Kristi was about to say something when Ariel looked directly at her and in that moment, all color drained from Ariel’s face, her complexion turned ashen, her visage in shades of gray. Was it a trick of light? The silvery glow from a cloud-covered moon? The sheen from incandescent security lamps flickering in the mist?

“Ariel?” she said, turning, but the girl had headed down a brick path near the Commons and disappeared into the gloom.

But that draining of color…so much like the vision of her father…. Kristi’s heart pounded hard.

She sensed, with cold certainty, that Ariel was doomed.

CHAPTER 9

“I diot,” Jay muttered under his breath. He wanted to kick himself five ways to hell and back as he drove through the empty streets surrounding the campus. Bruno gave a soft woof, his nose at the crack in the passenger window, drinking in the smells of the night.

Jay flipped on the radio, hoping the sound of the Dixie Chicks would drown out any thoughts of Kristi. Instead, the song about getting even with an ex-lover only made him grip the wheel even tighter. “Son of a bitch.” He’d kept his cool through class and beyond, when she’d chased him down to set things straight and clear the air between them, but it had backfired. At least for him. As mule-headed and reckless as she was, he still found her damned fascinating.

It was a sickness.

Like a death wish for his soul.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” he grumbled, and switched stations to a local radio station where Dr. Sam, a radio psychologist, was dispensing advice to the lovelorn or confused in a special extended program. He figured there must be a lot of loonies in the dead of winter. He slapped the radio button off as he flipped on his wipers to swat away the mist that had collected. It wasn’t raining, but the fog was dense and he wondered if he should have insisted on driving Kristi home.

How? By bodily restraining her? You offered. She declined. She didn’t want to ride with you. End of story.

“Unless she ends up missing,” he said, squinting through the windshield and stopping at an amber light about to turn red. A couple of teenaged boys zipped across the dark street on skateboards, their wheels grating on the pavement. Laughing, one dialing a cell phone as he rode, they turned toward a convenience store sizzling with neon lights but guarded with bars on the windows. A few cars crossed the intersection before the light changed again, glowing green in the mist.

Jay started, only to slam on the brakes as a cat sprinted across the street. “Damn!”

Bruno, spying the speeding tabby, started baying and scratching madly at the dash.

“Stop!” Jay ordered the dog as he eased through the intersection.