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“I feel I know you and at the same time, I don’t.” This wasn’t a line. He really did feel this way. He hadn’t realized how much he felt this until Jamie came on the scene.
Concern clouded her expression, but the remark pushed her away from him. She retreated to her side of the bed. “What do you want to know?”
“Anything.” He took her hand in his. “Everything.”
A single tear leaked from her right eye. “What do you want to know?”
They held each other for a time, not saying anything. Then she told him to get up. He showered and when he returned to the bedroom, she wasn’t there. He found her in the living room surrounded by boxes.
“What’s going on?”
“Get dressed and I’ll tell you my life story.”
The boxes contained photo albums dating back to her baby years. She introduced him to two-dimensional images of family and friends, past and present. It didn’t matter which photos she showed him, Jamie was always there, lurking in the corners, glued to her heels like an unwanted shadow.
“Who’s that?” Nick pointed to a good-looking boy no more than twelve dressed in a Miami Vice sport jacket over a pastel T-shirt and white pants. Melanie was at his side. The photo had captured some sort of school dance. It was the first picture that failed to feature Jamie.
Melanie flushed and turned the page.
“No secrets.” Nick turned the page back. He tapped the boy’s image with his index finger. “A first love, perhaps?”
“Yes,” she conceded. “His name was Mikey Pryce. We went steady for six months.” She slapped a hand over her face. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this.”
“So how did Mikey break your heart?”
She pulled back from him. The temperature in the room plunged. “He died.”
Nick’s stomach clenched as a sense of foreboding overcame him. He forced out a single word. “How?”
“Drowned during a family vacation.”
Nick turned the pages. He pointed out something that lightened her mood, then steered her to a picture of another boyfriend. This sparked a long conversation about the boyfriends and girlfriends they’d both had. He pumped her for everything he could get—names, places, dates. His mind was on fire. He committed every detail to memory. Ask him to do this at any other time and he’d have never managed the feat, but tonight it was all about saving his life and every nugget of data was stored. There’d been seven great loves in Melanie’s life, including Mikey Pryce and Miles Talbot. Each of these guys had skipped out on her. She didn’t make it clear whether they’d all been killed, but they’d all broken things off abruptly.
“All my boyfriends have a habit of walking out on me one way or another.” She turned the page on Miles Talbot.
Nick took the album from her. “I won’t. You have my word on it.”
Seven people. It didn’t seem like a lot of people, but digging up seven life stories consumed time like Nick wouldn’t have believed. He possessed a newfound respect for the police. It took hours just to come up with one single facet of someone’s life. But Nick persevered. If he was going to serve Jamie up to the cops, this was how it would happen.
He used every spare moment researching Melanie’s old boyfriends. This came at the expense of Melanie. He saw her twice a week if he was lucky. She complained, but he blamed a big project at work for his absence. On the plus side, Jamie stopped pestering him. If he was daring Nick to learn the truth, it looked as if he’d get his wish.
Nick’s first break came with Mikey Pryce. He found a newspaper story detailing that the boy had drowned at a watering hole in Sacramento where the Sacto and American Rivers met. The competing currents had swept him away. Melanie had neglected to mention that she and Jamie were there, too. Jamie had provided the eyewitness account to the police. Was he just thirteen when he’d committed his first murder?
Looking for a pattern, Nick tracked down Melanie’s high school boyfriend, Trent Barber. Unlike Mikey Pryce, Trent was alive and well. He hadn’t strayed far from his Orange County roots. He was a sound engineer for the movies. Nick used the movie angle to get Trent to speak to him on the phone, but Nick soon found he was out of his depth when the movie talk got technical.
“I hear we have a mutual friend,” Nick said.
“In this business you need friends. Who is it?”
“Melanie Lassen.”
“Who are you?” The question came through gritted teeth.
Nick saw no point in lying. “Melanie’s boyfriend.”
“So what are you doing—checking up on her?”
“Yeah.”
“If you want to know about STDs, ask for a blood test.”
“I’m more interested in her brother, Jamie.”
Nick got the feeling Trent was about to hang up but the mention of Jamie stopped him. Trent’s tone changed from anger to concern.
“So, he’s given you the speech.”
“What speech?”
“Don’t piss around. You wouldn’t be tracking down her high school sweetheart unless he’d given you the no-one-is-good-enough-for-my-sister speech.”
“And what did you do about it?”
“I blew the freak off. What do you think?”
“I think he convinced you to stop seeing his sister.”
Trent went silent for a good minute before speaking again.
“I was a good tight end in school. Could have gotten a scholarship.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Jamie broke my hand with a hammer. Happy? Now, would you mind doing me a favor and go to hell?”
Nick received similar accounts from Jonathon Tripp and Tommy Frist, both college boyfriends. Both took Jamie’s hints before bodily harm was involved. Matthew Warner wasn’t so lucky. He was an intern at a San Francisco architecture firm when he dated Melanie. They’d gotten real close, according to Warner’s sister, Pe
Mark Bale proved to be the exception to the boyfriend rule. He’d dated Melanie nine months before Miles Talbot did. He lived in the city and he agreed to meet Nick at a bar on the Embarcadero.
“Did you ever get a visit from her brother?”
Bale turned his nose up. “Not really. He called me once but that was about it. He tried some line with me but I didn’t pay much attention.”
“So, he didn’t scare you off?”
“No.”
“Then why’d you break up with her?”
“Why’s this so important to you?”
“Indulge me,” Nick said. “Call it a commitment thing.”
Bale gri
If he meant made him fall in love, then yes. Nick gri
“If you want the God’s honest truth, the reason Mel and I didn’t last was the plain fact that she got weird. I was ready to settle down, but then the vibe changed. I didn’t like it, so I called it quits.”
Nick’s roommate yelled out, “Phone.”
Nick answered it.
“Good, I’m glad you’re in,” Jamie said.
“What do you want?”
“Melanie decided we should have a night out. I’ve got reservations for three at One Market for Thursday at eight.”
“Okay.”
“I’d appreciate if it you didn’t make it.”
“I would hate to disappoint Melanie.”
“It would be the kinder thing to do.”
Nick ignored Jamie’s request and met them at the restaurant. Melanie’s face lit up when she saw him approach the table, but Jamie just scowled. Nick kissed Melanie and shook hands with Jamie. To Nick’s surprise and relief, Jamie chose to keep the di