Twenty-Five Years Ago Today Read Online Free Page B

opposite
direction.
    Nicole waited until she was out of earshot,
then placed her hands on her hips. "Meredith must think you're a
snob. Why would you say no?"
    Kris stepped back, startled by her cousin's
bitterness. "She didn’t seem upset."
    "Then you’re lucky. You didn't even give her
an excuse. You could've thanked her for the invitation."
    "I'm sorry. I froze. But you know I can't go
to a party with dancing and boys."
    "We can't play 'Pin the Tail on the Donkey'
forever. We're gonna be in eighth grade next year."
    "What about the movies next Friday?"
    Nicole rolled her eyes. "We can go out with
our parents anytime. Why can't you be more like Holly? She says I
shouldn't feel guilty about wanting to do my own thing, and that
you and I don't always have to be together."
    They had talked about her? Holly and Nicole?
Kris's ears burned. She'd noticed her sister and cousin hanging
around more often.
    "Yeah, well, Holly told me that she feels
sorry for you." Kris blurted out the words before she could stop
herself. "She feels bad that you have to wear ugly glasses and that
your mother makes you wear stupid braids, like a mountain
girl."
    "You're making that up. Holly and I are
friends. We might go roller skating with Nancy and Shannon
Welles."
    Nancy was Holly's best friend. Her younger
sister, Shannon, was in Kris's grade and belonged to the "in
crowd."
    "She's with Nancy and Shannon right now,"
Kris said. "They walked to Ice Cream Cove after school. If you guys
are so close, why don't you go?"
    "I can't just show up. Holly didn't invite
me."
    "If you're as chummy as you say, she'll be
happy to see you."
    "But it's gonna rain," Nicole said.
    Relief flooded over Kris. Good, Nicole
wouldn't accept the challenge. What was she thinking, making up
that story? Holly and Nancy were at the library, researching a
science project. It would be mean to have Nicole sit at Ice Cream
Cove, waiting for them. Still, she couldn’t resist saying, "Fine,
chicken out."
    "I'm not chickening out. I'm going."
    "What?"
    "I'll prove Holly doesn't think I'm a stupid
kid. If my mom's looking for me, tell her where I went."
    Nicole strode down the sidewalk.
    Kris hesitated.
    Her cousin would be okay. Nicole would walk a
half-mile, order a chocolate cone, then call her mother for a ride.
Aunt Susan would be home by then. Maybe Kris could worm her way out
of it, pretend she had misunderstood Holly's plans.
    But her mother would know Kris was lying.
They'd discussed Holly's science project, the brilliantly sculpted
clay model of a catfish with an accompanying report, at the
breakfast table.
    Kris turned into her neighborhood. That weird
guy, Mr. Coltraine, waved as he unlocked his car door. Mr.
Coltraine had moved in a few months earlier. He had no wife or
kids, so she didn’t know why he needed such a big house. Mr.
Coltraine would show up at the park and bowling alley, watching
with a strange smile. He gave Kris the creeps.
    ***
    Chipmunk meowed in Kris's lap, and she
jumped. She patted the cat, feeling the rise and fall of his gentle
purrs. Sharp pain throbbed between her eyebrows, signaling one of
her headaches.
    It was her fault Randolph Coltraine lured
Nicole into his car and trapped her in his cellar for three days.
He dumped her body in a gully off the highway. Nicole’s glasses lay
cracked at her side. Police found a pail in Coltraine’s bedroom
brimming with "souvenirs": necklaces, bracelets, barrettes and
locks of hair. All belonged to his child victims, whom he had
killed in small towns throughout New England. From Nicole, he saved
her favorite ring, dull purple and pink stones on a silver
band.
    Kris withdrew a Tylenol bottle from the
nightstand drawer, swallowed two pills without water and fought to
shake her nagging headache and her black mood. She couldn't.
Nightmares had plagued her on and off for years, disturbing visions
of Nicole in her casket. Nicole glaring. Nicole screaming. Kris
told her family she couldn't remember her dreams,