Dean's List

by Stacy Claflin

  "Honey, it's not love," Bri said. "Whatever Dean feels for you, that's not it."

  "You know what I mean."

  Savannah shook her head. "I just can't believe you'd do that to Lydia."

  "If she was still with mystery man, she wouldn't care. Neither would you."

  "Then why not tell her?" asked Bri.

  "Really? Really?" Cara exclaimed. She looked Bri in the eyes and then Savannah. "Just let me deal with this, all right? I'll find out what's going on between Dean and Lydia, and then go from there."

  Searching

  Lydia sat in the back of the quiet coffee shop setting up the new laptop. It was slow, and a bit of a clunker, but it would do the job. She was only going to use it for the purpose of trying to figure out what Dean was hiding.

  She set it up with the pen name she used for work, and chose a password that Dean would never guess. It was a secret between Lydia and her best friend in junior high—and she doubted that Sheila Cramer would try to get into the laptop. Lydia and Sheila had created some elaborate stories about their future marriages. They had laid out every detail, down to the names of their ideal spouses and imaginary kids. The password was her dream husband's name along with the names of the kids Lydia would never have.

  Then Lydia set up a fake email account, this time not using her pen name. It couldn't be anything that linked back to her in any way. She went with the middle name of her imaginary daughter and Sheila's imaginary son's name as the last name: Ashley Jacoby. That would be easy enough to remember, but no one would have a reason to link it to her.

  Lydia had spent so much time thinking about the clippings, she had most of the names and places memorized. She powered off her phone, not wanting the distraction, but also not wanting Dean to be able to track her. She knew she was probably being paranoid, but would rather be safe. Chances were that Dean still didn't care where she went or what she did. Even when he was gone for weeks at a time, he never bothered to call and check in.

  Or maybe he didn't because he knew exactly where she was. He purchased the phones, and just like everything else, those were in his name. It would probably take little effort to find her location and even who she was calling.

  Lydia slid down into the chair, balancing the laptop on her stomach. How had she been so stupid? Of course that's what Dean was doing. He probably knew every move she made, and he probably knew all about her magazine job that she had gone to so much effort to keep from him.

  It was probably the fact that none of that money went into their household that he didn't say anything. She was working, but not because he was a failure.

  Lydia sat back up. She would have to be more careful with this computer, not giving Dean any way to get inside. She set the browser to private and typed in the name of the most recent murder victim: Jessica Aldridge, a librarian from Houston. There wasn't much more online about the killing than had been in the clipping.

  She looked for social media profiles, finding all of them private. Of course. Jessica probably taught everyone who came into her library all about Internet safety. She was probably a stickler for it herself.

  There were ways around that. Lydia set up a profile for Ashley Jacoby, setting it to private. Lydia found a free stock photo of a woman by a lake with the sun shining so her face was completely washed out. She looked around for people with open profiles and thousands of friends. Those were the types who accepted requests blindly.

  Within a half an hour Lydia—Ashley—had a legit profile complete with a couple hundred friends and more accepting requests every couple of minutes. She added some more free stock photos and even went as far as tagging some of her new "friends" in the pictures. Only one guy rejected the tag.

  Lydia smiled. Aside from the fact that the profile was just created, it looked completely legit. She interacted with some of the new friends, commenting on their statuses and photos. Then she posted some links, photos, and funny statuses which all took up space on her profile page. If someone scrolled down, they would believe she had years' worth of stuff.

  She found Jessica's profile again. Lydia sent a friend request followed by a private message: Hi Jess. Not sure if you remember me. It's been so long since we were in that one class together. What was it? History of the written word? Anyway, I just stumbled across your page and wanted to say hi. Maybe catch up. I don't know how we ever lost touch, but it would be great to hear from you. Talk soon. -Ashley.

  Lydia hit send. Obviously she didn't expect a response from Jessica, but a friend or family member probably had access to the profile, and hopefully they would contact her.

  She waited a few minutes, responding to her new friends who had commented on her stuff. It could be a while before she heard back from one of Jessica's relatives, so Lydia opened a new tab and looked for more information on another victim. The one before Jessica was Sarah Troff, a hotel manager from San Diego.

  There was a lot more on her than Jessica. Sarah had not only news articles, but a website had been created dedicated to finding her killer. Lydia wondered if Dean knew about that. She scrolled through the main page, which mostly explained what the news articles had. Nobody really knew how she had been killed. It was being investigated as suspicious circumstances.

  The site was set up to accept comments, of which there were hundreds. Some thought that it might have been an undetectable poison. Others thought she might have been scared and died from fright because she had a heart condition. Others had even more exotic ideas, but the thing that was clear was no one knew for sure, and most believed foul play.

  Lydia went to the About page, and skimmed the long post about Sarah's life. She paid more attention to the pictures scattered throughout. Sarah had been very pretty, and Lydia couldn't help noticing that she looked similar to herself, only blonde. Come to think of it, Jessica had similar features to Lydia. Dark hair in a similar style and a build much like hers. Obviously Dean had a type.

  Going through the various pages on the site, Lydia noticed several names showing up over and over. Those would be good people to add to her new social media account. Lydia switched tabs and added about ten people. In the short time she'd been looking at Sarah's page, nearly another hundred people had accepted her requests.

  Lydia interacted with some of them for a few minutes. It was actually kind of fun pretending to be someone else. She wasn't sure if it was because of the stress or not. In a way, her job was the same thing since she used a pen name. She smiled at a joke someone posted, and went to leave a comment.

  "What's so funny?"

  Lydia jumped and closed the laptop. She looked up to see Cara. "Don't scare me like that." Lydia felt like her heart was pounding out of her chest. "What are doing here?"

  Cara shrugged and sat across from Lydia. "No one could get together today, so I decided to come here for refreshment." Cara took a sip from an iced tea and looked at Lydia's computer. "What are you doing? Why the cheap laptop?"

  "This?" Lydia held it up, feeling like an idiot. How was she going to explain that?

  "Yeah. The one you're holding." Cara arched an eyebrow.

  "I didn't want to risk anything happening to my other one, so I thought I'd get one to take when I went out," Lydia lied.

  Cara put a hand on her belly and rubbed. "Interesting. You're pretty jumpy over a cheap computer."

  Lydia forced a sheepish expression. "Well, I didn't want anyone seeing me use something so inexpensive. You won't say anything will you?"

  "Me? Of course not. I'm the keeper of secrets."

  "So am I." Lydia grabbed her coffee and took a sip. "Is Ethan being any nicer?"

  "Toward me?" Cara laughed bitterly. "Hardly. You know what? After all this crap, I've lost what respect I did have for him. There's no way I can look at him the same again. Not after the things he's said to me."

  Lydia thought about some of the horrible things Dean had said to her over the years. "I can understand that. Why not leave?"

  "Why stay with Dean?" Cara leaned forward,
staring at Lydia. She seemed to be asking more than she spoke.

  Lydia squirmed in the seat. "We're getting along better now. You saw us the other night at the meeting."

  Cara leaned even closer. "But how can you forget everything that's happened between you? I could never forget some of the things he's said to you. All those affairs."

  Lydia stared at her, trying to figure out what Cara's angle was. She seemed upset that Lydia was getting along with Dean. Was she jealous because Ethan was being so terrible toward her?

  Cara sat up straight. "I just don't want to see you get hurt."

  "I can take care of myself."

  "Good to hear." Cara glanced up at a clock. "I'd better get going. I have an appointment to get to."

  "Okay. Nice running into you."

  "Always." Cara smiled sweetly. "Maybe see you tomorrow?"

  "Perhaps."

  Lydia watched as Cara walked out of the coffee shop. She couldn't shake the feeling that there was something more to the conversation than appeared. She chalked it up to hormones or Cara being on edge over the state of her marriage.

  Lydia went back to the laptop. She checked to see if anyone related to the murdered women had accepted her requests yet. They hadn't. She went to a page that had pictures of Sarah that her friends had uploaded to the site and studied the pictures. Lydia wasn't sure what she was looking for, but found them interesting.

  Some of the images were from various press conferences and others were of the crime scene—after it had been cleaned up. There were also pictures of her home and work. Her friends and family had left no stone left unturned. If any of his victims' families were going to uncover anything incriminating, it would likely be this one.

  It was too bad they were all the way in San Diego. Lydia would love to go there herself and poke around. But following the site and trying to make friends with Sarah's friends would have to do.

  Lydia pulled out her phone and scanned the list of victims. One of the older cases was in Oregon. That wasn't too far away. She could probably find an excuse to go there.

  She put her phone back in her purse and typed the Oregon victim's name into the search bar. There was a long list of articles. The first two pages were all news articles. There weren't any pages like Sarah Troff had—at least nothing Lydia could find. She clicked on a random news link. The details were the same as the clipping.

  Lydia scanned the images and froze. At a press conference, Dean stood in the audience. Lydia blinked several times, her pulse on fire. Without a doubt it was her husband.

  He had been careless.

  That meant that he had probably been careless in other ways too. This wasn't enough evidence to incriminate him, but it was a start. Lydia saved the image to the computer and bookmarked the link. Then just to be safe, she took a screen shot of the entire article. It was an obscure news source and she couldn't risk it disappearing before she went to the cops.

  Travels

  Lydia stepped out of her car into the scorching heat. She looked across the parking lot and considered parking closer for a minute. She decided against it because she needed to keep her car hidden. It was underneath a tree in between two large trucks. No one would notice it there.

  Heat assaulted her from both the sun above and the pavement below. It felt like she had traveled across the country, not one state away—still in the Pacific Northwest. She had just entered Oregon, and as soon as she got into the coffee shop she was going to check and see if she had gotten any more messages.

  The bag carrying the laptop rubbed against her leg, making her all the more uncomfortable. Oregon was having a heat wave while Seattle and the surrounding areas had cooler than average temperatures. That made the heat wave even worse. She wasn't acclimated in the slightest.

  Lydia opened the door to the coffee shop and stood just inside the entry, taking in the air conditioning. She ordered an iced tea and then made herself comfortable near the back. Lydia pulled out her laptop and once the clunker started, she checked her online profile. She had a couple dozen new friends, but no messages from anyone who knew the Oregon victim.

  Jen Pittman had turned up missing on Halloween the previous year and had been found a week later in some woods by teenagers. Jen had been a flight attendant, spending most of her free time in Hollywood but had been expected at a friend's Halloween party.

  Even though Lydia couldn't get any of Jen's friends or family to write back, she had been able to hunt down a couple addresses. So Lydia would be Ashley Jacoby, the flight attendant.

  Since there were no new messages, Lydia double checked the addresses she had written down as she finished off the tea. Everything was in order, just like her story. She was ready, although not excited about spending another hour in the car. Her butt was already numb. But at least the car was cool.

  Lydia logged off and shut down the computer. She looked around the coffee shop as the laptop took its time. Everyone was just living their lives. Some looked frazzled, but even so, Lydia envied them. They all appeared to have normal lives. Her life had been far from normal for too long, and now here she was investigating murders that she thought her husband might be behind.

  How had everything come to this? Back when they first got married, it seemed that she had the world at her fingertips. She thought anything was possible, and that all her dreams would come true. Her entire body had buzzed with excitement for what the future held for her.

  Everyone had been talking to her about the wedding and honeymoon, but Lydia couldn't stop thinking about having a bunch of little Deans running around at their feet. They both wanted three kids, maybe four if the first three were all boys or girls. They had spent hours talking about what their life would be like.

  When her friends complained about their fiancés and avoided talking about kids, Dean had been more than eager. He wanted to coach soccer like his dad had for him. He couldn't wait to take them camping. Dean's eyes had lit up when talking about teaching his kids to fish and then prepare the meat.

  The one thing they hadn't discussed was what would happen if they couldn't have kids. It hadn't crossed either of their minds—at least not Lydia's. If Dean had thought about it, he hadn't said anything. But that had changed everything, and Dean didn't want to adopt. He wasn't going to raise someone else's kid.

  Lydia had tried to explain that wasn't the way adoption worked. The children would become their own, but he wouldn't hear anything about it. He cited cases where biological parents had come to rip kids away from their loving, adoptive families. He wouldn't risk having that happen.

  Had that been the start of his killing spree? Lydia didn't know if the papers in the box were the full story. They only went back a couple years. She had already hooked up with Chad by then, which meant that Dean had pulled away from her a while before that. How long? Lydia tapped her finger, calculating the difference.

  It had to have been at least six months before Chad since Dean had gone near Lydia in a romantic kind of way. But would their inability to have a baby be enough reason for him to start this? It was a really extreme way to deal with it—to put it mildly. Cheating would have made sense, and that's why Lydia had suspected it and eventually gone in that direction herself.

  Not that she'd set out to, but after she ran into Chad practically every day in different locations around town it seemed like that was who fate…or some other force…was guiding her toward. So she had struck up a conversation with him one day when she ran into him at lunch. She usually talked with people easily, but Chad was an entirely different case. After only five minutes, they both felt like they were talking with someone they'd known for a lifetime, and since they were both really frustrated with their marriages, one thing led to another pretty quickly.

  Lydia shook her head to clear it. It wasn't the time to think about Chad. All it took was trying to figure out a date when Dean might have changed, and she was gushing over Chad… again.

  He was controlling and could be a jerk when he didn't get his own
way. But wasn't that just the way men were? They could be nice and tell the ladies everything they want to hear, but then once they got what they wanted, everything changed. It was just a man thing, and most guys didn't kill people.

  Lydia stood up and headed for her car. She would have to think more about his behavior while she drove. Even if she did find something that should have told her what was going on, what good would it do to know now? She had obviously missed anything that had already been there.

  She turned on the car, cranked the AC, and then scrolled through the upcoming directions on the GPS to give herself an idea of what was coming up. It was mostly a straight shot with only a few turns before she got to Jen's town.

  While she drove, Lydia couldn't help going over everything she could remember about Dean. Aside from his frequent travels—that everyone always commented on—there wasn't anything she could think of that would have given her any reason to believe something sinister was going on.

  Sure, he was gone a lot, but that just pointed to how driven he was with work and how unhappy he was at home. Lydia couldn't give him the one thing he wanted, so he didn't want to be around her. That was hardly rocket science.

  What about his childhood? That was something he rarely talked about, even when Lydia asked questions. His dad expected perfection. A test score of ninety-eight percent wasn't good enough. The man refused to give any praise even when Dean did score perfectly, which had been often.

  Dean had often quoted his father's response to a perfect test score. "You expect me to praise you for what you're supposed to be doing?" Dean's voice always held the same amount of smugness each time when he mimicked his father, so it was clear that he'd heard it a lot even though eventually he'd stopped trying to get approval from his dad.