the story on
Diana."

"My mother didn't mention an interview."

"I have a feeling it was unplanned."

They hurried into the living room. Loud
voices drifted from the kitchen.

"Come on," Eric said.

"I hate to wimp out, but it might be better
if we wait here," Kris whispered. "That time you confronted me at
the paper, I told him the funeral home screwed up an obit. If he
sees who you really are, he'll make my life hell with my
editor."

"He sounds like a jerk."

"Good observation," Kris said.

They listened against the wall, trading tense
glances.

"Look, we have no comment," Michael said.
"Leave us alone."

"If Diana worked in that dive, she was no
innocent," Bruce was saying. "She probably knew her killer."

"How dare you imply that my sister wasn't
innocent," Cheryl snapped. "You don't care about the truth. You
only care about selling papers."

"That's it," Michael said. "I want you out of
here."

"All right, all right, I'm leaving. I can get
the story done without you." Bruce slammed the door.

Fists clenched, Kris resisted the urge to
chase him. Bruce had no respect for people. She and Eric waited
until the car started, then entered the kitchen. Kris couldn't look
the Soares in the eye as she visualized what she and their son had
done a couple hours earlier.

Cheryl lifted a packet of roast beef and set
it back down on the counter. Michael smiled at them and raked a
hand through his golden hair.

"We saw you pull up," he said. "What're you
two doing here?"

"I invited Kris to look at Diana's paintings
in the storage room," Eric said.

"I'm glad you stayed in the living room,
Kris. It's better for you to keep out of it."

"It was hard to stay quiet," she said. "I
wanted to kill him. Do you know if Bruce saw me, too?"

"He might have," Michael said. "I don't
know."

Cheryl pushed past Michael, wringing her
hands. He glanced at her. "Honey?"

She seized a bag of potato chips and pitched
it across the room. "I can't take this anymore. I can't."

"Honey-"

She wheeled on Kris, tears filling her eyes.
"Why did you have to come into our lives? Now you've got my mother
convinced you're a miracle worker, and poor Diana will be lambasted
in the papers again. Why did you have to dredge this up?" She
stormed out.

Too numb to move, Kris stared after her.
She'd admired Cheryl, felt comfortable around her. She had thought
Cheryl liked her, too. Now that she was involved with Eric, his
mother's approval meant even more.

Eric slid an arm around her waist. "Mom’s
just frustrated."

"Maybe she's right," Kris said.

"You'll see the story before it runs. You'll
make sure it's not damaging."

"I can't guarantee that. Your mother said she
might talk to my editor, but I don't know if she has. It probably
won't matter."

"Easy. Calm down."

"Cheryl left a message with whoever answered
the newsroom phone," Michael said. "She didn't want to put you in
the middle, Kris, so she called when you weren't there. She hasn't
gotten a reply from your editor yet."

Kris studied his handsome face. Michael
hadn't shown an ounce of surprise at Eric touching her. Had Cheryl
suspected their relationship, too? Perhaps that had contributed to
her outburst. She didn't want her son dating the nosy reporter who
was digging up trouble.

"Dad, we're gonna go downstairs."

Michael nodded. "Good luck. And Kris, Eric's
right. Don't worry about my wife. That guy just upset her."

"Thanks," she said.

Kris followed Eric down the wooden steps into
the cellar. She sat on a sagging Colonial loveseat, hugging herself
from the blast of cold. The Soares had left the basement
unfinished, the skeleton of a living room with its scratched coffee
table and faded wing chair set up between support beams. Fluffy
pink insulation latticed the ceiling.

Eric crouched beside her and rested his hands
on her knees. "Forget about it. Mom has a short fuse."

"She hates me."

"She hates that her little sister was killed,
and that she's as helpless now as she was then. Come on, we came to
see the paintings." He swept the bangs out of her eyes and kissed
her cheek.

They maneuvered through the storage room in
back of the basement, past broken bicycles, cardboard boxes
overflowing with board games and dusty trunks. Scents of mildew and
mothballs lingered in the air.

Eric switched on the weak light bulb. He
raised the white bed sheets off a painting, sending up thick clouds
of dust. Mammoth creatures sprang across the canvas, wings flapping
like metal whips, teeth bared, red eyes dripping blood. Hissing
snakes wreathed their heads. Eric uncovered another similar
scene.

"The Furies," Kris said. "I've read about
them. They were goddesses who punished the wicked for their crimes,
coming up from hell and chasing sinners across the face of the
earth."

"I wish they'd punish Diana's murderer."

Icy chills raced up Kris's spine. "Could that
be why she painted them? Because she knew someone had committed a
crime? Maybe she knew something that got her killed."

"Or they could just be paintings," Eric
said.

He was right. She was overanalyzing it.
Hadn't Jared told her about another weird painting?

"It's enough to give you nightmares," Eric
said.

Kris stiffened. She should have anticipated
he would bring up the subject.

"I was worried about you last night," he went
on. "Does that happen often?"

"Eric, please. I don't want to discuss
it."

Abruptly, he draped the sheets over the
paintings.

"You don't understand," she said.

"That's because you won't tell me."

"I barely know you."

"Funny, after the past twelve hours, I
figured we knew each other pretty well. I'd like to know each other
on an emotional level, too. Wouldn't you?"

That stalled her. Kris opened her mouth and
closed it. She couldn’t tell him she had caused her cousin’s death
and lied about it. He wouldn’t respect her anymore, and she could
hardly blame him.

He slipped her into his arms. "If you don't
want to talk about your nightmares, you don't have to, but I want
to hear about your life. How you wound up at the paper. What you
did before. More about your mother and sister. You've got an
advantage over me. You've interviewed my whole family. At least let
me interview you."

Kris sighed. She supposed she could offer him
the edited version of her life. "Okay, you win. I'll bore you with
the tale of Kris Langley, Crime-Fighting Obit Writer."

"I'd like that story," he said with a
grin.

***

Kris wandered her apartment Monday morning,
forgetting why she had walked into a room, unable to focus on
anything but Eric. They had talked for hours in her apartment until
their stomachs growled and they ordered pizza. They matched each
other intellectually as well as physically. If only she had gone to
public high school, she might have met Eric years earlier. For so
long, they had lived in the same town, unaware of the other’s
existence. Kris couldn't worry how Cheryl Soares viewed the
relationship. It would be nice if they made up, but she was dating
Eric. Not his mother.

She brought herself down from her high at the
newspaper. Kris located Bruce's story in the central network
directory. She swore under her breath as she read the first
line.

FREMONT - Every night, Diana Ferguson piled
on makeup, dressed in a tight sweater and jeans, and headed out to
the smoke-infested Rossi's Bar.

There, she served cocktails to married men
who had taken off their wedding rings, and underage college boys
who had flashed fake ids. Usually, the 21-year-old went home to her
widowed mother after work.

But on Jan. 20, Diana never came home. Two
nights later, she was found dead in the woods behind Fremont
State.

To this day, her murder has never been
solved. Although other violent crimes have occurred in the Greater
Fremont area, including the recent homicide of college student
Scott Miles at a party, this is the only one that remains
unanswered.

While old boyfriends were reportedly
questioned in the case, there was never an arrest. Lieutenant
Gerald Frank, the detective on the case when Ferguson was killed,
admits that she probably knew her killer.

"The victim and the offender are usually at
least somewhat acquainted," he said.

Kris had read enough. If Bruce were here,
she'd lash a right hook across his perfect cheekbones. According to
the erasable schedule board mounted on the wall, he wasn't due in
that evening.

Jacqueline slipped up behind her in a long
wool coat. She closed matching gloves around her fingers. "I see
you've found the story. It'll be Thursday's centerpiece for the
front. Bruce says you haven't given him your part."

"No one told me the deadline," Kris said.
"You can't use this copy, Jacqueline. Most of it isn't
substantiated." Dex listened from his desk, his newspaper
lowered.

"That's not your concern. I don't have time
to deal with this right now." Jacqueline started to leave, then
swung to face Kris again. "By the way, I just got off the phone
with Cheryl Soares. I told her that editorial assistants do not
edit byline stories. She wanted you to approve the final
version."

At least Cheryl had retained some trust in
her.

"She's worried the story will be off-base,"
Kris said. "She's right. This is biased lazy reporting."

"Maybe you're the one who's biased. Now do
your job. Bruce says you've been dragging your feet." Jacqueline
spun on her heel and strode out of the newsroom.

Kris seized a hardcover dictionary off her
desk. She wanted to throw it across the room in Barbie’s wake. That
article couldn't appear in print as written. It couldn't.

Dex straddled a chair beside her. "What's
going on? Bruce sensationalizing again?"

She slammed down the book, disrupting a pile
of faxes. "Yes, and it'll hurt Diana Ferguson's family. I thought
journalism was about integrity. Neither one of them cares about the
truth. All they care about is their damn headline."

"Let me take a look." Dex was quiet as he
read the screen. He sat back. "I must've told the kid a dozen times
to use narrative. He listens to me now?"

She waved an arm toward her computer. "This
story isn't objective. Bruce is inventing things."

"Jacqueline will take out that lead."

"It doesn't matter. Between the lines, people
will think Diana brought on her own murder. He's doing this to piss
me off."

"I hate to put this family through the
wringer again. Last time, I couldn't do anything. This is supposed
to run Thursday?"

Kris nodded, latching onto a small seed of
hope.

"Jacqueline won't be back tonight," Dex said.
"She's meeting with her divorce lawyer. Tomorrow's her day off. If
you can rewrite the story, I'll run it early."

"You mean, go behind Jacqueline's back?"
Slowly, the ramifications sank into her consciousness. At the
least, this decision would cause Dex major aggravation. It could
also cost him his career.

"Why not? I won't last here much longer. I
may as well make a difference while I can." Dex didn't meet her
gaze.

He had never told her about his rocky footing
at the paper. "Dex, are you sure?"

"This is what it's all about, the power of
the press, but I don't know how it'll affect you. Jacqueline is
gonna be ticked. Is it worth it?"

Kris remembered Irene, nurturing a ferret
instead of her deceased daughter. Cheryl confiding her sorrow at
the bookstore. Eric holding her in his arms. She forced the
newspaper out of her mind. She couldn't think about how she might
never be happy in a job again.

"Yeah," Kris said. "It's worth it."

Chapter 17

By KRIS LANGLEY and BRUCE PATRICK, Staff
Writers

F
REMONT - Every
January, Irene Ferguson places geraniums beside her daughter's
headstone. She crouches on the frozen ground, forever haunted by a
parent's worst nightmare.

Twenty-five years ago, her daughter, Diana,
went off to work at a popular bar. She never came back.

Irene Ferguson called Diana's friends and
printed a description in the newspaper. Two nights after Diana
disappeared, her mother got the phone call. Diana had been found
bludgeoned to death in the woods behind Fremont State College. Her
body was wrapped in a garbage bag. Her car had been discovered
behind the former Salvatore's Restaurant, now the Horseshoe
Pub.

Her mother's only solace would have been to
see Diana's killer locked up behind bars. But that never
happened.