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  He’d lied to everyone else about Justin’s death, Julie decided at that moment, he had not lied to her. He couldn’t have done that. Wouldn’t have. She knew that in her heart. And when she saw him in Mexico, he’d explain why he’d lied to the others. The television program was a special broadcast about China, and since Julie was too keyed up to sleep, she decided to work on the letter she was leaving for her family while she waited for a late-night news update to be certain there wasn’t anything about Zack on it. He’d told her to take care of everything within a week and be ready to leave on the eighth day. Five days had already elapsed.

  Getting up, Julie went into her room to get her partially written letter, then she sat back down in the rocking chair and reached up to turn on the floor lamp beside her. With the television program droning on in the background about the economic future of China, she reread what she’d written:

  Dear Mom and Dad, and dear Carl and Ted,

  By the time you read this letter, you’ll know that I’ve left to join Zack. I don’t expect you to condone what I’m doing or to forgive me, but I want to explain it to you so that maybe you’ll at least be able to understand someday.

  I love him.

  I want so much to give you more and better reasons than just that one, and I’ve tried to think of them, but there don’t seem to be any. Maybe it’s because that’s all that really matters.

  Dad, Mother, Carl, Ted—all four of you know what love is, you’ve felt it, I know you have. Dad, I remember so many times when you stayed up late and sat on the sofa with your arm around Mom. I remember all the years of your laughter and hugs. I also remember the day Mom came home from the doctor and told us he’d found a lump in her breast. That night, you went out in the backyard and you cried. I know you did, Dad, because I followed you. These are the things I want to share with Zack—all of them—the good things, the quiet things, the happy things, and the sad ones. Think of them, please, and know that just as Mom and you were meant to be together through them all, I was meant to be with Zack. I believe that. I know it with every breath I take. I don’t know why it had to be him. I would never have chosen it to be this way. But it is. And I’m not sorry.

  Carl, you have your wonderful, funny, sweet Sara. She’s adored you since the two of you were in grade school, and I don’t think you realize just how much she did. She waited for years for you to notice her. When we were in high school, she used to do the most amazing things to try to get your attention, like falling out of a tree when you drove past and dropping her books at your feet. Sara and I were studying together the night she found out you’d asked Jenny Stone to your senior prom. She cried that night. You hurt her terribly, and now I’m going to hurt all of you by going away with Zack. Sara loved you anyway. Please love me too after the hurt subsides. At least try.

  Ted, you’re going to be the angriest of all about what I’ve done and the last to forgive me, I think. You still haven’t forgiven yourself for turning your back on your marriage, and you can’t seem to forgive Katherine for her part in what happened. You can’t forgive and you can’t forget, so you’re caught in a trap of your own making. And the funny thing is, of all of us, it is you and I who love so blindly and completely that it rules our minds. You love me that much. I know you do. You said you’d walk through hell for me, and now I’m going to put you through hell, and I hate that. But my only other choice is to do what you’ve done with Katherine—I could turn my back on Zack, who loves me and needs me, and then spend the rest of my life hating myself and blaming him because I was afraid to take another chance.

  After I leave, all of you are going to hear more things about Zack, awful rumors and vicious conjecture from reporters and police and people who never even knew him. I wish so much you could have known him. Since that isn’t possible, I’m leaving something for you, something from him that will show you a glimpse of the man he really is. It’s a copy of a letter, a very personal letter, from him to me. A small part of the letter will be blocked out, not because there was something there that would have changed your opinion, but because it refers to someone else and a very special favor that person did for us both. When you read Zack’s letter, I think you’ll know that the man who wrote it will love and protect me in every way he can. We’ll be married as soon as we’re together.

  That was the last of what Julie had written so far, and it didn’t seem like enough. She picked up her pen, her ears attuned to an announcement of a news update, and began to write again:

  Carl, I’d like you and Sara to have all my household things that you can use for your new place. Think of me sometimes when you’re watering my plants.

  Ted, there’s a ring in the top drawer of my dresser that belongs to you. You’ll recognize it. It’s the wedding band you threw away when you and Katherine split up. It belongs on your finger, my beloved, foolish brother.

  Try it on for size . . . just for old times’ sake. Okay, for my sake. No other ring will ever fit you as perfectly as that one does, and you know it! The two of you are going to hurt each other if you get together again, but you won’t suffer nearly as much as you’ve been doing without each other. And—”

  Julie’s head snapped up as the announcer on television said, “We’re interrupting our special on the China situation to bring you a late-breaking development in the Zachary Benedict manhunt. According to police in Orange County, California, Benedict, who escaped from Amarillo State Penitentiary, where he was serving a forty-five-year sentence for the murder of his wife, has been spotted in Los Angeles by a former acquaintance. The acquaintance, whose identity is not being released at this time, said there is no doubt the man was Benedict. The search for Benedict has been intensified by that news and the discovery that he reportedly made phone calls today to several members of the cast and crew of the movie Destiny who were present on or around the scene of his wife’s death, threatening to kill them. Orange County police are warning anyone who was on the set of Destiny to exercise extreme caution, since Benedict is known to be armed and dangerous.”

  The pen Julie had been holding slid to the floor along with her letter as she lurched to her feet, staring at the television. Fighting for control, she raked her hair off her forehead and picked up the letter and pen. It was a hoax, she told herself. It had to be a hoax! Some maniac was pretending to be Zack just to scare people and make news.

  Of course, a hoax, she decided as she turned off the television and went to bed.

  But when she finally slept, her dreams were filled with faceless specters who hid in shadows, calling out warnings and screaming threats.

  The sun was rising when she finally tore free of the nightmare. Afraid to close her eyes again, Julie got up and went into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of orange juice. She drank it without tasting it, then she braced her hands on the Formica counter and her head fell forward. “Oh, Zack,” she whispered, “what are you doing? Call me and tell me everyone is lying about you. Please . . . don’t let them torture me like this.”

  She decided to go to church, then spend the day at school, catching up on paperwork there, just in case Zack heard what was happening in Los Angeles and wanted to call her to explain. He couldn’t call her at home. He’d try her at the school. Surely he’d realize she’d go there to wait, even on a Sunday, if something important like this happened.

  57

  “JULIE, ARE YOU ALL RIGHT, honey?” Flossie Eldridge tapped on the car’s windshield as she spoke. “You’ve been sitting out here in the dark for almost a half hour with the engine running.”

  Julie’s gaze jerked to her plump, concerned face, and she groped for her car keys, turning off the ignition and hastily getting out. “I’m fine, Miss Flossie, really—I was thinking about something—a problem at school and I forgot where I was.”

  Shivering in the frosty night, Flossie pulled her coat around her. “You’ll catch your death of cold, sitting out here.”

  Mortified at having lost track of where she was, Julie pulled her br