Dying to Remember

by Judy Fitzwater

  “What about Cheri Thomas or Megan Peters? They were your very best friends. The three of you were together so much you looked like Siamese triplets.”

  “If you haven’t noticed, Leigh Ann, they aren’t here. Cheri is in Panama with the Peace Corps and Megan is a nurse in Atlanta. She doesn’t do reunions. So whatever it is that you think—”

  “Oh, my,” Leigh Ann gasped. “Tell me that isn’t who I think it is. Who would have thought he’d have the nerve...”

  Jennifer turned. Indeed, the crowd had parted, not in respect or awe but perhaps from fear of contamination. Ben Underwood—older, tanned, broad shoulders under his jacket, and hair cut so close to his scalp it might as well have been shaved—had walked in the door.

  “I thought he left Macon years ago,” Jennifer whispered.

  “I think he did,” Leigh Ann agreed. “I know if I’d been charged with murder, I wouldn’t be back, especially not to my tenth high school reunion.”

  “He was never charged with anything,” Jennifer reminded her. “He was only questioned.”

  But as much as she wanted to believe that the police’s decision to drop the case had washed away any suspicion of guilt, it hadn’t. Only God and Ben Underwood knew if he had anything to do with the disappearance of Jimmy Mitchell.

  “He swore he didn’t harm Jimmy,” Jennifer added. She didn’t know if she was trying to convince Leigh Ann or herself.

  “And then he clammed up.”

  “Maybe that’s all he had to tell.”

  “The guy was a punk, Jen, and if the police had found Jimmy’s body, they probably would have tried and convicted him of murder.”

  “It’s almost impossible to get a conviction without a body,” Jennifer pointed out. “I don’t think they even found any evidence of a crime. It was as if Jimmy...simply...vanished.” She shuddered. She had spent more than a few sleepless nights in a room with every light turned on the summer after Jimmy Mitchell had gone missing.

  And a few nights over the years since. Just because.

  “We’re not even supposed to know about it,” Jennifer whispered. “Ben was a minor when it happened.”

  “As if anything that ever happened at Riverside High School could be kept quiet,” Leigh Ann said. “The court may have sealed the records, but they couldn’t seal the gossip. He gives me the willies. Always did. Even before Jimmy disappeared. He’s got those steely gray eyes and he never blinks.” She gave a little involuntary shake of her shoulders. “Creeps me out.

  “And look at that haircut.” She pointed, and Jennifer quickly caught her finger and pulled it down. “Not to mention those shoulders. Do you think he’s been in prison all this time, pumping iron just waiting to get out and show up back here in Macon?”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Revenge, of course,” Leigh Ann said. “They say psychopaths get a taste for murder. Maybe, after he left Macon, he killed somebody someplace else, only this time the police found the body, and they had enough evidence to convict him, and—”

  “Leigh Ann!”

  “—and he’s come back to do in every one of us who ever whispered behind his back—”

  “Would you just cool it? The man has as much right to be here as anybody.”

  Underwood swaggered over to the refreshment table, and Jennifer watched as a flustered Flo Steiner poured him a glass of punch. He downed the liquid, winced, and handed the glass back to Flo, raising his hand to indicate he only wanted it half full. She watched as he pulled a flask from his jacket pocket, filled the cup the rest of the way, and then swallowed the liquid in one gulp.

  “Did you see that?” Leigh Ann declared. “He’s drinking.”

  “No, he’s drunk,” Jennifer corrected her, registering that his swagger was closer to a stagger.

  “Is Jimmy here yet?” he called out to nobody in particular.

  Flo’s eyes grew huge and she stepped back from the table.

  “Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy. Where are you, boy? These folks have been waiting for years to see you. You wouldn’t want to disappoint them, now would you? Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

  Involuntarily, Jennifer found herself searching the crowd. Was it possible? Could Jimmy Mitchell actually be there?

  A uniformed security guard approached the table and spoke to Ben. He immediately quieted down, and Jennifer watched as the guard confiscated the flask. Then Ben picked up a plastic fork and a plate with a large slab of cake and moved farther back toward the far corner of the room, where Jennifer lost sight of him.

  The crowd, finding their manners again, quit gawking and went back to talking, most likely about Ben, if their occasional glances towards the far side of the room were any indication.

  “What the heck was that all about?” Leigh Ann asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  “Maybe it’s part of his psychopathic behavior. Everybody knows Jimmy’s dead. He is dead, isn’t he, Jennifer?”

  She shrugged. If Leigh Ann had asked her three minutes ago, she would have agreed, but now... After all, she’d always secretly hoped that Jimmy had simply run away. If he had...

  “It’s all right, don’t you think, that Ben’s here?” Leigh Ann added. “I mean, even if he did something to Jimmy, or Lord knows how many other folks, he wouldn’t dare try anything, at least not here, not in front of all these people—”

  “So what’s up, girlfriend?” The voice over Jennifer’s shoulder made them both jump. She turned to come face-to-face, actually more like chin-to-nose with Teri, who, though a little shorter, more than made up with attitude what she lacked in inches.

  Teri was another member of their writing group. She wrote romantic suspense and was also unpublished. All they needed now was for April and Monique to show up and they could hold an impromptu critique session, a truly hideous thought.

  “You almost gave me a heart attack coming up on me like that,” Jennifer declared, putting a hand to her chest.

  “Ben Underwood got you spooked, huh?” Teri grinned, white teeth in that sweet cocoa-colored face. Her dark hair, usually straightened, was formed into spiral curls pulled back and up in a cascade, the aqua of her dress complimenting the richness of her brown skin. She didn’t look at all like her normal, athletic self. She looked, well, almost angelic.

  False advertising. Teri was a lot of things, but angel didn’t make the top one hundred.

  “You know who Underwood is?” Leigh Ann asked. “I knew the story was all over Riverside High but—”

  “Are you kidding me?” Teri interrupted. “Did I not grow up in Macon? Do people not talk in this town? Of course I know about it, even all the way across town. ‘You go out late at night and not tell me where you’re going, young lady, and you’re gonna wind up like that Mitchell boy, where nobody can find you.’”

  Teri’s imitation of her mother was dead-on, right down to the I-have-attitude twist of her neck. “Shoot, my mother got at least six good years of threats out of that one.” She shoveled a piece of cake into her mouth and chewed with relish.

  “Why are you here?” Jennifer asked, only now registering what’s-wrong-with-this-picture. “You didn’t go to this school.”

  “That’s right. Our football team kicked your team’s—”

  Leigh Ann shook her head and then nodded in the direction of one very large man standing nearby who had turned to listen. Jennifer recognized him as a former quarterback.

  “Hey, that was years ago. No reason to rehash old rivalries.” Teri took another bite of cake. “Leigh Ann called me and told me to get over here, said that you might need a ride home before the night was out.”

  “Did you have any trouble getting in?” Leigh Ann asked. “Aren’t they checking names at the door?”

  “I breezed right past those folks. I don’t think they even noticed.”

  Jennifer glowered at Leigh Ann.

  “You called her?” she sputtered, finally realizing what Teri had said. “You dragged me to this—this enduranc
e test, because you couldn’t bear to come alone and then you called Teri to come take me home? There was an easy way to eliminate the middle man.”

  But Leigh Ann wasn’t listening. Instead she stood gaping, her chest heaving.

  What could possibly be going on now?

  Chapter 7

  Jennifer followed Leigh Ann’s gaze and squinted at the crowd of sports jackets and party dresses that had gathered near the front entrance of the huge room. “What are you looking—”

  Then she saw him, wearing jeans with one knee out and a longsleeved black T-shirt with what looked like the logo for D’Addario Guitars silk-screened across the front. Thin, but still muscular, longish brown hair clipped just below his ears and artificially streaked with blond. Not quite as good-looking as Brad Pitt—didn’t have the nose—but definitely cute. Not at all Jennifer’s type, but if the look on Leigh Ann’s face was any indication, definitely hers.

  “Whoa!” Teri said. “Is that who I think it is?”

  “Do you two know that guy?” Jennifer asked.

  Leigh Ann had gone into some kind of shock, her eyes so big and round they seemed to fill her face. That air of confidence she sported, especially where the opposite sex was concerned, had vanished. She looked young, vulnerable, almost shy.

  Leigh Ann faced Jennifer, her head down, holding Jennifer’s upper arms in a death grip. “Oh, God. I thought he might come, but—”

  “Cool it, girl,” Teri warned. “Now is no time to show fear.”

  “I...I...I...” Leigh Ann gulped in air.

  “Breathe normally,” Jennifer cautioned her.

  “He...he...he...”

  “Okay, we’ve got the pronouns down. Would you like to try for a verb?”

  Leigh Ann swallowed hard and looked up at Jennifer, her eyes even larger, if that were possible. “What’s he doing?”

  “Coming this way,” Teri told her.

  “Hide me,” she begged, tightening her grip.

  “What—”

  “You’re absolutely right,” Leigh Ann said. “Neither one of us is mature enough to handle something as simple as a high school reunion. You can drive my car, can’t you?” She released her grip on Jennifer and fumbled in her purse for her keys, then gave it up. “Teri’s got hers. Do you think we can get away before—”

  “Hello, Leigh Ann.”

  Something about the way he said her name made even Jennifer pause. Soft, throaty, passionate. Theirs could not have been a casual relationship.

  Leigh Ann froze. Then she squared her shoulders and pulled her bag across her arm. She gave Jennifer a desperate look, mouthed the words Please don’t leave me, and then pasted on a smile and turned. “Gavin. Well, now, this is a surprise. You know my friend Jennifer, don’t you?” Reaching back, she grabbed Jennifer with her talons and dragged her up next to her.

  He smiled. Then he slung the hair out of his eyes and offered Jennifer his hand. His touch was sensual, somehow more intimate than she cared to experience. She snatched back her hand, suddenly understanding a whole lot more about Leigh Ann than she ever had before.

  And she thought she’d had problems dealing with Danny.

  “Gavin Lawless,” he said. “I think I was a couple of years behind you. I was in Leigh Ann’s class.”

  “This is Teri,” Leigh Ann added, pulling her up on her other side, creating a phalanx.

  He nodded and smiled. “Nice to meet you.”

  “We...we dated for a while,” Leigh Ann confessed. “Only he was Lawson then, not Lawless.”

  His eyes were sky blue, almost too light to be real.

  “I was hoping you’d be here,” he said, ducking to catch her gaze, which was darting everywhere about the room, everywhere but in his eyes.

  They looked cute together. He was eight or nine inches taller than Leigh Ann’s five feet. Their coloring—his light, her dark—made a nice contrast.

  “Could you excuse us,” he said, gently taking Leigh Ann’s hands and pulling her out from between her two friends. She blushed, maybe for the first time in Jennifer’s memory, and let him lead her away.

  Which left Jennifer in that intolerable friend limbo trying to figure out exactly what it was that Leigh Ann—assuming she herself knew—wanted her to do: make a scene and snatch her back, or let her go.

  “So what’s going on with those two?” Teri asked, pointing.

  “Something powerful,” Jennifer said.

  They watched as Leigh Ann and Gavin disappeared into the crowd, leaving Jennifer shaking her head.

  “She called you?” Jennifer asked, turning to face Teri.

  “Yep. ’Bout forty minutes ago. Told me to get over here pronto because she was afraid you might not last the night. She said she had some unfinished business to take care of, which, apparently, she is in the middle of handling even as we speak. She said she didn’t want to leave you stranded if you decided you couldn’t hack memory lane. So, that’s Gavin.”

  “You know about him?” Jennifer asked.

  “So do you. You know that alpha male Leigh Ann is so fond of writing about in her romance novels?”

  “The charismatic rebel who leaves a string of broken hearts and promises before the heroine finally finds his heart of gold?”

  “That’s the man. Seems he lives and breathes among us. At least for tonight.”

  “Exactly how is it that you know all this and I don’t?” Jennifer asked, more than a little peeved. Leigh Ann and Teri were always fussing at each other. It hurt that Leigh Ann would choose to confide in Teri and not in her.

  “She didn’t think you’d approve.”

  “Are you saying they still have a relationship?”

  “No. He had some problems.”

  “What kind of problems?”

  Teri shrugged. “They haven’t seen each other since they graduated. He took the first bus out of Macon. He’s a musician. From somewhere out West, California, I think.”

  “Successful?”

  “On his way. He’s got two CDs on the market with a third coming out fairly soon from some obscure label. Guitar music, part of the folk resurgence. There was a piece in the style section of yesterday’s paper about him.”

  “But why would he go all the way to California if he wanted to be a musician? Little Richard, James Brown, Otis Redding, the Allman Brothers—they all came out of Macon. Phoenix Sound Recording Studios is right downtown.”

  “True, but they’re not exactly folk icons.”

  “Don’t give me that. Red Fish, Blu Fish got their start here, too.”

  “Okay, okay.” Teri rolled her eyes. “Maybe he thought the soul influence was too strong for what he wanted to do. Don’t ask me. I’ve never met the guy before. Anyway, Leigh Ann says he bummed around Nashville for a while and then made his way further out. But he’s back in town for a couple of weeks talking to some people here, probably down at Phoenix. He dropped her a postcard saying if he could possibly make time, he’d look her up.”

  “A postcard?”

  “Like I said, a real alpha male.”

  “But why would he bother? I don’t mean about looking up Leigh Ann, but about coming to the reunion? I vaguely remember him. He was a quiet, scrawny little kid. Kept to himself. Definitely not one of the in-crowd.”

  Teri shrugged. “Don’t tell me that if you had a CD to promote, you wouldn’t be back home spreading the word.” She scraped at her paper plate and savored the last bit of butter cream icing.

  Teri wiped her mouth with a napkin and gave her another one of her looks. “I know that if—that is, when—I sell a book I want everyone in my high school class to know it. I might just have to take out a big ad in the Telegraph.”

  “You’re scary,” Jennifer told her. She could honestly say—with the possible exception of Sheena Cassidy—she had nothing to prove to anybody from Riverside High. Except maybe Mrs. Ledbetter, the English teacher who, she would say, never shared her sense of humor. And maybe Jordan Watson, that intolerable geek in computer cla
ss who kept slipping programs on her machine that made the letters fall off the screen as she typed them. And that guy in gym class with the aerosol can of whipped cream. And... Okay. Maybe Teri had a point.

  “So what do we do?” Jennifer said. “She asked me not to leave.”

  “Classic conflicting behavior. I say we stick around and see what happens. Besides, I’ve seen worse parties, and I did spy one mmm mmm good lookin’ brother in black near the far bleachers...” Now it was Teri’s turn to crane her neck and search the crowd.

  “So what am I supposed to do while you’re macking on this Campbell Soup guy?”

  “Chill out. Circulate. Enjoy life, something you could use some practice doing. Could be one of those little geeks you went to school with came of age.”

  Jennifer sighed and took a quick look around the room. There had to be somebody there she wouldn’t mind talking to. If she couldn’t find them, it was going to be a long night, because the one thing she knew she couldn’t do was desert Leigh Ann.

  Chapter 8

  Leigh Ann and Gavin had dropped off the face of the earth. So had Danny. Not that Jennifer was looking for him. At least not with any real effort. She had long since lost Teri to a group, the one with the guy all in black, who was currently hassling the deejay, most likely about not playing enough R&B.

  About fifteen minutes ago she’d stuck her head out the door and checked the parking lot. Leigh Ann’s car was still there. Unless they’d skipped out in Gavin’s, they had to be around somewhere.

  Ben Underwood had also dropped out of sight, not that she was consciously keeping tabs on him, at least not that she’d admit even to herself. Too bad she didn’t know what kind of car he drove.

  And, of course, Jimmy Mitchell had failed to show.

  She thought she’d caught a glimpse of Teague McAfee, one of her most unfavorite people. But why would one of the hungriest reporters for the Atlanta Eye, the state’s sleaziest tabloid, show up at her high school reunion? She had to have been mistaken.

  “So what’s the deal? Why won’t they buy your books,” Seth Yarborough asked, popping a handful of pastel-colored butter mints into his mouth. “Don’t book publishers have any taste?”