by B. J Daniels
“I think that’s her drink,” Kayla said, pointing to a glass on the edge of the coffee table. “She said she wasn’t feeling well and was going to the bathroom. She seemed to be having trouble breathing and complained of a headache. What was wrong with her?”
“She’s been poisoned,” Lizzy said and a gasp went up around the room.
“Is she going to be all right?” Ashley cried and looked from Lizzy to Shade and back before beginning to cry. “Can this get any worse?”
Shade feared it could. Everyone looked shell-shocked and scared. He glanced at Lizzy, wondering how she wanted to handle this.
“I need you to all line up,” she ordered.
“Wait,” Jennifer said as if she hadn’t been paying attention. “What’s going on?”
“Someone poisoned Stephanie.” Ashley’s voice broke.
“Poisoned her?” Jennifer repeated.
Lizzy continued as if uninterrupted. “As I come around, I want you to empty out your pockets for me.” Shade handed her one of the Native American baskets from the mantel.
“You can’t be serious,” Brad said when she started with him.
“Everything in your pockets,” she said.
“Legally—” Brad began, but Shade interrupted with, “Empty your pockets, Davis. Now!”
Brad complained but emptied what he had in his jeans pockets, which amounted to only change and a couple of receipts.
“I need your wallets and purses, as well,” she said. “Don’t worry, you’ll get them back. Shade, would you frisk the men for me to make sure there is nothing in any of their pockets?”
Brad started to put up a fight but when Shade got in his face, he shut up.
Lizzy continued down the line, keeping each person’s items separate from the others as Shade frisked the men. She reached Ashley and handed Shade the basket of items after Ashley emptied her pockets.
“I’m going to have to search you.”
“Is this really necessary?” Ashley said, wiping at her tears. “You can’t think I would do anything to Stephanie or anyone else. Anyway, Jennifer and I weren’t even here.” But she lifted her arms.
Lizzy checked her pockets and moved on to Kayla, then Jennifer. All three had paled visibly and Jennifer was crying softly.
She knew that the poison could have been administered to Stephanie’s drink numerous ways. And there might have been only one portion so the killer would no longer have any evidence on him or her.
“I’m going to have to interview each of you separately.”
“You can use the dining room,” Shade said. “I can close the doors. I’ll check the coats by the door, as well.”
“Thank you,” she said, having forgotten about the coats. Maybe they would get lucky. “Ashley, why don’t you come in first?”
“Why would anyone want to kill Stephanie?” Ashley cried the moment they were seated in the dining room, the French doors closed.
“Did you know where Stephanie was the night of our graduation party?”
“I already told you—”
“But I thought you might want to change your story, given what has happened. You knew about the man Stephanie was seeing, didn’t you?”
Ashley looked away for a moment.
“Ariel knew.”
Ashley let out a bitter laugh. “Of course she did.”
“Ariel traded in secrets to keep her friends in line. We’ve already established that. But was she blackmailing some of you?”
“Not me,” the young woman said too quickly. “And if she was blackmailing Stephanie, I knew nothing about it.”
“But you knew about Stephanie and the man she was seeing.”
Ashley finally met her gaze. “Ariel recorded them making love in her bedroom.”
There was another video, other than the one Ariel had left for Shade? “Coach told me that she’d recorded the two of you, as well. Is it true?”
Another bitter laugh. “She said she had a video of us, but I never knew if it was true or not. Until now.” She shook her head in disgust. “Let’s face it, we were all getting sick of Ariel by the end of our senior year and for good reasons, you included. Stephanie was over her and I didn’t blame her.”
“Who was the man in the video with Stephanie?”
Ashley gave her a shocked look. “You didn’t know? Stephanie was sleeping with Ariel’s father.”
Lizzy had suspected as much before she’d read the diary page. The two had been pulled over graduation night and Stephanie was cited with a DUI. “Was it serious?”
Ashley rolled her eyes. “Maybe Stephanie thought it was but not Mark Matheson. It would have destroyed his career since Stephanie was underage and his daughter’s friend. But he destroyed his career anyway, didn’t he? And now Stephanie...” She began to cry again.
“Who at the reunion would want to hurt Stephanie?” Lizzy asked.
Ashley shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Lizzy knew she had to ask her about the earlier diary page. “Did you tell Ariel that Stephanie was driving the car the night Whitney Clark was killed in a hit-and-run?”
Ashley’s head jerked up, her eyes widening. “Is that why she was so upset with me?”
“Ashley, if you know something about that—”
The woman buried her face in her hands. “I was angry with Stephanie because of something that happened at school.” She looked up. “It was stupid. I wanted to hurt her, but I wouldn’t kill her.”
“What do you know about Whitney’s death?” Lizzy asked.
Ashley cried for a few moments before wiping her eyes and pulling herself together. As she pushed open the door, she glanced toward the lounge where Tyler was lying on the couch complaining of a headache, but alive. “I promised Ariel I would never tell.”
“Ariel’s dead and now so is Stephanie.”
Ashley grimaced and looked as if she would burst into tears again.
“Tyler,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “He was driving the car. It was an accident. Stephanie was fooling with him while he was driving. He didn’t see Whitney until it was too late.”
Lizzy shook her head. “Why would you promise Ariel not to tell?”
“Because she needed the money. Well, not needed it, but she wanted it.”
“She was blackmailing Tyler.”
Ashley nodded, wiping at her tears. “I kept her secret.”
“Who knew about this besides you?”
The woman shook her head.
“How did you find out?” Lizzy asked.
“Ariel had forgotten to lock up her diary.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
DEPUTY JOHN “ACE” TURNER took the call from the highway patrolman. The sheriff was in trouble up on the mountain at her class reunion? He had to laugh as he disconnected. One person attacked and all the vehicles sabotaged? Send reinforcements? What had poor Lizzy gotten herself into?
Since finding the photo of her up at the guest ranch, he’d tried to find out more about her. But there was little to find. What surprised him was that he found nothing about her parents. Wouldn’t there have been an obit, if they’d died?
All that aside, he had to decide what to do now. He had more seniority than anyone else in the department. Rightfully, he should have been sheriff. If he had been, he wouldn’t be trapped up on a mountainside right now. He could call for backup and go up there like gangbusters to save the day. Hell, he could call in a SWAT team if he wanted to.
But why let anyone else get credit for saving the sheriff? He could handle this himself. Save the day all by himself. Save the sheriff.
The thought made him laugh. Voters would realize what a mistake they’d made. That was if the sheriff didn’t get herself killed before he got there. That option would work, too, since he would be next in line. He’d already applied for
the undersheriff position, but the thought of working for a woman turned his stomach.
Ace grabbed his hat as he headed for the door. He’d drive up to the guest ranch and take care of whatever trouble there was. It all sounded pretty straightforward. A class reunion gone awry. Probably too much booze, old grudges and someone with a temper. Though the highway patrolman hadn’t said that the sheriff had a perp in custody. Was it possible she didn’t know who had done the killing?
Clearly the woman needed him. He imagined the write-up in the newspaper as he drove out of town. “Deputy Saves Sheriff at Her Guest Ranch High School Reunion.” He grinned to himself as he left town behind and started up into the mountains.
The highway patrolman said to watch for him on the way up to the ranch. The man would be hiking back up the road from a neighboring ranch and would need a ride.
Like Ace was going to let a highway patrolman steal his thunder, he thought with a laugh.
* * *
LIZZY RUBBED HER TEMPLES. Her head ached. She checked Tyler. Fortunately they’d been able to stop the bleeding on his head wound. It didn’t appear to be that bad since, other than a headache, he said he was all right. Still, she was anxious to get him to the hospital. Anxious to get out of here as much as the others.
Not that it would be over for her. She had a killer to catch. This case had already taken too many twists and turns. There had been so much more going on her senior year than even she’d imagined. Worse, she felt as if she’d only skimmed the surface. Her greatest fear was that the killer wasn’t finished.
“I need you to be honest with me,” she told Jennifer when she was brought in for questioning. “What do you know about who Stephanie was seeing our senior year?”
She frowned. “I didn’t think she was dating anyone. Did you ask Ashley?”
“I did.”
“Well, what did she tell you?”
“The truth.”
Jennifer glanced down for a moment. When she looked up, there were tears in her blue eyes. “Why bring all this back up now? Stephanie’s dead. What’s the point? She made a terrible mistake but she probably isn’t the first girl with a daddy complex who turned to an older man.”
“I’m bringing it up because someone killed her.”
“Not because of who she was seeing ten years ago,” Jennifer argued.
“Then why?”
The woman blinked big blue eyes at her. “I have no idea.”
“Someone poisoned her and that someone is here at the reunion. So who in that next room had reason to want her dead?”
Jennifer shook her head and wiped her eyes, her voice breaking when she spoke. “I honestly don’t know, but I’m scared. It’s like the person wants us all dead. I keep thinking about what I might have done or said to one of them back in high school that was so awful that they want to kill me.”
“And what have you come up with?”
Her eyes were dry again, her stare cold and calculating. “Kayla. You know how she’s always watched us all. Ariel was horrible to Kayla and so was Tyler. Did you know she asked him to our prom and he turned her down so brutally that even he felt bad about it later? And Kayla was the one to find him. Everyone else was around the fire.”
Was that true? Lizzy couldn’t remember who’d been around the fire before or after the fireworks had gone off. Any one of them could have used the distraction to attack Tyler. Any one of them could have doctored Stephanie’s drink.
But whoever tried to kill Tyler had covered up the bloody coat. At least that was the theory.
She let Jennifer return to the lounge even though she suspected the woman hadn’t been completely honest. When she called in Kayla, the young woman still looked in shock as she took a seat.
“Kayla—”
“I didn’t hurt anyone. I liked Tyler. He could be an ass, but when it was just the two of us, he was...kind to me.”
“And Stephanie?”
“Stephanie? You think I poisoned her?”
“Did you?”
“Of course not. Why would you think that?”
“Was Stephanie kind to you?”
Kayla looked away. “She ignored me as if I was invisible. I always wished that Ariel had.” As if realizing what she’d said, she quickly added, “I didn’t kill her either. I don’t care enough about any of these people to...dispose of them.”
Lizzy heard honesty in her words. “High school was hard for you.”
Kayla shook her head. “It was hard because my mother was sick and I had to take care of her. High school is hard on a lot of people.”
“You had a crush on Tyler?”
The woman dropped her gaze and when she lifted it again, tears filled her eyes. “I knew he didn’t feel the same way about me. I was certainly not his type.”
“Who was his type?”
Kayla’s face clouded. “Ariel. Not that she noticed. She was too busy destroying Christopher’s life and every other man who crossed her path.”
Lizzy realized with a start how much Kayla knew about everything that was going on. Of course, being the wallflower, she’d been invisible to most of them and all the while, she’d been watching. “Who was Stephanie involved with?” She saw the answer at once on the woman’s face.
“Ariel’s father.”
“And Coach, our history teacher?”
Kayla met her gaze. “Who didn’t he sleep with?”
“Ariel?”
She nodded. “She slept with him to get back at her father.”
The video, the dress, Ariel’s bedroom. “Coach swore he didn’t sleep with Ariel.”
Kayla made an and-you-believed-him face.
Lizzy felt sick inside. Which meant Ariel could have been carrying the man’s child. Everyone knew all this was going on except her? Three classmates were dead and she didn’t feel any closer to the truth.
Lizzy proceeded to question one after another of her classmates. All she got was more of the same. Everyone was scared, her included.
* * *
SHADE HAD SENSED the growing unrest in the room while Lizzy was interviewing each of their classmates.
“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m not staying here,” Christopher said as Lizzy came out after finishing her interviews. “This is insane.” He looked around the room as if trying to decide who was the most dangerous. “Waiting here for the killer to strike again? Wondering who’s next? No, thanks.” He headed for the door.
“It’s pitch-black out there and blizzarding,” Shade pointed out, even though he doubted it would do any good. Christopher was fired up and half-drunk. Another reason it was foolish for him to take off on foot. “You can’t really think walking off this mountain in the middle of the night in a snowstorm is the smart thing to do under any circumstances, but especially these.”
“Shade’s right,” Lizzy said. “Josh has gone for help. I think you’re making a mistake leaving here tonight. At least with us all together in here—”
Christopher let out a bark of a laugh. “We were all together when Stephanie was poisoned. It didn’t stop the killer, did it? We don’t know that Josh even made it down the mountain for help. Or that he isn’t the killer and he’s been sneaking back here to kill us all.”
“That does seem like a stretch,” Brad said from the corner he was sitting in. “How would he have poisoned Stephanie?”
“Christopher’s right,” Ashley chimed in. “I’m not staying here either. I’d rather take my chances out in the storm on the road. At least I’ll be doing something, not sitting around waiting for the killer to strike again. Can I go with you?” Shade saw the man hesitate. “Seriously, Christopher?” she demanded.
“I’m going, too,” Kayla said, jumping to her feet. “I don’t have to walk with you two if you don’t want me to.”
Christopher groaned. “I’d rat
her you walk with us so I can keep my eye on you.”
Kayla didn’t seem insulted. “Sorry, but I’d rather walk alone because I have no reason to trust either of you.” She grabbed her coat off the hook and pushed out the door.
“Hurry up, Ashley. I’m not staying here a moment longer,” Christopher said and stepped outside.
Ashley scrambled after him. “I have to get my things out of my cabin.”
From the window, Shade watched through the storm. Kayla went toward the road and the other two headed toward the row of cabins. The snow had let up some. In the cabin’s porch light, he saw the two emerge with Ashley’s rolling overnight bag. Apparently she planned to drag it through the snow and down the mountain. Christopher was looking around anxiously and clearly hurrying her along. Shade had lost sight of Kayla.
Turning back to the others, he caught Lizzy’s eye.
She looked resigned as she shook her head. “I can’t keep them here. But I have faith that Josh got through and is on his way back with law enforcement,” she said, turning to look at the three left: Brad, Jennifer and Tyler. “Help should come across the three of them if they stay to the road.”
“I want to leave, too,” Jennifer said and began to cry. “I’m sorry. I have no idea what’s going on or who’s doing this but I don’t want to stay here either.” She glanced at Brad.
He laughed. “You think I’m the killer? The only reason I’m still here is because I’m a newsman and this is one hell of a story.”
“Until you’re the one who’s dead,” she said. “Fine, I’ll go alone. It’s safer than staying here.”
Brad scoffed. “How far is it to the first house? Twelve miles. In a snowstorm? In the dark? Go for it.”
“I shouldn’t have to walk that far. Like the sheriff said, Josh is getting help. Law enforcement will pick us up and we’ll be safe.”
“If Josh got through. If he’s not the killer out there waiting for you. If you don’t freeze to death before they reach you.” Brad sat back down on the fireplace hearth and folded his arms. “I’m not going out there with all those lunatics.”
