by N L Hinkens
From Heather’s perspective, it changed the dynamics of the investigation. If Anna had put two and two together, she might be behind the arson herself. She could be trying to pin it on Reagan to get back at Marco, covering her tracks by threatening the other members of the student council too. It was a clever strategy—timing it to coincide with the class reunion and casting suspicion on Marco’s former classmates. But Heather would have to tread carefully pursuing that theory. She would need to be very sure of her facts before she accused Marco’s own wife of setting his restaurant ablaze.
She pulled into The Sardinian parking lot and sat in her car for several minutes, not wanting to be the first one seated alone at the table with Marco. She wasn’t sure she could look him in the eye knowing she was keeping something this substantial from him. Then again, maybe Marco knew the truth about Lucy. He might even be giving Reagan money to support her. As fast as the plot was thickening, Heather’s trust in her former classmates was eroding.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Josh pulling into the parking lot, Reagan right behind him. She waited for a few minutes and then followed them inside. The hostess escorted her to the private room at the back of the restaurant where they’d met for dinner the first night.
“Hey guys!” Heather said, nodding to the others. Josh mumbled something in response and exchanged an uneasy glance with Marco. Reagan raised a water glass to her lips, averting her gaze. Heather frowned, picking up on the strained atmosphere. Her thoughts gravitated at once to Sydney.
“What’s wrong?” She pulled out a chair and joined them at the table. “Has Sydney taken a turn for the worse?”
Marco fixed a steely gaze on her, his jaw moving side-to-side, as if contemplating whether to break some unwelcome news to her.
Heather looked from Josh to Reagan, the skin on the back of her neck prickling. ”Will someone please tell me what’s going on?”
“Fine!” Reagan blurted out. “I’ll tell her.” She dug around in her purse and pulled out a forget-me-not card, slapping it down on the table in front of Heather. “Another message came in the mail today.”
“We all got it,” Josh added quietly.
Heather reached for the card and opened it, her stomach twisting as she read the words.
Heather has killed before. She’ll do it again. You don’t know her.
“Any idea what this means?” Reagan asked curtly.
Josh glared across the table at her. “What kind of a question is that?”
“It’s a pretty straightforward one,” Reagan snapped. “Let her answer it.”
Heather handed the card back to her, making a concerted effort to exude a calmness she didn’t feel inside. “It doesn’t mean anything. It’s a tactic to turn us against one another. Evidently, it’s working.” She threw an accusatory gaze at Reagan.
“Well you have to admit, this changes things,” Reagan huffed. “I mean, it’s your name on the card, Heather. This makes it about you.”
Josh let out an exasperated sigh. “Cut it out, Reagan! It’s just like Heather said. Whoever’s doing this is trying to rile us up and divide us.”
Marco scrunched his dark, bushy brows together. “The card’s hogwash, just like the other ones. We all know Heather’s not a killer. We can’t take the ramblings of a nutcase seriously.”
Reagan pursed her lips, her pinched expression suggesting she wasn’t convinced.
Josh turned to Heather. “Did you find out anything useful today?”
Heather pulled out the list of suspects and glanced at it. “We can eliminate Marco’s ex-employee for starters. Danny Baxter is wheelchair-bound—has been ever since a work-related accident in a warehouse a few months back.”
Marco scratched his stubble. “That’s rough. I never liked the guy, but I wouldn’t have wished that on him.”
“Could he have hired someone to set the fire?” Josh asked.
Heather twisted her lips. “I’d say it’s unlikely. He couldn’t even remember the name of the restaurant. He didn’t strike me as someone fixated on revenge—he didn’t mention Marco the whole time.”
“Strike him off the list,” Marco said. “Who’s next?”
“Karen Hill. She was engaged to Sydney’s husband, Steve. We can rule her out too. She and her husband are successful lawyers. I took the direct approach with her—told her about the flower delivery at the reunion and explained that we were trying to figure out who had sent it. She actually laughed when I told her Sydney had given me her name as a possible suspect. She was thankful Sydney had taken Steve off her hands.” Heather gave a wry grin. “Although she did ask me not to tell Sydney that. She didn’t want to offend her.”
Marco reached for the open bottle of wine on the table and refilled his glass. “Okay, so Karen Hill’s not our psycho stalker. Next?”
Heather met his eyes briefly before glancing away. Anna was the next person she’d spoken to, and she’d raised a few red flags, but she wasn’t an official suspect. For now, Heather would have to keep her thoughts on that topic to herself. “Next is Roy Krueger. I’ve gone by his house a couple of times, but I haven’t managed to connect with him, yet.” She hesitated before pinning her gaze on Reagan. “I did manage to talk to Aidy, the mother of his child.”
Reagan blinked in apparent confusion. “News to me that he has another child.” She gave an offhand shrug. “I haven’t been keeping tabs on him.”
Heather arched a brow but said nothing. Reagan’s body language told her she was lying through her teeth. Was it possible she still had feelings for Roy?
“Did you learn anything from Aidy?” Josh asked.
Heather allowed a long pause to unfold while she observed Reagan’s demeanor. She was agitated but working hard to appear nonchalant. “Not really,” Heather replied. “But it seems unlikely that Roy’s involved—he has a whole new life. No offense, Reagan, but he doesn’t appear to be pining for you.”
Reagan tossed her head. “Doesn’t mean to say he’s not fueled up on enough hatred to try and run me off the freeway.”
Marco shot her a dark look as he reached for a piece of bread and dipped it in oil. “Who else is on the list?”
“Dan Wilcox,” Heather answered.
Marco frowned. “And he is?”
“His wife was my patient,” Josh explained. “She’s the one who committed suicide.”
“Did you talk to him?” Reagan asked.
Heather gave a circumspect nod. “He’s struggling to cope with his wife’s death. He’s still very angry about it, but, honestly, I can’t see him being behind what’s going on. He’s turned to alcohol to drown his sorrows.”
“So who does that leave us with?” Marco asked.
“We’re basically back to Roy,” Heather replied. “Unless you’ve come up with anyone else?”
Marco pinched the bridge of his nose. “Reagan, did you get Heather that list of everyone who worked on the reunion committee with us?”
“I have it right here,” Reagan said, pulling out her phone. She frowned at the screen and let out a gasp. “Oh no! Sydney’s at the hospital.”
Heather’s stomach lurched. Her fears that Sydney had something more than a straightforward case of food poisoning came rushing back with a vengeance.
“Steve says he took her to ER this morning,” Reagan went on, reading snippets from the text. “She was throwing up and dizzy … slurring her words … having difficulty breathing … stable now but they’re running some tests.”
“Tests?” Marco echoed. “What kind of tests? I thought she had food poisoning.”
“I don’t know,” Reagan said.
“We should go to the hospital and check up on her,” Josh suggested. “This might have something to do with what’s going on.”
Reagan let out a horrified bleat as she scrambled to her feet. “Are you saying she was poisoned?”
“We don’t know that,” Heather cut in. “There’s no sense in speculating until the test results come back.”
<
br /> “I’ll drive,” Marco said, pulling out his car keys. “You can leave your vehicles here.”
Heather gestured for the keys. “How about the teetotaler among us takes the wheel?”
Steve was hunched over in a chair next to Sydney’s bed when they got to her room on the fourth floor of the hospital.
“How’s she doing?” Reagan asked, squeezing him lightly on the shoulder.
He gave a weak smile. “They pumped her stomach, and they had to put her on oxygen. She was having difficulty breathing.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw, a haggard expression on his face. “To be honest, it was touch and go for a while. She had a seizure. Her parents got here a couple of hours ago. They’re down in the cafeteria.”
“It doesn’t sound like food poisoning,” Heather said. “What do the doctors think is wrong with her?”
Steve flapped a hand helplessly. “They contacted the restaurant, but they haven’t given me an update. Supposedly, they’re still waiting on the test results.”
Heather glanced up as a young olive-skinned doctor strode into the room. He pushed his glasses up his nose and nodded around at everyone before addressing Steve. “Mr. McClintock, we have your wife’s test results.” He hesitated before adding, “We’d like to discuss them with you in private.”
Steve blinked, a look of confusion clouding his face as two detectives entered the room.
18
Reagan cast a wary glance over her shoulder before hurrying into The Sardinian. After they’d arrived back from the hospital, Heather had taken off to drive by Roy’s house again. Reagan immediately texted Josh and Marco and asked them to meet her back inside. All thoughts of finishing dinner had vanished after learning that Sydney had been poisoned with ethylene glycol—a chemical found in antifreeze. The detectives had questioned Steve at length about Sydney’s movements that morning and wanted to know everything she’d consumed since dinner the previous evening. It was apparent they considered Steve a suspect, but Reagan had another theory to run by Marco and Josh.
“So, what’s this about?” Josh asked, pulling out a chair and joining her and Marco at the table. “It’s late. Was it really so important it couldn’t wait?”
Reagan flashed him a steely look. “Obviously. Otherwise I wouldn’t have asked you to meet me back here. We need to have a conversation without Heather around so we can speak freely.”
Marco frowned. “Doesn’t she need to be here too? She’s the one investigating this.”
“That’s what’s freaking me out,” Reagan said. “That card we got about her killing before and she’ll do it again. You don’t know who she really is. What if it’s all true? After all, we haven’t seen her in years. What do we actually know about her? Think about it for a minute. What if Heather’s behind everything that’s going on?”
Josh shook his head in disgust. “How can you insinuate something like that? That’s messed up, Reagan. What reason would Heather have for wanting to kill us?”
“I don’t know, but that’s my point,” Reagan said, jabbing a finger in his direction. “We don’t know anything about her. She’s been gone out of our lives for years. She could have been in prison all this time for all we know.”
“Give me a break! She wouldn’t be able to work as a PI with a prison record,” Marco growled.
“And that’s another thing,” Reagan went on. “We don’t know if her grandiose PI career in LA is real. She could have made the whole thing up. Did she even go back to LA after the reunion? Maybe we should hire a PI to follow her around.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Josh said. “You got her contact info off her website for crying out loud.”
Reagan pursed her lips. “Okay, so maybe it is a legitimate career. It still doesn’t mean to say she isn’t behind everything that’s happening. She has experience with the criminal world, she knows better than any of us how to get away with this kind of thing. I think we should confront her.”
“Confront her about what exactly? She hasn’t done anything. Where’s this coming from all of a sudden?” Josh demanded, his voice rising.
Reagan reached for her wine glass with shaking fingers and took a hasty sip. “I’m just trying to figure out why she agreed to come to the reunion when she hasn’t been back to Iowa in twelve years.”
“She came for Lindsay, not us,” Josh pointed out.
“He’s right,” Marco added. “What motive does Heather have for threatening us anonymously?”
Reagan gave a defensive shrug. ”Maybe she still resents the fact that she didn’t become class president. Remember how mad she was at you guys for voting for me instead of her? She even accused me of bribing students to get her vote and spreading rumors about her.”
“Come on, Reagan. We’re all adults now,” Josh said. “Heather’s got better things to do than pine over some silly high school position.”
Reagan arched a brow at him. “There’s nothing silly about being elected president of the student council. And you can’t deny she got all weird after I won.”
Josh turned to Marco. “I think it’s about time we shut this down. It’s late and we’re all tired and on edge.”
“Verging on hysterical,” Marco muttered.
“Look, I’m not saying Heather’s behind this,” Reagan snapped. “I just think it’s worth considering the possibility. She’s made a career out of hunting people down and—”
“Not just any people. Bad guys, Reagan,” Marco cut in, shaking his head at her. “She hunts bad guys for a living. Not her former classmates who ticked her off when she was seventeen.”
“She could be unstable,” Reagan countered. “Let’s face it, her life isn’t exactly normal. She’s never been married, or engaged, never even been in a serious relationship. She’s a loner, works nights. All red flags if you ask me. I think we should hire someone to trail her and see what she’s really up to.”
“Just because she doesn’t lead your tidy little suburban life doesn’t mean she’s a killer,” Josh said. “She’s always been upfront about the fact that she’s married to her work. So are lots of other people who aren’t killers. It’s not like she’s hiding anything from us.” He glanced from Reagan to Marco. “Maybe we should take a long hard look at each other. You both act like you’ve got something to hide at times. You bicker like an old married couple. If you have anything to say, now’s the time to come clean.”
Marco’s eyes glinted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what I said,” Josh barked back.
Marco shot Reagan a guarded look. “I haven’t got anything to hide, do you?”
Reagan wet her lips, her heart pounding in her chest. “Don’t be stupid. Let’s circle back to Heather. Don’t you think it’s a bit too much of a coincidence that she ate at the same restaurant as Sydney and Steve last night, and even sat at their table for a while?”
“You’re not suggesting Heather poisoned Sydney, are you?” Josh scoffed.
Marco scratched his jaw. “Reagan does have a point. This wasn’t an accidental ethylene glycol poisoning on the restaurant’s part. No one else got sick, which means someone got close enough to Sydney to doctor her drink or food.”
“How about we call Violet, and see what she has to say?” Reagan suggested. “She was at the restaurant last night too. Heather gave me her number in case I needed to get a hold of her.”
“How’s that supposed to work?” Josh asked, rubbing his brow. “Hey Violet, we’re worried your sister might be trying to kill us.”
Reagan flashed him an icy glare. “It’s about time you started taking this seriously. Sydney could have died today. Violet might know something—after all, Heather’s staying with her. We just need a legitimate reason to call. We can say we’re worried about Heather, that the latest card really upset her, and we want to make sure she’s all right.”
Marco shrugged. “Fire away.”
Josh grimaced. “I’m not in favor of it, but I can’t stop you if you insist.”
<
br /> Reagan wasted no time pulling out her phone and dialing. When Violet picked up, she hit the speaker button. “Hey Violet, it’s Reagan here.”
“Oh, hi, Reagan. Are you trying to reach Heather?”
“Actually, it’s you I wanted to talk to. We just got back from the hospital. Turns out Sydney was poisoned.”
There was an audible gasp on the other end of the line. “Is Heather with her right now?”
“No. She went by my ex’s house again. She wanted to try and catch him before she headed back to your place.” Reagan cleared her throat. “The thing is, Violet, between you and me, I’m worried about Heather. Those cards we got in the mail today really unsettled her.”
“The you should be afraid one? I got it too,” Violet said.
Reagan frowned. “Ours had a different message. It mentioned Heather specifically. Didn’t she tell you?”
“No, she never said anything about it. I think she’s trying not to scare me. Did someone threaten her again?”
“Quite the opposite. Someone was warning us about her,” Reagan replied.
There was a loaded pause before Violet asked, “What was the message?”
“Heather has killed before. She’ll do it again. You don’t know her.”
“That’s sick!” Violet raged. “Whoever’s behind this must know that Heather’s investigating them. They’re trying to throw you off the trail.”
Reagan let out an exaggerated sigh. “I’m sure you’re right. But I think it’s starting to get to Heather. That’s why I wanted to ask you how she’s doing with all of this. You know her best.”
“I’m not sure how to answer that, to be honest,” Violet said. “We used to be really close—we talked about everything—but I’ve only seen Heather a handful of times since she left Iowa, and only when I went out to visit her in LA.”
“She told me she doesn’t have any friends out there she can confide in,” Reagan said. “That seems strange after living in LA for the best part of two decades.”