actually. But this time I don’t think she was joking. She meant it. She said, ‘Trouble’s going to find me.’”
“She said that to you?”
Renee nodded and Becca realized she was revealing one of her last, if not her very last, conversations with Jessie. “You told that cop what she said?”
“McNally? Are you kidding? I wasn’t going to tell him anything.” Renee shook her head at the memory. “I was too freaked. I did say she probably ran away again, because that’s what I really thought. I wasn’t going to tell them what our last conversation was. I kind of thought it was sacred, at the time. I was sixteen,” she reminded Becca with faint irony. “Jessie was my friend and I wanted to protect her, I guess. Her parents were kind of weird. Do you remember?”
Becca shook her head. “Jessie and I were more like acquaintances.”
Renee cocked an eyebrow. “You were connected to Tamara the most, right? You were in the class below us…?” She left it as a question because at St. Elizabeth’s, like high schools everywhere, students tended to stick with their own classmates as if there were invisible fences between the grades.
“Tamara and I had a class together,” Becca said. “We worked on a couple of projects as a team and got to know each other.” This was practically a lie, but Becca didn’t know whether she could admit that she’d worked hard on that friendship. All so she could be part of their group, so she could be nearer to Hudson. It was all so juvenile and downright embarrassing now! She could even feel her face heating and she took a swig of her water, hoping to hide her reaction.
“Did you like my brother even then?”
Becca opened her mouth to respond, thought better of it, then gave Renee a sideways look. All she saw on Hudson’s sister’s face was mild interest, so Becca gave her a jerky nod. “Yeah. High school crush.” She picked up a small orange slice and bit into it.
“I thought so. Jessie certainly thought so, too, and she believed Hudson returned your feelings. Maybe he did.”
“Nothing ever happened between us.”
“Not until after high school,” Renee agreed. “What about now?”
“What?”
“You still interested?”
“In Hudson?”
“Oh, come on. Don’t play dumb.”
“I’m really not looking to get involved with anyone right now,” she answered carefully. “My experience with men has been…less than stellar.”
“Kind of a nonanswer,” Renee observed, then waved the air as if dismissing the entire subject. “All I’m saying is that I’m not sure Jessie believed that you and Hudson didn’t have a thing going in high school. I think she might have retaliated. She certainly tried to stir up Hudson’s jealousy, but he doesn’t work that way.”
“We definitely didn’t have ‘a thing’ going. Hudson never even looked at me.”
Renee lifted a disbelieving eyebrow, but let the subject go. “You know, Jessie’s parents acted…really worried…I mean, before she disappeared. I’d just been to their house the week before and had dinner and Jessie was acting oddly then, too. More oddly than normal, that is. She must have known she was getting ready to run again, and I think it bothered her, how much it hurt her parents. But she just couldn’t help herself. If I have a feeling of persecution now, she really had it then. Like something was at her heels and she was trying to keep one step ahead of it.”
Becca thought about the feeling that someone was after her at the maze and about the vision of Jessie on the cliff trying to warn her of…of what? “Have any idea what it was that was chasing her?”
“God knows. Jessie sure didn’t. And her parents didn’t. They were in a state over her disappearance, almost as if they knew this time was different. Like they were scared. I saw them when Mac, the detective, was talking to them, and yeah, they were worried sick, but more than that, they were terrified.” She shook her head. “And the only thing Jessie said to me—I mean before she disappeared, when she was talking all weird—was that it was about justice, like maybe it was payback for something? I wished I’d quizzed her on it more, but what did I know? She kept saying she had to keep on the move and I thought it was a ruse, like it had been before, a play for attention. That’s what Jessie was all about, being the center of the universe. More than most teenagers. Anyway, that’s what I’ve concluded, after thinking about it all these years.”
“You think whatever she was running from caught up to her, before she could leave?”
Renee half laughed. “I don’t really know what I’m talking about. But I do think those are Jessie’s remains. It just makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“I guess we’ll know soon enough.”
“Will we? So maybe they get some DNA. Can they match it to Jessie’s?”
“Well, or dental impressions, I suppose. Those are bound to be on record, aren’t they?” Becca asked.
Renee shrugged. “And when the police learn, are they going to tell us? Or are we all suspects again? I hate to agree with The Third, but if the case opens up we’re all going to be under scrutiny, especially Hudson.”
Becca didn’t like thinking about that.
Renee drained the rest of her coffee, then shot an assessing look at Becca, as if she were debating on something.
“What?” Becca asked.
“I’ve been remembering a lot of little things lately. Forcing myself, I guess, at first because of the story, and now, I don’t know…” She drew a deep breath and expelled it slowly. “I really want that story, but…I’ve gotten these warnings.”
“Warnings?”
“From the old woman I mentioned earlier.”
“A Tarot reader?”
“Sort of.” She seemed about to add something else, then hesitated. “This wasn’t Tamara’s friend.”
“I got that.”
“I went to the beach and I was asking about Jessie around Deception Bay. Do you know it?” When Becca shook her head, she said, “It’s this little town. Quaint. Kind of…tired feeling.”
“Why did you go there?”
“The Brentwoods have a house there. I thought maybe that’s where Jessie was from? Originally? I was staying around the area anyway, so I started asking questions and I got connected to this psychic lady. But when I met with her, all she did was make me feel like I was angering the gods or something. Seeing her was a mistake. She just played on my fears—fears I didn’t know I had.”
Becca nodded, waiting for her to go on.
Renee didn’t seem to quite know how to proceed, then said, “I know you and Jessie weren’t the closest of friends. Maybe because of Hudson, maybe something else, but how well do you remember her? I mean really remember her?”
I
