by N L Hinkens
“Yes. Thankfully, I kept the card. I turned it over to the police. They want to do some kind of handwriting analysis on it.”
The gears in Heather’s brain were whirring. Evidently, the police thought the possibility of the threatening message and the arson being connected had some merit. But it would take time to compare the handwriting on the card to that of everyone who had attended the class reunion. Even if the police followed through on it, there was no guarantee they would find a match. Still, it was worth a shot. It was the only potential lead they had.
“I’ve been thinking it over,” Reagan rambled on. “There is another possibility. I’m worried Roy—my ex—might be behind it.”
Heather rubbed her fingers across her brow. “What makes you say that?”
“I got custody of Lucy after we split. He was furious about it. He swore he’d get even with me. I haven’t heard anything from him in a while, but it’s possible he’s been plotting all this time.”
“I doubt he’d take the risk of causing a wreck in front of potential witnesses,” Heather responded. “In my experience, violent exes are far more likely to wait in a dark alley or break into a woman’s house at night when she’s all alone and defenseless, cowards that they are.”
“You don’t know Roy like I do,” Reagan said, with a tremor in her voice. “Road rage is right up his alley.”
“It still doesn’t explain the arson,” Heather countered. “What reason would Roy have to target Marco?”
For a long moment, there was silence on the other end of the line.
Heather puckered her forehead. “Reagan? Are you still there?”
“Yes. Just trying to think, that’s all. I don’t know why Roy does what he does. He doesn’t act rationally when he’s been drinking. Maybe he was trying to lash out at me by hurting my friends.”
“Did you share your concerns with the police?”
There was another long pause before Reagan responded. “I can’t. I don’t know for sure if Roy’s behind it. If he finds out I went to the police, he might come after me, or Lucy.”
Alarm bells were going off in Heather’s head. Reagan was skirting around her questions. There was something she wasn’t telling her—some connection between Marco and Roy that Reagan didn’t want her to know about. Were they acquainted with each other? And if so, how? It’s not like they went to the same school. Heather couldn’t picture them socializing together. From what she’d gathered, Roy hadn’t liked Reagan getting together with her old school friends.
“Isn’t there something you can do to get to the bottom of it?” Reagan asked. “I can pay you for your time.”
“It’s not about the money,” Heather answered. “I just don’t think there’s much I can add to what’s already being done. The police are investigating the arson and you’re only speculating that someone deliberately cut you off on the freeway. You’re making an assumption that two random events have an underlying connection.”
“You don’t understand,” Reagan protested. “They are connected.”
“How can you be so sure?” Heather asked. “Is there something you’re not telling me? I can’t help you if you’re not being honest with me.”
Reagan cleared her throat. “This is really … difficult. I’m taking a huge risk. I need you to promise me you won’t breathe a word of this to the others—or to anyone else, for that matter.”
Heather’s brain blared an inner warning. It was happening again. A pact to keep a dirty little secret. Just like she’d promised to keep Lindsay’s. She didn’t want the responsibility—or the emotional baggage that went along with it. What could Reagan possibly have to tell her that she didn’t want to share with the others? Did Marco and Roy have some kind of long-standing rift? Perhaps Marco had fired Roy at some point. Heather had never actually met Roy Krueger, but, by all accounts, he was a powder keg of anger. And Marco could get riled up and lose his temper in half a heartbeat too. Maybe they’d gotten into a physical altercation. After deliberating for a moment or two, she said, “I can promise you this, I won’t say anything to the others so long as it’s not detrimental to them.”
“It has nothing to do with them,” Reagan insisted. “But for Marco’s sake, Josh and Sydney can’t find out what I’m about to tell you.”
Heather shifted Phoebe’s position in her lap, growing more intrigued by the minute. Had Marco done something illegal—beaten Roy up or threatened him? That would certainly explain why Reagan didn’t want to go to the police.
“It was years ago,” Reagan began, her voice small and wistful. “I was in a bad spot. Roy was abusive from the start of our relationship, but I hid it from everyone. Sometimes, when I needed to get out of the house, I would go to Marco’s restaurant—he only had one location back then. He’d let me sit at a little table near the kitchen. On slow nights, he’d join me, crack open a bottle of wine and ask me how things were going. I began to open up to him. I told him how abusive Roy was.” She dragged out a heavy breath. “He offered to take care of him for me—nothing too drastic. Just send a couple of guys around to rough him up and warn him not to touch me again.”
Heather traced her nails lightly across her forehead, trying to figure out where this was going. If Marco had assaulted Roy, it was too late now to press charges. But maybe Roy, fired up at losing custody of his daughter, had decided to even that old score with Marco and get back at Reagan in a roundabout sort of way. If he couldn’t hurt her, he would hurt her friends.
“Of course, I begged Marco not to. I told him I didn’t want him getting involved,” Reagan continued. “Trying to intimidate Roy would only have enraged him more. Marco said the offer was always on the table if I ever changed my mind. That night, over a couple of bottles of wine, he shared his struggles with his own marriage. He said he and Anna had drifted apart. She was only interested in the kids, and she’d put on a lot of weight and quit working out which bothered him, even though he felt like a heel for thinking that way, and he didn’t dare bring it up with her.”
Heather stared down at the gleaming white tiles on her kitchen floor, her heart pounding. A sixth sense told her what was coming next. The prelude to an admission to infidelity always took the same course—a suitably subdued tone, tinged with an air of regret, punctuated with delicate pauses.
“I know it’s cliché to say it, but one thing led to another.” Reagan’s voice grew quiet. “We had this emotional connection, the kind that only two people in pain can really understand.”
“Cut to the chase, Reagan. Are you telling me you had an affair with Marco?” Heather asked.
“It was more of a fling,” Reagan answered sheepishly. “We both regretted it afterward. He begged me not to tell Anna. He was afraid she would divorce him, and he didn’t want to see his kids’ lives torn apart.”
“And you think Roy found out about your fling, as you call it?” Heather prompted.
“Yes—or maybe he knew all along. Setting fire to Marco’s restaurant is another way of punishing me for the affair, and for taking Lucy away from him. That’s what this is about—the threatening card, the arson, cutting me off on the freeway. Roy won’t rest until he kills me.”
7
Heather lay curled up on the couch with Phoebe in her lap. A mug of lukewarm tea sat on the coffee table in front of her. She had been replaying her conversation with Reagan over in her head for hours, deconstructing it to figure out what it was that she was missing. Reagan had seemed genuinely afraid that Roy might come after her. But her story didn’t add up. A man with anger issues as deep as Roy’s wouldn’t keep quiet about Reagan’s affair all these years. And if he’d only just found out about it, he’d be far more likely to swing a punch and leave her with a black eye than send her a bouquet with a cryptic message.
Phoebe stirred in her sleep making a snuffling sound like a newborn. When Heather had first got her at only eight-weeks-old, the noise had scared her. She’d thought Phoebe was struggling to breathe. But the vet had assured her th
e snorting noises were all part and parcel of a Shih tzu’s genetic makeup—that flat nose and pushed-in face that Heather loved coming home to more than anything, or anyone, in the world. It was hard for her to trust people after what happened to Violet. Her wariness had served her well in her career, but it had done nothing for her relationships. She stroked her hand gently over Phoebe’s silky head and then took a tentative sip of her tea before setting it back down with a grunt of disgust. It had cooled beyond the point of redemption.
Reaching for her phone, she scrolled through her contacts for Marco’s number. She hesitated for only a moment before dialing. There was no way around it. She had to feel him out and see if he suspected Roy was behind the arson too. After the fourth ring, he picked up.
“Hi, Marco. Just checking in,” she said. “I heard about the fire. No one hurt, I hope?”
“No. Thankfully, all the employees had already left for the night.”
“How bad’s the damage?”
“Hard to say. The adjuster’s still assessing it. The fire department managed to put it out before the whole place burned down. It’s a big blow though. It will be weeks before I can reopen. I’ve had to furlough most of my employees at that location.”
“Any idea who was behind it?” Heather asked.
“I can’t think of anyone who has a big enough beef with me to burn down my building.”
“A disgruntled ex-employee, maybe? Anna mentioned you’ve had a few of them.”
Marco grunted. “It’s been months since I fired anyone. I had this one employee a few years back who claimed he got injured on the job and ended up suing me. He lost the case, but it’s hard to believe he would take it this far. And why now? I passed his contact information on to the police anyway. How did you find out about the fire?”
“Reagan called me. She’s all in a tizzy—she’s convinced it’s connected to what happened at the reunion.”
“So she thinks the threatening message was intended for me?” Marco asked, sounding incredulous.
“Not exactly. She thinks she’s being targeted too. Someone cut her off on the freeway the other day. She’s worried they were trying to kill her.”
Marco said nothing for a few minutes. Heather could hear him breathing on the other end of the line.
“I told her I didn’t think it had anything to do with the arson at your restaurant,” she continued. “That was more likely to be a revengeful employee or something. But for some reason she’s got it in her head that Roy is behind everything.”
“Why? Has he been bothering her?” Marco asked, his tone unusually sharp.
“Apparently he was furious when she got custody of Lucy and he swore he’d get even.” Heather allowed a thoughtful pause to unfold before adding in a questioning tone, “Of course, that doesn’t explain the arson, unless Roy had a reason to target you too?”
Marco huffed out a rough breath. “She told you, didn’t she? About us.”
“Yes,” Heather admitted. “She asked me to investigate what was going on and find out if Roy was behind it. I told her I wouldn’t consider it unless she was honest with me about why she thought Roy was targeting you as well. She made me promise not to tell Sydney or Josh about your affair.”
“Look, it should never have happened—me and Reagan. It was stupid. We were both in a bad spot at the time. Anna doesn’t know about it and it needs to stay that way. We’re getting on fine now, but if it comes out, Anna will leave me. You have no idea what that would do to my kids.”
“That’s between you and Anna,” Heather responded.
“Good enough.” Marco answered gruffly. “So, are you going to look into this? The police are investigating the arson, but they have no leads. If you’re willing to come back to Iowa and take this on as an assignment, I’ll cough up the dough for your services.”
“Thanks, Marco, but like I told Reagan, this isn’t about the money,” Heather replied. “I just don’t see any clear connection yet—not enough to merit an investigation. Some idiot probably pranked us at the reunion. A ticked off employee might very well have set fire to the restaurant. As for somebody cutting Reagan off on the freeway—it happens every day. She’s overreacting.”
“You might be right, but we don’t know for sure, do we? There could be more to it than that. Will you at least think about it?”
“I will, but I’m not making any promises.”
“That’s all I’m asking. I’ll give you a jingle in a couple of days,” Marco said before hanging up.
Heather sank back on the couch and closed her eyes. Despite downplaying it with Marco, she couldn’t rule out the possibility that there was some connection between the unsettling incidents. But the bigger question in her mind was whether any of this had to do with Lindsay’s untimely death.
She had just nodded off when her phone rang again. Groaning, she slid her finger across the screen and took the call.
”Did you hear what happened?” Sydney gasped, dispensing with any opening pleasantries.
Heather unwound herself from the awkward position she’d been sleeping in and massaged her neck. “If you mean the fire at Bella Calabria, then yes. I talked to Marco a little while ago.”
“I’m freaking out, Heather,” Sydney blathered on. “That flower delivery’s been haunting me ever since the reunion. It was a real threat. Reagan told me someone almost killed her on the freeway the other day. Which of us is next on the hit list? Steve’s beside himself—he’s worried sick about my safety. You need to get back here and investigate this.”
“I don’t think we should get ahead of ourselves,” Heather said in an overly patient tone. “Marco told me he had a disgruntled employee who sued him a while back. He passed his contact information on to the police. If it turns out he was behind the arson, then we can dismiss what happened at the reunion as a prank. As for Reagan getting cut off on the freeway, it’s an everyday occurrence—you can’t read too much into that.”
“But what if some psycho is targeting us?” Sydney ranted. “I don’t want to end my days as an episode of Unsolved Mysteries.”
Heather suppressed a chuckle, trying to convey an understanding note when she answered, “Let’s wait and hear what the police say after interviewing Marco’s ex-employee. If he turns out to be the psycho as you put it, he’ll be prosecuted, and this will all be over.” Heather glanced at the time on her phone. “Listen, I have to go, Sydney. I have a job I’m supposed to be on. We’ll talk more once I hear back from Marco on the arson investigation.”
After ending the call, Heather tossed her phone on the couch and ruffled Phoebe’s neck absentmindedly. The only one of the group who hadn’t tried to recruit her investigative services yet was Josh—the one person from whom she would have welcomed a call. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he was a psychiatrist, but his calm demeanor made him easy to converse with. She needed someone to talk over the emotionally charged situation with in a rational manner, if nothing else.
After filling Phoebe’s water bowl and giving her a treat, Heather pulled on her hat and coat and grabbed her backpack and camera. The assignment she was on tonight was a welcome diversion from the usual messy love triangles she specialized in. She had been hired to follow the sixteen-year-old son of two prominent LA lawyers. They had discovered drugs in his room and wanted to know where he was getting his supply, so they could squelch it without any repercussions to their son’s future prospects.
Heather parked along the road near the kid’s school where she had a good view of his yellow custom Jeep Grand Cherokee. When the bell rang to signal the end of classes, she pulled out the photo she’d been given, and slipped on her shades, keeping a sharp eye on the students streaming out across the parking lot. A good-looking kid with shaggy, dirty blonde hair came strolling by with an entourage of giggling girls clutching textbooks to their chests. When he reached his jeep, he leaned casually against the driver’s door and chatted with them for several minutes before waving them off and peeling
out of the parking lot, music blaring, wholly unaware that he was being tailed.
Keeping a discreet distance, Heather followed the vehicle to the other side of town. The jeep turned down a seedy side street and slowed to a crawl before coming to a complete stop next to a huddle of young males in hoodies and dark glasses. The kid sprang out, slung a slim, black backpack over one shoulder, and greeted them with a fist bump. After throwing wary glances around, they disappeared together through a graffitied door in the building behind them. Heather set her camera back down on the passenger seat. Her clients were not going to like what she had to tell them. Based on what she’d observed so far, she suspected their son wasn’t just using drugs—he was dealing them.
Fifteen minutes later, he reappeared with a noticeably bulging backpack. Heather quickly snapped a series of photos before starting up her car and slipping quietly out of view. Luckily for him, the little hooligan had parents who were influential lawyers. He was going to need them.
Back at her condo, she pulled into the parking garage and picked up her mail before making her way inside. Phoebe skidded across the tile to greet her, barking in excited circles.
“Hey munchkin!” Heather cooed, tossing her mail on the counter and kneeling down to tickle Phoebe’s ears. The dog stuck her rear end up in the air and pushed down on her front paws, wagging her little tail delightedly. Heather laughed at her antics, her spirits instantly lifted. Phoebe gave the place some semblance of home.
After grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge, she sat down at the kitchen island to browse through her mail. Tossing aside the circulars and postcard advertisements, she flipped through a photography magazine before tackling the usual slew of end-of-month bills and statements. She was shuffling unenthusiastically through them when a small, pale blue envelope caught her eye. Frowning, she ripped it open and pulled out a linen-textured card with a watercolor of a bunch of forget-me-knots tied with a piece of burlap. Her heart raced as she opened it. The words inside blurred together.
