The Hunter Page 0,7

secure, you lose his attention, he takes you for granted. Starts looking at other girls. You want to keep him off balance, never knowing what you'll do next."

"Like you do with Michael," Jenny said absently.

"Oh, Michael." Audrey made a dismissive gesture with exquisitely polished nails. "He's just keeping the seat warm until I decide who's next. He's a-a bookmark. But do you see what I'm saying? Even Dee thinks you give in to Tom too much."

"Dee?" Jenny raised her eyebrows ironically. "Dee thinks all guys are lying hounds. As boyfriends, anyway."

"True," said Audrey. "It's strange," she added thoughtfully, "how she can be so right about that and so wrong about everything else."

Jenny just made a wry face at her. Then she said, "You know, Audrey, maybe if you tried being nice first-"

"Hmm, maybe ... when the devil goes ice-skating," Audrey said.

Jenny sighed. Audrey was the newcomer to their group; she'd moved to Vista Grande last year. All the others had known each other since elementary school, and Dee had known Jenny longest of all. When Audrey arrived, Dee had gotten-well, jealous. They'd been fighting ever since.

"Just try not to kill each other during the party," Jenny said. Deliberately she pulled her hair back -

the way Tom liked it-and anchored its silkiness with an elastic band.

Then she smiled at Audrey and said, "Let's go back to the kitchen."

When they did they found that Michael and Zach had arrived-looking, as usual, as different as night and day.

Michael Cohen was shaped like a teddy bear, with dark hair as rumpled as his gray sweats and the eyes of a sarcastic spaniel. Zach Taylor had light hair pulled back in a casual ponytail, an intense beaky-nosed face, and eyes as gray as the winter sky.

"How's the flu?" Jenny said, kissing Zachary's cheek. She could do this safely because she'd been exposed to his germs all week, and besides, he was her cousin. Zach's gray eyes softened for just an instant, then went cool again. Jenny was never quite sure if Zach liked her or merely tolerated her the way he did everyone else.

"Hello, Michael," she said, giving him a pat instead of a kiss. The liquid spaniel eyes turned toward her.

"You know," Michael said, "sometimes I worry about us, about our whole generation. Do we know what we're doing? Are we any better than the Me Generation? What do we have to look forward to, except driving better cars than our parents? I mean, what is the point?"

"Hello, Michael," said Audrey.

"Hello, O light of my life. Is this an egg roll I see before me?" Michael said, reaching.

"Don't eat that. Put it back on the plate with the others and take it out to the living room."

"I live to serve," Michael said and departed.

Chapter 3

God-the box, Jenny thought. Michael was the sort who would potter around the room reading your mail and opening your drawers in an absentminded way. Insatiably curious. She followed him.

Her stomach knotted at the sight of it, pristine and rectangular and gleaming on her mother's solid ponderosa pine coffee table. Jenny's mother had worked very hard with a very expensive decorator to make sure the living room looked "natural and inevitable and not at all arty." There were Navajo weavings and Hopi baskets on the walls, Zuni pots on the floor, and a Chimayo rug above the fireplace. Jenny wasn't allowed to touch any of them.

Calm down, she told herself. But even approaching the white box was strangely difficult. She picked it up and realized that her palms were sweaty enough to stick to it.

Thrummm. The current tingled through her fingers. The feeling of something wrong increased.

Oh, hell! I'll just throw the thing away, Jenny thought, surprised at the relief the idea brought. We'll play canasta.

Michael, munching spring rolls, was eyeing her with interest.

"What's that? A present?"

"No-just a game I bought, but I'm going to get rid of it. Michael, do you know how to play canasta?"

"Nope. So where's the sun bunny?"

"Not here yet-oh, that's probably her. Would you get the door?"

Michael just looked vaguely at the plate in his one hand and the roll in his other. Jenny ran to the hallway, still holding the box.

Summer Parker-Pearson was tiny, with thistledown hair and dimples you wanted to poke your fingers into. She was wearing a china blue shirtdress and shivering.

"It's freezing out here. How're we going to go swimming, Jenny?"

"We're not," Jenny said gently.

"Oh. Then why did I bring my bathing suit? Here's my present." She piled