how was it that a girl that age could go missing with, apparently, no one who cared enough to be looking for her? The police had been unable to identify her, despite nationwide interest in her life and death. She was entered in missing persons databases that could be accessed by law enforcement from any agency. A drawing of her face had appeared in newspapers, on Seattle television news and even on the internet. There’d been calls, tips; none led anywhere.
The fact that the community had come together to pay for her burial was the part he did feel good about. It saddened him that she’d become theirs too late, when all they could do for her was give her a headstone, but at least they’d done that much.
Having Charles Bowen die so soon after Jane Doe, that hit hard, too. Ben had gone to his funeral because he’d known Mr. Bowen his whole life and had once loved Olivia Bowen. It had been all he could do to see her grief and not be able to do more than shake her hand at the end of the service and murmur condolences, the same way everyone else was. To see how blindly she looked at him, as if he were a stranger.
That was the moment when he’d given up.
His decision to apply for the job of principal at Crescent Creek High School, a return to his hometown, had awakened the seed of hope that he would see Olivia. That maybe they could reconnect.
The first time he saw her after the gap of years had been like a hard punch to his belly. She was only home on a brief visit that time, but she must have gone into work with her dad, because when Ben walked into the hardware store, Olivia was mixing paint and laughing at something a customer said. And, damn, she was even more beautiful than she’d been when he’d so stupidly broken up with her. At five foot ten, Olivia had gotten her height from her dad. That and her natural grace had made her a star on the girl’s basketball team in their small high school league. She still had the most amazing legs he’d ever seen—long, slim, but strong. And, man, he knew what it felt like to have those legs wrapped around his waist.
Thick, shimmering hair the color of melted caramel was from her mother, as were those hazel eyes, a complex of colors that changed depending on the light or what she was wearing.
He had stood, stupefied, a few feet inside the hardware store, seeing only her. Inevitably, she’d turned and seen him. Her eyes had widened; there had been a flash of something remarkably intense, then...nothing but a pleasant, slightly puzzled smile. “Ben. Goodness. It’s been forever. Do you need some help?”
Whatever that intense something was had kept his hope alive, even though she wasn’t receptive on the few occasions he managed to meet up with her during her visits home. When she had moved in with her parents ten months ago, to take over her dad’s business, he’d thought, Now I have a chance.
But apparently he’d been fooling himself, because she kept treating him like the merest acquaintance, not someone who’d once been a friend, never mind her high school boyfriend and first lover.
His fault, he knew, but still he kept thinking—
Didn’t matter. It was time he quit thinking about Olivia. Unless he wanted to spend the rest of his life alone, maybe he should start noticing other women. Much to his mother’s dismay, he hadn’t so much as gone on a date in the two and a half years since he’d come home to Crescent Creek with his stepson.
I should change that.
He gave a grunt of unhappiness and took one more look at the cemetery in his rearview mirror. A fresh bed of snow covered the graves, new and old. Only the headstones showed. The one he pictured most vividly said, “Jane Doe, Much Mourned,” and gave the date of the girl’s death.
Usually he ate at his desk or in the cafeteria with the kids. The one student he stayed far away from was his stepson. Most students likely knew Carson’s dad was principal, but the two didn’t share a last name, and Ben figured it was just as well not to remind anyone. Today Ben had felt the need to get away. Ever since Marsha Connelly had found the girl dead, he’d felt unsettled. No, that was putting it too mildly. He’d felt a gathering sense of foreboding, as if the one tragedy was a harbinger of worse to come. His worry increased with the second death following so soon, even if it was unrelated. He didn’t like the atmosphere at school. Sure, he’d expect kids to be disturbed about the death of a girl their age, but— This felt like more. Not whispers, he wasn’t hearing those. More like silence, unnatural for hormone-driven teenagers. Especially such sustained silence.
He frowned. Foreboding?
Slowing when he reached downtown, he thought with near amusement, Right. He was dramatizing his own depression. Call a spade a spade.
And then, right in front of him, he saw Olivia and her mother come out of Guido’s, the town’s one Italian restaurant. His foot lifted from the gas. The hesitation was enough to make him miss the light, which allowed him to watch mother and daughter walk side by side for a block without speaking, if he wasn’t mistaken. Both backs were stiff. They stayed a good two feet apart, careful never to so much as brush arms. Then they parted, with Marian Bowen looking both ways and crossing the street to her car, while Olivia continued on toward her father’s hardware store.
No, her mother’s store now, he supposed.
And there was a parking spot a half a block from the store. It was meant— He put on his signal, pulled into it and jumped out, his timing perfect to intercept Olivia.
Well, shit. Maybe he hadn’t given up hope after all.
* * *
HEAD BENT, SHE walked fast. Her eyes burned, and she thought seriously about not going back to work at all. Except...where would she go? Not home, that was for sure.
Home for how much longer?
Oblivious to her surroundings, she smacked right into somebody, who then grabbed her arms and kept her upright when she bounced back. Even before she lifted her head, Olivia knew who it was. Her body knew.
Ben Hovik. Tall, dark and handsome. The lanky boy who had, to her dismay, acquired muscles and matured into a man who would turn any woman’s head.
Except hers, of course. Been there, done that.
He was also the one person in town she went out of her way to avoid.
“Olivia.” His deep, slightly gritty voice was as gentle as it had been at her father’s funeral when he’d taken her hand in his. His expression was kind.
“I...excuse me. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.”
“You looked upset.”
She smiled weakly. “It hasn’t been the best of days.”
Her feet should be moving, but they weren’t. He stood there looking down at her, apparently in no hurry even though it was the middle of a school day.
Her heart cramped, as if she hadn’t already felt like a walking advertisement for Prilosec. Why did he have to look so damn good?
She had always noticed Ben. Mostly from a distance, until her first day as a freshman at the high school. He’d turned away from his locker and smiled at her, and she’d stumbled, dropped the backpack she’d just unzipped and spilled everything in it on the floor right in front of him. Lunch, pens, new gym clothes and athletic shoes. The rings on her binder had sprung open, compounding the mess. Her finest moment. When
