Rachel had come those three years with supplies, food and clothing, every anticipated necessity down to candles and matches packed in her Jeep Cherokee. She’d stayed in the family cabin. It had no running water or electricity. She’d swum in the lake, under the cover of darkness as she did now, and walked miles through the trails that surrounded the water. In the back of her mind she’d thought, hoped, she’d run into Bill. That he would know she was alive and find her, that their summer on the lake was as clear and safe in his memory as it was in hers. Yet nothing like that had happened. Her hiking expeditions began and ended in solitude. Her midnight swims brought no visitors. In her short two-night stays not once had she seen Bill or even his brother, Sam. No one crossed her path except the diner owner where she ate. The woman had bought the facility three years ago and had no recollection of the Wells family who’d once occupied the small cabin near the water.

Rachel was back now, swimming in the lake. Her trip two days ago had required nothing less in the way of supplies than her previous visits. But this time she was here to stay. This time she was here for good. She planned to let people see her, contact old friends, make new ones. She was starting over. But so far she hadn’t had the nerve, hadn’t run into anyone she knew. Not even Bill’s brother, Sam, who used to prowl The Lake and the trails as if he were an explorer looking for a new country.

Rachel swam toward the center of the water. It wasn’t the safe thing to do. No swimming instructor would ever teach students to swim away from the land, toward the opposite shore, not on a lake this size. The safe thing to do would be to swim parallel to the shoreline, keep the lights of the cabins in view and not swim alone. But Rachel was finished playing it safe. She’d played it safe for nine years. She was done.

Or she would be.

Tomorrow she thought. Tomorrow she would go to church, walk down the center aisle while Reverend Williams spoke, if he was still the minister. Wouldn’t it surprise everyone? What would Woody Norris or Hallie Jomatti have to say? Hallie had been away the summer of the explosion, that bright summer afternoon when the engine of their boat exploded Rachel and her parents had supposedly died.

Rachel continued to swim, arm over arm, taking a breath in as she lifted her head and pushing it out under the water. Her legs kicked, her feet barely breaking the surface, the way she had learned it at Lake Como High School in a swimming program during the summer she was eight. She was on her way to a scholarship that seventeenth summer. Hidden away from everyone, except Bill, was her wish to be an Olympic swimmer. But that wish had been drowned when the boat exploded and she disappeared.

Lake Como was three miles across at its widest point. Three miles was nothing for her. She had done twice that and more. The water felt good, the perfect contrast of mountain coolness against her warm skin. She moved through it as she moved through time, back to her seventeenth summer, back to an innocent history before life changed, before the recorded deaths of her and her parents, the mistrusts and experiences that had taken residence in her mind, back to the freedom of knowing a world of opportunities stretched before her like a country road, long and straight, shimmering in a mirage of heat.

Stroke for stroke, she propelled herself through the formless liquid. She reached the midpoint. There had been a raft there that summer. She and Bill had built it, hammered every nail in place under the guidance of her father and launched it onto the quiet waters of the lake with the pomp and circumstance of teenage laughter. They anchored it with marine chain and old tires to the lake floor and used it as their private meeting place.

Bill wasn’t as good a swimmer as Rachel. She could make it to the distant shore, but he couldn’t so they’d built the raft as a rest stop. On that raft they had talked about everything. Morning, afternoons, late in the evening, even at midnight or later. Time didn’t matter. They had their whole lives ahead of them. They were permanent residents of Lake Como, two of the four thousand families who lived there year round. During the summer the population swelled to twice that. Yet she and Bill could swim out alone at night and watch the moon and stars or allow the relentless sun to darken them even further than their heritage had done. Bill was an even shade of walnut, but that summer the sun had toasted him, brought out the mahogany in his skin. Rachel, a shade lighter than Bill, turned burnish-gold. Her hair lightened until it was almost the same color as her body. Bill called her his golden girl. She smiled at that. Water filled her mouth as her concentration waned for the moment. Spitting it out she stopped at the point where the raft had been and tread water for several minutes remembering herself at seventeen.

The moon shone brightly above her. The shore looked miles away. Her cabin wasn’t visible from the water. She stared at the place were Bill had lived, still lived for all she knew. It was dark. Was it abandoned? She wished he were here. That they could talk one more time. That they were seventeen and all the mystery and wonder of adulthood was ahead of them.

A moment later Rachel kicked off toward shore. She swam for the trees. They were closer to her own cabin and the place where she’d left her blanket and clothes. Bill’s cabin was in the opposite direction. She could see a light shining from one of the windows that hadn’t been there moments ago. Her heart kicked in time with the movement of her feet. She swam faster, her heart lighter, but as the weight of the water buoyed her up she wondered if it was his light. The pull to turn and swim toward Bill was strong, but tonight wasn’t the time to meet Bill. She knew how it would look if she appeared out of the darkness, a long dead ghost resurrected in the moonless night. Tomorrow would be soon enough to find out if he still lived on the Lake.

Rachel had thought of finding him often. While she lived on a small island in Washington state, attached to the mainland by a single bridge, it was easy to type his name into any of the search engines on the Internet and see if anything came back. She could call up the virtual yellow pages and look for his name. How many William Hairston’s could there be in a place the size of Lake Como? Her fingers had skated over the keys more than once, caressing the letters as if she could actually feel the corded muscles of his arms. She hadn’t done it. She was afraid. The computer could be bugged. People could be collecting data of any site that looked for anyone in Lake Como. U.S. Marshal Aaron McKnight had told her that and warned her to let her past go or it could get her and her family killed.

She didn’t need the Internet now. All she had to do was crawl out of the water and take the short trip across the sand to the cabin that bordered Lake Como. That cabin and her last summer with Bill had kept her going. He was part of the fantasy world she’d created in order to survive in her new life. Her planned and controlled life needed a staple, a lynchpin to keep it from coming apart and she’d clung to the memory of Bill and that one summer. But she was free now.

Free.

And alone.

There was no one left. Her parents, both of them, were gone. The only other person in the world who’d ever cared about her was Bill. And she couldn’t bring herself to even type his name into the computer or walk fifty yards to a wooden door. The years had ground into her a belief that her past life was gone, dead and buried. She feared everything about it, knowing that it could get her killed. Yet she had been exhumed, no longer suspended between worlds.

She was alive.

Back from the dead.

But what did it mean? Did she just drop back into circulation like someone returning home from a long trip? Would her friends embrace her, welcome her into the fold, be glad to see she was alive and walking among them? She didn’t think so. Some might be angry. And Bill – what would he feel? She’d left him just as they were beginning to find each other. He’d been interested in someone else and so had she. They had spent the summer together because they were in the same boat. The person they really wanted to be with was away. What would he think when he discovered she had been alive all this time?

Her name had changed three times. She couldn’t remember the first two. The last one, the one she had used the longest was Jane Dunston. She’d never quite gotten the hang of being Jane, even though her mother thought it fit. She’d tease her, saying she was a lot like Calamity Jane. Rachel had smiled when she said it wondered if she would ever meet her Wild Bill Hitchcock.

She didn’t believe in astrology, but three years ago her stars must have been aligned in the right configuration for death had released her from bondage. None of them were alive, her parents or the people they’d testified against. All of them were dead within months of each other, as if ordained by some conflicting God. There was no need for her to stay protected, no threat hung over her head. She’d only been seventeen when she went into the Program. At twenty six there was no reason for her to remain in it. She could go wherever she wanted to go.

Release had come while she was in the cemetery. The stillness of the place always made her silent and immobile. Even when there was a breeze and Rachel could feel it going through her, the place was draped in mournful quiet. Rachel looked down at the gravestones. Side by side, resting in peace were the strangers. The names of Amanda and Charles Dunston had been etched deeply into the grey granite stone. Rachel stood between them, a hand on each stone, her head bowed in reverence. Beneath the stones, deep under the earth were her parents. Not Amanda and Charles Dunston, Rachel knew no one with those names, even though Campbell and Tamara Wells had worn them until their deaths and into eternity.

A twig snapped behind Rachel. She didn’t move. Her appearance showed nothing to indicate she wasn’t focusing on the two gravestones. But her body had gone taut and her mind derived escape scenarios. She was alone in this part of the cemetery. Her parents had been laid to rest near the edge of the place. Trees shaded part of the area and the cemetery butted up against a natural woods. It was a peaceful place, but also one that provided hiding if she needed to make a run for it.

Rachel’s ears perked up and she listened intently. She’d made a study of footsteps. She could tell a man’s gait from a woman’s, a playful teenager from a child, and a cop’s footsteps from those of the man on the street. The footsteps coming toward her were a cop’s. She gritted her teeth together and prepared to meet U.S. Marshal Aaron McKnight.

Rachel had looked up at the sky. Her eyes were dry even though her throat was choked. She dropped her arms from her parents’ graves and turned around.

She didn’t care what McKnight wanted. She didn’t want to see him, especially not here in the place where her parents were buried. This was holy ground and somehow he polluted it.

McKnight leaned against her car, his legs crossed at the ankles, his hands deep in the pockets of his tan raincoat. He straightened when he saw her. Pushing away from the Jeep he came toward her.

Rachel’s stride didn’t falter. She walked passed him without a word, the anger in her body communicating itself in every step.

“McKnight,” she said as she met him along the path. She refused to give him the respect of attaching a title to his name. Rachel didn’t stop, but continued toward her Jeep. McKnight fell into step with her as she headed toward the small lane and her Jeep.

“I’ve come with good news.” He stopped her by catching her elbow and holding it. She snatched her arm free.

“I have good news.” She eyed his smile. He had straight, even teeth and was a good looking man, with dirty blond hair, piercing blue eyes, and a football player’s body. Yet Rachel hated him. He’d manipulated her and her family and because of him they had to be relocated a third time. Once it had been her fault, and she took responsibility for doing something stupid, but she was a young girl and didn’t really understand the consequences of her action. She’d learned fast. He’d had put them in danger on purpose. She would never forgive him.

“You never come with good news.” She took a step toward the car, but stopped at his words.

“You’re free of me.”

Rachel peered at him with the skeptical eyes of a hungry lion. She didn’t like Aaron McKnight and she made no pretense of civility with him. “You’re being reassigned?” Her voice was sarcastically hopeful.

He stepped back, taking a long and deep breath. “I am being reassigned,” he admitted. “So are you, if you choose.”

“What?” Anger rushed into her like a diabetic taking an insulin injection. “A new identity, why?”

“Not a new identity. Calm down and let me explain.”

Rachel crossed her arms. She didn’t know what was coming, but no message McKnight had ever delivered to her was good news.

“There is no longer a need for you to have witness protection.”

“Why?” Suddenly she was afraid, but she frowned up at him to hide her confusion.

“Papa Graziano died two months ago.”

“Who’s Papa Graziano?”

McKnight rubbed his palms down his sides. “Papa Graziano was the head of a crime family. Your father worked for him.”

“He did not!” she immediately contradicted.

“Hold on,” he said, remaining in position. “You can get riled up faster than any woman I know.” Rachel only wished it were true. Actually, he was the only person to whom she ever showed her anger. It was too dangerous to get out of control with anyone else. “He wasn’t aware Graziano was his ultimate boss. He thought he was working for an investments firm. Only the money came from one and only one source – Papa Graziano.”

Rachel’s father had told her the whole story a few years ago. When he found out the company was a front for a money laundering operation, he went to the authorities who convinced him to nose around until they had enough to shut the place down.

He had. And their lives had no longer been their own. But now all the parties were dead.

And she was here.

At Lake Como.

Afraid.

Alone.

Hiding in the dark.

Trees curved about the small beach area. She could only see a few lights as she neared the shore. Bill’s cabin called to her, but she pulled her mind away from it. Except for the one light, it was dark, uninhabited. Behind it she saw the sky painted upward with a soft pink hue from the lights on the highway in the distance. Rachel concentrated on her breathing, moving through the water with ease until she reached the shelf that allowed her to stand up and wade ashore.

Back to safety.

Back to life.