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had been their next-door neighbor years ago. Mrs. Sommers now lived in a townhouse near the parkway. The Sommerses had moved to Cornwall about two years before their daughter Karen was murdered. Jean never forgot the time when she'd been picked up at school by Mrs. Sommers. "Jean, why don't you come shopping with me?" she'd suggested. "I don't think you should go home right now."
    That day she'd been spared the cringing embarrassment of seeing a squad car in front of her house and her parents being handcuffed. She never knew Karen Sommers well. Karen had been in Columbia Medical School in Manhattan, and the Sommerses kept an apartment in Manhattan. That was where they spent time with their daughter. In fact, until the night of her death, Karen had rarely come to Cornwall.
    We've always kept in touch, Jean thought. When they came to Washington, they always called to invite me to dinner. Michael Sommers had died years ago, but Alice had learned about the reunion and called to say that Jean must come over for a ten o'clock breakfast before the scheduled visit to West Point.
    In the time she might have visited with Laura, Jean had made up her mind. Tomorrow when she saw Alice, she would tell her about Lily and show her the faxes and the original letter with the hairbrush and strands of Lily's hair. Whoever knew about the baby must have seen Dr. Connors' records, she thought. It has to be someone who was around here at that time or who knew someone from around here who could get hold of the records. Alice might help me find the right person to talk to in law enforcement here. She had always said that they were still trying to find her Karen's murderer.
    "Jean, it's good to see you again." Mark Fleischman had been speaking to Robby Brent, but now he came over to her. "You look lovely, but upset. Did that kid reporter grab you?"
    She nodded. "Yes, he did. Mark, I was shocked. I didn't know about anyone's death except Debby's and then, of course, Alison's."
    Fleischman nodded. "Neither did I. In fact, I hadn't heard about Debby. I've never bothered with any of the stuff that came from Stonecroft until Jack Emerson contacted me."
    "What did Perkins ask you?"
    "Specifically, he wanted to know if since none of the five died together in some sort of multiple accident, wouldn't I, as a psychiatrist, find that many deaths in so small a group an unusually high number? I told him I didn't have to look up anything to know that the number was out of the ball park. Of course it was."
    Jean nodded. "He told me that according to his research, that kind of statistic is much more likely to happen in wartime, but he said there are examples of families or classmates or members of a team that seem to be jinxed. Mark, I don't think it's jinxed. I think it's eerie."
    Jack Emerson had overheard. The smile he'd worn while listing their accomplishments vanished and was replaced by a look of irritated concern. "I asked that Perkins kid to stop showing that list around," he said.
    Carter Stewart came into the alcove with Laura Wilcox in time to hear Emerson. "I can assure you, he's showing it around," he said shortly. "My suggestion to anyone who has not yet been pounced upon by that young man is to tell him you do not wish to see it. It worked for me."
    Jean was standing to the side of the entry, and Laura did not spot her when she walked in. "OK if I join you?" she joked. "Or have I wandered into the men's club by mistake?"
    Smiling, she moved from one man to the other, closely examining their tags, then kissing each one of them on the cheek. "Mark Fleischman, Gordon Amory, Robby Brent, Jack Emerson. And, of course, Carter, whom I used to know as Howie and who hasn't kissed me yet. You all look marvelous. You see, there's the difference. I was at my peak at sixteen, and after that it was all downhill. You four and Howie, I mean Carter, were just starting up the hill in those days."
    Then she spotted Jean and rushed to embrace her.
    It was the icebreaker