by Debra Webb
But he wasn’t ready to go there just yet.
“What did your sister’s friends think of her trying out for the cheerleading squad?” The three, Joanna, Sherry and Donna, appeared fairly inseparable. Were her friends happy to sit on the sidelines and cheer her on as her sister had?
“Oh, no, they all tried out.” Dana touched the faces in the photo and smiled. “Like the three musketeers. They did everything together.”
Was that also why they died within a week of each other? A shot in the dark, yet one worth considering.
“Joanna and Sherry didn’t make the squad, either?”
“Not technically. I think they might have been alternates like Donna.” She shrugged. “Something like that. Mostly I remember they were depressed for days.”
“When Lorie hung out with your sister, did she hang out with Joanna and Sherry, too?”
Deep concentration lined its way across Dana’s smooth brow. “I can’t remember ever seeing all of them together, but,” she said as she turned her palms up, “that may be something else I’ve forgotten.”
“Okay.” He closed the yearbook and placed it on the bedside table. “Next we go to the library and look at what the newspapers were printing at the time of the murders. You may see something that jars your memory.”
The yearbook hadn’t stirred anything significant. But maybe the headlines would. According to O’Brien it could be a single word, person, image or event that might suddenly tap through the wall into that well of hidden recollection.
After that, Spence had other people on his list to interview. Like Patty Shepard and Ginger Ellis. Maybe he would start with Ginger, the outspoken waitress, since she appeared to have plenty to say.
Dana crossed the room to where her purse sat on the table. “You know I forgot to turn in one of my keys to the manager. He may try to charge you for three rooms.”
It wasn’t like the motel had any other guests, but Spence understood what she meant.
“We can turn in the key to room thirteen.” He reached for his car keys. “You leave your stuff in twelve, but you’ll be sleeping here.”
Dana’s lips parted as if she might argue that decision.
“No arguments. I don’t want you out of my sight for the rest of our time here.”
She sighed. “Okay.” She laughed, but the sound held no humor. “According to everyone else, it’s me you should be afraid of.”
Spence gave her a reassuring smile. “I’m reserving judgment for now.”
Dana hung the strap of her purse on her shoulder and lifted her gaze to his for an extended moment. “Thank you.”
“For what?” He drew his eyebrows together in question. “For not being afraid to share a room with you or for doing my job?”
“For reserving judgment.”
She opened the door and stepped out; he followed. He inserted the key in the lock and gave it a turn. The way things were going around here, if someone wanted in the room a mere lock wouldn’t stop them. But Spence wasn’t going to make it easy.
Dana’s hand settled on his arm. When he looked up she sent a look toward the street.
A Brighton Police Department cruiser was parked in the supermarket lot across the street.
Spence could guess what that meant. Lorie Venable had reported their visit.
The chief would be watching their every move from this point forward.
Odd. Dana wanted the truth. Nothing more.
Shouldn’t the chief of police want that, too?
Chapter Twelve
Dana felt cold.
Ice cold.
Her vision blurred as she stared at the screen.
Tragedy Strikes Small Town a Second Time
…a third girl is found dead…
Dana couldn’t read this stuff anymore. She’d lost count of the newspapers. The dozens of headlines churned in her brain. It was like reading a story about someone else. She knew it happened, yet she couldn’t recall experiencing any of it personally.
What was wrong with her?
Why couldn’t she just remember that night!
Dana closed her eyes and tried to stop the spinning inside her head.
“Hey,” Spence said quietly.
For one moment Dana kept her eyes closed, enjoying the feel of his warm hand on hers. He made her feel safe. No one had made her feel this protected since…before that night. It didn’t hurt that he was tall and strong-looking with broad shoulders. She liked his eyes. Dark and soothing.
“They’re ready to lock up. They’re just waiting for us to go.”
Dana opened her eyes and looked around. He was right. The library was deserted save for the two women behind the front desk. The return counter and carts had been cleared. She’d had no idea it was eight o’clock already.
“Right.” As she grabbed her purse she felt compelled to apologize. “I’m sorry we’ve wasted more time.”
“Anything we do that gives us more information is not a waste of time.”
She had to try and remember that. Finding the answers, the truth, was the goal. Each detail discovered was one additional, however tiny, step toward that seemingly elusive goal.
Going to the Colby Agency was the best decision she’d made in a long time. No, scratch that. It was the best decision she’d ever made. The idea of facing these people—people she’d known her whole life—alone was unimaginable. He made it bearable.
Spence was right beside her as they passed the front desk. With him next to her she could tolerate the way the librarians stared at her. She knew what they were thinking. What everyone in this town appeared to think. She couldn’t let that deter her from her goal.
As she reached for the door, a poster snagged her attention. She stalled, read the words that accompanied the image of an author’s upcoming release.
Private Confessions…One Woman’s Journal
Journal.
She’d kept a journal when she was a kid.
Images and words exploded in her brain.
“Is something wrong?”
Dana blinked. She turned to Spence. “I kept a journal.”
The anticipation that lit his eyes signaled that he understood this could be important.
It could be really important.
Dana couldn’t get to the car fast enough. Her mind whirled with the possible places she might have hidden her journal. She’d kept one, faithfully. She just had to recall where she’d put it last.
In her room somewhere.
The room was trashed. What if someone had found it and taken it?
Dana couldn’t catch her breath until they were in the car and headed toward the house on Waverly Street. She’d written her innermost thoughts in a journal since she could form sentences. How had she forgotten that?
Her heart was racing now. Her palms were sweating. Would she have written about that night?
“Hurry.”
“Well,” Spence said, “since that deputy is still following us around, staying under the speed limit might be the best course of action.”
Dana hadn’t realized she’d said the word out loud. “Sorry, I was just thinking aloud.”
Spence flashed her a smile. Even with nothing more than the dash lights, the gesture made her feel secure. And unafraid.
Ice-cold fear stabbed deep into her chest.
What if they were right?
What if she was the one…?
He would hate her then.
When Spence parked in the driveway, Dana couldn’t move.
He climbed out of the car.
She couldn’t breathe.
He hesitated at the front of the car. She could see him in the moonlight.
Move. Her body refused to cooperate.
He walked around to her side of the car and opened the door. “Come on,” he urged gently. “I’ll be right there with you every step of the way.”
She could do this. She had to do this.
Her fear about this was so tangible…so overwhelming. She felt
like a helpless child.
Dana put one foot on the pavement and pushed up and out of the car. She could do it.
The house was dark. Even the moonlight didn’t help the looming structure. Her movements were stiff as she followed Spence onto the porch. This had been her home as a child. The only home she’d ever known. She shouldn’t be afraid. Nothing bad had happened inside this house…until after she moved away.
Spence unlocked the door. “Wait. I should get a flashlight.”
He jogged down the steps and hurried across the street. The lights were on at the Bellomy house. It wasn’t ten yet, so they were probably still up.
Dana hugged herself. She looked around the dark porch and tried to picture playing here. The porch had been her mother’s favorite place to sit in the evening. She and Dana’s dad would wave to the Bellomys, sip their evening tea and talk about how things were changing in town.
How was it she could remember those details and not one thing she and Donna had done on those same evenings? It was like her entire personal history began and ended that one night. Nothing before was clear, nothing for days afterward that could be retrieved.
The night’s chill had leached deep beneath her skin by the time Spence returned with a heavy-duty flashlight. Inside, he waited for her to catch up. She’d stalled in the doorway.
“You want to wait until morning to do this?”
It took every ounce of courage she possessed not to take him up on that suggestion. Waiting until tomorrow would only delay what she’d already waited sixteen years to know.
“No. I’m through waiting.”
“Where would you like to start?”
He had to know the answer to that question. There was only one place to look.
Her bedroom.
“The bedroom. You go first,” she urged.
He moved down the hall, allowing the flashlight’s beam to rove the area in front of them. Dana’s pulse wouldn’t slow. No matter how long she held her breath or how deep the breaths, her heart rate wouldn’t slow.
At the door, she braced for the cruel images beyond. He opened the door, and she followed him into the room. The ugliness rammed her senses all over again. Voices whispered in her ears.
You can’t go…they don’t want you there.
Dana shivered.
It’s not my fault. They just don’t like you.
Dana resisted the impulse to put her hands over her ears. It was Donna’s voice, but she didn’t remember her saying those things.
“You okay?”
Dana jerked from the disturbing thoughts. “Yes. I’m fine.”
“Why don’t you hold the light? I’ll pick through things.”
She accepted the flashlight and took a deep, steadying breath. She could do this. Focusing the beam on his movements, she mentally inventoried the items as he sifted through the strewn pieces of her past.
A blue-and-white school sweater. The teddy bear she hadn’t been able to give up as a preschooler. Donna’s favorite teen magazine. Stuff…so much stuff.
“Did you have a special hiding place for your journal?” he asked after digging around for what felt like an hour.
“I must have.” Why couldn’t she remember? Damn it!
Think! It couldn’t be that difficult. How many places were there to hide things?
They opened each drawer, sifted through the closets…
Nothing.
Her anxiety gave way to frustration. She’d kept a journal. It had to be here.
She needed it to be here so this could finally be over.
While she held the light, Spence disassembled the beds. Nothing under the mattresses.
Nothing anywhere.
Okay. Think. Maybe she’d hidden it somewhere else in the house. If her goal was to keep her private thoughts a secret from her sister, their shared bedroom wouldn’t have been the best hiding place.
“We should check the other rooms,” she suggested. She hoped with all her heart this wasn’t going to be another dead end.
“Wait.”
Spence held her back when she would have headed for the door. “What’s wrong?”
“Do you smell that?”
Dana inhaled a lungful of air. There was an odor…it tingled in her throat.
“Smoke.”
The single word he uttered settled like shackles around her limbs. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.
The flashlight fell from her limp fingers. Bounced on the floor, sending bobs of light across the wall.
He grabbed her arm and reached for the abandoned flashlight simultaneously. “We have to get out of here.”
Smoke…the word filtered through the layers of disbelief. That meant…
Fire.
Chapter Thirteen
It was past midnight.
Dana sat on the steps of the Bellomy porch and watched the firemen roll up their hoses.
The full moon seemed to spotlight the blackened shell that had once been her home. All their worldly possessions had gone up in flames. Going through the rubble might reveal a few salvageable items.
The things from before her life as she knew it ended.
“Dear, are you sure I can’t get you something?”
Mrs. Bellomy hovered nearby. She wanted to help. She’d offered a blanket, a cup of hot chocolate, a good, stiff drink. But Dana felt too numb to interact with another human on any level.
Knowing she was waiting for some sort of response, Dana managed a faint shake of her head. Thankfully that seemed to satisfy Mrs. Bellomy. She disappeared back into her home.
Spence and the chief were still deep into what looked like a heated exchange. The spotlights the firemen had settled around the house to facilitate their efforts showcased the tension between the two men.
If Dana’s memories about the journal could be trusted, then that insight into the past was lost. All her sister’s things. Their stuffed animals and dolls…the artwork their mother had collected over the years.
Everything.
Gone.
Her sister and father were dead. The family home was destroyed. If something happened to Dana’s mother, there would be no one left who remembered the time when they were happy.
Dana tried hard to recall that time. Before the murders. Way before. But those memories were foggy. When had she stopped remembering those days?
Was there something wrong with her? Really, truly wrong. Like a brain tumor? There had to be a logical explanation of why she couldn’t recall those final days of her sister’s life. Was her condition growing progressively worse? How else would she explain the fogginess that appeared determined to descend over all she should be able to recall?
The screen door behind Dana squeaked as it opened, then closed with a swat of wood against wood. Mrs. Bellomy settled onto the steps next to Dana.
Dana closed her eyes and tried to summon some kind of emotion. She felt utterly blank. She couldn’t cry. Couldn’t scream. Nothing.
“I’ll call your mother in the morning, if you’d like. No use upsetting her in the middle of the night.”
Dana hadn’t even thought of that. Of course her mother would need to know. “Thank you.”
“Carlton tried to properly see after the place all these years. But it’s not the same when no one’s living in a home. Things just go down. It’s like the house is sad because it’s empty and it slowly, surely falls apart.”
Dana’s gaze followed the organized chaos across the street as the firemen continued to go about the final steps of their business. Mrs. Bellomy was right. The house had been abandoned…left to disintegrate.
“The chief says it was probably a faulty electrical problem.”
Dana nodded, the words scarcely registering.
“I know you feel you have to do the right thing, Dana,” Mrs. Bellomy went on, “but I don’t think you’re doing yourself any good here. Carlton and I were so happy to see you again, but this is tearing you apart. Why don’t you put all this behind you and get back to
your real life in Chicago? You can’t do any good here. Nothing’s going to change no matter what you find.”
For the first time since Dana had decided to go to the Colby Agency, she seriously questioned the whole point of what she was doing.
Mrs. Bellomy was probably right—they all were.
Dana was hurting people, particularly her mother, by being back here. No one would cooperate with her efforts. She hit a brick wall everywhere she turned. And the few details she did discover all pointed to what her nightmares already told her.
She had killed her sister…
Why was she bothering to look?
Was the chief protecting her? Had her mother and father been protecting her when they rushed her away from here?
If her nightmares were true, then Dana deserved nothing better than what she’d had the past sixteen years. She’d muddled her way through college, hadn’t had a real relationship. She barely dated. She existed…nothing more.
She didn’t even deserve that.
The numbness faded, leaving an emptiness that was far worse.
She should have died that night. Not Donna. Everyone had loved Donna. Dana had been nobody. Her life had never impacted anyone’s until sixteen years ago when she’d destroyed three families, including her own.
“You’re right.” Dana pushed to her feet. “I should go.”
Mrs. Bellomy called after Dana, but she just kept walking. Spence and the chief were still deeply involved in their conversation. No one noticed as she passed. Dana was glad. She didn’t want to talk anymore. She didn’t want to think.
And she definitely didn’t want to remember.
Walking in the direction of town wasn’t a conscious decision. It was just the way the road went, and she followed it.
As bright as the moon was, there were no stars visible. The glow filtered through the barren trees. Leaves danced along the pavement as the wind picked up. Dana shivered.
A car had rolled up next to her without her noticing. She started. The driver slowed, peered out at her and then drove on. Dana hugged her arms around herself. She looked around the tree-lined street that led into Brighton proper. It was a few more blocks before she reached the next neighborhood. She probably shouldn’t have taken off on her own since she obviously had no friends around here. So far everyone she’d encountered wanted her out of here and considered her crazy or a killer or both.