by Nancy Bush
There was another act after McKenna, but Coby had no interest in anyone else. As soon as McKenna said good night and the crowd broke into enthusiastic applause, Coby hurried back to the lobby and told the guy behind the counter that she was a personal friend of McKenna’s and gave her name.
The guy regarded her skeptically. He had sleeve tattoos and several painful-looking plugs in his ears, a Rod Stewart haircut, and a severe case of black eyeliner. She had a mental image of herself: tan slacks, tan linen blouse, tan jacket, light makeup, straight light brown hair cut by a professional, and decided she couldn’t look more suburban/bland.
“You’re a friend of McKenna’s?” he repeated with just the right amount of disbelief.
“We were high school classmates. Tell her my name and she’ll know me. I have her cell number plugged into my call list.” She pulled out her phone, called up McKenna’s number, showed him.
That finally convinced him and he directed her outside the building to a side door with several concrete steps and a red awning. She nodded. She’d seen it on the way in, and now she walked out the front door and around the building to the steps where another couple was already waiting, shivering a little, the man holding the woman close.
Coby blinked in shock, seeing the woman’s profile.
“Ellen?” she asked in disbelief. “Ellen Marshall?”
She turned and eyed Coby critically, and said, with the same amount of amazement, “Coby?”
“What are you doing here?” they asked each other in unison.
The guy she was with suddenly grinned, a white slash of straight teeth, and Coby dragged her eyes from Ellen to finally look at him . . . and got her second shock. “Theo? Good God. You’re together?”
Jarvis Lloyd was like a fountain, overflowing with thoughts and feelings and guilt and remorse and sheer misery, but in the way of real information, he was a bust. Danner listened for about twenty minutes before pulling Celek away from the guy and asking, “Aren’t you on robbery?”
“I was helping you,” he protested.
“I know. Thank you. But . . . nothing’s happening here,” he pointed out, irritated that Celek had dragged him away from Coby and from McKenna Forrester’s comedy act for one more sloppy round with Lloyd, for whom Danner was fast losing any kind of sympathy.
“Tell me where to find Sheila,” Danner said to the shattered man in the hospital bed. He felt like he’d asked him the same question a thousand times.
“I don’t know. . . . She took me over.”
Jesus H. Christ. If he heard that one more time, he thought he might pick up the man’s bedpan and hit him over the head with it.
“We have an artist’s rendition of her,” Danner said. “The bartender at Rick’s gave it to us this morning. Someone will recognize her.” He’d tried to take a copy of the artist’s sketch to Rick, the man, himself earlier in the day and see what else he could learn, but Rick was nowhere to be found and hadn’t called the station, though Danner had left his card and been very specific about what he wanted. No doubt about it, Rick, of Rick’s, was avoiding him.
Jarvis Lloyd scarcely heard him. “She found me,” he said again. “I couldn’t help myself. I thought . . . with Bethy so ill . . .”
“You thought she might be a replacement?” Danner guessed, trying hard to keep the censure from his voice.
“I didn’t know. I didn’t know she would . . . hurt Angie. . . .”
“Kill Angie,” Danner reminded him. Maybe he was being brutal, but he didn’t much care. The bastard had set up his family to be murdered, whether he meant to or not.
“I had a number for her, but it was a prepaid cell phone and it’s gone.” He looked woeful.
“Tell me everything you remember about her,” Danner said, taking out his notebook. “We need to find her.”
“I met her at a different bar first—not Rick’s. She was so fascinating. . . .” A sad smile touched Lloyd’s lips as he thought back.
Danner set his jaw and wrote “predatory” in lieu of “fascinating” into his book.
Ellen and Coby could scarcely stop talking long enough to absorb what the other was saying. They hadn’t seen each other since Ellen had left Rutherford High.
“You’re with Theo?” Coby said again, scarcely able to credit it. She flashed on them as their younger selves, humping and gasping and thrusting away in the sand. Wow. They’d stayed together? Hadn’t she heard that Theo got back with his Gresham girlfriend, the one rumored to be pregnant?
“I’m sorry about Annette,” Ellen said. “So shocking. McKenna told us. How’s your dad?”
“Coping,” Coby said.
“Do the police have any clues?” Theo asked.
“It’s an ongoing investigation.”
Ellen looked much the same as she had when they were seventeen except her blond hair was shorter now and streaked by design. Her eyes seemed larger, but that might have been because she was wearing more makeup. She’d gained a little bit of weight, but she’d been so small and thin in high school that it looked good on her.
Theo looked like he had in high school, too: a lean, muscular hard body–type who must work out regularly. His hair was shorter but still thick and dark, not a shade of gray. He flashed Coby that white smile again; he’d always been a bit of a charmer.
Which reminded her of Lucas.
“I’ve been kind of following up on our group,” Coby said. “Annette’s death brought back Lucas’s like it happened yesterday.”
“Hasn’t it?” Ellen drew in her shoulders. “I thought we were all over that, but when McKenna told me what happened to Annette, and then I told Theo, we just . . . well, we couldn’t believe it.”
“You’ve kept in close touch with McKenna.”
Ellen looked at Theo, then at Coby. He shrugged, answering some unspoken question, and as if a decision had been made, Ellen turned to Coby. “I left high school because I was in love with Theo. After the campout, we didn’t really talk about what happened. Because of Lucas’s accident, and then Theo was . . . we weren’t clear . . . about things.”
Theo put in, “Ellen was afraid she was pregnant. She wasn’t,” he added quickly. “But, well, you know what she went through before, and she wasn’t going to go through that again, and I was stupid and freaked out and we broke up.”
“I was heartbroken,” Ellen took up the story. “I could barely make myself go to school, and my dad had an opportunity for a job in California and we up and moved to Sacramento. It didn’t work out for my dad and he and my mom moved back, but I stayed. I just had some stuff to work through.”
“Like me being such an asshole,” Theo said with a smile. A moment later that smile left his face as if someone had stolen it away. “I suppose you heard I went back to my ex-girlfriend, Heather.”
“The one from Gresham?” Coby asked.
“I was screwing with no consequences then. She was pregnant, but she had a miscarriage, which I just thought was lucky at the time, though she didn’t feel the same way. We just sort of stayed together because we were a couple, and it was high school, and it seemed like the thing to do, y’know? We were long broken up by the time of the accident, though.”
Coby was lost. “What accident?”
“Yeah, I guess you don’t know,” Theo said. “Heather got to be a gym rat. She was working out with weights, lifting them up, and the bar fell on her neck and killed her.”
“That was your girlfriend?” Coby said, incredulous. “I remember when that happened. It was all over the news. My God.”
“Let’s go inside,” Ellen said with a shiver.
“Have to wait till they open it,” Theo said. “It’s locked.”
Coby shook her head, absorbing this latest bit of startling news. “We’ve had a lot of deaths of younger people associated with our group. What are the chances?”
“Guess we’re just unlucky,” Theo said.
Ellen dismissed that. “Lucas Moore fell because he was drunk and stumbling arou
nd in the dark. Rhiannon fell because it was around Christmastime and there was ice. I don’t know about Heather. I didn’t ever know her. But Theo said she was kind of a risk taker. Maybe she just put on too many weights.”
“You said you weren’t dating her then?” Coby asked.
“Nah, she was with some other gym rat. Had a couple of first names. I saw him at Heather’s memorial service. Edward something? No, Jerry.”
“Edward Gerald,” Ellen put in.
“That’s it. Ed Gerald.” Theo gave her a nod.
“Sometime after that Theo and I found each other on Facebook,” Ellen said, trying to right the conversation. “We just started corresponding. McKenna found me that way, too. Are you on Facebook?”
“I’m . . . I think I’m signed up for a few social networks, but I’m only so-so about keeping up on them. What’s Heather’s full name?” she asked.
“Heather McCrae. Why?” Theo gave her a hard look. “You’re not going to make something weird of this, are you?”
Coby shook her head. “I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it makes you wonder if there’s something behind it all, doesn’t it? I mean, can it all just really be bad karma?”
“You do kind of sound like a conspiracy theorist,” Theo said with that smile.
Maybe she did. “Well . . .”
The back door suddenly opened and McKenna stuck her head out, baseball cap still in place. “Good God. Get in here before y’all freeze your asses off.” She waved them inside and the conversation ended.
In the green room where McKenna was hanging out with some of the backstage staff, Coby found a seat on a beat-up couch where she could feel the springs poking through. McKenna paced around the room, asking what they thought of her routine. Ellen and Theo sat on another couch and held hands and told McKenna how great it all was. Coby felt like a wet blanket but couldn’t join in the fun with much enthusiasm.
Was she wrong? Was this just all the coincidence of life?
Maybe.
Or maybe not.
Finally, McKenna wound down a bit and came over to Coby. “Glad you came. I heard you’re investigating Annette’s death with Danner Lockwood. Got something going with him?”
“Well . . .”
“Yeah. It’s all over you.” She grinned, then immediately sobered. “Who do you think killed Annette?”
“I don’t know.”
McKenna scooted a stool up to Coby. “You think it’s connected to Lucas’s death, don’t you? I heard about his lock of hair being found. Creepy. Sorry. Who would hang on to a dead person’s hair?”
“What are you talking about?” Ellen asked, looking repulsed.
Coby brought them up to date on everything Danner had discussed with the others at Annette’s memorial service. There was a long stretch of silence after she finished while they all absorbed the information.
“No wonder you think there’s some connection,” Ellen murmured. “I don’t mean Heather, but Lucas and Annette . . . it seems weird.”
“Rhiannon died, too,” McKenna said.
“I think back on that campout and what we all said—” Ellen broke off.
“Well, it didn’t have anything to do with that,” McKenna answered promptly.
“You said everybody got notes, later on,” Ellen reminded her.
“Yeah, but, they weren’t all that bad. They were just stupid.”
Coby looked at McKenna. “Mine was kind of pointed about my father, which was the lie I told that night.”
“So, you were lying.” She smiled. “I wasn’t. I really did wreck my parents’ car and my brother covered for me. But the note wasn’t about that. It just called me a lesbo. I figured it was Vic just being the ass he is. And Genevieve’s was almost complimentary.”
“You’re kidding,” Coby said.
“No.” McKenna shook her head. “Like the note writer was a secret admirer almost. You know Gen was screwing Lucas Moore that night, right? Well, whoever wrote Gen’s note saw her with Lucas and thought it was really sexy. Probably Vic. He’d be the kind to secretly watch somebody getting it on.”
Coby hadn’t known Gen and Lucas actually had sex and planned to ask more, like how McKenna knew so much, but Theo broke in.
“You guys don’t know Vic at all,” he protested vehemently. “He didn’t write those notes. He didn’t! He’s not sneaky like that. It wouldn’t be him.”
“You saying he wouldn’t watch people having sex?” McKenna challenged.
“I’m saying, if he’d seen Genevieve with Lucas, he would have crowed about it,” Theo told her flatly. “Even with Lucas dead, Genevieve would have never heard the end of doing the horizontal in the sand. That’s Vic. That’s what he would do. But this note stuff . . . it’s more a girl thing, if you ask me.”
Danner had said the notes seemed “girly” as well, Coby recalled.
“But Lucas was Rhiannon’s boyfriend,” Ellen protested. “Who would side with Genevieve screwing around with Lucas behind Rhiannon’s back? None of us.”
Coby felt the weight of her own interest in Lucas back then like a stone around her neck now. “I kissed Lucas that night, too,” she admitted, slightly embarrassed.
“Yeah, but you just kissed him,” McKenna said. “Right?”
Coby nodded. “Yep.”
“Well, then, that doesn’t really count. Not like Gen,” she stated flatly.
“You kinda blame her, don’t you?” Theo said, gazing at McKenna with a faint smile, needling her a little. “For being a man-stealer.”
She gave him a hard look. “Pay attention. I’m not into guys.”
“Okay, a lover-stealer, then,” Theo said.
“What about Yvette?” Ellen asked, pulling the conversation back to the previous issue. “She said she was Lucas’s secret lover.”
“You believed her?” McKenna tossed back at her.
“No . . . but why did she say it?”
McKenna looked at Coby, then Theo. “Did anyone believe her?”
“At the time, I might have. Maybe. At least I entertained the idea. She was so adamant,” Coby reminded them. “But not anymore. She told me at the beach house that Lucas definitely wasn’t Benedict’s father.”
“I’m surprised she admitted that much,” McKenna said with a sniff.
“Who is his father, then?” Theo asked. “It wasn’t any of us guys. That woulda come out long ago.”
“I bet Annette knew,” Ellen said. “Maybe all the Ettes know.”
“I don’t know why it’s such a secret,” Theo said with a shrug. “You all told a lot worse things at the campout.”
“Hey.” Ellen looked upset.
“I’m just saying,” Theo pointed out. “Why is it such a big secret? Still now? The kid’s, like, almost in junior high.”
“Yvette’s like that,” Coby said. “Secretive and . . . fierce. Wynona is convinced she had something to do with Annette’s death.”
“Maybe over Benedict’s ‘secret dad’?” McKenna looked skeptical.
“Any DNA test would prove who the kid’s dad is,” Theo said.
“As long as there’s a match,” Ellen agreed.
“Well, it wasn’t any of us guys who were there,” Theo said. “Nobody wanted to touch Yvette. She’s such a bitch.”
“Maybe someone did, though,” Ellen said with a shrug.
“Maybe Lucas mighta taken a bite there,” Theo said, sounding skeptical, “but Yvette already said he’s not the father, and I don’t get why she’d lie about that now. The next one most likely woulda been . . . probably me.” He held up his hands in surrender. “But the other guys—Paul, Vic—Yvette wouldn’t even look at ’em. And Galen, he’s always been shy and pulled back.”
“What about Kirk?” McKenna asked.
Theo shook his head slowly. “The kid doesn’t look anything like him, and Kirk’s pickier about women than you might think. That leaves Jarrod. He could be the father, I suppose. Except he liked Coby back then, and when h
e wasn’t with her he was with Genevieve. I’m telling ya, it’s none of us. You know what I think? I think Yvette was already pregnant at the campout, and she used Lucas’s death as a means to pretend he was the father. Kept everyone from looking at anyone else.”
“But now she doesn’t want that myth to go on,” Coby said. “She wants us to know Lucas isn’t Benedict’s father.”
“Maybe she’s ready to reveal who he is,” Ellen said.
“Probably a goddamn paternity test in the wings,” Theo said. “It always comes down to money.”
“You’re a real cynic,” McKenna told him, and he just nodded.
Paternity test. Something niggled at Coby’s brain. She tried to grab it but couldn’t quite, and then suddenly it was there.
“Oh, my God. Dana was right,” she said. “I did get it wrong.”
Danner punched the button for the elevator and found Celek beside him. There was an officer assigned outside Lloyd’s door, just in case he had some regrets about everything he’d admitted to Danner, though it wasn’t much more than they’d already guessed. Lloyd had fallen for the mysterious Sheila and had been talked into putting his wife, Bethy, out of her misery; she was dying anyway was how Jarvis consoled himself. But then things had gone terribly awry.
Celek said, “I’m going over to that nightclub in Laurelton tonight. The one where your brother’s playing.”
Danner focused in on him. “Think something’s going down there?”
“I don’t know. But sometimes it seems like when certain groups are at a place, then that place gets targeted.”
Danner, who’d been getting into the elevator, felt a cold finger trace down his spine. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
Celek’s cherub face tightened up. “What do you think I’m saying?”
“That these burglaries have happened when Split Decision’s at the venue?”
“After they play at a place. Yeah. I guess that is what I’m saying. Those places then get knocked over.”
They stared at each other, and at the main floor Celek stepped out, but Danner stayed inside the car.