The Class Reunion: A psychological suspense thriller

by N L Hinkens

  Once a killer, always a killer.

  8

  Heather dropped the card on the counter and ran her trembling fingers through her hair. Someone knew! Someone had found out what she’d done! There was no other explanation. The delivery of flowers with its ominous message at the reunion hadn’t been a practical joke to wind them up. And it wasn’t a general threat. It was directed at her, and her alone. You deserve to die! The second card confirmed it. Once a killer, always a killer. Someone had discovered her secret. But how had they found out? Her frenzied thoughts collided with one another as she battled to make sense of it all. Who could be sending the threatening cards? And if Reagan’s crazy ex, Roy, wasn’t behind it, why had Marco’s restaurant been set on fire? Was someone taunting her by targeting her friends as well?

  Phoebe pattered across the floor and whined. Heather picked her up and carried her over to the couch. The dog wriggled into a nook beneath her arm, seeming to sense that she needed the comfort of her little body snuggled up next to her. She couldn’t think straight. Her head was filled with static. There was only one explanation. Lindsay had broken her trust and told someone. Maybe she’d sworn them to secrecy, and now that she was dead, that person wanted to let Heather know that her secret wasn’t buried in the grave with Lindsay. But what did this person want? The fact that they hadn’t gone straight to the police seemed to suggest that blackmail might be an angle. If they had done a little digging, they would know she was a successful Hollywood PI. And greed was a powerful motivator.

  Heather almost jumped out of her skin when her phone buzzed on the coffee table. She stared at the screen, hesitating to take the call when she saw that it was Reagan. She couldn’t talk to her now—she wasn’t sure she could keep her voice from trembling long enough to hold a conversation. After letting the call go to voicemail, she closed her eyes and rubbed her throbbing temples. She’d barely had time to catch her breath before her phone began ringing again. She eyed Reagan’s name on the screen, debating what to do. Marco must have talked to her. Reagan was probably going to press her to come back to Iowa and investigate what was going on. Heather wasn’t ready to rehash that conversation—she needed time to think first. But what if something else had happened—another suspicious incident? What if someone was hurt—Sydney, or Josh? She couldn’t ignore their safety now that she knew they were being targeted because of her. Steeling herself, she pushed Phoebe gently aside and hit the speaker button on her phone, not trusting her shaking fingers to hold it. “Hey, Reagan!” Her voice sounded overly buoyant, stiff and artificial to a practiced ear. But Reagan was usually too self-absorbed to pick up on such nuances.

  “Did you get one too?” Reagan sobbed into the phone.

  A chill prickled over Heather’s shoulders. “Get … what exactly?”

  “Another card,” Reagan cried. “With a bouquet of forget-me-knots on the front. We all got one.”

  Heather sucked in a silent breath. Her thoughts flitted back-and-forth like bats at dusk—here one second and gone the next, elusive shadows that she couldn’t control.

  “There was a message inside: Once a killer, always a killer,” Reagan went on, sniffing back more tears.

  All at once, Heather’s thoughts were spinning in an entirely different direction. If everyone had got the same card, then maybe this wasn’t about her, after all. Her troubled conscience had leapt to the worst possible conclusion—that Lindsay had betrayed her. “Yes, I got it too,” Heather said quietly.

  “I’m so scared. This person’s a nutcase,” Reagan ranted on. “It’s a warning—they’ve killed before and they’ll do it again. They already tried to kill me and Marco. We need to do something. We can’t just wait around for the next attack to come.”

  Heather pulled at a broken nail distractedly, wincing as she ripped it off. Reagan was right. They couldn’t dismiss the messages as a prank any longer. Someone extremely dangerous was targeting them.

  “You’re in this as deep as the rest of us,” Reagan continued. “Dave says if you won’t help us, he’s going to hire his own investigator to get to the bottom of it. I had to talk him out of driving over to Roy’s place and confronting him about the card.”

  Heather puckered her brow, taken aback. Dave’s reaction seemed a bit extreme. But maybe, as the successor to a violent ex, he felt the need to prove himself as Reagan’s protector. Emotions were running high. And that’s when people got hurt.

  “Okay, go ahead and set up a group call with the others to discuss how we’re going to handle this. We need to make sure we’re all on the same page,” Heather said. “I’m available now if everyone else is.”

  After ending the call, she got to her feet and began pacing back-and-forth across the floor of her condo trying to organize her thoughts. She needed to apply the same logic to this situation as she did to all her other cases. It was a whole lot easier to distance herself when she wasn’t emotionally invested, but she was a professional, after all. She knew how to put her game face on and roll up her sleeves.

  There were two main questions to be answered right off the bat. The first was who the messages were intended for. And the second was whether they were connected to the arson. For now, she was going to set the freeway incident aside and chalk it up to another stressed-out driver having a bad day.

  Her phone trilled with an incoming FaceTime call. Heather sat down at the counter, turned her phone sideways and studied the photo tiles of Reagan, Josh, and Sydney as they popped up on the screen one-by-one. Reagan’s eyes were red rimmed from crying. The ordinarily animated Sydney appeared pale without her usual full face of makeup. Josh looked as if he’d just woken up from a nap, hair standing on end like Pampas grass, dressed in a wrinkled cotton T-shirt. Seconds later, Marco’s image appeared on the screen, bobbing in and out of his square. He was evidently walking somewhere and trying to look at the camera at the same time. “Give me a minute,” he said, sounding flustered. “I’m at The Sardinian—can’t hear a thing. We’re slammed now that one of our locations is out of commission. I’m heading to my office where it’s quieter.” A moment later, Heather heard the click of a door and Marco’s swarthy features filled his square. “All right, I’m all yours.”

  “Thanks everyone. I’m glad we could pull this together on the spur of the moment,” Reagan began. “I’ve had a bad feeling all along about that flower delivery at the reunion. We can’t ignore it any longer. Somebody is threatening to kill us—they’ve already tried.”

  “We need to figure out if they have a beef with all of us or just some of us,” Josh chimed in.

  “I wondered about that too,” Heather said. “I think they’re enjoying the fact that we don’t know for sure.”

  “What kind of a sick, twisted person does stuff like this?” Sydney exclaimed.

  “If we knew that we wouldn’t be on this call right now, would we?” Marco grumbled.

  “I didn’t organize this to waste our time bickering,” Reagan said in a reproving tone.

  “That’s precisely what we’re doing—wasting time,” Marco shot back. “I have a restaurant to run.”

  “All right, let’s calm down and try not to snip at one another,” Josh interjected. “We’re all upset and on edge, but it doesn’t do us any good to lose our focus. We’re here to work together and, with Heather’s help, to get to the bottom of this. I’m going to suggest that we take our cues from her. She’s the only one of us who has any experience investigating crime, so I’m guessing she has a few ideas worth listening to.”

  Heather gave a tight smile, grateful for Josh’s ability to smooth things over, but reluctant to appear as if she was taking the reins away from an already agitated Reagan.

  “All right, Heather, how should we go about this?” Regan asked, arching a disgruntled brow. “Do we make a list of possible suspects, or what?”

  “That would be a good place to start,” Heather affirmed. “Think about anyone in your past or present who might have a motive to hurt you.”


  “Who hates us enough to try and kill us, you mean,” Marco cut in. “Let’s call it what it is. They tried to burn down my restaurant.”

  “Yes, but it was during the night,” Sydney pointed out. “I think they were trying to send you a message, not kill you.”

  “You think, do you?” Marco growled. “What if they set fire to my house next, while my wife and kids are sleeping?”

  “He’s right,” Reagan said. “What if Lucy had been hurt when I got cut off on the freeway? Our families are in danger too.”

  “Regardless of this person’s motivation, the process remains the same,” Heather said. “Make a list of anyone you can think of who might have a vested interest in hurting you.”

  “The obvious person who comes to mind is Roy,” Reagan said. “He has a motive. And he’s threatened me in the past.”

  Heather nodded. “Roy’s a valid lead. Don’t stop there though—you can’t assume it’s him. What about the rest of you?”

  Marco scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “I can check my records and make a list of any employees I fired, although, like I said, only one of them was ticked off enough to sue me.” He hesitated, frowning. “Does this mean you’re coming back to Iowa? My offer to compensate you for your services still stands. Anna and I can put you up in our guest cottage for as long as it takes to work out who’s behind this.”

  Heather blinked, momentarily caught off guard. Every face on the screen stared back at her, waiting on her response. A plethora of excuses floated to mind—she had just been to Iowa three weeks earlier, she was committed to clients in LA, she hated leaving Phoebe with the dog sitting service. Inadequate arguments in the face of what was happening. The truth was, she had to figure this out, and fast. Of the five of them, she was the best qualified. She knew where to start, what to do, how to follow up on leads, how to procure information—even how to work with the police if it came to that.

  She took a deep breath, resigning herself to the only feasible course of action. If someone had found out her secret, she had to track them down and silence them.

  9

  For the second time in the space of a few short weeks, Heather found herself walking through the Quad Cities airport. The shock and grief she’d been experiencing when Reagan had picked her up the first time had been replaced by a sense of molten dread in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t shake the feeling that the messages were aimed at her, that someone was letting her know they knew the grisly secret she’d been hiding for the past two decades. She had to find out who this person was and stop them before another one of her friends ended up dead. How she would go about accomplishing that would depend a lot on who the person was and what they wanted from her. First, she needed to find them.

  Her heart gave a tiny jolt when she spotted Josh striding across the terminal toward her. He was not the person she’d expected to see, but a pleasant surprise, nonetheless. She quickly arranged her expression to neutral. The last thing she needed was to complicate the situation by developing a romantic attachment. “Hey, you!” she said, hugging him in greeting. “I was expecting Reagan to pick me up.”

  “Yeah, I know. I took the day off work for a dental appointment, so I told her I’d swing by and get you on my way back—save her a trip. I thought maybe we could grab a coffee or something before we meet up with the others for dinner.” His gaze skirted around the terminal as if searching for somewhere to settle.

  A sixth sense told Heather he was uneasy about something. His ordinarily laid-back manner was muted, and he had an air of disquiet about him. He had made a concerted effort to speak to her alone, but she suspected it would be more along the lines of a professional consultation, and not a romantic overture.

  “Sure, sounds great,” she replied, as they headed out to the parking lot together. The grim sky overhead threatened rain. She shivered in the crisp fall breeze. LA had been basking in ninety-degree weather when she left, so it would take her a few days to adapt to the cooler temperatures in Iowa.

  “Let’s go to Grinders,” Josh said as he turned the key in the ignition. “It’s a cool new coffee house with a great vibe—all organic, Fair Trade products. Admittedly, I’m a coffee connoisseur.”

  “I’m more of a drive-thru coffee kind of gal myself,” Heather confessed. “I’m always darting off to a job, and even if I have time to kill, I don’t like sitting at a table alone.”

  “I thought you’d be used to it by now,” Josh responded, his gaze brushing over her.

  She felt her cheeks flush. “I don’t eat out very often. It’s easier to pick something up and take it home.”

  Josh gave a knowing nod. “I get it. The not-so-discreet eyebrow raise when you ask for a table for one, not to mention the pitying smile of the waiter when he removes a place setting.”

  Seated in a booth at the back of the cafe, Heather wrapped her fingers around her caramel cappuccino, inhaling the rich, nutty scent, and looked expectantly across at Josh. “I appreciate you picking me up at the airport, but I get the feeling we’re not just here to socialize.”

  He gave her an abashed grin. “I’m not going to deny it. I had to talk to you, alone.”

  Heather’s stomach did a subtle flip. For a second, her concentration slipped, and her eyes glazed over as she imagined Josh confessing his attraction to her, that he’d brought her here because—“

  “Heather? Are you listening?”

  “Yes! Sorry! Go ahead.” Blinking, she took a hasty gulp of her cappuccino, scorching her lips in the process.

  Josh gave a tentative chuckle. “You zoned out there for a minute.”

  “Just jet-lagged after the flights, I guess. So, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

  He dropped his gaze, picking at the cardboard sleeve on his coffee cup. “I haven’t said anything to the others—it’s a bit of a delicate situation—but with everything that’s going on, I’m worried there might be a connection. I thought I’d run it by you first.”

  “I’m listening,” Heather prompted.

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said, to consider anyone who might have a motive to hurt us. And the fact is, there is one person who comes to mind.” He dragged in a heavy breath as he leaned back in his chair. “This is difficult to talk about. I’m struggling with guilt over the whole situation.”

  “I’m not here to judge you,” Heather assured him. She took a sip of her cappuccino and waited for him to continue. If only he knew the truth. She was hardly in a position to judge anyone.

  “I had this client a few months back,” Josh said, straightening up and looking intently across at Heather. “Ruby Wilcox. She was an ex-model—a beautiful woman—but she suffered from anxiety and depression. It was affecting her marriage. Her husband was frustrated, and he didn’t know how to help her.” He hesitated, raising his brows a fraction. “I’m sure you can guess where this is going already.”

  “Talk me through it,” Heather urged, quashing the pinprick of jealousy that had stirred at the thought of Josh and an ex-model sharing intimate conversations—and possibly more—in his office.

  “After a couple of months of therapy, she began to latch onto me. It happens occasionally. It’s called transference when a patient attaches affection to their doctor.” He took a small sip of his coffee before continuing. “As a professional, I understood exactly what was happening. She viewed me as her lifeboat. As a lonely man who’d been divorced a little over a year, I admit some part of me enjoyed the attention. Nothing happened between us, of course—I’m not that unethical. But, after one of her sessions, she went home and told her husband she was in love with me and wanted a divorce. Naturally, it didn’t go over well. He showed up in my office the next day threatening to kill me if I didn’t leave his wife alone. I didn’t report it to the police at the time, because I felt guilty for not taking action earlier. I referred her to another one of my colleagues after that.”

  Heather gave a small shrug. “You did all you could have done under the circums
tances. Was that the end of it?”

  Josh grimaced. “I wish.” He exhaled a heavy breath and rubbed his forehead. “She committed suicide two days later.”

  Heather fought to keep her shock under wraps. “Did she leave a suicide note?”

  “No, thankfully. If she’d even hinted about having feelings for me, I might have been hauled in front of the ethics board—lost my license even.”

  “So now you’re wondering if her husband is behind what’s been going on?”

  “I realize it’s unlikely. Especially as it was Marco’s restaurant that was targeted, not my practice.” Josh paused and scratched his jaw. “But I wondered if he might have seen me hanging out there with Marco and thought I was one of the owners or something. At any rate, I wanted to run it by you and get your take.”

  Heather removed the plastic lid from her cappuccino and took another sip, licking the foam from her upper lip before responding. “Text me the details and I’ll do a little investigating on the side. It’s an angle worth pursuing, if only for the purpose of elimination. If you do decide to tell the others, just tell them you had a patient who committed suicide and her husband blamed you—leave out the part about her being attracted to you.” Heather arched a meaningful brow at him. “You don’t want any rumors starting to circulate that could negatively impact your practice.”

  “You mean … Reagan?” He flattened his lips into a tight line. “Say no more, I get it. Look, thanks for helping me out with this. To be honest, I didn’t know how you’d feel about me after hearing what I had to say.”

  “Why would I feel any differently about you? You’re only human, like the rest of us.” Heather gave a laugh that sounded hollow even to her own ears. What Josh had done was understandable, and forgivable—he’d been hurting and lonely after his divorce. On the other hand, you’re only human was not an adequate excuse for what she had done. Her heart had been hard as steel that night—the guilt had come much later.