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  Colleen glanced at her watch, then at the doors of the auditorium. “Well, it’s five past six, and the McCords haven’t arrived, but I guess we should get started.” She held a letter-sized envelope. Inside was a piece of paper. “This is what is typed on this letter,”

  Colleen said. ‘Listen up, Eva. Drop out of the pageant today or I will kill you. Your sister isn’t a threat, but you are.’”

  “What’s that supposed to mean, anyway?” Emily Abernathy asked on a sulk. “Why aren’t I a threat?”

  Zach stood up. “What does this have to do with Kayla, Colleen?”

  “Everyone knows she wears that gross vanilla perfume night and day,” Eva said. “And I can smell the vanilla from that letter from here.”

  “That is true,” Colleen said, sniffing the letter. “It does smell like vanilla perfume.”

  “And I happen to know that Kayla has a bottle of vanilla-scented musk,” Marnie stated. “I gave her a bottle for Christmas.”

  “And she wears it all the time,” Brianna said, holding her nose.

  Kayla jumped up. “So just because the letter smells like my perfume, that means I sent it? I didn’t!”

  “Just like you didn’t hang vile posters about Brianna at school, even though evidence of your guilt was found in your backpack?” Marnie said coldly.

  Kayla looked wildly from Zach to Olivia, then burst into tears. “I didn’t write that letter! I didn’t!”

  she shouted, then covered her face with her hands.

  “You have to believe me.”

  “Everyone knows you think Emily is a drip,” Brianna added. “So that part about her not being a threat also points to you.”

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  “Or it all points to someone framing Kayla,”

  Olivia said, standing up. She squeezed Kayla’s hand.

  “Oh, right,” Marnie said. “Someone is trying to make the front-runners drop out and make it look like Kayla’s doing it. Right.”

  “Actually, that makes sense to me,” Zach said.

  “That would knock out Kayla too, wouldn’t it?”

  All eyes swung to Zach.

  “Or so she’d like everyone to think,” Marnie said.

  “But I don’t think Kayla is that smart. She’s trying to scare the best candidates out of the competition and she left a trail. Twice.”

  “I did not!” Kayla shouted. “I swear, everyone, I didn’t send that letter.”

  “So why does it smell like your stinky perfume?”

  Eva asked.

  “I’m sure Kayla’s not the only person in the world who wears vanilla musk,” Cecily said. “I have that perfume too. I know at least three other girls at the high school who have it. It doesn’t prove anything.”

  Kayla stopped sniffling and sat up straighter.

  “Attention, everyone,” Colleen said, “this letter—

  and the posters maligning the reputation of another candidate—are unfortunate and unacceptable. If this is the work of one of our candidates and we are able to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt, you will be turned over to the police. These are serious matters. Please know that we will be watching all of you very carefully. This meeting is now at an end.”

  The doors to the auditorium opened and Deenie McCord and her mother entered. “Sorry, I’m late,”

  Deenie said, in such a low voice that Olivia barely heard her. “My mom couldn’t get off work until now.”

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  Olivia noticed that Jacqueline McCord was staring at Zach. Zach was reading some pageant materials and didn’t seem to realize that the woman was boring holes into his profile.

  Colleen sighed. “I’ll fill you in. Everyone else, I’ll see you back here for rehearsals on Friday evening at six P.M.”

  Cecily and Rorie were waiting when Olivia, Zach, and Kayla left the auditorium.

  “Don’t let them get to you,” Cecily said. “Look, I hate gossip more than anything. But for all Colleen knows, it could be Brianna or even Eva herself who’s behind all this.”

  “Thanks for sticking up for me, Cecily,” Kayla said. “That was really cool of you.”

  After a few minutes of chitchat, Zach’s impatience clearly got the better of him. “We’d better get home to those enchiladas,” he said, offering as much of a smile as he could muster at the Carles.

  As they headed to Zach’s truck, Kayla said, “I swear to God I didn’t do it, Dad.”

  “I believe you, Kayla,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s getting out of hand. The posters were bad enough, but threatening to kill someone is—” He shook his head. “I’m not even sure you should be continuing with the pageant, Kayla. This is getting too dangerous.”

  “No!” she screamed. “That’s not fair!”

  “Kayla, we’ll talk about it at home.”

  “Tell him it’s not fair, Mom!”

  Olivia gasped. Zach stared at Kayla. Even Kayla seemed shocked.

  “Did I just call you ‘Mom’?” Kayla asked, tears pooling in her eyes.

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  Olivia took Kayla’s hands in hers. “Yes, you did.

  And I liked it a lot.”

  Zach’s expression was unreadable.

  The family meeting Zach had called wasn’t going well.

  “Kayla, this is the first year you’re eligible for the pageant,” Zach said as he stood at the kitchen counter, filling tortillas with chicken and cheese. “With all that’s going on—”

  “Oh, like it’s really fair that I should drop out because someone’s trying to ruin it for everyone,”

  Kayla said. “Make us all drop out is exactly what the jerk is trying to make us do!”

  Zach looked to Olivia. “What do you think?”

  “I think she has a very good point,” Olivia said, stirring fragrant Mexican-style rice on the stove. “I think we have to be vigilant, though.” She turned to Kayla. “That means being exceptionally careful. It means that at school you can’t go into the girls’

  room alone. You can’t go into stairwells alone.

  You’d have to make sure you’re in a group. When you’re not in school, either your dad or I or someone we trust would need to be with you at all times.”

  “So I can stay in the pageant?” she asked, her gaze going from Zach to Olivia.

  “If you promise to do what Olivia just said,” Zach responded. “The only girl in the pageant who goes to your school is Brianna. Be very careful when you see her, Kayla. And after school, as long as you agree to be in eye view of me, Olivia, or someone we trust, you can continue with the pageant.”

  “Yay!” she exclaimed. “Okay, I will.”

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  Zach stopped what he was doing and grabbed a chair so that he was at Kayla’s eye level. “Kayla, I need to ask. Did you send that letter to Eva?”

  “Dad! I can’t believe you!”

  “Kayla, I’m just asking you so you can answer and I can move on from the question.”

  “Oh, great, so you move on, and I get to think that my dad thinks I go around telling people they’re sluts and I want to kill them.”

  “Kayla, please answer the question,” Zach said.

  “Mom, tell him he’s being a jerk!”

  Olivia sucked in her breath. At being called

  “Mom” again, and at Kayla’s referring to her father as a jerk.

  Zach stood. “Kayla Archer, go to your room right now.”

  “Oh, like that’s fair!” she screamed.

  “Now, Kayla,” Zach said through gritted teeth.

  Kayla stormed out. Zach turned back to the counter and squashed his fist against the enchilada he’d just rolled.

  “I need a few minutes to think,” he said, without turning around.

  “Okay,” Olivia whispered, placing her hand on his back before heading in
to the living room.

  She doubted he was doing much thinking. Cabinet doors were being swung closed a little too hard, and baking sheets were clanging against the counter.

  He was very likely mangling all the enchiladas in the process.

  Kayla was sulking in her room, if her yelling,

  “This is so unfair!” and slamming the door were anything to go by. And Olivia was sitting in the 230

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  living room alone, staring at the ceiling, trying to focus on the situation, but unable.

  Tell him it’s not fair, Mom. . . . Mom, tell him he’s being a jerk. . . .

  When threatened, when upset, when pitted even against her father, Kayla had, without thought, called Olivia “Mom.” What that told Olivia was that her daughter had opened her heart to her.

  It was as scary as it was thrilling. She had a lot to learn about being a mother, especially a thirteen-year-old girl’s mother. She also had a lot to learn about what her place was in this family. If she was even considered part of this family.

  No wonder Zach was keeping his hands to himself.

  Suddenly she realized just how complicated their relationship—to each other and to Kayla—was.

  The banging in the kitchen had settled down.

  Olivia hoped that meant Zach had too.

  Olivia’s cell phone rang. She braced herself for another call from Colleen.

  “Olivia, it’s Amanda.”

  “Amanda! Are you back from your honeymoon?”

  “We got back late last night. It’s good to be home, but I wouldn’t have minded if the honeymoon had lasted forever.”

  Olivia laughed. “I’m sure it will, Amanda.”

  “Not with a thirteen-month-old dictating the schedule,” Amanda said, chuckling. “Tommy’s internal clock is still five hours ahead.”

  For the next ten minutes, Olivia forgot all her problems as her sister filled her in on everything in her world. Tommy had taken his first step in Paris. Ethan, Amanda’s husband, had received the HAUNTING OLIV IA

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  paperwork to adopt Tommy, and Amanda couldn’t be happier.

  “I’d love to come visit you before you leave the cottage,” Amanda said. “Maybe Ivy can come up from New Jersey.”

  Olivia didn’t want to ruin a moment of Amanda’s posthoneymoon happiness by filling her in on what was going on in Blueberry, but she wasn’t so sure inviting her sisters in the middle of all this danger was such a good idea, either. She did want to see Amanda and Ivy so badly, though.

  Then it dawned on her that Ivy was a police officer. If there was any trouble while her sisters visited, Ivy would know how to handle it. She might even be able to get some “professional courtesy” from the Blueberry P.D. and read its reports on the incidents at the cottage.

  Another ten minutes later, the Sedgwick sisters’

  reunion was all set for Wednesday, if Ivy could get the day off.

  Zach came out of the kitchen long enough to call Kayla to set the table for dinner. And after a silent first few minutes, Kayla said, “The answer to your question is no. I didn’t send that letter. I didn’t make those posters, either.”

  Zach put his hand over Kayla’s. “Okay. That’s all I wanted. I believe you, Kayla. If you say you didn’t do it, I believe you.”

  “But you think I did it?” she asked, the anger returning.

  He shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. I think someone is trying to make it look as though you did. You know what else I think?”

  “What?” Kayla asked.

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  “I think it’s great that you called Olivia ‘Mom.’”

  Kayla blushed and looked at Olivia. “Is that okay?”

  “It’s more than okay,” Olivia managed to say. “It makes me very happy.”

  And with that they settled down to dinner.

  Zach couldn’t sleep. He glanced at the clock on his bedside table. A minute after midnight. Before he could stop himself he went downstairs and tapped on Olivia’s door.

  “Come on in,” she said.

  She was sitting up in bed, the blanket pulled up to her waist. She wore an oversized NYU sweatshirt.

  How was it possible that she still looked so sexy?

  Her hair was in a knot on top of her head with a stick through it. He wanted nothing more than to pull it out and run his hands up the sweatshirt, just lose himself under those sheets for a few hours.

  Days, maybe.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  He sat down on the edge of the bed. “I feel like I need to tread very carefully with Kayla. On one hand, she’s really opened up to you, calling you Mom, looking to you for ‘protection’ against me. But on the other, she’s right in the middle of a major mess. Honestly, Olivia, I don’t know if she’s telling the truth or not. I hate to admit that.”

  She let him ramble, scooting closer to him and rubbing his shoulders as he talked and talked and talked.

  “Do you think she could be lying?” he asked. “Is she the one everyone needs protection from?”

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  Olivia shook her head. “I really don’t think so, Zach. She’s been taking the pageant so seriously.

  Not the pageant itself, but what it is she’s actually competing for—the girl whose inner beauty is shining brightest. She’s been internalizing what it means to be a good person, to think before she acts, to concern herself with other people’s feelings. I think someone’s setting her up.”

  “Good,” he said, releasing a breath. “And I agree with everything you said. Man, it feels good to be able to discuss these kinds of issues with someone who cares as much as I do about Kayla. All these years there’s been just me. No doting grandparent, even. It’s a huge weight off me, Olivia.”

  She continued rubbing his shoulders, massaging, pressing, kneading. “It means so much to me that you’re giving me a voice, Zach. You could shut me out of what’s going on with Kayla. But you’re not.”

  He turned and kissed her then, his hand travel-ing from her back to underneath her sweatshirt.

  Her skin was so soft, so warm. He moved his hands from her back to her impossibly small waist, then up her flat stomach to her full breasts. His lips on hers, he massaged each breast, teasing her nipples.

  She arched toward him, her breathy little moans driving him crazy. He laid her down on the bed and nudged her legs apart, pressing his erection against her. She wore navy sweatpants, which he slid down off her, leaving on her underwear. White. Cotton.

  Unbelievably hot.

  He got rid of the sweatshirt next and leaned up and took in the sight of her, naked save for the scrap of white cotton around her hips. As his erection strained against his jeans, he took her nipple 234

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  in his mouth, licking, teasing. The more she arched and writhed and let out those breathy little moans, the less he was able to wait. He straddled her and placed her hand on his belt buckle.

  As she leaned up to unzip his pants, he suckled her nipples again, then groaned as she slipped her cool hand around his throbbing erection. She urged him down on the bed and he lay flat, naked and waiting, barely able to breathe. He closed his eyes and felt the flutter of her hair brushing across his chest as she licked his nipple and kissed her way down his stomach. She straddled him and rubbed against him for a moment, leaning close to kiss him hot and hard on his mouth, and then she was gone again, the hair fluttering down his chest and stomach until he felt her lips on the throbbing head of his penis. He groaned and fisted her hair as she sucked up and down, licking, her hand moving with her mouth.

  He could barely take it. He flipped her over and pulled her arms over her head, pinning her to the bed as he kissed every inch of her, her mouth, her neck, her breasts, her stomach, her inner thighs. He slipped a finger inside her, and she moaned, arching her back. He explored the delicious core of her with his tongue and lips and fingers unti
l her moans exploded into a scream. And then he turned her over onto her stomach and entered her from behind, thrusting so hard that a slick layer of sweat covered his chest. He reached his hands underneath her to cup her breasts, ramming, jamming inside her, again and again until he exploded. He lay there, on top of her, inside her, his breath so ragged. He reached for HAUNTING OLIV IA

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  her hand and squeezed it. She barely seemed to have the energy to squeeze back.

  All of a sudden, he leaned up. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he asked. “I—”

  She smiled. “Nope, you didn’t hurt me at all. Because you weren’t screwing me, Zach. You were making love to me. Passionately.”

  He caressed her cheek with his finger, trailing it down to her beautiful collarbone. She closed her eyes and breathed in and out. She seemed at peace.

  For the moment at least, so was he.

  They lay like that for a while, and then Olivia slid out from under him and tugged his hand, leading him into the bathroom that connected to the guest room. She turned on the shower and they stepped in under the hot, pulsating spray.

  There was no energy to talk, to smile. They dried each other off, and then they padded naked back into bed. Olivia curled herself next to him, her back against his stomach, and in minutes, Zach’s eyes had drifted closed.

  Chapter 20

  The dream boy and girl were running around a brilliant green meadow. The dream boy, a different dream boy, Olivia vaguely realized from the depths of her dream, was holding a piece of paper out to Olivia. She tried to take it, but no matter how close she got to him, she couldn’t reach it. The dream girl was pirouetting in a patch of wildflowers. A daisy wrapped around her leg and began dragging her across the meadow, the dream girl’s screams silent. Olivia tried to run after the girl, but the boy stood in her way, holding out the paper for Olivia to take.

  Gasping for breath, Olivia sat up in bed, the dream already fading. She glanced out the window; dawn was breaking, and the sky was gray.

  Zach’s side of the bed was empty. Her heart hammering, Olivia pulled on her sweats and told herself she was being silly. Yes, every time she had a dream about the children, something bad happened. But these dream children were different, HAUNTING OLIV IA