Last Girl Standing

by Jackson, Lisa

  “I remember,” he said.

  “No one was in reception when I entered, so I pushed through into the inner offices, but his body was in the way. I didn’t know what it was, so I just kept pushing and it gave way and then—” She drew a breath. “I saw him and I just . . . panicked a bit. I leaned over him. I didn’t know if he was breathing. Then I called nine-one-one.”

  She’d already said as much, and now she was repeating herself.

  Quin walked into the hallway from Emergency. Spying McCrae and Delta, he lifted his chin. McCrae looked at Delta. “I’ll talk to Quin, and maybe we can send you home for tonight.”

  “That would be great.”

  Delta wasn’t sure if she should follow after him as he met up with the older man, but she stayed seated. She didn’t want to engage with Quin. He was a decent guy, a fair man, and a loving family man. But he was no fan of Tanner’s. Tanner may have been beloved by most, but that was not the case for the Quintars.

  She thought about Bailey, who’d been certain Tanner was somehow responsible for Carmen’s death.

  McCrae came back her way. “Quin agreed that it’s fine to let you go home. You need a ride.”

  “I can take an Uber. My car’s fine at the clinic for tonight.”

  “Sure? I can drop you.”

  She shook her head. McCrae was being nice to her, but she suspected it was part of his job, and she really didn’t want to be stuck in a car with him. What he really thought of her she couldn’t tell. All she knew was that she wanted to get home to Owen.

  He nodded his agreement, and when she walked out into the rain, she inhaled a deep, cleansing breath.

  Half an hour later, she was relieving her mother, who tasked her with questions she couldn’t answer. She felt completely wiped out, especially when Mom asked worriedly, “Did you tell them you and Tanner were splitting up?”

  “Well, it’s . . . nothing’s been decided.”

  The lines of worry between her mother’s eyes were deep, and Delta’s answer didn’t dispel them.

  “Have you talked to Dad?” Delta asked.

  “He’s doing fine.”

  “Sorry I had to keep you so late.”

  “I just want everything to be okay.”

  If only it could be.

  Delta rallied the last of her strength and helped usher her mother out to her car. “You okay to drive home?” she asked, head ducked against the rain outside the car parked in front of her house.

  Mom waved a hand behind the driver’s window. “You need a coat!”

  Delta nodded. Too late for that now. Her mother rarely drove at night, and this was hours past the time she’d expected Delta to return. She held up a hand of good-bye in return and watched her mother’s taillights disappear down the road.

  Some July, she thought, running a hand over her rain-dampened hair.

  She could hear the croaking of a bullfrog in the pond at the bottom of the waterfall on the side of the house. It all seemed so . . . normal. Meanwhile her husband was fighting for his life. Her cheating SOB of a husband—the man she’d loved more than life itself, the asshole she’d been planning to divorce—was fighting for his life in a hospital ER.

  McCrae had said that they, the police, would be in touch and hinted at the fact that she might be required to come to the station for more interviews.

  She went inside and locked the door, shook the rain off herself in the downstairs bath, then checked all the other doors to make sure her mother had secured them all. Then she headed upstairs to the room halfway down the hall and looked in on her son. Seeing his sweet face relaxed in sleep in the illumination from the night-light, one arm wrapped around a Lego truck, the other around his much-loved fleecy bear, Delta headed inside the room. The truck was almost out of his grasp, slipping down the edge of the comforter, so Delta gently took it from him and placed it on the shelf above his headboard, part of a “track” that ran all the way around his room. She kissed him lightly on the forehead, then walked back into the hall, allowing herself one last look. She would do anything for Owen. He was the purpose she’d missed until his birth. The career-driven plow through life that had propelled Amanda and Ellie and Bailey had totally missed her. She’d found it in being Owen’s mom.

  Downstairs in the kitchen, she walked through the unlit room to the butcher-block knife caddy with its array of carving knife, bread knife, paring knife, and utility knife fronted by its neat row of steak knives. Even in the semi-darkness, it was clear one slot was empty.

  Delta picked up the entire block and carried it to her master closet. She pressed a button, and the automatic attic ladder in the ceiling hummed downward, unfolding slowly. Carefully, she climbed the ladder, balancing the knife block. She switched on the light as she straightened into the attic. Tomorrow she would go to Bed Bath and Beyond and buy a new set. Something similar, but not the same.

  If Tanner recovered . . . She stopped herself. When Tanner recovered, he would know what she’d done when the knife didn’t match, but it wouldn’t matter because he would be able to identify his attacker. In the meantime, she wanted the police to stop looking at her and get on the right track and find whoever stabbed him.

  “Who is that?” she asked the empty space.

  Dust motes drifted in the light from the bare bulb.

  She tucked the knife block under an eave, then shifted over a box of books to completely obscure the space. She was ducking back toward the ladder when she saw the gilt-edged volume that said West Knoll Class of 2005: Ten-Year Reunion. Picking it up, she smeared her hand across the dusty surface, then hauled it back downstairs.

  Fifteen minutes later, she was in bed, holding the newly cleaned book in her hands. She looked at the clock. Midnight to the minute.

  Heart pounding, she opened the cover, thinking of all her classmates. They’d all had varied and not necessarily joyful experiences when they’d gathered for their reunion, five years ago.

  It had been a very hard time for Delta.

  But now things were so much worse.

  PART THREE

  The Reunion

  Chapter 9

  West Knoll High School Class of 2005

  Ten-Year Reunion

  Zora teetered a bit unsteadily on her four-inch silver heels. She’d always been the shortest of the Five Firsts, even shorter than Bailey, and it made her feel a tad insecure. She hadn’t seen much of any of them since high school, apart from that short time she and Delta had shared an apartment, when Zora’s parents had still been footing the bill for her housing and tuition. Boy, how things changed. Luckily, she’d found Max, who’d fallen madly in love with her in that blur time of her parents’ divorce when they’d sold the house, split their assets, and taken their respective bank accounts with them, neither of them all that eager to share with their daughter. Zora, unfortunately, hadn’t realized the funds were going to dry up so quickly, so she’d allowed Delta reduced rent, and the two of them had navigated their first year living together while taking community college classes. Delta had chosen basic courses in business, and Zora had taken drama. Neither of them had been particularly thrilled with their choices. Zora just wanted to be famous and skip all the drudgery, and a small part of her kind of thought maybe her dad would pay her way in somehow, but, uh, no. Dad had skipped off with a new girlfriend, and Mom had moved to Bend, purchased a condo, and gleefully become a ski bunny, not that she knew how to ski, but she sure knew how to hang around a ski lodge and wear close-fitting ski gear. She’d landed a doctor who was on ski patrol, and they moved in together right away. Neither of Zora’s parents seemed to quite remember they had a daughter who was barely eighteen and making it on her own.

  Zora had been reeling that year and was glad that Delta had her own issues, namely Tanner Stahd. Delta was determined to save that relationship, come hell or high water. Zora could have told her it might not be worth the effort. She herself had engaged in a serious make-out session with Tanner once. She would have gone all the way, exce
pt he didn’t have a condom, and one thing about Tanner Stahd, he wasn’t going to let an unwanted pregnancy get in the way of his ambitions, at least that time. So they’d done a lot of kissing and rubbing and sucking, damn near everything except complete sex, and . . . it had been great and on the pool table where Amanda later had her own make-out session and more with him. Zora would have liked to really rank on Amanda and Tanner about that. It was all she could do to downplay their hot sex as just a few kisses, but she knew that if she told the truth, Tanner would rat her out as well, and she preferred that to remain a secret.

  But that was all ten years ago now. Ten years. It didn’t seem possible, and yet Zora and Max had been married six. Max had worked for his dad at Pilsber Construction at first, and things had been pretty good, but then the company had gone broke during the recession, and there were lawsuits abounding against “Piss-poor Construction,” as it was dubbed, which prompted Zora to go back to her maiden name, DeMarco. So Max had taken a job as a foreman for another, bigger construction business, and they’d managed to hang on to the small house they’d bought in West Knoll. It wasn’t the dream life Zora had envisioned, but it was okay. She’d wanted to move to Portland, even nearby Laurelton, a bigger city, but the house had been a good buy, even before the recession; though it hadn’t been anywhere near the same league as the Forsythes’ estate, it was located in a part of West Knoll that had at one time been rows of cottages, which had turned into hot, hot, hot properties before the bottom dropped out of the real estate market, so they’d done okay . . . for a while, until they were forced to sell anyway.

  Now that property was undoubtedly worth a small fortune. She and Max had sold it when the market was recovering and moved into a rented condo. They were currently holding on to their cash and seeing what the market would do next. Unfortunately, prices were increasing every year. If they didn’t buy soon, they might be priced out completely.

  God, she hated worrying about money.

  She looked in her bathroom mirror, touched the back of her upswept hair with a sparkling rhinestone comb. Her dress was black. Plain. She couldn’t afford to buy something sleek and silky and colorful. Maybe red, or a rich blue, like cobalt or cerulean. Not only were she and Max saving money for another house, but there was the cost of those IVF treatments. Man, those were expensive! Zora had been sure she could have a baby without any problem, and to realize it wasn’t happening had surprised and upset her. When a year went by, and then three, and four and five, she grew desperate. Max had said they could never afford the treatments, and only in the last year had she gotten him to finally open the purse strings and give it a try. But zippo. No luck. Nada. She blamed him for their problems, but the doctor couldn’t say for sure what the holdup was. The woman’s suggestion: for Zora to relax and try not to think about it so much. Great. What a plan. That was just sooooo easy.

  And how much did that advice cost?

  When she’d heard that Delta and Tanner had a perfect little boy, that they’d named him Owen and Tanner called him “O,” she’d smiled and smiled and smiled until she thought her face would break. So cute! she’d raved. So perfect! So happy for them.

  So the life she should have had.

  Again she recalled fooling around with Tanner on the pool table. How she wished she could rewind history and have made love to him. Maybe she would’ve gotten pregnant, and then she’d be the one married to the doctor now, not Delta, and she’d have a baby who was . . . ten years old now? They’d have money and a family and everything.

  But . . . it was Amanda who’d hooked up with Tanner and gotten pregnant in those days, a case of a broken condom, according to her. Bullshit. Knowing Amanda, Zora believed Amanda had maybe sabotaged the prophylactic. Zora could just see Amanda sticking a wee, teensy hole in the latex tip and then carrying the condom around with her, waiting for an opportunity to pretend she was all prepared. Of course, it had happened on Zora’s pool table . . . where she and Tanner had engaged in heavy petting just a few weeks earlier . . . which really sucked. But Amanda was relentless. She would do whatever was necessary to get what she wanted, and in those days, she’d wanted Tanner. In her single-minded purposefulness, she and Tanner were a lot alike.

  But Amanda’s pregnancy hadn’t lasted. Miscarriage, she’d said. Unless it had been an elaborate lie that was going to be found out. Didn’t matter anymore. Delta won in the end, and she and Tanner eloped. He’d just gotten into med school in Arizona, and Delta ran away with him and helped support him. She never finished her college degree, but she’d taken enough business classes to work as a bookkeeper, which helped them get by until he was in his residency. His dad had actually started the health clinic in West Knoll before Tanner was fully graduated, and Tanner joined in the business as soon as he could as the resident “Dr. Oz”—just before that whole “additive” business that scared everybody shitless. Lead? Seriously? Anyway, the upshot was that Tanner’s dad’s health supplement company had suffered a hard hit. Dr. Stahd Senior couldn’t catch a break. But then Tanner took over the clinic from him and brought it back to glory, and everything worked out for Delta and him, and they had baby Owen.

  She’d seen pictures of him on Facebook. Gorgeous little boy.

  It all made Zora’s stomach hurt.

  Especially since Max was . . . not living up to what she needed in a partner.

  She slid on some lip gloss with the tip of her little finger, wiped off the excess on a tissue, then went in search of her husband.

  She found him lounging in front of the television in the same sweatshirt and jeans he’d been in all day.

  “You’re not going to make me go alone,” she warned him, hands on her hips.

  “Who would I know there?” he asked for about the fiftieth time.

  “You’ve met Bailey Quintar.”

  “The cop obsessed with her friend’s death? Yes.”

  “And you know of Amanda and Delta.”

  “The Fucking First Fifths.”

  Zora ground her teeth together rather than correcting him. He was goading her. Making fun of her friends. Maybe she did talk too much about them. They’d had a big impact on her life.

  “And Delta has a son,” he singsonged, “who’s about one now, and she chased down her husband, the inestimable Dr. Tanner Stahd of the Stahd Clinic, handing out nutritional supplements that contain lead—”

  Zora interrupted, “That was his dad. It was trace amounts. A bad batch.”

  “—like the quack that he is.”

  “And they don’t do that anymore. It’s a good clinic. You’ve been there.”

  “Yessirree. Which is why I know better than to go back.”

  Zora fought back another angry retort. Max knew as well as anyone that Tanner was a celebrated doctor who shouldn’t be blamed for his father’s mistakes. Even Dr. Stahd Senior was a victim of the tainted products, which had ultimately been determined to be the manufacturer’s fault, though that was too late to save his career. Max knew all that and didn’t care. If Zora had to put her finger on what Max’s problem with Tanner Stahd was, she would label it envy.

  Which is exactly what Zora felt when she ran into Delta one day, about six months into her pregnancy. Delta had been as beautiful as ever. Her burgeoning stomach only seemed to add to her beauty. For God’s sake, she’d actually glowed, something Zora had always thought was a myth.

  Delta had put on a few pounds, though. Hopefully ones that were hard to lose. If Delta showed up at the reunion with ten or twenty extra plumping her up, it might even the scales out a little in the cosmic “who has the most” race.

  “What’s so funny?” Max asked.

  Immediately, Zora stopped the smile that had crept over her face. She couldn’t let Max know how she felt. Delta was supposed to be her friend. She was her friend. Zora didn’t really want bad things to happen to her. She just wanted everything that Delta had.

  “Okay,” she snapped, gathering up her small silver purse, a Target buy that she hoped no o
ne would recognize. She hadn’t really expected Max to accompany her anyway. She’d just been hoping.

  Once in her ancient white Mazda, she turned her thoughts to the upcoming reunion. She was nervous, for sure, but eager, too. She wanted them all to see that she’d done all right. Maybe not as grand a life as she’d once had—thanks a lot, Mom and Dad—but not as bad as, say, Woody, who’d basically peaked in high school and then become a garage mechanic or something . . . although she had heard that he’d actually bought the business, but that could be just a rumor.

  Zora grimaced. She was being unkind, and she didn’t want to be unkind. And though it was mean and shallow—la di da di la and all that—she resented the fact that the other Fives, and Ellie, had all gotten what they wanted out of life. Delta was married to Tanner and had an adorable one-year-old, Bailey had become the cop she wanted to be, Amanda was a successful defense attorney, and Ellie, for God’s sake, was a television weather girl, her journalistic aspirations taking her to TV. Why was she the only one still struggling?

  You chose Max.

  Okay, yes. She’d chosen Max. He’d saved her in the beginning, and he’d really seemed to be going places. Funny how things turn out. How was it that Amanda, who’d taken her shot in Hollywood and failed—there, at least, was failure—how had she come back to Oregon, enrolled in college, and then law school and been accepted by a prestigious Portland firm right away and was supposedly brilliant? Oh, and married to Hal Brennan, one of the firm’s partners. Zora would like to believe that Amanda had been given the job by nepotism, but it was the other way around. She had apparently blown their socks off with her decisive manner and scrupulous attention to detail. This she’d learned from do-gooder Rhonda Clanton, who’d run into Zora at the only decent restaurant in West Knoll, an Italian eatery called Nona’s, and who’d been only too happy to tell Zora all about her old friend.