Class Reunion of Murder

by Vanessa Gray Bartal

  Jason stared at her. She returned his gaze unblinkingly. “You’re screaming at each other. He shoves you. You punch him. And then you walk away, just like that.”

  “Just like that,” Kimber said.

  “Kimber, I’ve been in plenty of fights. When two people are heated enough to be yelling, shoving, and punching, no one ever just walks away.”

  “Maybe you’ve never fought with anyone as mature as I am because that’s what happened,” Kimber said. They stared at each other some more.

  “Where did you go after the fight?” Jason asked.

  “I hung out for a while.”

  “With who?”

  “No one.”

  “Where?”

  “Around.”

  “Kimber,” Lacy interjected. “What are you doing? Tell him where you were and who you were with.”

  “I wasn’t with anyone and I wasn’t doing anything. I drove around for a while, sat in my car for a bit, and then went to the diner for breakfast. You can ask that Rose person because she talked to me.”

  The diner conversation with Rose would have happened after Brady was attacked, Lacy was sure.

  “Kimber, you can see my dilemma here,” Jason said. He laid his hands plaintively on the desk between them. “You had motive, means, and opportunity. Is there anything you can tell me that will help take you off my suspect list, anything at all?”

  “No,” Kimber said. “Am I under arrest?”

  Lacy held her breath. The tension in the room was thick.

  “No,” Jason said at last.

  “Am I free to go?”

  “Yes,” Jason said.

  Kimber stood and left the room without a word.

  “Jason, you know she didn’t do it,” Lacy said.

  “Do I?” Jason said.

  “Jason!”

  “Look, Lacy, I don’t want Kimber to be guilty, but investigations aren’t about my personal feelings; they’re about facts. The facts point to Kimber, but not strongly enough to arrest her. I’m not closing my mind and deciding on her, you know that. I’ll keep investigating every opportunity until the situation is resolved to my satisfaction, but you have to admit that it doesn’t look good for her.”

  “It doesn’t,” Lacy agreed. “But that doesn’t mean she did it.”

  They sat in silence a few beats.

  “Are you angry with me?” he asked at last.

  “No,” she said and meant it. He was only doing his job, and he had been fair, much fairer than she would have been if the situation were reversed. She tended to let her feelings get the best of her. “I’m sorry if it seemed that way. Kimber has bad memories about this town; I don’t want to make them worse. And I want her to like you.”

  He opened his arms and she tumbled into them, snuggling in his lap. The romance and chemistry were nice, but she liked this just as well, this feeling of intimacy and belonging. “It’s important to you that your beloved college roommate likes me,” he said with feigned innocence. “Why is that?”

  “Because we’re all friends.” If he caught the inflection on the last word, he didn’t let on. Instead he kissed the top of her head. His hand made a few passes over her hair before resting comfortingly over her ear.

  “Lacy, tell me about Summer. What did she do to you?”

  She hesitated. His thumb traced soothingly over her ear. “You accuse me of not trusting you, so this is me trusting you. No one else knows this story, not Tosh, not Kimber, not my grandma—no one. Sophomore year I received a letter telling me I had been selected to try out to be the school’s mascot.”

  “The flying penguin?” he clarified.

  “The flying penguin,” she agreed. “The letter said all I needed to do was record myself giving an audition. I was told to create a costume and bring something special to the role, something all my own.” He groaned. She ignored him and pressed on. “I made a costume from my dad’s white sweat pants and black sweat shirt. I took black feather boas and glued them onto the sleeves and made a beak from yellow construction paper.”

  “Oh, baby, no, you didn’t,” he muttered.

  “I choreographed a dance routine and added a clarinet solo as my ‘something special.’ In retrospect, it was probably pretty special. I left the tape in the girls’ bathroom, as per the letter’s instructions.”

  “Geez,” he whispered, dropping his head to his hands and rocking back and forth. Whether he was rocking her or himself, she didn’t know.

  “I didn’t figure it out until the next day when Summer and Brady began mimicking my dance in the cafeteria. I had added a call that now I realize was more crow and less penguin. With them, no humiliation was ever complete unless it was public humiliation. I was in misery for days, firmly believing that my video would somehow be piped through the entire school. But then a weird thing happened: I received my tape in the mail with a typed letter saying that it would never get out. I still have no idea what went down. Their group teased me mercilessly about it, of course, but no one besides them ever knew about it.”

  “Maybe it was your grandpa,” Jason suggested.

  “I never thought about that,” Lacy said. She knew Mr. Middleton had secretly looked out for her while he had been her principal. It would be like him to confiscate the tape and send it to her.

  “Was that really the worst thing they ever did to you?” he asked.

  “Did you not understand the story?” she asked. “I dressed like a bird and recorded myself doing a homemade flying penguin cheer. I launched myself off the table to show that I was, in fact, a flying penguin. They capitalized on the idea that I was desperate to fit in and used it against me. To know that an entire group of people saw that video and laughed at me is so…I can’t even…Yes, it was horrible.”

  He sat tense and silent for a full minute. At first she thought he was angry on her behalf, and then he stood and dumped her unceremoniously from his lap. “I have to go. Work stuff. I’ll see you.” He left without ever once looking her in the eye, and Lacy knew it had finally happened. He had finally learned something about her so horrible, so mortifying, that he couldn’t take it and ran away. And though she had been expecting it, she found that she was shocked, too shocked to feel hurt.

  The shock was quickly followed by anger. Had all of his words and reassurances been a lie? Had his pleas for trust been pretend? She had trusted him, had told him one of the most embarrassing stories from her past, and he had run away.

  Lacy stood and thumped her palm on the desk. Something needed to be done, and she knew exactly what it was. She opened her drawer, stuffed a dollar in her pocket, and breezed from the office. Her grandmother was far away in Florida, along with all her treats. The bakery was closed, but Lacy had a plan. She was going to the vending machine for cupcakes and nobody, but nobody, had better get in her way.

  Forty five seconds later she stood thumping her fist futilely on the plastic vending machine cover. Yesterday six packages of chocolate cupcakes had been there. Lacy knew because she had checked. She purposely hadn’t stocked the drawer in her office with emergency chocolate because she’d had the cupcakes as a backup. It was a rookie mistake, one she was now paying for. A few rows over, the yellow cupcakes called to her, mocking her, but she ignored them. She didn’t want the yellow kind; she wanted, no, she needed chocolate. Who but her would take six packages of chocolate cupcakes? Had someone done this to her on purpose? She had trouble imagining anyone stealing her cupcakes as some kind of vendetta, but the attack felt purposeful and personal.

  “Now what?” she whispered. There was no food to be had. Her second best option was to run, but it was dark outside. Running on a treadmill made her feel like a gerbil on a wheel, but it would have to do. The hotel had a state-of-the art, revamped fitness center. She knew because she had ordered and paid for the equipment herself.

  She plodded back to her room. Maybe she could convince Kimber to run with her. Maybe while they worked out, Kimber would confess whatever was going on with her. Lacy
couldn’t believe she hadn’t offered up anything in her own defense. It was almost like she had wanted Jason to believe she killed Summer and attacked Brady, but that couldn’t be. Kimber would never do those things.

  When she pushed open the door, she heard the unmistakable sounds of someone weeping. Kimber. But when she rounded the corner, it wasn’t Kimber. Riley was in Lacy’s bed crying, six empty cupcake packages spread around her on the bed.

  “Riley,” Lacy snapped. Her tone was probably harsh because of the heartbreakingly empty cupcake containers. Gone, all of them, gone. “What is the problem?”

  “Everything,” Riley wailed.

  Lacy tamped down her impatience. Why did Riley keep running away? Why did she keep coming to Lacy? Unless…Lacy stood still, her lashes fluttering in surprise. Was it possible that Riley kept coming to her because she actually wanted help and comfort? They had never had that type of relationship before, but everything seemed new and different with this messy version of Riley. Lacy sat and pushed Riley’s tangled mass of curls off her face. She had always envied Riley’s beautiful curls. While Lacy’s hair struggled somewhere between curly and straight, Riley’s hair fell in perfect voluminous spirals all over her head. She was the poster child for what could happen when naturally curly hair went right. Not today, though. Today her hair was big, snarled, and angry. Lacy’s fingers got caught in it, and she worked to pull them free.

  “Tell me about it,” Lacy urged in her most gentle and loving tone.

  Riley sniffed. Lacy provided her with a tissue before she could commandeer the sheets. Riley blew her nose and mopped her face. “He hates me.”

  Lacy wanted to assure her that it wasn’t true; Tosh didn’t hate anyone. But she had no idea what was going on between them, and there was the issue of the money. Had he finally found out? “Did you tell him about the money?” Lacy asked.

  Riley looked confused. “What? What money?”

  “The money you owe,” Lacy said.

  “Oh, that’s over. I told him about that before we ever got married. It’s already been paid.”

  “The debt is gone?” Lacy said.

  Riley nodded. “He made a call from the airplane when we were flying to Las Vegas. It was gone before the wedding.”

  To say Lacy was stunned was an understatement. What was holding them together if not the money? Why had they gotten married if not to pay off Riley’s debt? If it was anyone other than Tosh, she could see him arranging the marriage as some sort of payment on the debt, but Tosh wouldn’t do that. He would have given her the money free and clear with no strings. So why had they done it? “Why did you get married?” Lacy asked.

  “Why does anyone get married?” Riley wailed. “Because they’re insane.”

  Little bits and pieces of things were beginning to come together and click in Lacy’s mind: Riley’s behavior, Tosh’s behavior, the looks and touches that had passed between them, the passionate fighting, the passionate making up. She put her hands on Riley’s shoulders and gave them a shake. “Riley, are you in love with Tosh?”

  Riley blinked up at her with red, wet eyes full of misery. “Yes, and it’s horrible. It’s the worst thing in the world. Why didn’t anyone tell me it was so awful?” She pulled from Lacy’s grasp and tossed herself back onto the bed.

  Lacy sputtered a laugh and quickly mashed her hands over her mouth to stifle it. Riley wouldn’t appreciate her laughter now when she was vulnerable, but it was funny. Riley, who always had a plan, who used men like they were the tissue now wadded in her fingers, who kept herself cool, remote, and under control, had fallen for Tosh. And not just fallen, but fallen hard. “This is not a bad thing,” Lacy said when she had herself back under control.

  “Feels pretty bad,” Riley mumbled into the pillow.

  “Why?” Lacy asked. “Why does it hurt so much?”

  Riley rolled over. Her eyes were filled with so much pain and torment that Lacy felt truly sorry for her, possibly for the first time in their lives. “He doesn’t love me,” Riley whispered. “He doesn’t even like me.”

  “That’s not…”

  “Don’t,” Riley interrupted. “Don’t give me false promises and hopes. You know him, and you know me. He’s good. I’m not. I’m…well, we both know what I am, and it’s the opposite of him. There’s no way he could love me, let alone like me. I have no idea what I’m doing with him. Everything is all wrong all of the time. I feel like I’m bumbling. I feel like you.” The tissue was twisted to shreds between her nervous fingers.

  “What did you think it was going to be like when you married a stranger?” Lacy asked.

  “I thought it was going to be like you and Jason,” Riley blurted and then looked like she wished she could immediately reel the words back.

  Lacy felt inordinately and inappropriately pleased. Riley wanted to be like her? Riley wanted what she had? She remembered Jason’s abandonment, and some of her happiness faded. “Jason and I have been friends for a while. We’ve talked, spent time together, and built a solid foundation. That’s all you need to do with Tosh.”

  “How can I do that when we can’t get along? We fight all the time. I…I don’t know what I’m doing with him, Lacy. I’m going to lose him. I’m failing.” Her eye flooded with tears that spilled over and rained down her cheeks, and Lacy’s heart wrenched again. Apparently she had been squirreling away sisterly emotions her whole life because now the floodgates were open and they all came pouring out. Riley was her baby sister, and God help the man who hurt her, even if it was Tosh Underwood.

  She grasped Riley’s shoulders again and pulled her up to a sitting position until they were eye to eye. “You are Riley Steele, and you are at no man’s mercy. You are beautiful and smart and fun, and if Tosh can’t see that, then he’s an idiot. Now you listen to me, little sister. I have seen you twist men like Uri Geller’s spoons. You’ve done it a million times before, and you can do it one last time. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, stop twiddling your thumbs, and go and get your man.”

  Riley sniffed again and stared at the blanket between them. “All right, but do you think it would be okay if I took a nap first? I just ate twelve cupcakes.”

  “Sure,” Lacy said. “I’m going to work out. If Kimber comes back, will you let her know?”

  Riley nodded and laid down, her eyes already drifting closed. They would be swollen and hot from so much crying. Lacy retrieved a cool cloth from the bathroom and pressed it over her face. Riley grasped her hand. “Lacy, thanks.”

  “What are sisters for?” Lacy said. This, she thought. Finally, this. She changed into her workout clothes and grabbed a bottle of water. Riley slept through it all.

  Lacy let herself into the workout room and turned on the lights. She turned on the fan, set the machine, and started to run. Perhaps there was something to be said for using a treadmill. Without having to watch out for tree roots and cracked sidewalks, Lacy’s mind was more at ease. It began to wander and drift. The exercise room had a clear view into the pool room, and her mind drifted in that direction. Who wanted Summer dead?

  Who didn’t? she thought, and immediately struck the cruel thought from her mind. She had circulated among everyone from the band the last few days, and each of them had been a target of Summer and her gang at some point. There were bad feelings, but were any of those feelings bad enough to strike out? For that matter, what about Summer’s friends? If she made herself feel better by dragging others down, then it would stand to reason that she would do the same to her so-called friends? Brady had intimated as much when he said that Summer was a tease. Did the others feel the same? She wanted to ask Jason if Hillary, Jill, Reed, and the others held any secret grudges against Summer.

  But then there was the issue of Brady. If someone hated Summer enough to kill her, what did Brady have to do with anything? Unless the two acts weren’t related. But what were the chances of that? Was it possible to have two deranged attackers stalking their class? No, she discounted that possibility. Summer and
Brady were in the same group; they had a close connection. Reason dictated that their attack was related and probably performed by the same person. Why?

  Lacy’s thoughts were interrupted by a prickling sensation as if someone was staring at the back of her head. She turned and shot out a hand to catch herself from falling. An eye and flash of hair quickly moved from the window in the door. She turned off the treadmill and dashed out, but it was too late. Whoever it was had gone. “Hello?” she wheezed, still breathless from her run.

  Silence echoed heavily down the halls. Whoever had been watching her was either long gone or very good at being still. “Hello,” she tried again, and everything went dark.

  Chapter 11

  Lacy could hear the sound of her own loud wheezing. She was like a human bellows as her overworked lungs tried to process air after her run. Immediately she understood that someone had turned off the lights. If the electricity had gone out, then the emergency lights would have come on. But they weren’t on and, because they were in the basement, there was no light. The hallway was as black as pitch. She ducked to her knees and scrambled away from the door.

  Stop breathing, she commanded herself. She pressed her mouth to her elbow to try and muffle the sound. Somehow, it would be poetic justice if running was indirectly responsible for her demise. She crawled toward the stairs, thankful that she knew her way around the hotel. Someone was behind her, she could tell by the soft squeak of shoes on cement. Her knees ached from the crawl. Her hands burned, but still she squirmed as quickly as possible toward the stairs. The squeaking noise was still there, but now she couldn’t tell if it was coming from behind or in front of her. The slight echoes bouncing off the cement walls confused and disoriented her. What if she wasn’t crawling away from someone? What if she was crawling toward someone? Still, her best escape was the stairs. After a slight pause to regain her bearings, she began scrambling again. How did babies do this all day? Lacy was wringing with sweat and she had only been crawling a few feet.