A Deadly Game by Catherine Crier

holding hands with the young man.
    When Stephanie confronted him about the rumors, however, she found his response hard to believe. Dawn and he had swapped cars, he said, so she could try out his new wheels. When pressed, Scott vehemently denied there was anything going on with Dawn. The two were just "friends."
    Stephanie asked about the hand-holding.
    "I hold hands with lots of my friends," he responded.
    "That was the last straw," Stephanie told the police. She asked Scott to return the items she had given him, and immediately called it quits. Not long after, Scott began seeing Dawn Hood exclusively.
    The police also located Dawn, who confirmed that she and Scott had dated for about eight months, beginning in the spring of 1990.
    They were "health freaks," she said, and refrained from alcohol and drugs. She and Stephanie both described Scott as a gentleman.
    Dawn told investigators that she performed community service for one of her high school classes, and that Scott frequently accompanied her to a facility for children with disabilities. Scott also did volunteer work at a homeless shelter as part of a school course.
    Dawn and Scott broke up in the fall of 1990, when Scott moved to Arizona to attend college. Dawn remembered Scott as "a loner." Her family was friendly with Scott while they were dating, and he sometimes stayed with her parents, even when Dawn wasn't there. Dawn had never noticed any violent or strange behavior during the entire time she knew him, and she couldn't imagine that Scott had anything to do with his wife's disappearance.
    Scott spent one semester at Arizona State University, but he told police that he'd grown disillusioned with the school after deciding he didn't like the golf coach. The facts are probably quite different. One of his teammates was the now-famous golfer Phil Mikelson. When reporters asked him about his relationship with Scott, he couldn't really remember him because they were never "in the same league." Phil was a rising star; Scott was not. It is far more likely that Scott retreated to Cuesta Junior College in San Luis Obispo when he realized that a PGA career wasn't in his future.
    Perched above the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, San Luis Obispo welcomes thousands of tourists every year. Scenic Hearst Castle, the palace-like estate of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, is located nearby. Scott attended the junior college for about eighteen months, made the Dean's List, and played on the school's golf team. He paid for school by working. According to his mother, he never asked his parents for financial assistance. He surprised them both when he announced that he was moving out of their house to room with two golfing teammates. Lee Peterson told a local reporter that his son and his friends surfaced the flat roof of their new home with artificial grass. From there, they would hit golf balls into a neighboring cow pasture. According to friends, Scott dated while attending school there, but he was never seriously involved with anyone. They said he liked things his own way.
    In 1994 Scott transferred again, this time to California Polytechnic State University, a four-year-college in San Luis Obispo. There he earned a bachelor of science in agriculture. Scott's friends described him as laid-back, focused, and someone who rarely displayed emotion.
    While he was at Cal Poly, Scott cut back his studies, taking just two courses each quarter while working at a golf club and waiting tables downtown at the Pacific Cafe. There, he met a young waitress named Michelle. After they'd been dating for about eighteen months, Michelle told police, Scott started talking about getting married. When he became jealous and overbearing, she broke off the relationship-but only after a fight.
    "Scott did not want to take no for an answer," Michelle recalled. "He would hold all his emotions in for a long time, and then have an emotional breakdown." Scott cried on a number