Faces of Fear

house.

“Getting settled in?” her mother asked as Alison spread a linen napkin over her lap.

She nodded as a woman in a black uniform silently placed a small tossed salad in front of each of them.

“So tomorrow’s the big day at Wilson,” Conrad Dunn said. Though he was smiling at her, his expression did nothing at all to warm the chill the house had cast over her spirits. But despite her misgivings about not only the huge house, but Wilson Academy as well, she made herself nod in response to his words. “Are you excited?” her new stepfather went on.

She shrugged, not trusting her voice to conceal the misgivings churning through her.

“What’s the matter, honey?” her mother asked. “Are you all right?”

Alison nodded.

Conrad reached over and put his hand on hers. “You’ll fit right in,” he said. “There’s nothing to worry about at all.”

Alison slowly drew her hand away and put it in her lap.

He was probably right — she’d have new friends eventually, but after the wedding, she wasn’t sure she even wanted to be friends with the kids at Wilson.

“You’ll be fine, sweetheart,” her mother reassured her, and Alison nodded again, picked up her salad fork and firmly squelched the tears suddenly threatening to spill over her lids.

Taking a deep breath, she forced a smile to her face. “I want to know all about Paris,” she said. Her eyes fixed on her mother. “What was the absolutely best, best, best thing?”

Her first dinner in her new home began.

Somehow, she would get through it.

RISA SLIPPED into bed next to Conrad, who was reading a medical journal. “Honey?”

He looked up, smiled, took off his reading glasses and set them and the magazine on his nightstand, then held his arms open to her.

Risa snuggled into him. “What if the other kids aren’t nice to Alison? You know how kids can be — especially the kind who go to Wilson. They’ve already got their cliques. What if they don’t accept her?”

Conrad rubbed her shoulder gently. “Alison? She’ll do fine — she’s just like you. She can fit herself in anywhere.”

Risa nodded against his chest, hoping he was right, but still not sure. Alison had been so quiet tonight, at least until they started talking about Paris.

Risa snuggled closer.

“Trust me,” Conrad whispered. “She’ll be just fine.”

Finally content, Risa fell asleep in the warm security of her husband’s arms.

ALISON WAS PROPPED in the window seat with two of the pillows from the bed, her quilt wrapped around her, Ruffles stretched out along her thigh, and her computer in her lap.

She logged on to the MySpace page she had spent the last hour reconstructing.

And Cindy Kearns still wasn’t online.

She heard the tone signaling incoming e-mail and clicked on the button to open the program. There was a new e-mail titled, MYSPACE FRIEND REQUEST.

She opened it.

SETH8146 WOULD LIKE TO BE ADDED TO YOUR MYSPACE FRIENDS LIST.

She went back to her MySpace page and clicked on his profile. He was very cute, in a blond, surfer-guy kind of way, but there wasn’t much information about him.

An Instant Message box appeared from Seth28146.

HI. CUTE PIX OF U.

Alison’s fingers absently stroked the dog’s fur as she gazed at the blinking cursor.

What should she do? This was exactly what her dad had warned her about — chatting with strangers on her computer.

But what was the big deal? It wasn’t like she would make a date with him, or tell him where she lived, or anything at all. What harm could chatting do?

She looked over at the big, uninviting bed and realized that even if she shut off the computer and got into it, she’d just fret about tomorrow. She made up her mind. HI! she typed, and then hit SEND.

TINA WONG PERCHED on the edge of the hard gray metal folding chair next to Detective Evan Sands’s desk, unconsciously tapping her foot and checking her watch every few seconds.

Slowly, the squad room began to fill, but even when it seemed as if the room could hold no more people, neither Sands nor Rick McCoy had shown up. At 8:45, deciding she’d wasted enough of her time, she picked up her briefcase and rose to her feet. She had a lot more important things to do today than wait in vain for two cops who were even now probably sitting in some doughnut shop swapping lies and bad jokes.

As if on cue, Evan Sands pushed through the glass doors into the squad room and instantly spotted her. To his credit, he barely hesitated, keeping nearly all of his distaste for her out of his expression, but not enough to keep Tina from reading his animosity. Not that it mattered; as far as she was concerned, her job was to get the story and report it, and if some people — or even all people — found her irritating, that was just tough for them. Besides, Sands had no idea that she was bringing him a gift today, and even though the gift came with a price, she was sure that in the end he’d agree that he got the better end of the deal.

“Tina,” the detective said, barely nodding to her. “I thought vampires were afraid of the daylight.”

“Funny,” she said without even a hint of a smile. “I want to talk with you privately.” Her eyes swept the room, but only about a quarter of the detective force even pretended not to be trying to hear every word she and Sands exchanged.

“Does that include McCoy?” Sands asked.

“Not a problem,” Tina said, checking her watch. “Assuming he’s planning to show up at all this morning.”

“He had the doughnut run this morning,” Sands told her as his partner, balancing two paper cups of coffee on a big, greasy box, backed through the door and let it swing shut behind him. He shot Sands a questioning look as he recognized Tina, which Sands responded to with a helpless gesture, clearly conveying that he wasn’t to be blamed for the fact that she’d trapped them both by getting into the squad room early enough to avoid being stopped.

Still, she could see that Sands seemed to understand her urgency and the importance of privacy, because he jerked his head for McCoy to follow them, then led the way through the back of the squad room into a small interrogation room, closing the door as soon as they were all inside.

“I’m not going to waste your time,” Tina said without spending so much as a second on pleasantries. “I want to know one thing in particular about Kimberly Elmont’s murder.”

Rick McCoy scoffed as he set the box on the table. “You and about a million other reporters.”

“We’re not giving out any specific information to anyone,” Sands said. “You know the drill. So why are you really here?”

“Because,” Tina said, ignoring McCoy and looking Sands directly in the eye, “I think I know something about that murder that you don’t know, and if you’ll answer one question, I can help you guys get Cop of the Year or Queen for a Day or whatever award they hand out around here.”

“Oooh,” Sands said, “I’m so excited I think I might wet myself.” Then he dropped the sarcasm. “Look, Tina — you know the rules. You give before you get. If you really know something, you have to tell us anyway, otherwise you’re withholding evidence or obstructing justice or anything else the D.A. can think up. So you go first, and if we like it, we’ll give you something back.”

Tina hesitated. If she divulged too much without confirmation from them, she’d blow the best angle she had for her special. “I need to know you’re good for this information.”

“What do you want to know?” Sands asked.

“Did Kimberly Elmont lose some glands Saturday night in addition to her ears?”

The look that passed between the two detectives was almost all the confirmation Tina needed.