Wicked Game. Lisa Jackson
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BACK FROM THE DEAD
The girl was familiar. So familiar…
Becca stared at her hard, putting a physical effort into it.
Is she someone I know?
Becca struggled to remember. Who was she?
Distantly, she felt the light-headedness, the clammy warning that she was about to pass out.
“Who are you?” she called, but the rising wind threw the words back into her throat.
The phantom girl took a step forward, the tips of her boots balanced over the edge of the cliff. Becca reached out an arm. He mouth opened in protest.
“Stop! Stop!”
Was she going to throw herself to her death?
Becca lunged forward just as the girl turned to face her. Instead of a profile shot, Becca caught a full-on view of her face.
“Jessie?” she whispered in shock.
Jessie Brentwood? Her missing classmate? Gone for twenty years…
Books by Lisa Jackson
SEE HOW SHE DIES
FINAL SCREAM
WISHES
WHISPERS
TWICE KISSED
UNSPOKEN
IF SHE ONLY KNEW
HOT BLOODED
COLD BLOODED
THE NIGHT BEFORE
THE MORNING AFTER
DEEP FREEZE
FATAL BURN
SHIVER
MOST LIKELY TO DIE
ABSOLUTE FEAR
ALMOST DEAD
LOST SOULS
LEFT TO DIE
WICKED GAME
MALICE
Books by Nancy Bush
CANDY APPLE RED
ELECTRIC BLUE
ULTRAVIOLET
WICKED GAME
UNSEEN
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
LISA JACKSON
Wicked Game
NANCY BUSH
ZEBRA BOOKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Special thanks to Terry of Iron Station, North Carolina, for supplying the character name for Butterfinger, the cat in this book.
Prologue
St. Elizabeth’s campus
February 1989
Midnight…
Mother Mary, help me!
Oh, please…save me!
The girl rushed headlong through the maze and rising mist. She stumbled, her face grazed by a poking branch.
“Damn.” Clapping a hand to her cheek, she instantly felt the warmth of blood welling against her fingers. It spurred her onward. She kept running, moving, breathing hard. Her calf muscles ached, her lungs burned, and still the midnight rain washed over her, cold and cruel.
This is wrong. Oh, God, so wrong.
It shouldn’t be this way! Couldn’t!
Glancing over her shoulder, she listened hard, deafened by her own heartbeats. She wasn’t lost. She knew where she was. She knew the twists and turns that would take her to this maze’s center, and once there, she believed there was another exit—maybe two—though it had been so long since she’d seen them. She thought for an instant that she might be leading him to her own doom, to a trap of her own creation. She just had to keep moving, recalling twists and turns…
But it was so dark.
And he was getting closer. She could feel him. As if his breath was already brushing across her skin.
Fear clutched at her throat and she nearly slipped around a corner of shivering laurel. He knew about her and now was running her to ground.
How had he known? When she’d spent so many years—her entire life, it seemed—learning the truth herself!
Then, foolishly, she’d goaded him. Dared him. Brought to the maze by her own invitation as she’d hoped to learn more; to expose him. She’d believed she could turn the tables on him, avert the very doom she now faced. But things weren’t going as planned, she thought, her shoes slipping on the long grass. Somehow the hunter had become the hunted.
But how could he know about her…unless…unless he was one of them?
Oh, Jesus!
She heard something. A noise…a sibilant hiss…
The hairs on the back of her nape lifted.
What the hell was that?
She froze in place, hands up, as if to ward off danger, body quivering, poised on the balls of her feet, softly panting. He was here! Close! He’d already entered the maze. She could hear him now easily, as he was making no effort to disguise his approach.
Her heart knocked painfully against her ribs.
Was he alone? She thought he was alone. He should be alone. She’d set this up so he would be alone, but now she didn’t know.
Didn’t know anything.
That’s where the fear came in, because she always knew.
That was her gift.
And