"Carter has so much anger in him that I thought he might be capable of murder," Jean said.

Mark shook his head. "Somehow I never did. Carter continually vents his anger by his nasty attitude and also through his plays. I've read the scripts of all of them. You should read them sometime. You'll recognize some of the characters as people you've known. That's the way he gets his revenge against those whom he regarded as his tormentors. He didn't need to go beyond that."

Jean realized that Sam, Alice, and Jake were listening intently to Mark. "That left only Gordon Amory and you," she said.

Mark smiled. "Notwithstanding your doubts, Jeannie, I knew I wasn't guilty. The more I studied Gordon, the more suspicious I became of him. It's one thing to fix a nose that's been broken or to get baggy eyes tightened, but to totally alter your external appearance has always seemed somewhat bizarre to me. I didn't believe him when he said that he'd give Laura a job on one of his TV series. It was obvious to me that he resented her playing up to him at the reunion when he well knew that she was only trying to use him. But then this morning, when Gordon was in the hotel after you disappeared, I thought I had been wrong about him. Quite frankly, when I was driving around looking for you, I was frantic. I was sure that something terrible had happened to you."

Jean turned to Sam. "I know you talked to Laura at the hospital. Did she tell you whether Gordon revealed to her how he had managed to make four of the other deaths look like accidents, and Gloria's death look like a suicide?"

"Gordon bragged about that to Laura. He told her that he had stalked all the girls before he killed them. Catherine Kane's car skidded into the Potomac after he had tampered with her brakes. Cindy Lang wasn't caught in the avalanche-he accosted her on that slope and dropped her body in a crevice. There was an avalanche that afternoon, and everyone assumed that she had been caught in it. Her body was never recovered."

Sam took a slow sip of his scotch, then continued. "He called Gloria Martin and asked her if he could stop by for a drink. By then she knew how successful he was and how handsome he had become, so she agreed. But she still couldn't resist getting in a dig at him and ran out to buy the owl figure. Gordon got her drunk, and when she fell asleep, smothered her with a plastic bag and left the owl in her hand."

Alice gasped. "My God, he was so evil."

"Yes, he was," Sam agreed. "Debra Parker was taking flying lessons at a small airfield. The security there was lax. Gordon had a pilot's license himself, so he knew just how to sabotage her plane before she took off on her first solo flight. And Alison's death was simple-he just held her under the water in her pool."

Sam looked sympathetically at Jean. "And I know, Jean, that he told both you and Meredith that he ran over Reed Thornton with his car."

Mark had not taken his eyes off Jean. "When I saw Laura a little while ago at the hospital, she told me that he had three plastic bags with each of your names on them and that he was going to use them to smother you, Laura, and Meredith. My God, Jeannie, when I think of that, I go crazy. I couldn't bear to have anything happen to you."

Slowly, deliberately, he took her face in his hands and kissed her, a long, tender kiss that said everything he had not yet put into words.

There was a sudden flash, and they looked up, startled. Jake was now standing, his camera still trained on them. "It's only a digital," he explained, beaming, "but I know a good photo op when I see it."

Epilogue

West Point, Graduation Day

“I can't believe it's been over two and a half years since Meredith came back into my life," Jean told Mark. Her eyes shining with pride, she watched as the graduates marched onto the field, splendid in their formal dress uniforms: gray cutaway jackets with bright gold buttons, starched white pants, white gloves, and hats.

"An awful lot has happened in that time," he agreed.

It was a magnificent morning in June. Michie stadium was filled with the proud families of the cadets. Charles and Gano Buckley were sitting directly in front of them. On Jean's other side, retired General and Mrs. Carroll Reed Thornton watched as the granddaughter they had come to adore passed by.

So much good has come after so much pain, Jean thought. She and Mark had just celebrated their second wedding anniversary and the first birthday of their baby son, Mark Dennis. Mothering her baby, sharing with him all the wonderful moments unfolding in his life, was softening the pain of not having been able to take care of Meredith. Meredith was crazy about her little brother, even though, as she had laughingly pointed out, she wouldn't be available for much baby-sitting. When the ceremony was over, she would be a second lieutenant in the United States Army.

She and Jake were little Mark's godparents. Jake's pleasure in the honor was expressed in the barrage of articles on baby care that he was constantly sending them from Columbia University, where he was now a student.

Sam and Alice were seated a few rows away. I'm so glad they ended up together, Jean thought. It's been wonderful for both of them.

Sometimes Jean had nightmares about the horror of that reunion week. But she often reflected that those circumstances had brought her and Mark together. And if she had never gotten those faxes, she might never have known Meredith.

It all began here at West Point, she thought, as the first notes of "The Star Spangled Banner" were sounded by the band.

Throughout the ceremony, her mind kept going back to the spring afternoon when Reed first sat down beside her on the bench and began to talk to her. He was my first love, she thought tenderly. He'll always be in my heart. Then, as Cadet Meredith Buckley's name was called to receive the West Point diploma that Reed had not lived long enough to accept, Jean was certain that somehow he was here with them today.

Mary Higgins Clark

Mary Higgins Clark, also known as America 's "Queen of Suspense", has authored several world-wide bestsellers and sold over 70 million copies of her books in the U.S. alone. Her new book, "Nighttime is My Time" will be published by Simon amp; Schuster in April 2004.

Mary Higgins Clark is a native New Yorker from Irish descent and is married to John Conheeney, the retired Chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch Futures.