A LIFE TOO SHORT

After nearly an hour of paranoia and panic, Kiley Bolduc seemed calm.

Her mother, Joan, hoped the worst was over, that the LSD her daughter had
tried earlier that night had finished its torment. As they walked through
the kitchen, toward the Manatee County sheriff's deputies waiting in the
dining room, Joan turned around to hug her eldest girl.

It was an embrace of reassurance, that everything would be OK, that her
mother loved her amid the chaos of the night. The hug didn't feel quite
right to Joan, with Kiley keeping one hand on her chest as she wrapped the
other around her mother.

But Joan shrugged off the feeling -- it wasn't important right now -- and
continued toward the deputies, 16-year-old Kiley a step or two behind. Once
at the dining room, the deputies' questions began: Where had Kiley been
that night? Who had she been with? What drug had she taken?

Kiley, still with her left arm folded over her gray jacket, told of a party
less than two miles from the Bolducs' northwest Bradenton home. At the
party, she had taken LSD and later called her parents for help.

Then she stopped talking.

She looked at her mother, said "goodbye" and pulled out a 10-inch knife she
had hidden in her jacket after taking it from the kitchen counter in the
split-second nobody was looking. Kiley plunged the blade into her chest.

She fell to the white-tiled floor. Joan Bolduc dropped to her daughter's
side, taking the girl in her arms.

Kiley's breathing faded. Her mother sobbed. She was gone.

In the weeks since the Dec. 4 death, detectives have been working to
identify who supplied the LSD, which they believe blurred Kiley's mind and
caused her to kill herself. They hope to file murder charges against the
drug provider.

Kiley's parents have been trying to come to terms with the unfathomable,
wondering if they could have done more. The Bolducs thought they had done
everything right, meeting Kiley's friends, teaching her right from wrong,
enforcing a curfew, taking her to a Baptist church every Sunday.

The Bolducs thought they knew their daughter, the one who worried about
what clothes to wear to school, got good grades, minded her manners and had
a love-hate relationship with her curly chestnut hair.

In their search for answers, they've learned that their daughter had been
hiding something behind her ever-present smile: For several months before
her death, the Manatee High School sophomore had been occasionally
experimenting with drugs.

Kiley had never been in much trouble. She had never tried to kill herself.
Her parents are convinced that the hallucinogenic acid led her to her death.

"I don't believe Kiley killed herself. I believe she killed whatever
monster was in her," said her father, Raymond.

o DURING THE HOLIDAYS, the Bolducs began the painful task of packing up
Kiley's room.

Much of what they found reminded them of the precocious child who loved
summer trips to Maine to visit her grandparents and giggled when she met
Pluto and Goofy at Disney World -- the girl who was attracted to roller
coasters and other wild rides as she got older.

Amid the makeup, clothes and posters, there was a handwritten autobiography
she had done in the fifth grade. It talked of her future. She wanted to
have a house, be a lawyer and have two kids. "If I make the right choices
and work really hard, I can probably have all of it," she wrote.

The book also spoke of her "sibs," as she called her two sisters, Kacey and
Kelcey, and her brother, Kody. Joan called the kids Raymond Bolduc's four Ks.

Thumbing through one of Kiley's many scrapbooks, her parents came across
two pages with pictures of her cat, Belle, the constant companion who often
nuzzled against Kiley's leg.

"You know, that cat sat in that chair waiting for her for days," Raymond
said, pointing to an empty wooden rocker by the front window. "She didn't
believe Kiley wasn't coming back, either."

Amid the teen-ager's possessions, there were notes from friends and
journals she had kept. Within those, they discovered their daughter's
recent drug use.

o KILEY'S FATHER WONDERS how he could have missed the signs.

"I grew up in the '60s and '70s. I saw a lot of drugs," he said. "I never
saw anything that would have said Kiley was doing anything like that. I
thought no one knew my daughter better than I did. Joan and I never had a
moment of distrust in her."

Were her grades slipping? No.

Did she lie to her parents about where she was? Not as far as they could tell.

Did she look different? No, she looked the same, no telltale signs.

Were her friends different? Well, she had a few new friends, but that was
to be expected for a teen-ager.

Did she behave differently? She had skipped school once, a few weeks before
she died, but she seemed remorseful.

"You know, I often stop by the cemetery where Kiley is buried, and I wonder
if I could have done something different," Raymond said. "There's not a
reason in the world she should be there."

Kiley's life, like those of most teens, changed when she entered high
school. She advanced from King Middle School to Manatee High in the fall of
1998.

Kiley's knack for listening and being everyone's friend brought new people
into her life, some of them a different type of friends than she'd had
before. Some of the new friends were experimenting with drugs but didn't
give the outward appearance of heavy drug use.

"It's not like they are any different than the rest of us who go here. They
look the same; it's just who they know," said Resa Cartwright, a sophomore.
"I used to really look up to Kiley in the seventh and eighth grade -- she
had a 4.0 for a long time, and she had everything together -- but after she
got to high school, she started hanging out with a different crowd, and I
stayed away from her more."

o IT WAS AROUND the same time that Kiley stopped attending youth group
meetings regularly at Palma Sola Bay Baptist Church, where she had been
baptized years before.

The church's pastor, the Rev. Jim Killoran, worried about Kiley's no longer
attending, but he figured she was fine, just meeting new friends whose
company she may have enjoyed more than her youth group.

The new crowd included a boy Kiley dated for a few months. Several people
said he experimented with drugs and introduced them to Kiley.

She began occasionally smoking marijuana in the spring of 1999, at the end
of her freshman year. After that, friends said, she took more chances.

"She didn't do it often, but she had tried things. She had tried ecstasy a
couple of times, and she'd first tried acid a few weeks before (she died),
too," said John Kasler, a senior who had been friends with Kiley for about
a year.

LSD, or lysergic acid diethylamide, is a drug that can distort the user's
perception of reality and cause hallucinations and mood changes. Cheap and
sold on small pieces of paper or in gel-tab form called doses, LSD has been
around for decades.

Commonly, a user will believe walls are talking or moving, or colors are
coming out of stationary items. Occasionally, LSD can cause paranoia, fear
and panic. There's scientific debate about whether the drug can lead to
suicide, but friends and relatives are convinced there's no other way to
explain Kiley's actions.

And the efforts of Manatee sheriff's investigators show that they believe
the drug played a major role in her death. A medical examiner determined
that she had a significant amount of the drug in her system, up to 21/2
times a normal dose.

Kiley tried her first hit of acid several weeks before she died, friends
said. It was a bad "trip.' She cried, and was afraid and paranoid.

To some, including her parents, Kiley's experimentation was well-hidden.
But to her closest friends, the ones who had known her intimately for years
as she grew, the subtle changes were noticeable.

Kiley was different sometimes.

"When she wasn't with her other friends she was the sweetest girl, and she
didn't even think about or even want drugs then," said Audrey Stewart, a
longtime friend. "Sometimes I know people would offer her drugs, but many
times she didn't take them. But I know she was easily influenced."

Kiley's friends still wonder why she would choose drugs, though.

Said friend Ricky Kinyon: "She knew better. She was smarter than that."

o THE MORNING OF HER DEATH, Kiley called to confirm a job interview for the
next day at the new Dunkin Donuts on Manatee Avenue. It would pay more and
be more flexible than her job as a dining-room attendant at an
assisted-living facility.

After the call, she spent several hours at Manatee High, making up for the
day she had cut classes -- the first time she had ever skipped school.

Kiley and Sarah Huber, one of the few friends the Bolducs had never met,
then stopped by the Bolducs' house to grab a frozen pizza and some sodas
before heading to Sarah's house a few blocks away.

"That's the last time I saw her before I picked her up that night. She was
fine; she was smiling. She said, 'I love you, Mom,' and she was out the
door," Joan Bolduc recalled. "She was just going to her friend's house down
the street."

Unknown to Joan, Sarah's mother, Carol Anne Huber, was on a three-week
cruise and had left her house, along with 15-year-old Sarah and her
16-year-old brother, Nathan, in the care of a Manatee High School senior,
Nikki Lynch, according to Lynch and sheriff's investigators.

Lynch said she had watched the kids and the house before, though the teens
often ignored her orders not to have friends over without permission.

"They never listened to me, and there were kids over smoking pot a few days
before, so I called (Carol Huber) and she called the cops," Lynch said.

Carol Huber asked deputies to patrol by the house between 6 p.m. and 3 a.m.
on weekends and between 5 p.m. and midnight on weeknights, according to a
Manatee sheriff's report. The deputies added the street to their patrol
route, but the frequency at which they checked the house is unclear.

Lynch saw Kiley and Sarah come in for lunch before she left for the day.
Lynch did not return until 1:30 a.m., after Kiley had died.

Sarah and Nathan Huber declined to be interviewed for this story and Carol
Huber did not return repeated phone calls. When a reporter went to the
family's home to interview the mother, she was not there.

Ricky Kinyon, whom Kiley had a crush on during her freshman year, stopped
by the Hubers' at about 2 p.m.

"She was fine then. I think they'd gone swimming in the pool or something,"
he said, recalling that Kiley's wet hair was bouncing around her shoulders.
"There were maybe four people there, and everyone was just hanging out."

By midafternoon, Kiley called her father to ask for a later curfew.

"She wanted to come home at midnight, but her curfew was 11:30," Raymond
Bolduc said. Kiley had missed curfew by about 10 minutes the night before,
only the second time since her parents began letting her go out on her own.

"I told her no."

It's unclear what Kiley did for the next several hours. Based on
conversations they had with her during the night, Kiley's mother and
friends believe she took the LSD between 7 and 9 p.m.

It also is unclear how Kiley got the drug, or who ingested it with her.

That has frustrated sheriff's Detectives Steve Ogline and Dennis Romano,
who are trying to charge someone with causing her death by supplying the LSD.

o IT MAY BE WEEKS or even months before detectives wrap up the
investigation, and even then, they may not be able to charge anyone with a
crime.

Under Florida law, if the LSD is found to be a contributing factor in
Kiley's death, the drug supplier can be charged with capital murder. The
medical examiner will soon determine what role the drug played in Kiley's
stabbing, but investigators and those who knew Kiley said that's already clear.

"There are people who know what happened, who gave her the drugs, but
they're afraid to tell," Ogline said.

John Kasler, a close friend who said he doesn't know who gave Kiley the
drug, arrived at the Huber house between 10 and 10:20 p.m. Kiley was
clearly not herself.

"She was out of control mentally; she was paranoid; she was wigging out;
she was just freaked," Kasler recalled, sitting backward in a chair in the
cafeteria of Manatee High.

He shakes his head in disbelief.

"She had a good family life. She had friends who loved her, not a lot of
pressures," said Kasler, who was arrested for possession of marijuana in
early January.

He shrugged, and his tone became matter-of-fact. "Some people can't handle it."

o RICKEY KINYON SAID he pulled up in his car a few minutes after Kasler saw
Kiley. There were about a dozen kids at the Huber house by this time.

"I was standing outside when someone came out and said, 'Kiley's freaking
out. You've got to come inside and help her,' " Kinyon said.

"She kept talking about seeing God and about how she had sinned, and how
she was going to hell, and I just kept telling her, 'Kiley, Kiley, it's all
right; you're OK; you're not going to hell,' " Kinyon said, his voice
trembling.

"I was scared. I didn't know what to do, so I just tried to calm her down.
It worked a little, and I thought she was going to be OK."

His voice faded. "I really thought she was going to be fine."

At about 10:30 p.m., Kiley's parents paged her. As always, she called back.

o JOAN POINTS TO PICTURES of Kiley as a toddler as she figures out how to
tell her story of the final hour.

The scene plays over and over in her mind.

"We were getting ready for bed, and Ray said, 'Why don't you page Kiley and
remind her to be home in time for curfew?' " Joan recounts from her living
room.

Like many parents, the Bolducs kept in touch with their daughter with a
pager. The voice on the other end of the phone usually let Joan and Raymond
know she was safe.

But not that night.

"Mommy, please come get me. I don't want to be here," she whispered before
quickly hanging up.

"She never called me mommy -- never," Joan recalls.

Joan pauses. She looks toward the kitchen as if by replaying the scene
aloud, as if by telling it just right this time, maybe the ending will change.

Joan swallows hard and returns to the story.

"I don't know how I knew where to go. I'd only been there once before. But
I just knew somehow, and I went there and got her."

o THE TWO-MILE DRIVE seemed to take hours.

"When I got there, she was shaking."

Kiley's brown hair fell around her face as it often did. Her makeup was
just right, as it always was. Her outfit was perfect, as usual. But as she
ran toward her mother and began to cry, Joan knew something was terribly wrong.

Joan ushered Kiley into the Volvo station wagon.

"Honey, what's going on?"

"Mommy, I did some acid. I'll never do it again, Mommy."

"Oh honey, oh honey, how long ago did you do this?"

"A few hours ago. Mommy, I'll never do it again. I promise I'll never do it
again, Mommy."

Joan, a certified nurse's assistant, thought it was probably no use taking
Kiley to the hospital to get her stomach pumped. She looked at her shaking,
scared daughter. Joan's instinct was to get her home, safe and sound.

Kiley's brown eyes filled with fear. "Mommy, I don't want to go to hell. I
don't want to go to hell."

"Honey, you're not going to go to hell. Just pray to God to forgive you and
repent, and you're not going to go to hell. God loves you. Just pray, honey."

They prayed aloud the rest of the way home.

While Joan was gone, a frantic Raymond Bolduc dialed 911. He didn't know
what else to do. His daughter was in trouble. He had tried to call Kiley
back, but the unknown teen who answered the phone quickly hung it up.

Joan and Kiley then came into the Bolduc house. Joan took Kiley into the
girl's bedroom to calm her down while Raymond waited for the sheriff's
deputies. When they arrived, Joan led Kiley through the kitchen.

Joan was a few steps ahead of her daughter.

In the moment her mother was not looking, Kiley grabbed a knife from the
counter and hid it between her blouse and her jacket.

"I never saw the knife. I never knew she had it. I had hugged her and never
felt the knife. I don't know how, but I never even felt it," Joan says.

She stops. She can't talk about the moment Kiley died. She walks away. The
kitchen floor is clean now, but she walks across it carefully, as if Kiley
were still there.

o SINCE KILEY'S DEATH, the Bolducs have been visiting weekly with Killoran,
their pastor. The parents hope someone will be arrested for supplying the drug.

"What happened that night happens every single night, and there isn't a
weekend that goes by that kids aren't trying drugs at a party, but this
time, my daughter died," Raymond says, his voice rising in anger and pain.
"The evening of Kiley's death, it wasn't her action that took her life. It
was the substance that led her and caused her to do that. The person who
gave her the drug is a criminal."

Raymond Bolduc, 53, returned to his small manufacturing business a few
weeks ago, but he can't bring himself to work a full day yet. He is home in
time to see his three other children arrive home from school.

Last week, he designed a headstone for Kiley's grave, writing his own
inscription: "I needed an Angel on my shoulder, but why did it have to be you?"

Kiley's signature, complete with a heart dotting the letter I, will be
carved on it, too.

"In my mind and in my heart, I still wait for her to walk through my door
and say, 'Hi family,' like she always did," Raymond says, tears in his
eyes. "I haven't really slept in weeks . . . not since she died. Yes, I do
close my eyes and wake up hours later and go on with my daily life, but
it's not the same. It's not that I can't believe that she's gone . . . I
just miss her so much."

Joan, 46, looks toward a table full of family photos. Below it hangs a
poster with a handwritten poem and the photos of five of Kiley's friends.
The girls gave the Bolducs the poster at Kiley's funeral.

A faint smile comes across Joan's face as she stands and picks up a framed
picture of Kiley as a toddler and places it on the kitchen table. "I loved
Kiley. Everyone loved Kiley."

"I did what they say you're supposed to do when you have a teen-ager. I
watched to see if she was depressed; I looked for the signs, but I never
saw it," she says, choking back tears. "My worst fear was that maybe she'd
gone out drinking once in a while, and I worried about her being in the car
with teen-age drivers without a lot of experience. I just never imagined
this. I could never have imagined this."