by Gillian Zane
“I don’t know. She can’t be the killer. There’s no way. That would mean she killed Pete too, and that I really can’t believe. She loved him. She loved me. We basically grew up together.”
“You’d be surprised how many homicides are perpetrated by loved ones, love can devolve to hate very quickly.”
“You’re not helping, Drake, it’s not possible. Not Lauren.” I still held on to the belief that she couldn’t have done this. Not my friend. There is no way. She might be a bitch, but she isn’t a killer.
“Is Troy bringing her in?”
“Yeah, he’s getting a black and white to pick her up now.”
“Find out who the friend is that picked her up, it might be the killer. If anything, Lauren might be an accessory. It’s probably why she refused to name them.”
“Holy shit.”
“Ditto.”
“I’m not lying.” Lauren sat in the interrogation room with Troy seated across from her. I had begged to not be in the room with them this time, claiming she would be defensive with me there and it would be hard to explain my presence. He was reassured when I told him that I could get a reading from the other side of the glass.
I should have been able to. I should have been able to read every sin she committed. But I couldn’t. There were dark splotches on Lauren’s aura, but they were from how she treated her mother and younger brother. Sins of disinterest and callousness. There was nothing else that plagued her conscious. And maybe I could have believed that if I didn’t know Lauren. But I knew her. I knew what we had done as teenagers, the sins we had perpetrated together. The sins that plagued me and landed me in this position to begin with.
Something was not right.
“I picked her up, yeah. We went to her apartment, she refused to go. Said she wasn’t feeling good. I left her and went to the party by myself. Ask anyone, I was at the party, Cassandra wasn’t.”
“I can’t believe you’re going to leave me hanging like this. First you and Pete ditch me, and now you’re going to make me go to the party alone. Holden is there, and I’m dying to see him since we hooked up that last time,” Lauren whined, rolling her eyes.
“You don’t need me to hook up with Holden again,” I sighed and put my boots away in my closet. I loved my boots. I had finally broken them in and they were now my favorite pair of shoes. They stood out from all the other strappy sandals and heels that surrounded them. I was fighting Lauren at every step, trying not to go to this party. She had followed me into the bedroom to help me figure out what to wear, but I used it as an excuse to continue the argument.
“We can stay in and binge watch Stranger Things. I haven’t watched it yet,” I offered as a compromise.
“I’m not leaving until you get your ass dressed and come with me. You owe me.” I really didn’t owe her anything, but Lauren was stubborn, and not good about empathizing. She didn’t care that I had worked all day. I should want to go out with her. I guess I’m going out with her. She wasn’t going to give up until I relented.
“She’s lying. She kept telling Cassandra that she owed her,” I whispered. Troy had hooked me up with a mic and he had the receiver in a tiny ear piece. Troy looked over at the window and Lauren followed his gaze, her mouth turning down in a frown.
“I don’t think you’re telling me the whole truth, Lauren. Why do you think Cassandra owed you to go to the party?”
“What’s this about? Cassandra didn’t owe me anything. We went over all of this before. You guys verified that I was telling the truth like, forever ago. Why don’t you believe me now?” She rolled her eyes and leaned back in the chair. They must have picked her up from work because she was wearing business slut attire, and her hair was pulled back from her face in a messy, but professional bun.
“Really, what the hell is this about?” she demanded when Troy didn’t answer.
“There have been new developments in the case.”
“Like what?” She looked back at the mirror and fussed with her hair. “They finally found her?” She offered up her guess with little emotion.
“We found Peter Levy.”
“Tell that jerk he stood me up.”
“He’s dead.” I scanned her for a reaction. Her aura pulsed with something, but I couldn’t tell what it was. Her face pulled into an almost contrived look of shock. I wiped my palms against my skirt, they were sweating again. I couldn’t nail down why this interview with Lauren was making me so nervous. She was acting exactly like she should, saying all the right things. She was being Lauren, but now…now I didn’t know. There was something off.
“Jesus,” she said, and there was enough emotion fused into the words that it sounded believable. But again, that niggling doubt. Was it because I knew she was the one that was lying? It hadn’t been Pete. I knew that for a fact. I was pretty sure I had gone to that party. It felt right that I had. Or at least I had left with the intention of going to that party. I couldn’t remember exactly. I couldn’t remember actually getting there. But if that was true, that meant Lauren was lying. She was lying to the police. She was lying about me, about my death. Which could mean only one thing.
Lauren had something to do with my death.
The same Lauren who had been my friend since high school, who had been in my life as an ever-present force for years. Who I trusted—
“Then there’s the private investigator that was working the case, he’s dead as well.”
“I didn’t realize there was a private investigator working the case.” More lies came out of her mouth. Why would she lie about knowing Drake?
“She’s lying again, they met a few times. They went to lunch, at…” I trailed off trying to remember if Drake had mentioned where they had gone. “Michael’s Cafe. It was shortly before he was killed.” My voice was hoarse, strained. I couldn’t admit to myself what was obviously happening here.
“You didn’t know there was a PI working Cassandra’s case?” Troy hedged.
“No,” Lauren said defiantly.
“She’s involved, Troy. I feel it.” I gripped the windowsill, trying to get a better look at the girl I thought was my friend. Could she have done this? Could she have killed me, killed Pete, and then shot Drake twice in the chest?
“So, you didn’t meet with Drake Greco at Michael’s Cafe right before he was killed?”
“Oh, well. I mean, yes. Drake. I went with Drake. But it was a date, I didn’t know he was investigating Cassandra’s— wait, really? Oh, no wonder he asked about her a lot.” She frowned like something was bothering her. Like Drake had been scamming her, but the reaction was too perfect. The words didn’t match. It was too planned.
“You don’t seem to be torn up about his death.” Troy cocked his head, studying her.
“I didn’t really know him,” she shrugged. “We went on two dates, and then he didn’t call me again. I saw him buzzing around another girl that I didn’t like, and well, that was it, as soon as I saw that. I don’t share. You know?”
“He was shot twice in the chest right after he identified Pete’s body.” Troy kept going with the inquiry. “Where were you on the 28th, Lauren?”
“Of last month?” She looked slightly uncomfortable.
“Yes.” Troy pushed the tape recorder closer to her.
“I went to visit my mother. She lives up near Big Crest, and it’s kind of a drive.”
“Can she vouch for you?”
“She’s getting dementia, maybe the nurse can. I don’t know. Am I a suspect?” There was nothing in her stature or the way she held herself that belied she was worried about being a suspect. Lauren hadn’t even shown the slightest glimmer of nervousness in Troy’s line of questioning, but when he brought up the 28th, there was a flicker of something. She didn’t have an alibi. Maybe it wasn’t planned out.
I remembered the phone call before we left. It had been Lauren. Oh hell no. Drake had told her what we were doing. Because he didn’t suspect her. He told her exactly where to go. She followed us up t
here. And when Drake went to the hotel…
“So, you don’t have an alibi?”
“She followed Drake and his girlfriend to the town. He had told her they were going up there, oh my gods, Troy…I think she might have done it. I can’t read her, though, there’s something wrong.” My words were coming out in fits and starts. I was talking too fast and I saw Troy make a small gesture with his hand. I was sure it was meant for me so I fell quiet.
Lauren. It was Lauren the entire time.
“Is this all because of that party? I’m telling you I went alone. I mean, Cassandra got into the car with me. We were leaving for the party. But then she didn’t want to go, she got sick. We stopped, and there was this girl there. She was from high school, Beverly. She said she would take Cassandra home…”
Wait. What?
“You’re changing your story now?” Troy held up his hand.
“I didn’t want to, I don’t know!” Lauren slapped her hand down on the table between her and the detective. It was a contrived emotional reaction. I didn’t see the fire behind it. But now my memory was lining up with hers. We had left for the party. We stopped somewhere.
“Why did you lie, Lauren?” Troy continued to question her. My heart sped up. I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t remember what happened after we got in the car. Was there a party? I didn’t remember it.
“I saw this girl, we knew her, Beverly,” Lauren said quietly.
“Why would you lie about meeting a girl you knew, Lauren?” Troy demanded. While Lauren’s voice had gotten quiet, Troy had gotten louder. He knew we were onto something.
“Look, Beverly, there was something wrong with her. Back in high school, she was off. I felt bad for letting Cassandra go with her. When she went missing— I felt culpable.”
“So, you’re saying that you stopped at a…”
“The Quickie Serve, out on Kirkland,” Lauren finished for him.
“And happened to run into a high school friend?”
“She was never a friend.”
“So, a high school enemy? And you put Cassandra in a car with her, while she was sick — and you continued on to the party, in Cassandra’s car?”
“Well, I wouldn’t call her an enemy, more like, we just kind of knew her. She was weird.”
“And you think it was this Beverly who killed Cassandra?” Troy asked. His tone gave away his doubts.
“Yes.”
9
Snitches Dig Ditches
“You’re letting her go?” I asked after Troy walked Lauren out, telling her with an ominous tone, not to leave town.
“I have nothing to hold her on,” he said.
“She’s involved.”
“Do you see how she’s involved? Anything?” He looked at me and I shook my head. I didn’t know anything. I just knew Lauren was involved somehow. I shoved my hands in the pockets of my skirt to stop the shaking.
“There’s nothing on her. I can’t see much of anything, like she’s blank but not. No guilt. No darkness,” I said under my breath.
“Sociopaths don’t feel guilt. They can’t compute regular human emotion like that,” Troy offered.
“Would she feel guilt at all, like maybe over hurting a family member?”
“I took this course in college, BSU type stuff while I was getting my criminology degree. They had a sociopath come talk to us; she said she felt guilt after her inconsiderate actions would hurt her sister. But she wasn’t even sure it was guilt. It was really odd how she described it. Most of the time she felt justified in her negative actions, especially if it was in retaliation for something that happened to her or to the ones she considered loved ones.”
“So, she could feel love?”
"It was usually another person that contributed to her own well-being. Like her mother and sister who protected her. If they did not contribute to her well-being, they no longer mattered.”
“Jesus,” I swallowed hard. Could that be the answer? There was no negative energy on Lauren’s soul because she felt no guilt? If there was no guilt, no karma could be delivered.
“Are you okay?”
“She was Cassandra’s closest friend, could she have killed her?” I asked quietly.
“And our last case was the kid’s father. It’s hardly ever a stranger in the murder game.”
“I’m pretty sure she’s involved. She lied about this girl Beverly, and I keep seeing a phone call, between her and the PI. She called Drake right before he left on a trip. Did he go pretty far to find Pete?” I asked, playing dumb.
“A couple hours’ drive South,” Troy confirmed.
“I don’t think you should have let her go.” I shook my head, disappointed with how this was turning out.
“It’s okay, Cas.” He put his hand on my shoulder and I put my own over his. A feeling of guilt washed over me and I looked down at his active camera and for the first time on a case I felt horrible about what I was trying to accomplish. Troy wasn’t a bad guy; I felt that, even if the marks on his aura said differently. Yes, he had done some bad things. But was it worth me destroying his career over it? He was legitimately helping people. He was helping me.
Where was the line in the sand? When did the scales finally balance?
Troy talked me into going with him to track down Beverly Barnes. I could tell he didn’t want to be alone, and no one back at the precinct believed in what he was doing. They thought he was ridiculous bringing in a psychic and had scoffed when he brought Lauren in for questioning. Even after she admitted to lying to the police, they still didn’t think he was going after anything of importance. No matter how much evidence they were presented with, even with the Liam O’Neal case solved, they still couldn’t accept that what he was doing was working.
It ate at Troy. I could see it in the way he kept fidgeting while he drove to Beverly’s place of employment. I wanted to reassure him, wanted to tell him we would figure this out. There was no stopping me now. I was going to prove Lauren was behind this. I had to.
I couldn’t believe she fingered Beverly. Was it possible Beverly was behind my death? Of all people. I remembered the time I had run into her at the coffee shop. Her little boy was such a cute small thing. The darkness around her aura was not. Was that because she had murdered me? Had she then killed Pete, and then finally Drake? Why? What would be her motive?
Pete had been stabbed over eighty times. Why? Why would Beverly do something like that? They thought I had been stabbed at least ten times, that means hatred. What could I have possibly done to her to make her hate me that much?
Was it because of what I used to do to her in high school? The bullying. The passive aggressive comments. I wasn’t exactly the poster child for likability from Beverly’s point of view. But was it motive for murder?
“Beverly Barnes?” Troy and I entered the local dollar store, and I spotted her immediately behind the counter at the front of the store. She looked even more tired than the last time I had seen her, but the tinged aura wasn’t there anymore. She had been delivered her karma and was still standing. That was something, right? If she was a killer, if that was her sin, wouldn’t karma have been delivered in the form of a jail cell?
Or was that why we were here?
“Yes?” She looked at us, and her eyes widened when she spotted me.
“It’s you,” she said to me. That couldn’t be.
“You’ve met before?” Troy asked me.
“Uh, yeah, I think so. At a coffee shop,” she said. She shouldn’t have recognized me. I looked completely different from when I was playing an ad exec as Cassidy Hail.
“My son still has that bear, he loves it.”
“Oh good.” I looked to Troy and shrugged like I didn’t know what she was talking about.
“Is this about Cassandra?” she asked. “You have her eyes.”
“Did Lauren tip you off that we were coming, Beverly?” I asked quickly before she could link me and Cassandra together. That would complicate things immensely.
“Oh no, it’s just when I look at you, all I see is Cassandra.” Beverly shook her head like she was as mystified as us. “What did Lauren say about me?” she asked, a mask of hatred washing across her face.
“That you were the last person to see Cassandra alive,” Troy simplified the accusation.
“Huh.” Beverly fidgeted with something on the counter and looked away from us. “She said that?”
“Is that true, Beverly?” Troy asked, looking for me for confirmation.
I concentrated on Beverly’s aura. It still held some dark splotches. The guilt was there, but I didn’t feel anything as heavy as murder on her soul. But she had been there. I knew it.
“I want to go home, Lauren. I’m not feeling good.” My stomach was rolling in pain. I shouldn’t have drunk whatever concoction Lauren had whipped up at my apartment. It had a terrible aftertaste. Especially on an empty stomach. This entire night had been a disaster. I didn’t want to go to the party. I didn’t even want to hang out with Lauren. She was being so petty. So disingenuous.
She yanked hard on the wheel and almost spun her car out.
“Fine, Cassandra. Now that you’re a cop, you can’t hang with your friends? Ridiculous.” She pulled into a gas station, not finding a spot, only idling in the middle of the lot.
