Small-Town Secrets

by Debra Webb

  He understood she had been traumatized that night in the woods by her sister’s murder and whatever happened before and after the fatal act. Was she afraid of the murderer’s identity? Was it someone she knew? A parent? A friend? Or neighbor?

  Spence had watched kids twist the facts and fabricate explanations to rationalize the horrific. Whether it was a self-protective mechanism or a way to protect others, a wall went up and nothing but those twisted facts and fabrications got past. The only way to get to the truth was to untwist those facts and peel away the layers of fabrications.

  Sounded easy. But it wasn’t. Even with an adult, like Dana, if the trauma occurred as a child, the decision to set aside the horror in her mind had already been made. That aspect of her past was still cloaked in childlike emotion.

  Essentially he was looking for a missing child, her inner child. The one who’d gone into hiding from a reality too traumatizing.

  A light rap on the door to his room drew his attention back to the present. Had Dana decided she needed to talk after all? Or did she have something to add to tomorrow’s proposed agenda. She hadn’t appeared too keen on his suggestions.

  He opened the door and found a stranger standing on the other side of the threshold.

  Female. Blond hair, green eyes. Late twenties, early thirties maybe.

  “Mr. Spencer?”

  He glanced left to see if anyone was waiting in the minivan she’d parked a few slots down from his door. That she’d chosen to park away from his room told him she didn’t want anyone to know who she was here to see. Her strategy was somewhat pointless since Spence and Dana were the only two guests at the motel. And his car was the only one in the lot besides hers.

  “You’ve got him.” Might as well see what this was about. If he was really lucky, the reactions had already begun. The domino effect was the one quick and sure way to get information.

  The woman glanced around. “I need to speak with you privately.”

  Spence stepped back, opened the door wide. “Come on in, Ms….? I didn’t get your name.”

  The lady ignored his prompt. She stepped inside and waited until the door was closed before meeting his gaze once more.

  “There’s no one else here, right?”

  Spence glanced around. Opted to reach for his shirt and pull it back on. “That’s right.”

  She looked him straight in the eyes then. “You should tell her to go back to Chicago. The only thing she’s going to do is make everyone have to relive that tragedy all over again. It’s taken years for the people in this community to put—” she drew in a deep breath “—that behind us. We don’t need anyone resurrecting those bad memories.”

  “I would think,” Spence said carefully, “that you and the rest of the community would like to see whoever was responsible for those murders brought to justice. I’d say it’s long overdue.”

  The woman just shook her head. “You don’t understand,” she said, her tone vehement. “She knows who killed them. She took that knowledge with her when she left, and we’ve learned to live with it. Coming back now, after all these years, is not doing anyone any good. It’s done. Hurting people isn’t going to change the fact that those girls are…dead.”

  “You have me at quite the disadvantage. Why don’t we start over?” The lady was definitely not a fan of Dana’s or of reopening the case. He extended his hand. “I’m William Spencer and you are?”

  She glanced at his hand, looked taken aback. “I don’t see how that’s relevant. I just came here to warn you that you can’t trust what she says. She isn’t…right. She never really was, but after the murders she really lost it. There are things your investigation will resurrect that will serve no other purpose than hurting people all over again.”

  “I take it you’re not a friend of Dana’s.” He dropped his hand to his side.

  Anger blazed across the lady’s cheeks. “You ask her,” his visitor urged. “Ask her why she really came back after all this time.” She moved her head side to side. “She isn’t back here for us or even her sister. She’s come back to hurt everyone all over again. She’s still holding a grudge. She’s a freak. She was a freak as a kid and she’s still one now. If you can’t see that then you’re blind.”

  Well that was rather blunt and to the point.

  When the lady was about to reach for the door, he asked, “Do you know how many of Donna’s old friends still live in Brighton? I was hoping to talk to some of them, specifically Lorie Hamilton.”

  The audible hitch in her respiration told him he’d hit a nerve.

  “Why would you want to talk to…her?”

  Just as Spence suspected. His visitor was either Lorie Hamilton or a close friend of the lady’s. “I have some questions as to her relationship with the victims. I’d like to get some clarification on exactly what the nature of their relationship was and when she last saw each of the victims.”

  Shoulders squared, the woman lifted her chin. “It was a mistake. That’s what it was.”

  “The murders?” he countered. “Or Lorie’s relationship with the victims?”

  “Maybe you’re one of those people who can’t see the truth until someone’s dead. That’s what will happen with her back here.” With a sharp about-face, she wrenched open the door and walked out. He watched her go. Noted her license plate number as she sped out of the parking lot.

  When her taillights had faded in the distance, he closed and locked the door.

  More questions.

  Spence turned to the wall that separated his room from Dana Hall’s. Instinct told him she knew more than she was telling, part or all of which might still be waiting on the other side of that mental wall she’d erected.

  But what he’d just learned, that he definitely hadn’t known before, was that she had herself at least one serious enemy in her old hometown.

  Usually the only surviving victim of a tragedy was looked upon with sympathy.

  Evidently not in this case.

  What had Dana Hall done that would stick with a person for the better part of two decades?

  …can’t see the truth until someone’s dead.

  His gut clenched. He’d never been the one who couldn’t see. Was he so determined not to let down his client that he wasn’t really seeing what was right in front of him?

  Until he knew that answer, they weren’t going to get very far in their investigation.

  It was time Dana Hall started talking.

  Chapter Six

  Dana couldn’t move.

  She stared at the pillow. Waited for the pounding on the door to come. For someone to show up and to say out loud that she was the killer. That she had done this awful thing.

  Do something!

  She pushed away from the door. Walked slowly toward the bed. Her heart thundered, sending sharp pains deep into her chest. She couldn’t breathe.

  One foot in front of the other. She stalled at the side of the bed, reached out with her right hand and touched the pillow. She shuddered. Images piled one on top of the other in her mind. Feeling the pillow against her face…struggling to breathe. Twisting her body, flailing her arms and legs.

  Suddenly the pillow was no longer covering her face.

  Die! Just die!

  The final image from her nightmares froze on her retinas.

  It was her…she was clasping the pillow against her chest and her sister was lying dead on the ground.

  Dana’s knees gave way. She crumpled to the floor. Her body shook with the sobs building inside her.

  She had killed her sister. She must have killed the others, too.

  “No,” she moaned. She couldn’t have done that. Why would she do that?

  Stop. Don’t believe it. Just dreams. They can’t be true. They’re not real. Not real.

  Dana scrubbed at her face with the heels of her hands. Fury rushed along her limbs, searing away the weaker emotions. She couldn’t keep doing this. She had to know the truth.

  Damn it!

  P
ushing to her feet, she shoved the hair back from her face and grabbed hold of her courage. Someone was playing games with her.

  But who?

  And why?

  She’d been gone for sixteen years. Her chest squeezed. If she was responsible for…what happened, why hadn’t someone spoken up? Why would anyone do this now? She stared at the pillow lying on her bed.

  Did someone else know what really happened and was afraid to tell? Or was someone hiding something that proved Dana wasn’t responsible…that she hadn’t killed her own sister?

  But why would she keep seeing that scenario in her nightmares?

  She reached for the door, wrenched it open. Someone had been in her room. She surveyed the parking lot, empty except for Spence’s car. The door had been locked when she’d returned from the Bellomy’s. How had they gotten in? Had the motel manager given out a spare key? Did he suspect her, too?

  Her jaw clenched with fury, Dana stormed out of her room and toward the office. She didn’t know who was running the place now since Spence had taken care of getting the rooms. If that pillow was someone’s sick idea of a joke, she wasn’t laughing.

  The office was dark. She didn’t care. Dana pounded her fist on the door once, twice, three times. Each time her fury expanded.

  A light switched on inside. The blinds on the door parted and narrowed eyes peered out at her from behind wire-rimmed glasses. Some of her anger deflated.

  This was crazy. She had to be crazy. Her reactions were over the top. Irrational. Even she recognized she wasn’t thinking reasonably.

  The door jerked inward. “What’s all the racket about?”

  The man looked vaguely familiar. Gray hair. Glasses. Tall, thin frame.

  “Someone was in my room,” she blurted.

  His brow furrowed. “What? Your room was broken into?”

  She shook her head, then nodded, told herself to calm. “I don’t know. But someone was definitely in my room.”

  He moved back enough to open the door wider. “Come on in here.”

  Don’t act like a frightened child. Dana stepped into the office.

  The man shuffled over to the registration desk. Put the long wooden structure between them as if he needed a shield from the crazy lady who’d invaded his office. “Now.” He adjusted his glasses. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

  Take a breath. Speak calmly. “Someone was in my room while I was out to dinner tonight.”

  “You in twelve?”

  Dana nodded.

  He checked the room boxes in the hutch behind his desk. “Second key’s right here.” He turned back to Dana. “Unless you gave someone your key or there are signs of breaking and entering, no one has been in your room but you.”

  “I’m telling you,” she restated as calmly as possible, “someone was in my room.” She couldn’t tell him about the pillow…he would think she’d taken complete leave of her senses.

  He heaved a sigh. “Is something missing from your room?”

  She hadn’t really looked, but she didn’t think so. She said as much.

  “Then how do you know someone was in there?”

  Dana moistened her lips. “Because things were moved.”

  The old man’s gaze narrowed again. “I know you,” he said. “You’re Bob Hall’s girl. The one…”

  His words trailed off, but he didn’t have to say the rest. She knew. The one who didn’t get murdered.

  “I’d like a different room.” She couldn’t sleep in that room. No matter what this man, a man she still didn’t recognize, said, someone had been in her room.

  He reached for the key to room thirteen. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  “Sorry.” She shook her head. “I don’t.” She’d been a kid when her family moved away.

  “I’m Samuel Henagar. I was the janitor at the K-8 school until about five years ago when I retired.”

  Memories of the man pushing the mop and bucket in the school corridors flickered. He never spoke…always watched. Sherry and Joanna whispered about him. Donna, too. They called him a pervert.

  “Of course,” she finally had the presence of mind to say. “I remember.”

  “I remember your sister and her friends.” He seemed to stare right through Dana. “It’s a real shame what happened.”

  Dana took a step back toward the door. “Thank you for the new room.”

  “Just turn in the other key when you’re finished moving.”

  Dana didn’t turn her back until she was outside the door. He watched her every step of the way. Her heart had started pounding again.

  She turned in the direction of her room and bumped into a broad chest. A high-pitched squeak escaped her throat before she could clamp her mouth shut.

  “What was that all about?”

  Spence.

  She sucked in a breath. “I decided to get a different room.”

  He raised a skeptical eyebrow. “I heard.”

  How long had he been standing out here listening? “I…my things were moved.” She’d meant to add that it happened while they were at dinner, but her brain just wasn’t cooperating.

  “You think someone was in your room.”

  Not a question. He’d clearly overheard her discussion with the motel manager. More images from school…from Mr. Henagar flashed through her weary mind. He’d come into the girls’ bathroom once…she’d been terrified. He’d insisted that he was only cleaning and that he’d called out to warn anyone in the restroom that he was coming in. But she hadn’t heard him.

  She crossed her arms and nodded. “Someone was in my room.”

  “Why didn’t you come tell me?”

  She should have…but then she would have had to explain things she didn’t want to explain just yet. Coward!

  “I didn’t think.” That much was true. She walked around him and headed to her room.

  “I have a feeling,” he said as he followed close behind her, “that there are things you’re keeping to yourself that might be useful to this investigation. I hope that’s not the case. Being completely open with me is extremely important to success.”

  Dana paused outside room twelve. She wrestled with the emotions churning inside her, gained enough of the upper hand to school her expression. When she was certain she could speak in a steady voice, she turned to him. “I hired your agency to help me, not analyze me. I’ve been analyzed, Mr. Spencer. I don’t need your accusations.”

  He leaned against the doorjamb, studied her at length. She worked hard at not trembling beneath that dark, assessing gaze.

  “A friend of yours stopped by a few minutes ago.”

  She felt her eyes widen before she could stop the reaction. “What friend?” Her pulse started that race toward some unseen goal. Could the person who stopped by be the same one who came into her room? He’d said a friend…but she didn’t have any friends in Brighton. Not anymore. Maybe she never had.

  “Blonde, green eyes.”

  Dana’s respiration quickened. “Lorie.” Had to be. She was the only green-eyed blonde in Brighton. The only one Dana had ever known. She didn’t bother explaining again that Lorie and the others weren’t really her friends.

  Spence shrugged. “She didn’t give me her name, but when I mentioned that I was looking for Lorie Hamilton, she reacted. That she was the first name that came to your mind with such a vague description, I’d say my hunch was right.”

  But how could Lorie have gotten into her room? Why would she do such a thing? “What did she want?”

  Spence inclined his head toward her door. “Let’s continue this conversation inside.”

  Dana hadn’t moved the pillow…didn’t matter. He was here to help her. Only she would understand what it meant lying there. Besides, he was on her side…for now. She opened the door she hadn’t bothered locking. Before she could step inside, he held up a hand for her to wait. He went inside first. She held her breath and followed.

  Spence looked around her room. Checked all the places she
hadn’t even thought of, like the closet, under the bed, the bathroom and its narrow window.

  “Your window wasn’t locked.”

  Dana eased into the cramped bathroom, trying not to crowd him. He demonstrated by opening the small window over the toilet. Not the raise-up-and-down kind, this one opened in, like a small door.

  “Slip a credit card or nail file between the sash and frame, push upward and voilà. The latch releases.”

  “There’s no lock?” How could that meet current safety codes? But it was so small. Could a person actually squeeze through it?

  “It wouldn’t open so easily except that the latch is worn.” He surveyed the window again. “Broad shoulders like mine wouldn’t fit through that space.” His gaze locked on hers. “But someone small, maybe female, wouldn’t have any trouble.”

  “You think it was Lorie?” Why would she do such a thing? They hadn’t seen or spoken to each other in sixteen years! Was she the one who’d called? Obviously she knew Dana was in town.

  One wide shoulder lifted then fell. “Do you have reason to believe she would take this sort of measure?”

  Dana wanted to say no, but how else could she explain the phone call, the visit to Spence…and the pillow? “I don’t know. I can’t…there’s no reason I know of.” She looked straight into his eyes. “But maybe that’s what I want to believe.”

  “You said things in your room were moved.” He closed the window and tinkered a moment with the latch. “What was moved?”

  “One of the pillows.”

  He looked puzzled.

  “I’ll show you.” He’s on your side. She repeated that mantra, gathering courage.

  He followed her to the bed. She gestured to the pillow lying there. “It was like that when I came in.” Knowing how ridiculous this sounded, she added, “When I left it was beneath the bedspread like the other one.” She pointed to the head of the bed where the matching pillow was neatly tucked beneath the spread.

  “You believe someone was leaving you a message.”

  Again, not a question. Dana nodded. “The official conclusions of the investigation cited that the victims had been suffocated with something like a pillow. Something that left no abrasions or bruises.”