by Nancy Bush
His eyes opened and he finally relaxed a little. “That a promise?”
“Uh-huh.”
He reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “I wish to hell this Deneuve case was resolved.”
“And the Lloyd case.”
“That one’s coming along,” Danner admitted, seeming glad to change the subject, which was fine with Coby. “My partner, Elaine Metzger, who’s been on vacation, called today, and she and I went to interview a guy, show him a picture of our suspect. He’s one of those guys who insulates himself with an entourage, though he’s pretty penny-ante on the big-shot scale. But Metzger’s a bulldog who doesn’t give a shit. She’s a tank, more in spirit than size, and she just barreled in and we managed to see this demigod without his entourage and he eventually coughed up a lead.”
“To the killer?”
He nodded. “The woman we’re looking for roomed with another woman named Magda for a short time. We contacted Magda and at first she swore she didn’t know anything about Sheila, our suspect. Then later she said Sheila rented a car from Enterprise; Magda saw the sticker. A Toyota sedan. We’ve got dates around the time the car was rented and Metzger’s on it, checking with every Enterprise car rental in the city. Sheila may not be her real name, but we’ve got the sketch. Just a matter of time, I think, till we find where she went.”
“That’s great,” Coby said.
He nodded slowly. “If only the Deneuve case were so clear. On the trail of just one suspect.”
She circled the bottom of her beer bottle along the scarred tabletop, moving it through rings of condensation. She didn’t want to wade back into the same dangerous waters, but she had other things to tell him, too. “We keep circling around Yvette, and next week you’ll talk to her . . . and she is unlikable and she lied about Lucas being Benedict’s father, though she was only seventeen at the time. . . .”
Danner waited for her to go on, but Coby had stopped. “And you’re wondering if she’s at the top of the suspect list for reasons that might have nothing to do with Annette,” he finished.
“Exactly. Everybody thinks Yvette’s involved in Annette’s murder. Maybe accidentally, maybe not. Both Wynona and McKenna think she’s capable of killing her sister. Maybe she is. How do you know?”
“You keep looking. Asking questions. Piecing everything together.” He said it reluctantly, still not wanting her involved.
But she was involved. “Let me tell you about the rest of my evening with McKenna, Ellen, and Theo,” she said, subtly reminding him, and then she related everything she could recall of what she’d talked with them about in the green room.
When she was finished, Danner picked out one point: “This death of Theo’s ex-girlfriend. I think I remember it. A couple of years after I was out of high school. She died at her gym. Somewhere in Gresham. What’s her name?”
“Heather McCrae. And the gym-rat boyfriend is Ed Gerald. I know it was an accident and unrelated to anything else, but all these deaths . . .” She shook her head.
“People die,” Danner said.
She nodded.
“But it’s just one death more attached to your group.”
“Yes,” Coby said. “It just feels like Heather’s death should mean something, even if it doesn’t. Like Rhiannon’s.”
“I can look up this Ed Gerald.” He shrugged. “No stone unturned.”
“Good.”
The conversation lulled, and Coby took the opportunity to say, “I want to ask you a question, and maybe you can’t answer it, but I have to ask.”
“Shoot.”
“Is my dad a suspect? Has anyone from the sheriff’s department said anything to you? Can you tell me?”
He hesitated, then said, “Information is going mostly one way, from me to them.”
“If you learn anything, could you warn me?” She knew she was walking a thin line, but she had to know. “He’s my dad.”
“I don’t think the TCSD is anywhere near an arrest,” was his careful answer. “That I would know.”
“Okay.” She felt herself blush, knowing she was putting him in a compromising position.
And then suddenly Genevieve trooped in, followed by Vic and Paul, and then Juliette, Suzette, and Galen. Spying Coby and Danner, they surged toward their table, grabbing chairs and another couple of tables, which were a hot commodity because there were so few of them. By the time they were all seated their group took up one corner of the dance floor.
Genevieve sank into a chair next to Coby. When the waitress cruised by, everyone ordered a drink with alcohol except Gen, who asked for a Diet Coke. She glanced around and, seeing Danner’s gaze lingering on her, stated flatly, “I’m my own designated driver tonight.”
Coby gazed from her to Danner, who said simply, “Good thinking.”
“It’s like a high school reunion around here,” Vic observed. He’d lost weight since high school, and his hair had thinned, but overall, he looked better, Coby thought.
Suzette said, “Kirk told Juliet that you guys were coming tonight, so I told Vic and Paul.”
“I mentioned it to McKenna last night after her show,” Coby added. “But I think she’s got another show tonight.”
Gen gave her a hard look. “You saw McKenna’s act? How was she?” she demanded.
“Great, actually. You know who else was there to see her? Ellen. And Theo.”
“Together?” Juliet asked, startled.
“Surprising, huh?” Coby nodded. “And they’re back together. A couple.”
“When did that happen?” Suzette asked in surprise and Juliet appeared to be trying to ask the same, but Suzette beat her to it. “Another of us together,” Suzette added, smiling beatifically at Galen.
Coby said, “You’d have to ask them. They seemed really happy.”
“Theo’s with Ellen again,” Paul said slowly, shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe it. “You know his ex-girlfriend died in that freak gym accident. Knocked the bar onto her neck and suffocated herself. Couldn’t lift it up.”
Coby sensed Danner’s attention sharpening and made certain she did not exchange a look with him. “I remember that,” she said.
“Well, sure. Every time Theo’s name is mentioned one of you guys brings it up,” Juliet complained. “Every time.”
Paul shrugged, uncaring. “So?”
“It’s annoying,” Juliet snapped. Coby surreptitiously eyed the petite, dark-haired Juliet and wondered if what Gen had said to Danner about Juliet sleeping with all the guys was really true. Knowing Genevieve, it could just be hyperbole. And Juliet was now with Kirk, whose macho attitude wouldn’t really be able to tolerate a relationship with someone who’d been with his friends.
Suzette observed, “None of you guys hang out with Theo much anymore.”
“He’s not around,” Galen said.
“Yeah, it’s not our fault,” Vic added. “He’s always too busy. One girl or another . . . and about that Gresham girl who died at the gym, where was her spotter? I always wanted to know.”
“Somewhere else, obviously,” Gen said, eyeing Juliet’s glass of white wine.
“People don’t always have spotters,” Galen said, to which Paul grunted an agreement.
“It just seems strange, though,” Vic muttered.
“What did Theo and Ellen have to say about Annette’s death?” Galen asked Coby.
She gazed into his serious eyes. Suzette was clinging to his arm, all ears. “Like everyone else, they thought it was kind of strange that another death happened with our same group, or most of them, and at the same location.”
“We’re not all really a group,” Vic said. “We just went to the same high school.”
“That’s the very definition of a group,” Genevieve snapped. “Jesus.” She seemed particularly testy tonight.
The note left on her windshield flashed on the screen of Coby’s mind: You don’t belong, bitch. Someone didn’t think she was part of their group, and she had to figure it wa
s one of her high school friends. Picking up her beer, she took a careful sip, wondering who had left the note. Maybe even someone in this room?
“The guys are a group,” Juliet pointed out. “They were the cool group from high school.”
“We’re still cool,” Vic said with a grin.
Suzette said admiringly to Gen, “You know everybody wanted to be you, don’t you? You were like royalty. Princess or queen of everything.”
Genevieve made a disparaging sound. “You just think that ’cause you’re younger. I was a homecoming queen one year. Lot of goddamned good that’s done me.”
“I am seriously gonna puke,” Vic said, and made huge, ugly retching sounds while Paul grinned and slapped him on the back.
Coby realized Danner, though he was pretending to be somewhere else, was still actively listening. She thought about Jarrod a moment, wondering if she should say what she was about to in front of his brother, then mentally shrugged. Protecting people’s feelings went against trying to flush out a murderer. Turning to Genevieve, she said, “McKenna said your note wasn’t about stealing your stepsister’s guy. It was about you and Lucas Moore together the night of the campout.”
Gen straightened. “McKenna said that? How does she know? She never saw my note.”
“Was that what it was about? You and Lucas?” Vic asked. “You don’t even have a stepsister. We all knew you were lying when you were playing that stupid game.”
“Pass the Candle,” Gen said through tight lips. “Okay, so I don’t have a stepsister. I made it up. So sue me.”
Vic came back with, “You just wanted everybody else to spill their guts. You weren’t going to give anything away about yourself.”
“You did write those notes, didn’t you?” Gen said to him. “You did!”
“No, I didn’t!” He turned to Juliet, then, and snapped, “You never saw me put a note in anybody’s locker. You made that up. Tell them!”
“I saw you put something in a locker!” she protested. “I did!”
“Well, get your fucking eyes checked, because I never did it. And I’m tired of having to keep saying it!”
Juliet lifted up her hands. “Okay, maybe you were just hanging there.” But she didn’t sound like she believed it.
“Whose locker was it?” Coby asked.
“I don’t know. I didn’t do it.” Vic’s jaw was taut.
“Yvette’s,” Juliet said cautiously, watching him.
“Okay, whatever. McKenna never saw my note,” Gen insisted. “I never showed it to anyone and I never told anyone.”
“Was your note about Lucas Moore?” Danner suddenly put in.
It was like they’d all forgotten he was there, and now they all snapped to attention as if being called to order. Gen didn’t know how to answer him and, after blinking a few times, decided silence was the best defense.
Juliet said to her, “You and Lucas were the most popular.”
“Yeah. Well. Things change,” Gen said, then snapped her fingers at the barmaid and ordered a glass of white wine.
In a flash of insight Coby realized Gen’s claim about stealing her stepsister’s boyfriend had actually been a projection of what she was doing to Rhiannon with Lucas. She’d been harboring a thing for the deceased surfer-dude for all these years. And what did that mean for her marriage to Jarrod?
Suddenly the lights went down.
“Hey, everybody,” a loud, disembodied voice announced over speakers mounted on the walls. “Split Decision!”
On cue the first notes to an original song by the band blasted through the room and then red spotlights came up to show Jarrod and Kirk in front, blasting away on guitars with the other two members of the band, on keyboards and drums, a few steps back. Jarrod moved to the mic and started singing and Genevieve turned her attention to him. Coby was surprised to see a tear slide down her cheek, glimmering in a red streak from the lights.
Hoots and whistles sounded from the audience, which had, while waiting for Split Decision to appear, definitely gotten its buzz going. The decibel level had risen and conversation had become difficult. With the first few loud notes from the electric guitars, it was pretty much a given that all talking must either cease until the band’s set ended or be conducted at a full-volume yell, which still probably wouldn’t be heard.
Her eyes on Jarrod, Coby paid attention to the band and settled in to wait till they were done before she even tried to say anything to Danner or anyone else.
She didn’t know why she was crying and she absolutely hated it that Coby had seen! Damn. She shouldn’t have come. She should have stayed home. Alone. As ever.
Seething, Genevieve sipped her glass of white wine, completely aware that Danner Lockwood was watching her though he pretended to be only interested in the band. Well, maybe he was interested in the band, but he had given her that look. The one that silently disparages.
She hated that look.
Jarrod had that look down pat and wasn’t afraid to use it.
Sitting back in her chair in a black funk, she was still rattled over the revelation that McKenna knew her note had been about Lucas, not the stupid lie she’d told at Pass the Candle. What had she been thinking? Jesus Christ. Although she’d barely passed her seventeenth birthday at the time, that was no excuse for just how plain dumb she’d been. A total dumbass. And yeah, she’d been homecoming queen. And yeah, she’d known she’d had admirers. And yeah, she and Lucas were the most popular kids in their grade, possibly the whole school at that time.
So fucking what.
She half turned away from Danner Lockwood and took in a large swallow, letting it roll around in her mouth. Terrible stuff, but, oh well.
She thought back to high school, feeling the tightness in her chest. Lucas hadn’t even had to try. He was just cool. She, on the other hand, had carefully orchestrated her popularity, and though she’d been accused, once or twice, of being entitled and kind of grating, well, that was just envy on the part of the losers who tried to bring her down.
High school was great. Best time of her life. Things hadn’t gone so well since, though. Everything had turned to crap.
She’d wanted Lucas so much, and that night she’d had him. He was hers! And then he was gone. Gone. She’d befriended Rhiannon just to be close to him, then after he was dead she morbidly kept that friendship alive, like it even mattered anymore. Like it would keep her close to him. Wow. She had really been a dumbass.
All Rhiannon did was cry, which was okay at first, but then, as word drifted to Rhiannon that Lucas had been something of a man-slut—thank God Rhee had never put that together with her!—she started whining about him. How untrue he’d been. How everyone had known but her. How unfaithful all her friends were. Some of them were even accused of making out with him!
Rhiannon’s affront both scared and annoyed Genevieve. How Gen had wanted to slap the silly bitch’s face a time or two! And that hiking . . . Gen had gone with her a time or two, but guess what? It was dangerous along those trails. Lethally dangerous, in Rhiannon’s case.
But she didn’t want to think about that now. Didn’t want to ever again. She still felt guilty about it.
Gen sank deeper in her chair, growing morose. Then there was Coby. And Danner, Gen’s handsome brother-in-law—who was nevertheless just as lame as Coby simply by virtue of the fact that he was all in love with her! They were both all hyped about finding who’d killed Annette—not that Gen didn’t want to know, too; she did—but Gen couldn’t stand the way they were running around and playing detective together like it was a game. They kept asking about Lucas and Rhiannon and Annette and that other girl who died in the gym and none of it was going to amount to jack shit because they didn’t know anything about anything. Yvette had killed Annette. Gen believed it.
What about Lucas’s hair? an inner voice taunted her. Where did that come from? Who had it, and where is it now?
Genevieve sucked down some more wine. Someone had cut a piece from his head after he
fell, she’d determined. Had to be. His hair had been perfectly fine while they were making love. . . . While we were making love. . . .
Her hands clenched at the memory and she fought back a wave of misery.
“You okay?” Coby asked, having to half shout to be heard about the noise of Split Decision.
“Yeah, why?” Gen glared at her, hating her solicitousness. Coby was just too damn smart. Never spent enough time glamorizing herself. Was one of those natural beauties who were uninterested in enhancing what Mother Nature gave them. Focused on her brains ad nauseam.
It was so goddamned unfair.
“You made a sound,” Coby yelled, dismissing it as she turned away.
A cry, Gen realized unhappily. A plaintive cry for the loss of the one man who was her equal, loud enough to be heard above this cacophony. God. Her life was in ruins.
I can’t have Lucas, and I can’t have a baby.
Jarrod was at the mic, singing in that kind of rough-edged way she liked, but Spence and Ryan, the two morons on drums and keyboards, were now drowning him out. Gen hated them all. And why wouldn’t Jarrod grow his hair out? Why? Was it so much to ask? He knew she wanted him to. Why did he object so much?
Because he knows you’re thinking of Lucas.
Another song began, this one with both Jarrod and Kirk on vocals.
When it ended, Kirk stepped up to the mic. Gen glared at him, then frowned, wondering if she could order another drink without too many raised eyebrows. She focused on Kirk. Well, this ought to be interesting, she thought, her eyes roaming the room, looking for the barmaid. Kirk always let Jarrod do the talking because Jarrod was good and people liked him and Kirk was such an asshole and pissed people off without even trying. Now even Jarrod was looking at him askance.
Kirk raised an arm and said, “Hey, people. Glad you came out tonight to witness the last time Split Decision is going to be together. We’re . . . splitting.”
Gen’s gaze jerked to Jarrod, who wasn’t hiding his shock. He hadn’t known, either!
“I’m heading to Southern California,” Kirk said with a wide grin. “Got a friend who needs a bass player, so I’m going. Bye bye, rain. Hello, Mr. Sun.” He lifted his guitar off his shoulder and held it over his head. “But right now we got a couple more songs, so here we go. . . .” He looked to Jarrod, who stared back at him, his jaw hard.