Lisa motioned her to the student desks. The girl appeared upset, frightened even, her pale hands tightly clenching the folder. Once seated, Jennifer handed Lisa a sheet of paper. “I wanted you to see this.”

Lisa scanned the page, her gaze stopping on a line highlighted in fluorescent yellow. It revealed a dramatic rise in the percentage of abused women who’d gone missing in Milwaukee and its neighboring counties.

The line practically levitated toward her from the paper—the number far too high to be a statistical aberration. If accurate, what could explain it? A predator—targeting abused women? There had to be another explanation.

She kept staring at the number. Lisa whispered, “Abused women were the topic of my dissertation too.”

“I know. I read it. I thought you’d know what I should do.” Jennifer’s honey-brown eyes looked to Lisa for guidance. “What’s happening to them?”

Lisa reviewed the testing method for accuracy. Everything appeared to be in order. “There has to be a mistake somewhere. I’d recommend you recount your data and run the numbers again.”

When she looked up, the girl had vanished from the room as silently as she’d arrived. Lisa squirmed in her seat. She’d dressed in anticipation of meeting Tyler. The new, yellow lace lingerie she wore under her sedate, gray pantsuit wasn’t meant for sitting in plastic classroom chairs. What she’d just learned had her heart racing but no longer with anticipatory lust. Jennifer Hansen had just dumped the matter into Lisa’s hands.

Pewaukee Lake

10:00 p.m.

A Dodge Magnum purred into a dark parking lot, its lowered chassis and tinted windows giving it a hearse-like appearance. A few yards downhill, Pewaukee Lake shimmered in the rays from the moon.

Across the parking lot, Jamie Denison eased out of her sleek, red sports car, trying not to disturb a painful broken rib. She moved toward the door of the Sombrero Club, a popular bar and restaurant on the southwestern shore of Pewaukee Lake. Circled with expensive homes, it was the largest lake in Waukesha County. The few remaining businesses clung to the edges of the small town of Pewaukee, located about twenty miles west of Milwaukee.

Jamie entered a large, noisy room with a country rock band playing behind a crowded dance floor. Squeezing between a couple seated at the bar, Jamie ordered a glass of wine. While she sipped at the tart, yet fruity liquid, she watched the couples on the dance floor, remembering a time when she would have rejected every dance offer before she managed to entice the most attractive man in the place to her side.

The lights went down as the raspy-voiced lead singer began a slow, mournful version of “House of the Rising Sun,” a song she loved, but its soulful sounds stoked her unease. Part of her wanted to bolt.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sensation of her stomach growling; maybe that nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach had been hunger. She’d skipped supper to feel trim in her smallest jeans.

When a waitress passed near the bar hefting a huge tray piled with orders of quesadillas, burritos and nacho chips, the scent of the spicy food convinced Jamie she wanted to eat. She walked into the adjoining restaurant, and after placing a takeout order, took a seat in the waiting area.

Through a set of glass doors opening to a deck surrounding the building, she saw a sliver of moon sending a beam of light down to the lake, breaking into tiny, sparkling crescents dancing on its surface. Lured by the beauty of the scene, Jamie stepped out onto the deck. She felt the unseasonably, warm night air caress her skin like a lover’s touch. Wineglass in hand, she lowered herself into one of the Adirondack chairs facing the water. A couple sitting on the far side of the deck held hands and talked softly. A few young children, bored with the dining process, ran back and forth, giggling.

Jamie didn’t notice the man approaching her until he stood in front of her chair. In a warm, intimate voice, he asked, “Do you mind if I join you?”

She motioned to the chair beside her.

“You looked deep in thought. Problems?”

When she didn’t reply, he added, “I’m a good listener.”

At three the next morning, long after closing, a lone busboy rolled a squeaky cart out onto the deck. He picked up empty glassware and trash, giving no thought to the two unopened containers of food he tossed into the plastic bag lining his cart.

Or to the red sports car sitting deserted in the dark parking lot.

2             

As a volunteer counselor on Monday afternoons, Lisa Rayburn had a schedule typically full, downtime a rare occurrence. She stared at the clock, wondering why her 5:00 appointment hadn’t arrived. During the five weeks she’d been seeing Jamie Denison at the Oconomowoc Women’s Center, she’d never known her to be late. She’d liked Jamie, a lovely young woman unsure whether to stay in a marriage no longer fulfilling.

Filled with a plethora of emotions, her mind wandered. She hadn’t had an opportunity to talk to the director of the center about the statistics on the missing women. And Tyler’s face, with its wide smile and rakish features, kept intruding in her thoughts. Their night together had been wondrously passionate. But over coffee the next morning, he’d broken the news he’d gotten engaged, finishing with, “I’m sorry. But we can still get together sometimes.”

Lisa had wanted to throw something at him. She wondered what the fiance would say if she knew about her. Lisa had never expected their relationship to be exclusive, but the engagement had taken her by surprise. One of these days she’d have to do something about the cycle of self-destruction she tolerated in her relationships.

At 5:30 she picked up the phone and dialed Jamie’s cell number. When she got no answer, she tried calling her work number—Jamie hadn’t been in. Worried, Lisa’s last resort was her home phone.

A male voice picked up. “Jamie? Jamie?”

Now she had a problem; confidentiality rules prevented her from revealing Jamie Denison as a client. “I’m sorry. I must have dialed the wrong number.”

Something had to be wrong if Jamie wasn’t at work and her husband, assuming that was who’d answered the phone, sounded that worried.

Lisa gathered her things and checked out at the front desk before heading to her car for the short trip home.

The next morning Lisa rolled over in bed, intending to sleep in. Her first client wasn’t scheduled to come in until eleven, giving her the luxury of a morning at home. A part-time insomniac, Lisa treasured nights she got a full seven or eight hours sleep. This morning sleep eluded her. Maybe it had something to do with the phone call she’d gotten when she came in the night before. It had been after ten because she had group therapy in her office on Monday nights. Tyler’s words kept playing back in her brain.

“Hey. I didn’t like the way we left things. You okay?”

Tired, she hadn’t felt like hashing over the abrupt demise of their affair, and dating a man fifteen years her junior had to be considered an affair, not a serious relationship. “It’s late. I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“I never wanted to hurt you.”

“Did I say I’m hurt?” She heard him exhale.

“We agreed to keep things casual.”

Lisa broke the connection.

There’d been nothing remotely stable about their relationship. Exciting, yes. Predictable, no. She had to put him out of her mind. His pathetic attempt to smooth things over angered her. No wonder she hadn’t slept well.