Cold Case Connection. Dana Mentink

       ONE

      Helen Pike awoke with a jolt, cold sweat dappling her brow. For a shuddering moment, she thought she was back in the tunnels, a naive teen, on that terrible night that would not leave her soul. Cold stone, silence and an endless dripping echoed from the past. She rubbed her temples to massage the memories away.

       That was fifteen years ago. You were a kid in high school. Are you ever going to let go of that nightmare?

      For some inexplicable reason, she’d recently begun to relive the tragic event in her dreams. Five high school friends, Helen, Fiona, Trish, Gavin and Justin, had gone into the abandoned tunnels not more than two miles from the cottage where she now sat, but only four made it out alive. Trish had been murdered, her life ended on the frigid rock floor, her killer never caught.

      Helen propped herself up on the musty couch and brushed her hair out of her face. The cottage, nestled on Roughwater Ranch property, was weakened by age and weather. Her stand-in parents Gus and Ginny Knightly, the ranch owners, had finally decided to have it demolished. That was fine by Helen, since it reminded her of yet another tragedy, one that she might have prevented, which hurt all the worse.

      What happened with Trish was ancient history; losing one of her friends to murder should have been a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Yet three years ago, her other high school friend, Fiona Ross, had stayed in Driftwood, in this very cottage as a matter of fact, and she too had been murdered during that visit.

      “An apparent hit-and-run,” the police officer had said. “The driver didn’t stop.”

      Didn’t stop, and neither had the anguish that spawned in Helen that day. Two friends, two killings. She’d never thought the deaths could be related, but then she’d found the note four days ago, written in Fiona’s hand, stuffed under the desk blotter.

      Trish. Proof.

      Find out who still has theirs.

      Trish? The name was the tip of a nail, poking in her heart. Proof? The hammer plunging it deep.

      What had Fiona been looking into? Why bring up the high school murder? Those long three years since Fiona was killed felt so fresh, Helen could recall the smell of the pink funeral carnations, hear the cries of Fiona’s babies, the thin wails that reverberated over the gravestones and arrowed right to Helen’s core. The girls were toddlers now, almost three. How would they remember their mother who’d missed out on so much?

      Her phone buzzed with a reminder alarm, rattling her back to the present.

      Ten at night. She needed to double-check the dining hall setup while the Roughwater Lodge was quiet, the guests all gone to bed for the night. No more time to putter about in this relic, looking for answers she’d never find. Maybe demolishing it would blast away her guilt too.

      Something snapped outside, and she jerked to her feet, nerves taut. Most likely a deer? A coyote? Why had she come here so late at night?

      Don’t be