Last Night Read Free Page A

weren ' t having trouble, were they? During the past year the Panama Jack ' s rapist had attacked several women. Dana had always been careful. Now she kept pepper spray in her purse.
    " I ' m so-o-o frightened, " Lillian repeated. "Last night I heard the night marchers. I ' m going to die. " Oh, boy, Dana said to herself. How could Lillian believe that island lore? According to superstition the restless spirits of Hawaii ' s ancient warriors marched at night. If you heard them someone was going to die.
    "You ' re not going to die, Lillian. Remember what the doctor said? You ' re perfectly healthy. Just re member to take your blood pressure medication. "
    Lillian pe rked up. "Oh, I almost forgot. I brought in your package. "
    " Thanks. " Dana wasn ' t expecting anything, but she did buy most of her clothes mail orde r because she despised shopping.
    "I put the box in the refrigerator," Lillian said with pride. " A bottle must have broken. It ' s leaking. I didn ' t want the food to spoil. "
    " Food? I never order food. It must be a gift. I ' d better come get it now. " She tossed the mail on the front seat of the temperamental Toyota she ' d driven for years and followed Lillian up the walk.
    Inside Lillian ' s modest home the white linoleum floor had surre ndered to time and was now a de pressing amber, but it was clean. The dishes were drying in a wire rack on the counter. Lillian was doing just fine on her own in the home she loved, Dana thought as her friend opened a boxy Frigidaire that had been new in the fifties.
    " Here it is. " She handed Dana the package.
    With a growing sense of apprehension Dana accepted it, recalling the black rose and the ominous note that she had received at the office. There was no return address on the plain brown wrapping paper. She touched the bottom of the package, then quickly pulled back her hand and stared at it.
    " Sweetie, is anything the matter? "
    " No. " Dana beelined for the door, realizing just how poor Lillian ' s vision had become. Whatever was inside was leaking blood.

 
     
     
     
     
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    D ana raced to her house, holding the dripping package away from her suit. She dumped it in the kitchen sink, half-tempted to call the police. Perhaps she was overreacting, she thought, as she peeled back the soggy brown paper. There might be a perfectly innocent explanation for this.
    Inside a Ziploc plastic bag was a rabbit-skinning knife slathered with blood. The blade had punctured the plastic, causing the leak. She tested the blade. It wiggled, not quite anchored securely in the handle.
    " Oh my God! " she cried, her voice echoing through the small kitchen. " It can ' t be! "
    She inspected the bloody knife more closely. It looked exactly like the one she remembered so well — even though it had been over twenty years since they'd thrown it into the swamp.
    Bile rose up in her throat and the memory she ' d blocked for years intruded with sickening clarity. There was a bloodstained note the size of a business card with the package.
    I know what you did. Pack your bags, bitch.
    The words echoed in her mind. A similar message had come with the black rose she had received that mo rning. Twenty years without a w ord. Nothing. Until today.
    Why, after all these years, when her career was really taking off, did the past have to come back to curse her? She ' d grown complacent, believing that after all this time she was safe. You were never safe from someth ing like this. Somehow—someone— knew what had happened that night so long ago.
    She picked up the telephone to call her sister. Then she remembered Vanessa wasn't in Maui. She was here in Honolulu for the evening. Thank God. The Coltrane family compound where Vanessa lived with her husband a nd young son was her father-in- law ' s home. Thornton " Big Daddy " Coltrane had his nose in everyone's business.
    She checked her watch. If she hurried she could make the cocktail hour at the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club where the