Page 132 of Paranoid

“I was just heading home,” he said as she entered.

“Don’t leave on my account.”

He shook his head as he reached for the door. “It’s not that. Mom is kind of nervous these days and I have a final I should be studying for.” To Harper, he said, “See ya,” then cast a glance Dylan’s way and hitched his chin. “We need another game.”

“Yeah.” Dylan nodded, pointing at his cousin. “You’ve got it.”

“I’ll go out with you,” Rachel said as Lucas opened the back door, then to the kids, “Just turn off the alarm for a second. I need to take Reno outside.”

Hearing his name, the dog scrambled to her side. She snapped his leash onto his collar and walked out the back and around the house to Lucas’s car, parked on the street. It struck her that Lucas was nearly the same age Luke had been at his death, so walking with him across the grass brought back unbidden memories of her brother. Though Lucas was slightly shorter and more muscular than Luke had been, his hair was almost as blond. As he folded himself into his black Porsche, she remembered Luke getting into Nate Moretti’s BMW on that fateful afternoon.

Her heart ached with the old, familiar pain. Forcing the memory back to the farther reaches of her mind, she asked, “So how’re you doing with all of this?”

Seated inside, he looked up at her through the open window. “All of what?” he asked, then caught her drift. “Oh, you mean the articles in the paper? And the people being killed?”

“Yeah.”

He frowned, more serious than usual. “It’s weird.”

“That’s an understatement.”

“Okay, freaky weird.” His eyes narrowed. “Do you think—I mean, is it possible that the people who’ve been attacked, that they had anything to do with my dad?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted, keeping Reno tethered in one hand as the dog sniffed around the grass near the curb. “Maybe. Maybe not. Why?”

“Just something Mom said. You know. About what happened. About how those women . . . that they were witnesses to him . . . to him dying.”

“A lot of us were.”

“I guess so.” And then he squinted at her and she saw the never-asked question in his eyes. Why did you do it? Why did you kill your own b

rother, the father I never had the chance to meet?

“You know, Lucas,” she said, her fingers curling over the edge of the sports car’s door, her throat closing, “I’m sorry about your dad. Really sorry for my part in it, sorry about . . . about all of it.”

His lips folded in on themselves. He didn’t ask why, just gave a quick nod. As if he knew what she was talking about. “Don’t worry about it,” he finally said and started the Porsche’s huge engine.

Reno jumped back, and as Lucas pulled away from the edge of the street, heading back to town, Rachel crossed in front of her house to the Dickersons’ place. Ella was still on her knees, eyeing Lucas’s sports car speeding away, then barely stopping at the far corner before roaring out of sight, disappearing into the rising mist. “It does no good to spoil a kid,” she said, pushing herself to her feet and dusting her gloved hands free of damp bark dust.

“Probably,” she agreed, then got to the point. “You have a good view of my house and I was wondering if you saw anyone hanging around.”

“I told the police everything I know about what was written on your door.” Adjusting her glasses, she added, “I was the one who told you.”

“Yeah, I know and thanks. I hadn’t seen it.”

“Horrible stuff. Sometimes it makes you wonder what the world’s coming to.”

Reno pulled at the leash. “Sit,” Rachel ordered. “But I mean not just that night, but others. Have you seen anyone hanging out by the side gate, for example?” she asked, pointing to the strip of grass that led to the back gate on the side of the house abutting the Pittses’ place.

Ella took off her gloves. “Well, yeah.”

The back of Rachel’s mouth went dry. “Who? When?”

“I don’t know, it’s usually dark. I’ve seen someone there a couple of times, didn’t think anything of it. There’s a lot of coming and going at your house. Teenagers. Cars.” She shrugged. “I never said anything because I thought you knew. I thought they were probably friends of your kids.”

Really? “What time . . . when?”

“Oh, gee, the last time was probably the night before last.” She screwed up her face as she thought. “Sometime after midnight or thereabout.”