Free If She Should Die by Carlene Thompson Page A

like to have fun have probably never even met me.”
    “People say things about me, too. They say I’m stupid.”
    “Those are the people we ignore. What they say can’t hurt us.” Streak pointed at the creek. “Look how high it is.”
    “And still,” Christine said. “You expect rushing water in a flood.”
    “The water from creeks does rush into the river until the river gets so full, it backs up the creeks like a big plug. The more the Ohio River rises, the more water will be forced back into Crescent Creek.”
    Which meant Dara could have been killed in this very spot, thrown in the creek, and remained trapped there until the rushing water of this flood carried her into the river. And once the river had made its awful delivery, it was coming back into the creek, Christine thought fearfully. Jeremy could be right. This could have been the site where Dara had died. Or rather, been murdered.
    Christine shuddered and forced thoughts of the possible logistics of Dara’s murder from her mind. Moonlight shimmered on the dark water that was higher than Christine had ever seen it. Not that she’d seen it often. She’d always avoided this place. Something about it made her edgy, as if she were intruding on sacred ground. The feeling probably came from the stories Dara had told her and Jeremy about the Mound Builders who had lived on the other side of the creek.
    Christine had crossed the bridge on foot only twicewith Dara to look at the mounds built by the Indians hundreds of years ago, and each time she’d been unnerved, although she tried to hide her apprehension from Dara. Dara would have laughed at her with good reason. No ghosts of ancient Mound Builders lurked around protecting their burial grounds. Still, Christine hated the creek and the peninsula on the other side. Unfortunately, Jeremy had always seemed as drawn to it as Dara had been. And now he was vehemently declaring he knew this quiet, gloomy spot was the last place Dara had been. Christine shivered.
    “What’s wrong?” Jeremy asked.
    “I’m a little chilly,” Christine said.
    Jeremy frowned. “But you’re wearing a sweatshirt and jacket. I don’t think it’s cold. Do you, Streak?”
    “I’m not freezing or anything, Jeremy,” Christine lied, knowing it wasn’t the temperature but her conscience that turned her hands and neck icy. For years Christine had not let herself think about the time immediately before Dara’s disappearance when she had allowed her long resentment of the selfish, spoiled girl to boil over at the party where Dara had flirted with and fondled Christine’s fiancé, Sloane Caldwell, and he had not resisted. Afterward, she’d treated Dara with cold and self-righteous disdain, publicly blaming Dara for having to break her engagement. She’d hated herself for the lie because she’d realized for some time that she didn’t love Sloane. She’d been looking for an acceptable excuse to break off with that generous and intelligent man who would have given her a steady, comfortable life, but whose dominating personality would have suffocated her.
    When Dara caused the scene and Sloane allowed it to happen and said nothing, Christine had jumped at the convenient justification for canceling the upcoming marriage.Ironically, Dara had done her a favor, but everyone except Jeremy had been mad at Dara. Christine had been ashamed by her manipulation of the circumstances, in spite of years of Dara’s hauteur and slights, but she’d played the hand and was still playing it when Dara vanished only days later. Now Christine’s guilt over the incident came flooding back like the dark, dirty water of the creek. She knew she’d wronged Dara. She knew she’d never find peace within her own mind until she’d tried in some way to make amends. But how did you do that when the one you’d wronged was dead?
    “Do you want to come, too?”
    Christine realized Jeremy was talking to her. “What?”
    “I knew you weren’t listening!”