Visions Before Midnight

Prologue


Our Lady of the Angels High School
Oberon, California

Early May. The Frogs Return Moon
Twenty two years ago...


On the afternoon of the last day of her life, Kerry Ann Burnett sat at her desk in the classroom where she had taught math for the past five years. She was supposed to be grading test papers. But her work had stalled, her attention snagged by the efforts of three of her third year Algebra students.

Three of her best students, she would have said, up until a few weeks ago, when curious mistakes began to appear in their homework.

At first, she hadn’t thought too much about it. After all, Lucy Greco, Lisa Larson and Marsha Quinn were the best of friends. In all likelihood, the three of them had worked on their assignments together, or over the phone, which would account for the similarities. But the mistakes had continued and, even worse, as the weeks went by, a pattern had developed which seemed to suggest that the girls shared a seemingly inexplicable unfamiliarity with some of the basic formulas.

Now, she was looking at the tests they had just taken. Sighing, she passed her hands over her face. The tests were a disaster. It was as if the girls had forgotten everything they’d been taught. Even things they’d known for months. Worst of all was the fact that, here too, they had made too many of the same mistakes.

There was only conclusion she could draw from the evidence in front of her. The three had been cheating. How they had managed it or––given the pitiful results––why they had done so, did not signify.

Our Lady of the Angels was an old and venerable institution. Cheating would not be tolerated. She knew this.

She also knew she had no choice but to turn them in.

Her appointment to see her Principal, Sister Benedict, was set for first thing tomorrow morning. Next would come the uncomfortable, but inevitable, interview with the students and their parents. And, then, unless some other explanation was forthcoming, the three girls would be expelled.

Kerry Anne sat at her desk a little while longer, absently playing with her hair, twisting strands nervously between her fingers. She felt frustrated, defeated, unable to work and unwilling to leave while so much was still undone. She had wanted to have all these papers graded today, but this other business had left her too upset. Seeking comfort, she let her gaze stray to the framed photo on her desk. Since her husband’s death, she had felt herself pulled in about a thousand different directions. Despite all the work piled up on her desk, she decided to go home. It was getting late, and her daughter was too young to come home to an empty house.

Hannah was at such a vulnerable stage. Emotionally fragile. Insecure. She had yet to recover from her father’s death. She was troubled––Kerry Ann knew that. She hadn’t needed any doctors or counselors to set her straight about her daughter’s condition! What young girl wouldn’t be troubled, after having suffered such a loss?

But, Hannah didn’t need therapy and she didn’t need medication. No matter what her pediatrician claimed. She just needed love. Time to heal. And a mother who could afford to stay home and care for her, not work day and night at something that had ceased to be a rewarding career, and had now become just another job. A mother who would always put her daughter’s well being before anything else—even her own happiness.

With a sigh, Kerry Ann locked the papers in her desk drawer. She re-tied her red hair into its customary pony tail, knotted a scarf around her neck, and slipped her arms into her jacket. Even though it was May, the evening air could still be chilly. As she passed the window she happened to look out at the grounds—and felt a sudden surge of anger. Anger tinged with guilt, with fear, with longing. She wasn’t certain she recognized the figure she saw hurrying across the lawn, but she thought she did. Not that that signified, either. No one should be crossing the athletic field at this time of day. No one.

That does it, she thought grimly as the ugly stew of emotions, that had simmered for days in her heart and mind, finally reached their boiling point. I’ve taken all I can stand. It’s time to put an end to this.

As she left the building and hurried across the field in pursuit, she was only marginally aware of the beauty of the day. The late afternoon sun was sinking peacefully and inexorably toward the surrounding hills, turning everything in its path to rose and gold. A brisk breeze was blowing down from the North, and in the trees that ringed the field, crows called out a warning.

A warning? How absurd, Kerry Anne scoffed at the notion, even as she shivered. They were birds, that’s all. They had nothing to do with her. She glanced at the trees, and then up at the sky. There was no warning there, was there? In fact, a handful of clouds had begun to gather above the horizon, and they promised a beautiful sunset.

But, that, as it turned out, would not signify, either. At least not for her.

In a few minutes she would have caught up with her quarry. A few minutes after that, she would be dead. By the time the clouds in the western sky blazed lavender and magenta, her body would already have been discovered, and an investigation into her murder would have begun.

It was an investigation that would have far reaching consequences for many in Oberon. But the results would be inconclusive. It would take another twenty-two years before the mystery surrounding her murder would finally be put to rest.