Traceless

by Debra Webb

  “Stay away from him,” Justine urged, “and you’ll be fine. I’m certain he won’t try to bother you.” The whole idea was irrational.

  Misty glared at her through those Coke bottle lenses. “It’s not me I’m worried about. It’s her. It’s just like before; she’s following him around like a puppy.”

  “I see.” Justine felt the first swell of significant tension. “Has something specific happened?”

  “Not yet.” Misty moved her shoulders in a noncommittal gesture. “But he’s not going to let it go. There’ll be trouble. You know what he’ll do.”

  “You saw her following him around?”

  Misty nodded. “She was at Sid’s today, too. I tried discouraging her with the rumor that Austin was innocent.”

  Justine cringed inwardly. Misty was truly a brilliant individual. Her IQ was off the charts, but she was so dense when it came to everyday life. “Emily’s never going to consider Clint Austin innocent.”

  “She doesn’t have to think he’s innocent; she just needs to leave it alone before something bad happens.”

  “I think,” Justine said calmly, despite the suspicions now niggling at her, “that we need to just relax and talk about something else.” Misty was obsessing even more than Justine had surmised.

  “You saw her this morning,” Misty countered, not ready to let it go. “She’s not taking this well. She’s … on the edge, just like you said.” She shook her head. “I’m really worried.”

  Justine placed a reassuring hand on Misty’s arm. “Misty, honey, I think this whole thing will settle down. Ray is taking care of everything.” Ray loved this town. He wasn’t about to let the past destroy all that he cared about.

  Misty gave her head another of those hard shakes. “I don’t think so. She’s not going to stop until it’s too late.”

  Misty had really worked herself into a state. Justine draped her arm around her friend’s shoulders. “Let’s forget about this whole business. Let the chief and his boys take care of it.”

  Justine had learned a long time ago that staying calm in most any situation was extremely valuable. She wished she could teach that lesson to Misty. Life would be so much easier for her. For everyone. Sometimes Misty’s need to be protective was detrimental to both of them.

  Misty leaned her head on Justine’s shoulder. “You heard about the break-in at his house, didn’t you?”

  “I did.”

  “He shouldn’t have come back here.”

  “No,” Justine agreed. “He shouldn’t have.”

  The quiet that followed was soothing. Perhaps the turbulence would pass this easily. There was just one thing, but Justine really hated to bring up the subject again. “You weren’t the one who broke into his house, were you?”

  That Misty didn’t immediately tense or draw away was a good sign. “Don’t be silly, Justine.” She laughed, poked at her glasses. “Why would I do that?”

  Justine patted her hand. “See, I made you laugh.”

  “You did.” Misty stifled a yawn. “Can I sleep here tonight? I don’t want to go home.”

  “Sure, honey. You know you’re always welcome here.” Justine relaxed. “That’s what friends are for.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Half Moon Café Thursday, July 18, 11:59 A.M.

  Emily waited before going in.

  She’d had to do some major maneuvering last night to convince all involved that she was on the road to finally getting her life together. Her only recourse had been to call her old friends with her mother supervising. Today, at noon, Emily was to have lunch with Megan Lassiter, Cathy Caruthers, and Violet Manning-Turner at the Half Moon Café.

  Just like old times. Except without Heather.

  Emily had watched each of the others arrive. First Megan and Cathy, then, at exactly noon, Violet had made her appearance. She had probably parked down the street well ahead of time, but her intent was to make an entrance after everyone else had arrived. She liked being the center of attention.

  Emily had stolen her thunder.

  At 12:02 Emily stepped inside the door of one of Pine Bluff’s historic landmarks. The cool air made her skin pebble after sitting so long in the heat outside. Not much had changed about the café. Same old dark paneled walls, tiled floor, and Coca-Cola light fixtures hanging over each booth. As unoriginal as apple pie and yet every bit as familiar and appealing.

  The day’s menu was written on a chalkboard hanging on the wall. Waitresses wearing starched pink uniforms scurried about delivering laden stoneware plates and refilling glasses with sweet iced tea. The smell of fresh-baked corn bread made her stomach rumble, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten today. She’d stayed in the room that wasn’t really hers. She’d called her office. Checked her voice mail. Checked her e-mail via her cell phone. Anything but think about Clint Austin or her father’s connection to Sidney Fairgate.

  She felt confused. Totally uncertain of what she could possibly do about anything, past or present. She hadn’t slept well last night, kept dreaming she was back at Austin’s house rummaging through all those torn photographs and trying her best to piece them together again.

  She refused to feel sorry for him. And yet she did. It had to be all the silly comments about his innocence combined with the idea that someone had vandalized his house. Torn photos and broken trinkets didn’t make him innocent and damn sure shouldn’t garner her sympathy.

  The anguish she’d seen on his face managed that all by itself.

  What would Dr. Brown say? That she suffered from some bizarre form of Stockholm syndrome? Probably. Speaking of which, it was an outright miracle she hadn’t found Dr. Brown sitting in her parents’ living room last night.

  Everyone was worried about poor Emily.

  Her gaze landed on the booth where the others sat, heads together, no doubt talking about her and whether or not she would actually show and if she’d ever really recovered from the breakdown no one was supposed to know about.

  The door behind Emily opened with that same jingle as when she’d arrived, signaling the entrance of another patron. She didn’t glance back, nor did her friends bother to look up from their conversation to see if it was her.

  Ray Hale stopped next to her, his hat in his hand, his smile careful. “Emily.”

  “Ray.” A new kind of tension joined the mix already churning inside her.

  “You doing all right today?”

  “Sure. You?”

  “Can’t complain.” He surveyed the restaurant. “I’m here to meet my wife for lunch. Sarah Motley, you remember her, don’t you? Her folks started this place, gosh, forty or so years ago.”

  Sarah was a year younger than her, sang in the school choir. “I remember her.” Emily arranged her lips into a brittle smile. “Well, my friends are waiting.”

  “Just so you know,” Ray said before she could get away, “a guy over in Huntsville is going to try and piece some of those photographs back together well enough to make new ones for Clint.” He shrugged. “I don’t know how much luck he’ll have, but I’m hoping he can salvage something.”

  What did Ray expect her to say? That she’d dreamed of doing that herself? “I’m running late, so …” She gestured to where the others waited halfway across the restaurant. They had noticed her arrival anyway. Time to do something to make her parents happy. “Thanks for the update.”

  Another plastic smile slid into place as she made her way to the booth. All she had to do was get through the next hour. “Hey, girls.”

  Megan was the first to slide out and give Emily a hug. Cathy followed with somewhat less enthusiasm, then Violet of course. She had to be more dramatic about it. She hugged Emily longer and actually cried what looked like real tears.

  Nothing had changed.

  Once their orders had been taken, the catching up began. Emily let them talk. She didn’t have much to tell anyway. Megan was still the bubbly blonde bombshell she’d been back in high school. She had married Grady Lassiter; he’d graduate
d a year ahead of them and after college had bought into the local newspaper. Megan and Grady had a daughter who was four, and Megan worked part-time in her father’s CPA office.

  Cathy was a court reporter in Huntsville. She had married Mike Caruthers. Mike had graduated with Ray Hale three years ahead of the girls. Cathy and Mike had no children. She wore her red hair, which was a near-perfect match to her husband’s, in one of those short, curly dos that complemented her creamy complexion. She looked great in a jade outfit that fit like a second skin and showed enough cleavage to make Pamela Anderson envious.

  “We have to do something special for the reunion. Ten years is a long time,” Cathy urged as she relaxed against her seat. “You’ll come, won’t you, Emily?”

  Megan seconded, “You have to come, Em.”

  Emily forced a nod. “Sure. I should be able to come.”

  Violet cleared her throat, drawing the attention of all seated at her table. “We have months before the reunion. Let’s talk about us.” She turned to Emily. “You should see my boys.” She practically purred. “They’re just like their father. Adorable.”

  Violet went on and on about her perfect husband and her perfect house. She had never worked or attended college. Her life was too busy and, of course, too perfect for her to need anything else in the way of personal gratification. She looked exactly as she had back in high school, thin, tall, and not a hair out of place. Violet had married the boy Heather had loved, Keith Turner. No matter how much time passed, Emily would always consider Keith Heather’s boyfriend, but she kept that to herself, like a thousand other things.

  Emily happily zoned out, barely paying attention to Megan’s and Cathy’s insistence that a Pilates-yoga combination was far better than yoga alone. Their husbands all appreciated that they’d kept their figures.

  “Good Lord,” Violet said abruptly, once more retasking the conversation back to her, “that can’t be the senior necklace?”

  Emily’s gaze shifted to Cathy, who lifted the delicate gold chain from her throat. “I couldn’t get together with all of you and not wear it.”

  “I’ve got mine,” Megan chimed in, dangling hers from her fingertips. “Cathy called and suggested I wear it. Go, Panthers!” She turned her exuberant expression to Emily. “Do you ever wear yours, Em?”

  “Mine was put away … .”

  The look on Megan’s face told Emily she didn’t need to say any more.

  Violet made a sound of dismissal. “I’d almost forgotten about those. I must have lost mine.” She pointed a frosty look at Cathy. “And even if I could find it, no one called to suggest I wear mine today.”

  Cathy dismissed the jab with a wave of her hands. “You wouldn’t have wanted to wear it anyway.”

  The sixteen-inch gold chains held two charms, a cheerleader and a megaphone. The senior cheerleaders had gotten one that year instead of the traditional charm bracelet. The necklace had seemed so important back then, marking a rite of passage and setting a new tradition. Maybe they’d all just wanted to be like Justine. Sexy and beautiful. She’d worn her necklace as proudly as any of the girls.

  “So, how are things in Birmingham?” the perfect Violet inquired with a gleaming smile, her irritation at Cathy forgotten for the moment.

  “Things are great,” Emily lied. They would never know the difference. “I’m not married, no kids. I’m the head of my department. I live in an apartment near work.” She hoped that was sufficient, because that was as good as it got.

  “Your mother said you were in research,” Megan enthused. “That must be really interesting.”

  Reports. Files. Oh yeah, very interesting. “Sometimes,” Emily lied again. She was becoming very adept at lying, particularly to the people who were supposed to mean something to her.

  “Isn’t it funny that hardly any of us ended up doing what we thought we would back in school?”

  Cathy had a valid point. Everything had changed after that night. They’d all taken different paths.

  “That’s right,” Violet agreed in her perfect Bree Van De Kamp of Desperate Housewives style. “If I remember correctly, Cathy, you were going to be an attorney.”

  “And you were going to marry a rich husband,” Cathy shot right back. “Looks like one of us got what we wanted. Just as well,” she added. “You’d have had a hell of a time with college anyway, if your graduating GPA was any indication.”

  “I was going to be a journalist,” Megan volunteered, cutting off the no-doubt scathing remark Violet would have launched. “I married one; does that count?”

  An unexpected smile nudged at Emily’s lips. Megan had always been very adept at avoiding and/or derailing trouble.

  Violet turned her attention back to Emily. “You were going to medical school, weren’t you, Em?”

  “Medical research was as close as I got,” Emily confirmed, hoping she wouldn’t have to field any other prying questions.

  “I have to know,” Cathy said in a hushed voice. “Were you still a virgin senior year?”

  That she was looking directly at Emily should have clued her in.

  “I only slept with one guy before senior year,” Megan confessed, ever the mediator. “Grady. We never broke up once all through high school.”

  “Of course she was a virgin,” Violet said knowingly, totally ignoring Megan. “She was waiting for Clint Austin to sweep her off her feet.”

  Emily compressed her lips together and rode out the shock that radiated through her. These people were supposed to be her friends?

  “A lot of girls were obsessed with him,” Cathy noted without giving Emily the chance to enter the discussion. “He was damned hot. If I hadn’t been so in lust with Mike, I might have fallen for him.”

  “He’s a killer,” Emily reminded, frustration expanding in her chest and loosening her tongue. How could these women, Heather’s friends, say anything good about Austin? Guilt at the idea that she’d been feeling things she shouldn’t for him had her wishing she’d kept her mouth shut.

  Violet and Cathy shared a look.

  “What?” Emily demanded, fed up with the uncomfortable direction this casual lunch had taken.

  “Look.” Cathy searched Emily’s eyes, her own frank but concerned. “We all know what happened that night.”

  “That’s right,” Emily recapped. “We do.”

  “I’ve sat through a lot of trials since then, Em,” Cathy went on, her tone uncharacteristically gentle. “There were a hell of a lot of things mishandled about Austin’s case. That’s all I’m saying.”

  That both Megan and Violet didn’t speak up or argue against the point told Emily that the three had discussed the subject at length and perhaps many times.

  Tension strained the muscles of her face as she fought to hold back what she really wanted to say. “I don’t want to talk about Clint Austin or his trial.”

  “I’m sorry, Em.” Cathy laid a hand on Emily’s tightly clenched fist. “It was just an observation. If it makes you feel better, Mike and I don’t talk about it, either. He goes ape shit every time I bring it up.”

  Emily was past ready for this lunch to be over.

  “Did any of you hear that someone ran him off the road?” Violet announced, taking the tension to a new level. Her face beamed at the idea that she knew something the others didn’t.

  When had that happened? His car had been at work. Out of habit Emily had taken that route on the way here.

  “Really?” Megan’s eyes widened in surprise, probably at the idea that her husband hadn’t written about it in the Sentinel.

  “Mike said his house was vandalized last night,” Cathy interjected, avoiding eye contact with Emily.

  So much for the subject change.

  “I heard about that, too,” Violet confirmed. “If he were smart, he would leave town now.”

  Megan nodded. “It would be better for everyone.”

  “At the Den the other night,” Cathy whispered as she leaned forward to ensure no one else overhear
d, “some of the guys were talking about what they’d like to do to Austin. Even knowing how closely Mike and Ray are watching the situation, I’m expecting to hear about a lynching any day now.”

  “What night was that?” Violet demanded, suspicious.

  “Don’t worry.” Cathy waved her off. “Keith wasn’t there.”

  Emily’s head was spinning. Was Violet afraid of Keith cheating on her? Wasn’t he supposed to be the perfect husband? And what was Cathy doing at the Den? Ten years ago the only women who dared go there were the trashy ones.

  Violet cleared her throat. “Well, maybe Austin will take the hint and leave before someone has to go that far.”

  The food arrived, but Emily couldn’t have swallowed a bite if her life had depended upon it.

  “Before I forget,” Violet piped up as she meticulously picked the croutons off her salad, “I thought I’d have a party on Saturday night.” She looked from one to the other. “I’ll invite all our friends from school and maybe Justine for old times’ sake. You’ll all come, right?”

  And that was that. No one ever said no to Violet. Not to her face anyway. Emily felt ill about the idea already, and it was only Thursday.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  2:00 P.M.

  “I don’t see why you have to be in such a hurry.”

  Keith Turner sat on the edge of the bed, his back to her. He hated the way she made him feel, cheap and dirty … and stupid. “I have to get back to the office.” He reached for his trousers with far more enthusiasm than he’d taken them off.

  “Come on,” she cooed, crawling up close behind him. “Your daddy won’t mind if you stay a little longer.”

  “I have a meeting.” That was a lie, but she didn’t have to know. He thrust one leg into his trousers, then the other, before standing and pulling them up.

  She came up on her knees, snaked her arms around his waist, and pressed her cheek to his back. He shuddered inside, didn’t dare allow her to see or feel the truth. “You were perfect,” she murmured. “I should have you for dessert every day after lunch. You make me come so fast.”