Forever, Again

by Victoria Laurie

  “Hey!” she yelled, raising her hands to shove at me. Before she could actually manage that, though, Dad appeared out of nowhere and barked, “Jennifer!”

  Her hands fell instantly to her sides and her face flushed red before she backed all the way up and allowed both Cole and me to enter.

  Cole shut the door behind us, and there was a very lengthy pause before Dad said to Jenny, “You look tired. Maybe you should go upstairs and rest.”

  It wasn’t even a question. Dad spoke the words as if they were a command. Jenny jumped on the chance to save some face.

  “Yes,” she said, putting a hand on her stomach. “The baby kept me up all night. I think a nap would be perfect.” She went very slowly up the stairs in an obvious effort to eavesdrop in on our conversation.

  “What’re you doing here, Lily?” Dad asked.

  I felt a small pang in my heart. Not even a greeting. I hadn’t seen him in weeks and he didn’t even start the conversation with a “Hey there, sweetheart. What brings you by?”

  But then, my dad never was the sentimental type. I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin. “You and I need to talk,” I said. “Now.”

  In all of my sixteen years I’d never disobeyed him or talked back or challenged him in any way, so this was a first. And he noticed.

  “I see,” he said, his eyes flickering to Cole. “And who’s this?”

  “His name is Cole Drepeau.”

  “Sir,” Cole said. He tipped his chin politely, but his posture was guarded.

  Dad turned back to me. “Are you in trouble, Lily?” he asked, his eyes dripping with disappointment.

  I laughed at the irony of the fact that his pregnant girlfriend was mere feet away and he had the gall to ask me if I was in trouble. “No, Dad. But I think you are.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, and I could tell his patience was waning.

  I took a step toward him and pointed back to Cole. “Like I said, this is Cole Drepeau. He’s the nephew of a friend of yours. Ben Spencer. You remember Ben, don’t you, Dad? The guy you cheated on your SATs with, then probably murdered to keep him from telling anyone else? Or maybe you know David Bishop? We met him the other day. He’s got a nice house out by the lake. I think you might even remember it.”

  All color drained from my father’s face and his mouth fell slightly open. He stared at me like he didn’t even know me, and maybe he didn’t. Maybe all the time he’d spent ignoring me in favor of building his career as this big-time surgeon had caused him not to know me at all.

  “James?” Jenny asked from midway up the stairs as my father continued to stand there in stunned silence.

  “Go to the bedroom,” he finally said to her.

  “But—”

  “I said go upstairs, Jenny!” my father roared as color flooded back into his face.

  She gasped and rushed up the steps, clawing at the railing to help her along the way. Dad then turned back to me and said, “Why don’t you come in, Lily?”

  Cole stepped closer to me. It was a protective move, and it let my dad know that he was watching my back. My father’s flinty glare settled on him.

  “This is a family matter,” he said to Cole.

  “Yes, Dad,” I said. “It is, but it’s not just our family matter, is it? Or did you miss the part where I explained that Cole is Ben’s nephew? You either talk to both of us, or we go to the FBI this afternoon.”

  Dad paused to work his jaw a little. “FBI, Lily? Kind of dramatic, don’t you think?”

  “There’s no drama about it,” I told him. “Not after your mother worked to shut down the investigation into Ben Spencer’s murder.” Dad seemed taken aback again. “Oh, yeah,” I said, anger continuing to fuel my words. “We know about that, too.”

  “Fine,” he said. “Then both of you come in, and we’ll talk.”

  We followed as my father led us to his study at the back of the large house. I couldn’t help but notice that Jenny had already started redecorating. She was so obvious, too—any room that had a feminine touch to it, she was having the color and furnishings redone, as if that alone could wipe the memory of my mother from my father’s mind.

  Finally, we were seated in front of his large, elegantly carved wooden desk, but instead of sitting, my dad moved over to the bar and poured himself a scotch.

  “I didn’t kill Ben Spencer, Lily,” he said with his back turned to me. “His girlfriend did.”

  “We don’t believe that’s true,” I said. “We think it was either you or David Bishop.”

  Dad took a sip of his scotch and turned to face me. “It wasn’t either of us. David Bishop was already settled in at the lake house by the time Ben was murdered.”

  “And what about you, Dad? Where were you at the time that Ben was murdered?”

  “I was back at the dance,” he said. “I’d just let Amber know that Ben was breaking up with her.”

  I shook my head. I didn’t think I could ever believe anything he told me again. “Ben told you he was breaking up with her?”

  Dad came over and sank down into the chair at his desk. “He did.”

  I sat there staring at him moodily, bouncing my knee. “I’m not buying it,” I told him.

  Dad sighed and something about his expression softened. “Spence was my best friend,” he said. Looking at Cole he repeated, “My best friend. We came from completely separate worlds—my family had money, his had nothing—but we each had parents who were abusive, both verbally and physically, and that was enough to bond us like brothers.

  “Spence never cared about my money, and I appreciated that I was able to just be me around him. I didn’t have to put on airs with him, or pay his way. He never even let me buy him a meal. He always had to pay his fair share. He was a great guy.

  “So when he told me that he wanted to get into UCLA, but didn’t have the SAT scores to do it, I confessed to him that I’d found a way to ace the test. One of the freshman math teachers—Bishop—had connections to the SAT organization. He approached me when he overheard me complaining to some girl about how badly I needed a good score: I was under an immense amount of pressure to follow the family line into Yale, and the temptation to cheat was too much for me to resist. When I relayed to Spence that Bishop could get me an answer key for two grand, and that I’d get the corresponding test to that key on test day, Spence was in, too, but only if I let him split the fee with me. The money was no easy thing for Spence to raise, but he did it.

  “I’ve always wondered how Bishop obtained the answers—they’re normally kept under lock and key—but he assured us that he was very well connected and could provide it to us and, on the day of the exam, Spence and I knew that our two thousand dollars had secured us each an entry into our respective schools. The key was a perfect match to the test. It was actually easy.

  “Everything was perfect until the day Spence’s house was broken into and some money and his answer key was stolen. He never told me why he kept the key—I destroyed my copy—but the same person who broke into his house must’ve made the anonymous call that got his scholarship revoked.

  “At the time, Spence was also up for a scholarship funded in large part by my mother. She had been willing to pay for part of his tuition and room and board once he got to UCLA, but then she heard about the inflated test scores and withdrew that scholarship, too.

  “Ben was so desperate to go with Amber out to California that he confronted Mother and threatened to let everybody know that I’d cheated, too. I think he thought it was the only way to stay with Amber, because he was convinced he’d eventually lose her if he didn’t go to California with her.

  “But you don’t threaten Maureen Bennett and get away with it. First, she strung Spence along, telling him that she’d give him the money, but it was just a ploy to keep him quiet long enough to investigate it on her own. She called Bishop and demanded an audience with him. He had a feeling what it was about and went to Spence’s house to threaten him, but Bishop met w
ith Mother anyway. They worked out a deal to secure Bishop’s silence. Living in a lake house year-round, rent free, will keep a man’s mouth shut like not much else. After all, Mother wasn’t about to let me get kicked out of Yale. The scandal alone would’ve discredited our entire family, and my father’s name and reputation meant everything to both my parents.

  “Mother then quietly made a few phone calls and found out who Spence’s mom was cleaning houses for before she began spreading rumors that Trudy Spencer was stealing from her clients. Mrs. Spencer was fired from three jobs within a week, and, as this terrible shock was hitting the Spencer household, Mother called Spence up and said that she had no intention of funding his education. She told him that if he even whispered my name in connection to the cheating scandal, she’d break him and his family with a snap of her fingers. He backed off fast.

  “Once she was sure he wouldn’t talk, Mother turned her sights on me, forcing me to confess and then threatening to disinherit me once I did. Only my father’s intervention saved me from getting tossed out on the street. Still, after that I was on a very short leash with my parents, something I still resent, I suppose.

  “At the time, however, I was most furious at Spence for betraying our friendship, and we got into it a couple of times and beat each other black-and-blue. We didn’t speak for weeks. Then, at prom, we fought again—just words that time, but after I went to cool off, Spence found me and we talked. I forgave him, and he forgave me. He told me that he’d never speak a word to anybody about me having also cheated, if I’d do him a favor.”

  “What?” Cole asked when my father paused.

  Dad let out a sad sigh. “He wanted me to find Amber and tell her that he was breaking up with her. He said that he was tired of pretending that their relationship could survive her moving to LA. He wanted her to go to college a free woman. He gave me a note to give to her and I found her a little later, wandering the halls, looking for Spence. I gave her the note, and said what he wanted me to say to her. She read the letter, fell apart, and ran off to find him. Twenty minutes later, we all heard he’d been murdered.”

  I shook my head. “But that doesn’t mean she killed him! I mean, Dad! Where’d she even get the gun?” I realized suddenly that Cole and I had never even discussed that, because I’d been so convinced of Amber’s innocence.

  Dad looked down into the bottom of his drinking glass. “She got it from Ben’s car, Lily. And I know that because I’d seen for myself that Ben carried his dad’s gun with him in the glove box. He rode around with it because once a week he mowed this big industrial field next to a sketchy neighborhood. He’d been mugged there his junior year, and after the break-in at his house he made sure the gun was close by at all times.

  “When I heard that Spence had been shot, the memory of the gun sparked in my mind, and I ran to his car to check the glove box. The gun was gone, but there was an open box of ammo there, and one of the bullets had even fallen on the floor mat. I knew immediately that Amber had gone to Spence’s car and gotten the gun. I felt so guilty for my role in her coming unhinged, so I scooped up the ammo and the bullet and got rid of them.

  “Anyway, it didn’t matter in the end because she killed herself and confessed to the crime.”

  I shook my head again. It was impossible. Amber couldn’t have killed Ben. She just couldn’t have, and I knew that because I could feel it in my bones. “But how do you know that Amber was the one that took Ben’s gun? Maybe she didn’t even know about it!”

  Dad shook his head sadly. “Lily,” he said. “She knew about it. She knew about it because she once told me she was glad he carried a gun with him when he went to mow that field.”

  My eyes watered, and I blinked furiously to keep the tears from leaking out and down my cheeks. “I don’t believe she did it,” I said.

  Dad sighed. “I know, honey. It sounds like you’ve been looking into this thing a lot, and you probably think you know Amber, but you don’t. I did. I saw how upset she was when she read that note. She was desperate. Crazed. She was quite capable of murdering Spence that night.”

  I got up and stood in front of him with balled fists. Cole got to his feet, too. “I need to go,” I told him before I said anything more that I might regret.

  “Lily,” Dad called as I fled the room. I didn’t look back. I just ran.

  Cole caught up to me at the car. “Hey,” he said, wrapping me in his arms. “What can I do?”

  I shook my head into his shoulder, and squeezed tightly against him. I felt like everything that I’d ever counted on was slowly being ripped away from me.

  “I just…I just thought she was innocent,” I said. “I mean, I really thought she was innocent, Cole!”

  “I know,” he said while I cried. “Me, too.”

  We drove back to Fredericksburg, and I was still pretty teary. I just couldn’t believe that Amber had done it. And if she had, then why the hell was she hanging around me?

  “Are you gonna be okay?” Cole asked, and I turned to see him looking sideways at me.

  “It was almost easier to think that my dad was guilty than it was to think that Amber did it,” I admitted. God, I felt shitty saying that out loud.

  “Hey,” he said, reaching to squeeze my hand. “Don’t take it so hard, Lil. At least we know your dad isn’t a murderer.”

  I blinked at more unbidden tears. “Yeah, but it feels like that means that I am.”

  “But you’re not, Lily. I can’t see you ever doing something like that. That was all Amber.”

  I swallowed hard. “Then why all this?” I asked, making an expansive motion. “Why is she in my head, hovering around, pushing me to solve the mystery, if she’s the one who did it?”

  Cole shrugged and shook his head. “Maybe she just wanted you to know the truth.”

  And that struck me, because that’s what I felt in my own heart. I felt that Amber really did want me to know the truth, even if the truth was that she was guilty. I guess I just hadn’t been prepared for how tragically sad that ending was.

  We rode the rest of the way mostly in silence but when we got off on the exit toward home, Cole said, “Is it okay if we stop at my gram’s house to put the yearbooks back? I want to get them into Ben’s room while she’s at work.”

  I sat up a little from my slouched position. “Uh, sure,” I said. “Whatever you need to do.”

  We got to his grandmother’s house, and Cole drove past to make sure her car wasn’t there. It wasn’t.

  “I’m gonna park the next block over,” he said. “I can sneak in through the backyard.” He circled to the other side of the block and stopped the car under a low-hanging oak tree. “Be back in a minute.”

  He reached for the yearbooks, and I suddenly felt like I didn’t want to be alone.

  “Hang on,” I said, knowing I was being a little bit clingy, but not really caring. “I’m coming with you.”

  He paused halfway out of his door. “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “If she comes home, though, you’d better not run faster than me.”

  He smiled. “Deal.”

  We crossed the empty lot behind Mrs. Spencer’s backyard and around to the gate, letting ourselves in. Cole hustled to the flowerpot and lifted it, but the key was gone.

  “Shit,” he said.

  “Where’d it go?” I asked, peering over his shoulder.

  “She might’ve needed to use it and forgot to put it back,” he said. “Hang on…” Cole moved over to the kitchen window and took out a pocketknife to ease the screen up, then he pushed up on the window and it opened easily. “She always forgets to lock it,” he said with a triumphant smile. “I’ll be out in a sec.”

  Using some pretty good athleticism, Cole let himself into the kitchen and came around to the back door to let me in. I followed him inside all the way past the kitchen, through the living room, and down the hallway to a closed door at the end of the hall.

  “You coming with me in here?” he asked.
r />   “I’d like to see Ben’s room,” I told him. I was very curious about it, and maybe it was standing up to my father earlier that had emboldened me to trespass on his grandmother’s property, but maybe there was something more, too. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I had such an urge to see Ben’s room for myself. It felt a little weird.

  Cole worked the latch with his pocketknife and opened the door, letting me go in first. I handed off the yearbooks to him and walked inside to take it all in.

  I COULD HARDLY TAKE IN what Jamie had just said. But there was the note in my hand, with my name written across it in Ben’s blocky lettering. I tore at the note to unfold it, and scanned it in the dim light.

  Reading what he said to me, how he tried to justify it all…my heart felt like it was exploding in agony. My world shattered apart like a thousand shards of glass.

  “No!” I cried. “No, Spence, noooooooooooo!”

  A moment later, I was running away from Jamie as fast as I could. I had to get to Spence. I had to convince him not to leave me. I had to convince him that we belonged together. And if I couldn’t convince him, then I’d make sure we died together.

  COLE CAME UP NEXT TO ME AND, together, we looked around. The room was a surprise. It was sparse, but also soothing and so familiar in that same way that other things had been familiar. The same way Cole had seemed familiar the first time I met him. And Fredericksburg itself had seemed familiar. As well as Gina. And Bailey.

  A light-headed feeling was slowly taking over, and an odd pressure formed inside my skull. In an instant I knew that Amber was exerting herself, sharing the space in my mind, overpowering my own memories with hers.

  “Cole,” I whispered, feeling my conscious thoughts being pushed backward to make room for Amber.

  “Hey,” he said, looking at me with concern. “Are you having another panic attack?”

  I shook my head vigorously, as much to clear it as to let him know this was something else entirely. I’d been in this room before. I’d been naked in that bed, wrapped in strong arms and making love to my soul mate. I’d loved him so much. He’d been my whole world.