Headed for Trouble - By Suzanne Brockmann Page 0,12

sleep.”

Again, she shook her head. “Tom said he’d call after he spoke to Randy. I want to be coherent.”

“I could talk to him,” Sam volunteered.

“I know,” Alyssa said. “Thanks. But …” Sam hadn’t looked inside that refrigerator.

Her cell phone rang, and she opened it. “Locke.”

“What time is it there?”

That wasn’t Tom Paoletti’s voice. It was … “Jules?”

“It’s nearly three A.M. here, which means it’s not quite six there. Aren’t you allowed to answer your phone with Alyssa at least from, say, two to six A.M.?”

“It’s Jules,” Alyssa told Sam. She and Jules Cassidy had been playing phone tag for weeks now. It was exactly her former-FBI-partner and best friend’s MO to call in the middle of the night after being frustrated by voice mail.

“Are you—honest to God—in a town called No Hope?” Jules asked. “Because I got this weird message from SpongeBob, and it sure as hell sounded like he said you were in No Hope, New Hampshire, and all I could think was shit. No Hope High School …”

“You called Jules?” Alyssa asked Sam.

“No Hope Hospital,” Jules continued.

Sam lifted a shoulder. “It’s been a rough night. I thought you might want to talk to him.”

“I’m really okay,” she said again.

“I know.”

“No Hope Hair Salon …”

“It’s New Hope,” she told Jules as she sank down onto the leather sofa, one leg tucked up beneath her.

“New Hope Hair Salon—that’s almost as good.” His voice changed. “You okay, sweetie?”

Sam sat down on the other end of the couch and put his feet up on the coffee table, his long legs stretched out in front of him. He was trying hard not to look worried.

“We’ve been looking for this woman, Amanda, and we found her tonight. In the refrigerator of an abandoned cabin. She’d been there for six months and … Whoever killed her had …” Alyssa had to stop, take a deep breath.

Sam reached over and put his hand on her foot.

“He mutilated her,” she said. “It was … gruesome and surprising, and …” Sam’s gaze was as warm and solid as his hand. She was, in truth, talking to him. “I think I’m embarrassed. My reaction to seeing her was …”

She’d actually screamed. Only her years of training had kept her from running from the cabin after opening that refrigerator door. Or maybe it had been the lightheadedness and suddenly blurred vision that kept her glued to the spot.

“I almost lost it,” she said. “I actually had to put my head between my knees.” All the while unable to say anything more than Oh, shit, oh, shit …

Which had sent Sam running down the mountain, racing to her unnecessary rescue.

Or maybe it had been necessary. She’d been beyond glad to see him, to feel his arms around her. She’d done everything but burst into girlish tears.

“I mean, come on,” Alyssa told Jules. “What’s that about? I’ve seen murder victims before. This is nothing new.”

But Sam shook his head. “You were caught off-guard. We both were. We were sure she was still alive.”

They’d spent dinner trying to guess where Hathaway and Amanda had gone.

Such optimism was new for Alyssa. In the past, she’d always been a worst-case-scenario thinker. Anyone who’d been missing for six whole months had to be dead. But this time, she had been positive that they’d find Amanda by finding Hathaway. Instead …

The FBI agents heloed in from the Boston office were convinced that Amanda was the latest victim of a serial killer they’d been tracking for years. The Bureau was excited because, even though Steve Hathaway was an alias, for the first time they believed they finally had a photo of the man they were after, thanks to Randy Shahar.

“I liked her—Amanda,” Alyssa told both Sam and Jules. Although she’d never met the woman, she’d read her diaries and talked with her friends. “I thought she’d found true love. I thought she was hiding from her father because she knew he’d be mad that she’d married the ski bum instead of the businessman. I actually pictured her with Hathaway in some little house with a white picket fence, living happily ever after.” Instead, he’d probably made a necklace with her teeth. “God.”

She looked up at Sam and told Jules, “Two months of marriage to Pollyanna here, and I’ve already moved into Sunnybrook Farm.”

Jules didn’t laugh. Instead, he sounded wistful. “That must be nice.”

“Yeah, it is,” Alyssa said. Sam was shaking his head over his new nickname. “It’s scary, though. The potential for disappointment can be pretty high.” As