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Authors: Kevin O'Brien

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The murder was planned for upstairs, and that was where all the detail work was done in the miniature house. Kay’s bedroom, along with its furnishings, was almost an exact match—down to the yellow carpet and the peach-colored curtains and bedspread.
And in that little bedroom was a hard rubber, flesh-colored doll about the size of an index finger. It was a woman—with hair quite close to Kay’s pale straw color. The blond doll was lying on the floor of that miniature bedroom—beside a nightstand.
Wrapped around the small figurine was a tiny piece of lavender silk, cut from Kay’s blouse.
She was just the first.
C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN
Six months later
The three seniors primping in front of the lavatory mirrors weren’t the most popular girls at Roosevelt High School, but it wasn’t from lack of trying. They were intensely concerned about their appearances and getting noticed. But they were also just a bit too full of themselves and catty for anyone to really like them. Still, as long as they stayed within their little clique, they didn’t have to worry.
At least that was the snap judgment of the woman who entered the girls’ room and briefly interrupted their conversation. The three girls stopped gossiping and fussing with their hair to stare at her in the mirror. They probably thought she was a teacher. One of them whispered to the other two.
“I don’t care,” remarked the tallest one, a tawny redhead. “It’s between classes. We have every right to be in here.”
The woman stepped into a stall and closed the door. But she didn’t sit down on the toilet. She just stood there, listening to two of them argue about whether or not a popular teen heartthrob was gay. The third one seemed to be having a different conversation—with someone else. The woman figured she must have called another friend on her cell phone.
She flushed the toilet and emerged from the stall to wash her hands at the sink. She was right. One of the girls was on her cell phone, and another had just pulled out her BlackBerry. That left the tall redhead with no one to talk to, but she was busy applying lip gloss to her mouth.
The woman made eye contact with her in the mirror. “You don’t happen to know Madison Garvey, do you?” she asked.
The girl glared at her and shook her head.
Not looking up from her keypad, the one with the BlackBerry piped up: “Oh, God, Madison Garvey? Isn’t she the weird-looking freak with the Converse high-tops?”
“Shit, I know who you’re talking about now,” the redhead said, rolling her eyes. She went back to her lip gloss application. “She wears those dorky Converse shoes all the time. I guess when you look like an albino you have to do something. She thinks she’s really funny, too. As if. . . .”
“I hear she used to be a big deal at James Monroe High,” the BlackBerry girl said, eyes still riveted to her apparatus. “But she moved here, because her mother died. Now she’s living with her father and her stepmother. I guess her old lady got really drunk one night and killed herself—”
“Suicide?” the redhead asked, looking at her friend’s reflection in the mirror.
“No, she passed out and hit her head on the toilet or a table or something. Like I say, she was a drunk. She bled to death.”
“If I had a dipshit daughter like that, I’d drink, too.”
The one with the BlackBerry laughed.
“You guys!” the girl on her cell phone said. “We’re going to be late for Lawson’s class. Remember last time?”
“Oh, shit!” the redhead said, throwing the lip gloss tube into her purse. She started giggling, and so did her friends. The three of them hurried out of the bathroom, their laughter echoing off the tiled walls.
The woman stood there for a moment. The tall redhead had merely glanced at her, and the other two hadn’t even bothered to look up from their gadgets. Kids with cell phones and BlackBerries had a way of not noticing things around them.
Obviously, they hadn’t seen under the far stall door, the feet of another girl—and she was wearing a pair of green Converse All Star high-tops.
The woman heard her muffled sobbing.
She knew who was on the other side of that stall door—a slightly gawky-looking girl whose stepmother didn’t let her get away with anything.
Madison Garvey’s onetime counselor, Mr. Corson, would have been happy to know—as miserable as she felt right now—Kay’s daughter was on her way to becoming a better person.
“Stop . . . just a sec . . . stop it,” she whispered, pushing him away. “Did you hear that?
“Hear what?” Rob Sessions asked. The handsome, blond-haired eighteen-year-old stopped nibbling on her ear for a minute. He was practically on top of Sarah Manning. Tangled up in one corner of the couch in the Sessions’ family room, they had an old
Seinfeld
rerun on the big-screen, plasma TV.
This was Rob’s third date with the pretty brunette, whose breasts—he thought—could have been bigger. Then Sarah would have been a real knockout. Still, that Thursday night, three days before Halloween, he was discovering that Sarah was a good kisser. Damn good.
“Didn’t you hear the noise outside?” Sarah said, squirming out from beneath him. She grabbed the remote control and turned down the volume on the TV. “It was like somebody walking on gravel. Didn’t you hear it?”
Rob shook his head. But there was a small strip of gravel along the north side of the house—below the family-room windows. Rob squinted at the darkened windows and saw nothing. He listened for a few moments. “I don’t hear anything. Maybe it was the TV.” He leaned over and kissed her. “Now, where were we?”
He started to fondle her breasts over her blouse, and Sarah didn’t protest or push his hands away. This was a very good sign. Rob was beginning to wish he’d sent his best friend, Luke, home—instead of out to score some beer and pot. Rob realized he had a pretty good chance of getting laid tonight. And Luke would be back any minute now, damn it.
He figured once his pal returned with the brew and the bong-feed, he’d allow him a few hits, and then give him his walking papers. Luke was a good buddy. He’d understand. Opportunities like Sarah didn’t come along every day.
Rob’s parents had left two days ago for Phoenix to visit his older sister, Cathy, and her husband, Mike. That left Rob alone in the house for a week, and he intended to make the most of it.
Last night, Luke and two other friends had come over. They’d all eaten McDonald’s and drank Thunderbird while watching porn on the big TV. Tomorrow night, Rob was thinking of having a bunch of friends over. In fact, word was out all over Federal Way High School:
Party at Rob Sessions’ house on Laurel Lane.
Maybe that explained why the
DEAD END
sign at the start of the cul-de-sac had gone missing this morning. Somebody was playing a joke. Just two weeks ago, Rachel Porter, one of the most popular girls in their class, claimed someone had stolen the
NO OUTLET
sign at the end of Larkdale Court, where she lived. It turned out Jim Hall and some of his buddies from the football team had swiped the sign as a gag.
Sarah had noticed the missing sign when Rob had turned down Laurel Lane in his dad’s BMW on their way here tonight. She’d freaked out a little. But Rob had assured her that someone was just probably playing a gag. Besides, together, he and Luke could take on this Cul-de-sac Killer nut job.
Obviously, Sarah wasn’t totally reassured, and every little noise outside threw her into a panic. Rob didn’t mind her being a little scared and vulnerable, except when it put a crimp in the make-out proceedings.
“Everything’s fine,” he whispered between soft kisses on her neck. He’d read somewhere once that it was a woman’s erogenous zone. “Just chill out and relax. . . .” He started to unbutton her blouse.
That was when he heard the noise, too—gravel crunching underfoot. Someone was just on the other side of the windows. “Shit,” Rob said, pulling away from her. “Did you hear that?”
“Yes.” She sat up. “See? I’m not crazy.”
Rob gazed over toward the darkened windows. Again, he didn’t see anything. But he heard the footsteps retreating. Someone was creeping around out there.
Sarah squeezed his hand. “What is that?”
Biting his lip, he reached over and turned off the lamp on the end table so he could get a better look outside. Sarah wouldn’t let go of his hand as he climbed off the sofa. He moved toward the windows—with her hovering behind him. He saw their reflection in the dark glass, and they both looked so scared. Rob studied the bushes alongside the house. They swayed a little with the breeze. “Nobody’s out there,” he told her—and himself, too. His mouth was suddenly dry. He reached up and made sure both windows were locked.
Rob wondered if Luke or one of his buddies from last night was trying to punk him or something. “I bet you anything it’s a gag,” he mumbled. “Luke’s screwing around with us.”
“What do you mean?” She followed him as he headed back for the coffee table, where he’d left his cell phone.
“Check this out,” he said. His hand was a bit shaky as he speed-dialed Luke. If his pal was right outside, Rob would hear the phone go off. Luke’s ringer was the first few bars of Beethoven’s Fifth. Rob crept toward the window again, waiting to hear that ominous tune on the other side of the glass.
But it was dead quiet.
“What are you doing?” Sarah asked. “Are you calling the police?”
Luke’s voice mail clicked on:
“Yo, it’s Luke. You know what to do. Talk to you later!”
Rob waited for the beep. “What’s going on?” he asked. “Where are you? Why am I talking to your stupid machine? Call me back, okay?” He clicked off.
Frowning, he turned to Sarah. “That’s weird, Luke’s not picking up.”
She was shaking her head. “I don’t like this. You should call the police. . . .”
“Are you nuts?” he asked. “Just because Luke isn’t answering his cell phone?”
“Because the dead end sign at the end of your cul-de-sac is missing!” she said, edgily. “And because we heard someone outside. Those are both pretty damn good reasons for calling the cops.” She glanced toward the windows, and nervously rubbed her arms. “I just want to go home—only not now. What’s going on out there? I swear to God, Rob, if this is some sort of setup to scare me, I’m going to be so pissed off at you.”
Rob headed toward the front of the house to make sure the door was locked. She trailed behind him, her hand clutching his belt along the back of his jeans.
“If it’s a setup, Sarah, I’m not in on it,” he admitted. He prayed to God it was a joke. But obviously Luke wasn’t in on the gag, either.
At the front door, he discovered he hadn’t locked up after Luke. “Oh, shit,” Rob muttered. He quickly turned the lock and deadbolt.
He heard footsteps—just on the other side of the door. Someone was coming up to the front porch of the house. Sarah heard it, too. She gasped and grabbed his arm. Rob automatically backed away from the door for a moment.
The doorbell rang.
Rob swallowed hard. He stepped toward the door again, and checked the peephole. Someone had their hand over it.
The bell rang again—and again.
“Luke, is that you?” he called in a shaky voice. “Stop screwing around, man. Sarah’s scared. . . .”
She was squeezing his arm, almost cutting off the circulation.
Rob gazed into the peephole again. It was still blocked. “Goddamn it,” he muttered.
But then he saw his friend take his hand away from the security viewer. Luke was standing so close to the other side of the door that his face filled the viewer. He smiled this weird—almost maniacal—grin.
“Oh, thank God, it’s Luke,” Rob said. He unlocked the door and flung it open.
Then he saw the man standing beside his friend. He saw the tears streaming down Luke’s face—and the desperation behind that fake smile. The man held a gun inches away from Luke’s head.
Sarah gasped.
The man shoved Luke, and he staggered inside, dropping a grocery bag full of beers. With a clamor, the cans rolled across the front hallway’s Oriental rug and hardwood floor. Luke grabbed hold of the newel post at the bottom of the stairs to keep from falling.
Rob and Sarah backed away. Rob hoped against hope this was some kind of sick joke—that Luke had hired this icy-eyed stranger and given him a fake gun. But Rob knew his friend wouldn’t drop a six-pack of beer and let it spill for the sake of a gag. And Luke’s tears weren’t an act. In the five years they had been friends, he’d never seen Luke cry.
The man quickly stepped inside and shut the door behind him. “I don’t want to hurt anybody,” he announced in a calm, quiet voice. He glanced toward Luke. “Get over there with your friends.”
Nodding, Luke obeyed him—until he and Rob were almost shoulder to shoulder. “Please, man,” Luke said. “Just—just don’t shoot, okay?”
The stranger aimed the gun at Rob.
His heart seemed to stop beating. He stood there, paralyzed. Sarah clung to him. He could feel her shaking.
“Just do what I tell you,” the man said. “And I promise, I’ll be out of here in twenty-five minutes. You’ll have a great story to tell your friends at school tomorrow. Now, I need you upstairs.” A tiny smile tugged at the right corner of his mouth. “We’re going to get those nice designer sheets out of your mama’s linen closet and start tearing them into strips. I want to see how good you are at tying each other up. . . .”
Terrified, Rob backed toward the stairs, taking Sarah with him. With her face pressed against his shoulder, she sobbed quietly. “C’mon, man, you’re scaring her,” Rob pleaded. “We’ll—we’ll cooperate. Just take whatever you want, okay?”

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