Orphaned in Cherry Hills

by Paige Sleuth

  “Did he have any white spots?”

  Julie thought for a moment. “Yeah, a tiny one, right on his chest.”

  Kat studied the three strands pinched between her forefinger and thumb. Could all three of these hairs have fallen out of the same tiny white patch?

  Julie sucked in a breath, her body shooting off the couch. “Hold up.”

  Kat swiveled toward her. “You thought of something?”

  “Brianna has a white cat.”

  “Brianna?”

  “They’re Brianna’s mom’s cats, really. Turtle and Tucker.” Julie met Kat’s gaze, her face draining of color. “They’re both pure white, and they shed everywhere.”

  Kat considered that. “So you could have picked up this fur from Brianna.”

  Julie shook her head. “I’ve never shown Brianna Mom’s sweater.”

  “Well, if this is her cats’ fur, it had to have been transferred to your mom’s sweater after you moved to Cherry Hills.”

  “I guess . . . unless . . .”

  “Unless what?”

  Julie looked at her, her eyes threatening to pop out of their sockets. “Brie used to live in Seattle.”

  Kat stilled, certain she must have misheard.

  Then she remembered the parking sticker she’d spotted on Brianna’s car. She smacked her palm against her forehead, wondering why she hadn’t put the connection together sooner. Between that parking sticker and the signs she’d seen erected along Ms. Dearborn’s street, she should have realized herself that Brianna had once lived in Seattle.

  “You don’t think Brianna killed Mom, do you?” Julie asked, a tremor in her voice.

  “I don’t know.” Kat’s mind was whirling, but she couldn’t seem to latch on to any specific conclusions. “I don’t know what to think.”

  Julie poked at her lip ring with her tongue. “But we didn’t know each other in Seattle.”

  Kat forced herself to focus. Even if Brianna had known the Conways four years ago, did it make sense to suspect the girl of murder? Her obvious disdain for adults aside, she would have been eleven or twelve at the time. It seemed unlikely that Carolyn would have invited a twelve-year-old over to the house when her own twelve-year-old daughter was away at a sleepover. And it seemed even more unlikely that a child would be responsible for an act so monstrous.

  But that didn’t mean Brianna wasn’t linked to Carolyn’s killer somehow.

  “What about your mothers?” Kat asked, sitting up straighter. “Did your mothers know each other?”

  Julie frowned. “I don’t think so. But maybe.”

  “Well, there’s one way to find out.” Kat jumped off the couch, prompting the two Russian Blues still in the room to raise their heads. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Kat’s heart thumped against her rib cage during the drive to Brianna’s house. And, judging from the way Julie kept squirming in her seat, the teenager was just as anxious about their mission as Kat was.

  But the closer they got to their destination, the more Kat’s confidence waned. So what if Brianna and her mother had once lived in Seattle? Millions of other people could say the same. It didn’t mean one of them was guilty of murder.

  But Kat couldn’t back out now. This was the only lead they had.

  Julie’s leg bounced, her fingers drumming against her kneecap as they kept time to a tune only she could hear. On impulse, Kat reached across the console and covered Julie’s hand with one of her own.

  Julie stopped fidgeting and looked at Kat. Kat wondered if she could sense how uncharacteristic the gesture was for her. She had never been the touchy-feely type. But she couldn’t deny she was growing rather fond of the teenager.

  Kat cleared her throat and pulled her hand back. “You realize nothing might come of this, right?”

  “I know.” Julie jerked forward, her forehead nearly colliding with the windshield. “There’s Brie’s house.”

  Kat pulled up to the curb. Disappointment welled inside her chest when she didn’t see the blue sedan in the driveway. Then she remembered Brianna mentioning that her mom kept the car in the garage.

  “Think they’re home?” Kat asked.

  Julie threw the door open. “Brie should be. She’s grounded.”

  Kat started to ask if they should review their story before going inside, but Julie was already halfway up the driveway.

  Kat caught up with her on the porch. Through the narrow glass windows flanking the front door, she could see two beautiful white Persians pressed between the glass and the gauzy white fabric that preserved the privacy of the people inside. The cats peered at her with bright copper eyes, their flat muzzles turned up in curiosity. What would they think if they knew about their role in leading her here?

  The door flew open. Brianna grinned when she spotted Julie, but her smile faded as soon as she noticed Kat standing beside her.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “Did you know my mom?” Julie blurted out.

  “Your mom?” Brianna wrinkled her nose. “You said she was dead.”

  “She is. Did you used to know her though?” Julie looked desperate as she latched onto Brianna’s arm with both hands. “Way back when?”

  “No.” Brianna squinted at her friend. “Why? What’s up, Jules?”

  Julie’s hands fell back down to her sides. She swiveled toward Kat, a wild look in her eyes. Kat gave her what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

  “Ugh.” Brianna glared at the Persian cats as they circled around her feet. “Can’t you dimwits leave me alone for one second?”

  “What’s going on out here?” A tall blond woman appeared in the doorway and looked down her nose at Brianna. “You’re supposed to be grounded, young lady, not out here talking to your friends.”

  Brianna scowled. “Hey, she just showed up. Should I have slammed the door in her face?”

  The woman glanced at Kat. “Hello. You don’t look like one of Brianna’s friends.”

  “Kat’s my friend,” Julie piped up.

  The woman’s eyebrows rose to the center of her forehead, the question of how a sixteen-year-old had acquired a friend twice her age reflected in her eyes.

  Kat coughed. “We’d actually like to speak to you as well, Ms. . . .”

  “Van Dusen,” the woman replied. “But call me Donna.”

  Kat tried to smile, but her lips wouldn’t cooperate. “Could we come in and chat?”

  “I suppose.”

  Donna stepped back and motioned for them to follow. As though the gesture had been for their benefit, the cats scrambled after her. Brianna looked almost jealous as she watched Donna stop to pick up the closest one, and Kat had to wonder if there might be some bizarre ‘sibling’ rivalry between the three of them.

  Donna led them into the living area. Julie and Kat sat beside each other on the loveseat while Donna and the cats settled onto the longer couch facing them. Brianna chose to remain standing, folding her arms over her stomach as she slouched against the wall.

  Donna patted the cushion beside her. “Brianna, come sit down.”

  Brianna made a sour face, but she did plant herself on the couch, opting to sit as far from Donna as she could get. One of the Persians gave her a supercilious look before crawling into Donna’s lap. If Kat didn’t know better, she would think the feline was intentionally goading the teenager.

  Donna stroked the cat. “So, what’s this about?”

  Kat crossed her legs, doing her best to look casual. “We heard you used to live in Seattle.”

  Donna shot Brianna a look. Brianna mouthed the word What? back at her.

  “We were wondering if you knew Julie’s mom,” Kat continued, watching Donna carefully. “Her name was Carolyn Conway.”

  Donna’s face turned the same shade of white as the cat in her lap, and the hand she had been using to pet him froze in place. Her reaction was all the encouragement Kat needed to continue.

  “We’ve located evidence that suggests you were in
the Conways’ house around the time of Carolyn’s death.” She deliberately omitted the fact that their evidence amounted to a few unidentified white hairs pulled from Carolyn’s sweater four years after the fact. “Tell me, were you there the day she died?”

  No one moved. Even the cats seemed immobilized as five pairs of eyes—three human and two feline—locked on to Donna. Kat couldn’t be sure, but she thought Donna’s hands might be shaking.

  Kat planted her feet on the floor and rested her elbows on her knees. “Donna, if you were there, you need to tell us. Julie lost her mother that night. Don’t you think she deserves to know what happened?”

  The sob that erupted from Donna then broke the spell everyone seemed to be under. Brianna swayed farther against the edge of the sofa. Julie flinched, and the cats scampered off, darting in two different directions as they fled the room.

  Donna buried her face in her hands. “It was an accident.”

  Questions swirled through Kat’s head. She gripped the loveseat armrest, trying to ground herself long enough to ask some of them. “What was your connection with Carolyn?”

  Donna’s eyes filled with tears. “We met in a grief support group for people who had lost their spouses. Both of our husbands died around the same time.”

  “And you socialized outside of the group as well?” Kat asked.

  “I only went to her house that one time. That weekend would have been my fifteenth wedding anniversary, if Brianna’s father had managed to beat his cancer. After group, I was so upset I wept in my car, too shaky to drive home. Carolyn saw me, and she tapped on the window to see if I was okay. I opened the passenger door, and we ended up talking for some time. Then she invited me over to her house. She didn’t think I should be alone.”

  Kat looked at Julie, trying to gauge her reaction to Donna’s confession. She appeared to be handling it well, but Kat thought she might still be in shock.

  In contrast, Brianna wore her own shock on her face. From the way her jaw practically touched her knees, it was clear she hadn’t known anything about her mother’s involvement in Carolyn’s death prior to now. Kat took some comfort from that. She would hate to think Julie’s friend had been keeping something so huge a secret from her.

  Donna worked on smoothing out a wrinkle in her pants. “Carolyn lived a few miles from me. I figured I’d drop in for ten minutes or so, then head home. But when I got there she went straight for the kitchen, asking if I wanted to help her decorate cookies for a bake sale.”

  “It was for my school,” Julie said, sounding impossibly young.

  Donna lifted her eyes up to meet Julie’s. “I know, honey.”

  Julie met her gaze, but her quivering chin betrayed the fact that she was struggling to maintain her composure.

  Donna bowed her head. “I followed Carolyn into the kitchen. She tasked me with putting eyes and mouths on some gingerbread men she’d baked earlier.”

  “Raisins and red licorice,” Julie said.

  Donna nodded. “Yes, she used raisins for the eyes, and licorice for the mouths.”

  “She wanted them to be somewhat h—heal—healthy,” Julie said, hyperventilating on the last word as she visibly struggled not to break down.

  “While we worked, she never once brought up my husband, sticking to mundane topics like the weather and our jobs. It dawned on me later that she had been trying to distract me from my grief. And it worked. After a while I started to feel like my old, relaxed self again.”

  She obviously wasn’t relaxed now, Kat thought. Donna’s posture was stiff, her back ramrod straight. Not that anyone else in the room looked any more comfortable.

  “I had just finished sticking eyes on several cookies and was working on the mouths when it happened. The licorice sticks were too large for one gingerbread man, so I was cutting them into thirds.” Donna shut her eyes and drew in a deep breath. “The dog must have snuck in while we were working.”

  Julie jolted in her seat. “Voldemort?”

  Donna pried her eyes open. “Is that his name?”

  Julie nodded.

  Donna swallowed. “I wasn’t expecting him. See, I’m afraid of dogs.”

  Brianna’s wide-eyed gaze hadn’t left her mother’s face since she’d began the tale, but now it dipped down. Kat followed the direction of her gaze, spotting the jagged scar that wrapped around Donna’s left wrist. She’d bet money a dog was to blame for the wound.

  “The dog startled me into dropping a piece of licorice,” Donna said, her voice wavering. “And when he saw it, he lunged. Except, during that split second I thought he was lunging at me. I reacted on pure instinct.”

  Donna stopped to dry her face on the sleeve of her blouse. Kat thought about offering her a tissue from the box on the table beside her, but her limbs felt heavy with the anticipation of what they all knew was coming next.

  “I still had the knife in my hand that I’d been using to cut the licorice, and I thrust it at the dog when he came at me—or, rather, when I thought he was coming at me. My reaction was automatic. So was Carolyn’s. She must have grabbed for him at the same time I went to defend myself. And . . . and I ended up stabbing her.”

  Julie whimpered. Kat’s stomach clenched when she saw the raw emotion reflected on the teenager’s face. She opened her mouth to ask if this was too much for her, but Donna had already resumed her narrative.

  “When I realized what I had done, I tried to save her. I pulled the knife out, but that only made the blood come faster. Before I knew it, she had stopped breathing.” Donna clutched the sides of her head. “And that dog, he went berserk. He kept jumping and barking. With all the racket he was making, I couldn’t think straight.”

  “He was protecting her,” Julie rasped.

  Donna’s expression was soft as she looked at Julie. “I know, honey. I know that now. But back then . . . I panicked. I just wanted to get away from there, away from that dog, and away from what I’d done.”

  “Why didn’t you call for help after you left?” Kat asked.

  “Because I killed her!” Donna pressed her fist against her mouth for a second before dropping it back to her lap. “I couldn’t have the police throwing me in jail. Brianna needed me. I was the only parent she had left. So I threw on my coat to cover up the blood, tucked the knife underneath, and hurried down the street to where I’d parked my car.”

  Kat frowned. “You parked down the street?”

  “Have you ever seen how difficult it can be to find parking in Seattle?”

  Kat conceded her point with a nod.

  “When I made it home, I buried that knife and my bloody clothes deep in the garbage and got rid of everything as soon as I could.”

  “The police never questioned you?” Kat asked.

  Donna shook her head. “I don’t think they realized we knew each other. Our grief support group was open to the public, and the faces changed every week. It was easy to get lost there. And I doubt many people noticed me. I always sat in the back, still working up the courage to share my story with the others. I’m not sure anyone knew my name, but if they did it would have only been my first name.”

  Kat wondered if it would have made a difference if the police had known about Donna’s connection to Carolyn. Probably not. Unless she’d ended up breaking down and confessing, they likely would have dismissed her as a suspect the minute they realized she had no motive.

  An accident, Kat thought, sick over the notion of how one, split-second gut reaction had altered so many lives.

  “Every time I read her name in the papers or saw her face on TV I would break out in a cold sweat,” Donna said, twisting her fingers together. “I kept waiting for the police to show up at my office, at my house, at the store. But they never did.” She glanced at Kat. “What did you find that led back to me?”

  “White cat hairs,” Kat told her.

  Donna’s lips parted slightly. “You mean from Turtle and Tucker?”

  “Yes.”

  As though they’d bee
n summoned, the two Persians sauntered back into the room. They met near the cat tree by the wall, touched noses, then proceeded to hop their way up to the top two levels.

  “She must have picked them up from my car,” Donna murmured, “when she was sitting in the passenger seat, consoling me. Their hair is all over that car.”

  “That’s what you get for taking them to the groomers all the time,” Brianna muttered, scowling at the cats.

  Donna didn’t appear to hear her, her attention transfixed on Julie. “Julie, honey, I am so, so sorry.”

  Julie’s nostrils flared. “You didn’t even try to save her.”

  Donna bent forward, imploring Julie with her eyes. “I would have. But she went so fast. There was nothing I could do.”

  Julie swiped at the silent tears that began to cascade down her cheeks. The sight of her looking so miserable broke Kat’s heart, and she reached over and touched the girl’s knee.

  “She loved you very much, you know.” Donna stifled a sob. “As she was dying, her last words to me were ‘watch over Julie.’”

  Julie paused from brushing her tears away. “She said that?”

  Donna nodded. “Honoring Carolyn’s dying wish was the least I could do, so I followed you here.”

  “Hold up.” Brianna vaulted off the sofa and jabbed a finger in Julie’s direction. “You’re saying we moved to this hick town because of her?”

  “Yes, honey.”

  Brianna narrowed her eyes at Julie, her lips compressing into a thin, white line.

  “We never met in Seattle, so I needed an in with you here,” Donna told Julie. “Luckily, people in this town love to talk. It didn’t take long before I learned your aunt adored cats and owned a handful. So I staged a run-in with her at the pet supply store.”

  Julie’s face flushed red. “You shouldn’t have bothered. You should have stayed in Seattle. You ruined my life!”

  Donna bobbed her head. “I know, honey. And I’ll never forgive myself for that.”

  Brianna whirled around to face her mother. “What about me?”

  Donna blinked up at her. “What about you?”

  “You ruined my life, too, you know.”