Envy

Accidentally. Honest. Really!

BETH: MOM’S DORKY FRIEND NINA WORKS THERE. SAYS JAKE WZ WANTED ON AN OUTSTNDNG WARRANT 4 DUI.

TAYLOR: DID THEY ARREST HIM FOR KILLING K?

BETH: NO. NOT YET. NINA SAYS THAT HE’S BEEN ?ED BOUD STLKNG HER, BUT HE DENIED IT.

HAYLEY: HE’S SUCH A LIAR!

BETH: YEAH, BUT KIND OF QT.

TAYLOR: OMG, U THINK A SLEZ GUY LYK THAT IS QT?

BETH: DON’T BLAME ME. I ♥ ME A BAD BOY.

Hayley turned to her sister and they burst out laughing.

“Can you believe her?” Hayley asked.

“No,” Taylor said, her smile fading. “And I’m still kind of mad at you.”

SAVANNAH OSTEEN CRAWLED ONTO HER COUCH knowing she had made a very big mistake. She pulled an old poly-filled comforter up to her neck and allowed her tears to tumble.

Whenever she told anyone about her sister’s death, it was like the creation of a fresh wound—a rusty knife into her stomach. Hurt poured out of her. Regret, shame, and guilt too.

Sava

Because of her, her baby was gone forever.

To lose Serena as Sava

Curled up with the comforter, Sava

In doing so, she had unleashed something that she hadn’t meant to.

Just then she made a decision. Her pity party was over. Sava

She hoped that it wasn’t too late.

A MESSAGE FROM THE WASHINGTON STATE CRIME LAB was waiting for Dr. Waterman when she returned to her desk from her autopsy suite. The note made absolutely no sense. She dialed the lab and got a tech on the phone.

“The pregnancy test kit you sent in with Ramstad came back negative, no presence of hCG. Picked up a trace of blood, though. We typed it though, AB. Nada else,” said the lab tech, a cheerful woman named Paris who always made sure that everyone knew she was named for the French capital, not the plaster.

Dr. Waterman slid her glasses down her nose as she searched for the Ramstad folder.

“There must be an error,” she said.

“Nope. Pretty clear. That gunshot victim, Robin, wasn’t pregnant.”

“I should hope not,” Birdy said.

“What’s with that?” the tech said.

“She’d be the first man to have a baby.”

Paris wasn’t so sure. “What about that guy in Oregon? The one I saw on Good Morning America?”

Birdy knew what she was referring to but ignored the impulse to say another word. Instead, she thanked Paris and hung up, a flash of recognition coming to her. She moved her hands over her desk, feeling the covering of file folders for the pregnancy kit that Mrs. Berkley had waved at her when she came to the morgue.

It was nowhere to be found.

Terry! He must have sent it into the lab by mistake.

She didn’t know whether to fire him or hug him right then. His error was an answer to a tormented mother’s prayers.

Katelyn wasn’t AB. She was type O. The test kit didn’t belong to her.

Dr. Waterman felt so relieved. In a job that seemed only to relay the worst possible news to a loved one (“ten broken ribs” or “sixtyone stab wounds to the chest” or “strangled with a bungee cord”), she had something that would bring comfort, not additional pain. Sandra Berkley would be comforted to know that Katelyn hadn’t cut her out of every important thing in her life. Dr. Waterman immediately phoned her and explained how her assistant’s mistake had inadvertently brought information that she thought would console her.

At least a little bit.

“Are you sure about this?” Sandra asked, clearly overjoyed that her daughter had not hidden a pregnancy.

The forensic pathologist said she was positive.

“I only have one question …”

“I know the question, but I don’t have the answer. Whoever thought she was pregnant was AB. That’s about all I can say.”

IT WAS EARLY EVENING. The Ryans’ di

“I’ll just do some sympathy homework for you, Tay,” she said, trying to worm her way back into her sister’s good graces.

Taylor begrudgingly thanked her. She had to write a paper for art class.

“Can’t you just do a drawing or something?” Hayley asked.

“I wish. I thought art would be easy. This teacher is actually making us write papers on technique. I’m doing mine on chiaroscuro.”

“Yum … I love churros,” Hayley teased.

Downstairs, things were quiet. Valerie had gone out to gas up her car so she wouldn’t have to do it in the morning, and Kevin went into his office to catch up on e-mail.

He was pleased to see two fan letters in his in-box. The first was from a woman in Alabama who said she’d never written to a “real life” author in her entire life, but after reading Kevin’s Handsome as the Devil, about Dylan Walker, a charismatic serial killer who stalked women and girls in the Northwest, she felt compelled to do so.

The next one was from S. Osteen. Her tone was too familiar for a mere fan letter, which he instantly knew it was not.

From: S. Osteen

To: Kevin Ryan

RE: WARNING!

Mr. Ryan, hopefully you remember me. I observed your girls for the linguistics project from the U. I’m Sava

Kevin could feel his heart sinking. He hit the PRINT button on his computer and fumbled for an aspirin in case he had a heart attack. Sweat collected above his brows and wicked in his shirt under his armpits.

Val, hurry home. You’ve got to see this.

UPSTAIRS, TAYLOR REREAD HER PAPER for art class. There had been a two-page requirement, and she’d managed to meet that by using a fourteen-point font. She was sure the teacher would call her on that, but she’d done her best. She knew other kids would basically wiki their whole paper, but she’d tried to do them all one better by using web sources from other sites, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The New York City museum was hosting a traveling exhibit from Italy called “Chiaroscuro: Our World in Light and Dark.”

The wiki kids were so lazy. It really didn’t take any more time or effort to actually use a search engine to find something beyond the very obvious.

Taylor popped her head into her sister’s room and told her that her “sympathy” homework could end.

“Good,” Hayley said, “because I’ve been Facebooking for the last hour anyway.”

“Thanks for the support,” Taylor said as she made her way down the hall and downstairs to their dad’s office, where the networked printer commanded a little table next to the door. She noticed the bathroom door was shut and wondered if the di