High School Reunion

by Mallory Kane

  Laurel spoke up. “We’ll do everything we can to keep you out of it, depending on what you’re about to tell us.”

  Ann Noble took a long breath. “I was with George Honeycutt.”

  “Debra’s husband?”

  “Yes. I trust this won’t have to come out?”

  “As Laurel said, we’ll do our best.”

  The woman felt behind her for the doorknob and escaped from the room.

  Cade stood, closed the door and turned around. “That was interesting.”

  “Do you think Debra knows?”

  He shook his head. “Something didn’t ring true about Ann’s last-second decision to tell us.”

  “I know. There’s something else going on there.”

  Their eyes met. “Think she was lying about Honeycutt?”

  “I have no idea. Still, her affair with Honeycutt doesn’t explain why she was so careful to lure us into asking what she noticed at the meeting, rather than just coming out and telling us.”

  “Maybe Honeycutt is a diversion. Maybe our Miss Noble isn’t as noble as she looks. What if she told us that to divert our attention from the real attacker, who also had a date last night.”

  “Ralph Langston.”

  “I SODON’T WANT to go to this thing.” Laurel looked out the passenger window as Cade drove back to the bed-and-breakfast.

  “The reunion party? At the most it’ll be three hours. What’s the big deal?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Obviously you were never an over-sensitive high school girl with underdeveloped social skills.”

  “I can’t disagree with you there. But come on. Was it really that bad?” Cade’s tone was teasing.

  “Not for you.” Laurel remembered her junior year when Cade was a senior and the school star. He’d never once noticed her. “You were on the football team. You had tons of girlfriends.”

  His jaw twitched and his fingers visibly tightened on the steering wheel. “You’ve got me confused with my brother James.”

  Laurel frowned at him but his eyes were on the road. She remembered every move Cade made back in high school. She could probably list every game he played in. “You played football.”

  “Second team until James graduated.”

  “Come on, Cade. Your senior year you were everything. You have no idea how it felt to be invisible.”

  He didn’t comment.

  Once they got to Laurel’s room, she took out the key to unlock the door.

  “Hold it,” Cade said, catching her arm. “Let me check this out.”

  “Check wha—?”

  He stopped her with a gesture, glanced around, then drew his weapon. His movements were as quiet and graceful as a big cat. As he approached the door with caution, she saw what he saw.

  The old wooden door was closed but not locked. There was a gap between the door and the facing, and light streamed unencumbered through the narrow space where the dead bolt should have shown.

  “Maybe I didn’t lock—”

  Cade silenced her with a look. His heart pounded as he thought back. He’d been standing right beside her when she’d locked the door. She hadn’t forgotten.

  He pressed his back against the wall and reached for the old brass knob with his left hand. He held his Sig Sauer in his right.

  In his peripheral vision he saw Laurel draw her weapon—the backup she’d brought with her. He met her gaze and she sent him a slight nod. She was ready.

  He turned the knob and pushed the door open, and then led with his gun as he entered the room. Sunlight poured in through the open curtains like a spotlight illuminating the mess spread before them.

  Laurel uttered a little cry as she kicked the door closed behind her. “Oh, no! All my stuff!”

  Cade stepped over a pile of filmy, lacy things that had been scattered all over the floor—her filmy, lacy things.

  Don’t go there, he ordered himself. But his brain presented him with an image of Laurel dressed in something soft and scant and sexy. He gave himself a mental shake. “You’ve already unpacked,” he said tightly.

  “Right. Everything was in the dresser or the closet.”

  Her voice was steadier now. She was Special Agent Gillespie. She glanced back at the door and he knew what she was thinking.

  “No sign of forced entry,” he said.

  “Right. So if I’m the perp I have a key or—” She stopped and shook her head. “He has a key or knows where to get one.” She put her fingers over her mouth and blew out a breath.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I can’t do my usual thing. I can’t get into the perp’s head. Not when—I’ve never been the victim before.”

  “Don’t try. Let’s just talk it through. So the perp knows you’re here. Everybody in town does by now. He lets himself in and trashes the place. Why?”

  Laurel stepped over the piles of clothes and stood in front of the dresser. Her expression told Cade how spooked she was about her things being pawed over, but her stiff shoulders and tense jaw told him she was not going to let it interfere with her professional assessment of the scene.

  “He’s still worried about those photos. There’s got to be an incriminating shot in one of them. Plus he doesn’t have much time, so he dumps everything.” She stepped over to the closet.

  “He’s getting angry and nervous,” Cade added. “Why so desperate to find the photos?”

  Laurel angled her head. “Because one of those shots shows his—her—hand on Wendell’s shoulder. And if we can identify her, we’ll know she’s the one who attacked Misty.”

  Cade shook his head. “That’s a conundrum. If she hadn’t broken into Misty’s house in the first place, she wouldn’t have stirred up all this trouble and we might not be working so hard to identify her.”

  “It’s got to be someone at that meeting. Someone who’s terrified that I’ll find a photo that shows her face. She knows from the phone call that I suspect Wendell’s death wasn’t suicide.” Laurel bent down. “Look at this. Do you have an evidence bag?”

  He reached into his jacket pocket. “Always,” he said. “Although here in Dusty Springs there’s not that much need for them.”

  She didn’t even look up, just held out her hand. Then she opened the bag and retrieved something from the floor.

  “What is it?”

  She gave him an ironic look and held out the bag. “A false fingernail.”

  He looked at her short, unpainted nails. “You don’t—”

  “And neither does Ann Noble, but the CeeGees do. It had to be one of them that broke in.”

  “Did you notice their fingernails?”

  “Didn’t you?” Her lips curved upward. “Kathy, Mary Sue and Debra all had French tips, similar to this one.”

  “Not bad.”

  “Hey, I’m a woman and a criminologist. Unbeatable combination.”

  All that and sexy, too. “So did you notice Ralph’s?”

  “Buffed.” Her mouth curled into a moue of distaste. “And that’s not all his real hair, either. He had less than that in high school.”

  Cade took the bag and studied the false nail for a few seconds. “Could somebody have dropped it on purpose, to create a false lead?”

  “It’s got glue on the back and there’s a nasty scrape on the tip. Looks like it was knocked off. What I’d like to know is whether any bits of the nail stuck to it.”

  “DNA? You know that’s not likely. We’d have to get samples from every female we suspect, not to mention whoever cleans in here.”

  “Let’s get a warrant for DNA, just in case. I know this is flimsy evidence, but—”

  “I guess we can try.” He sealed the evidence bag. “It hasn’t picked up any dust,” he said as he wrote the date, time and place found and preliminary conclusions on the front.

  “No. It probably hasn’t been here more than a day.”

  “I’ll get Phillips over here to dust for prints and search the room for anything else that might have been left behind. H
e can get a statement from Mr. Holder. So—you think this belongs to either Kathy or Debra or Mary Sue. And whichever one it is, she also attacked Misty and you and set the fire.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  Cade listened to Phillips’ phone ring. “Why not necessarily? You think the nail was planted?”

  “Or all three could be in cahoots.” She planted a fist on her hip. “Don’t give me that look. It makes sense—if they killed Wendell.”

  Three high school girls cold-bloodedly murdered Wendell Vance? And not just any girls, either—these were the most popular girls in their class, not to mention the least likely to get their hands dirty.

  And they did it alone? Cade knew all three of them slightly. They’d lived in Dusty Springs all their lives. He’d never seen one of the three doing anything more strenuous than using the elliptical trainer at the gym.

  Except for the occasions when Kathy looked ragged around the edges, he’d never seen them with a hair out of place. “So which one did this? We just left them at the Visitor’s Center.”

  Shelton answered his phone.

  “Hey, Shelton,” Cade said. “Bring a kit to the Holder Inn. Room Five. Dust for prints and check for trace.”

  “Be right there, Chief. What’s up?”

  “Someone broke into Special Agent Gillespie’s room. Don’t say anything about it just yet. Thanks, Shel.” He hung up.

  “How long did it take us to get here—maybe five minutes?” Laurel asked. “Anyone could have run over here from the Visitor Center, trashed the room and gotten back without us missing them.”

  “Somebody should have noticed. Who else was there today? The security guard.” He answered his own question. “I’ll talk to him. See if he saw someone leave and come back. Shelton should be here any minute. I’ll get Fred to take prints from the CeeGees.”

  “You’re going to tell Fred we suspect his daughter?”

  “I don’t think there’s any need to worry him with that information. I’ll tell him they’re elimination prints. Get your stuff packed. You’re going with me.”

  “I can’t move anything. It’ll compromise the crime scene.”

  “This is Dusty Springs, not Washington D.C. There’s not much to compromise. That false nail is the best piece of evidence we’re going to get.”

  He bent over and picked up a handful of her clothes from the floor. Unfortunately, when he straightened, he discovered that the handful he’d grabbed was filmy, lacy underwear. His fingers twitched and he swallowed hard, trying his best to stop his brain from making the leap from silky panties to silky body. Suddenly everything reminded him of sex. At least everything about her.

  He tossed the things onto the bed. To his embarrassment, a tiny scrap of black lace clung to his fingers. He shook it off like a bug.

  A muffled sound came from behind him. He shot a glare in Laurel’s direction. Was she laughing at him? “Let’s get going,” he said gruffly. “We’ve got a lot to do before we have to get ready for the party.”

  “We?”

  “Yeah. I’m your date. Did I forget to mention that?”

  Her eyes widened and her cheeks turned pink. “My date?”

  “You already have one?”

  “No.” She eyed him warily. “I guess it makes sense. You want to check out all the guests. I’m the perfect cover. Sure.” She started to pick up her clothes off the floor.

  Cade propped a shoulder against the wall and crossed his arms. He didn’t trust himself to touch any more of her dainty little things. He hadn’t had a whole lot of experience with girly things. He’d grown up in an all-male household after his mom died when he was eleven. And most of his relationships had been casual. He had never brought girls home with him and only rarely did he ever sleep over with them.

  He realized he was watching Laurel’s every move, and her every move was graceful and compact.

  She glided back and forth, picking up clothes and tossing them into a suitcase. About half of her clothes were off the floor when she suddenly plopped down on the bed and pressed both hands against her mouth.

  “Laurel?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Hey—what’s the matter?” He pushed away from the wall and started toward her but she held up her hands, palms out.

  “Nothing. Nothing. I’m fine.” She stood and patted her cheeks. “It just occurred to me that somebody pawed through my things.” She met his gaze, her face troubled. “I’ve never—it feels so—”

  He took a step toward her and touched her shoulder. “It’s okay. I’m going to make sure you’re safe.”

  “Thank you, but that’s not the problem, or at least not all of it.” She swept an arm out. “It’s my clothes. Whoever did this touched everything.”

  Oh, boy. He wasn’t quite sure he understood exactly what the problem was, but he had a sinking feeling the solution was going to involve shopping. He thought fast.

  “I tell you what. I’ve got a washer and dryer at my house. You can wash everything.”

  She looked at him and his heart literally melted and oozed down to his toes. That look was better than a kiss. Okay, maybe not better than a kiss, but it was a really great look. It did wonders for his self-esteem. He felt like a superhero. Just because he had a washing machine.

  “Oh, Cade. Thank you. Can we go now?”

  He swallowed and forced himself to look at something other than her beautiful multicolored eyes. He looked at her suitcase.

  Her suitcase. A safe inanimate object to look at. “Sure. I’ll get your bag.” He had to give her credit. She’d packed everything into one suitcase. “You want to close it?” Once she had it closed, he picked it up and headed for the door.

  “By the way, where will I be going?”

  “To my house.”

  “I mean after I wash clothes. Where will I be staying?”

  “Nobody’s going to break into my house. I can be sure you’re safe there.”

  Laurel’s cheeks turned bright pink again. “Then where will you be?”

  He opened the door and held it for her to precede him out. As she passed, he bent his head and whispered to her.

  “Until I find out who’s behind all this, I’m going to be glued to your side.”

  Chapter Six

  “I can’t wear this. You really don’t have an iron?” Laurel held up the black dress that had cost her half a month’s salary and looked at her reflection in the only mirror in Cade’s house, the one over the dresser. There was a tiny medicine cabinet in the bathroom but it hardly qualified as a mirror.

  The one-bedroom cottage barely held him, much less the both of them. Laurel had agreed to his outlandish plan only because she couldn’t come up with a better idea.

  Hah. Who was she kidding? She was here because he hadn’t given her a choice.

  “Surely there’s somewhere else you can stash me where I’ll be safe. I need a mirror. I need room to move. And so do you. We’re both going to be miserable.”

  He shrugged out of his shirt, leaving him in a white T-shirt and khaki pants. T-shirts did nice things for him, or maybe he did nice things for T-shirts. She forced herself to look at his face, rather than the long, lean muscles of his arms and shoulders or the hints of rippled abs hiding under the white cotton.

  “If I need something ironed, I go over to Dad’s.”

  Laurel tore her gaze away from his abs. “What? Iron?” She blinked, remembering the dress in her hands. “Oh. Iron.”

  He sent her an odd look.

  She thought about his dad in that big house alone. “I could go over there. In fact, maybe I could stay with your dad,” she said. Away from temptation.

  He tossed his shirt into the bottom of his closet on top of several others. “Not a chance. I brought you here because trouble seems to follow you around. I’d rather it not follow you to my dad’s.”

  She felt heat creep up from her neck to her face. “I didn’t mean—I would never put your father in danger. I just thought it would be
nice to have an iron.” And be able to stretch my arms without touching you.

  He scowled at her. “Don’t you have anything else to wear—something that doesn’t need ironing?”

  She scrutinized the dress again, hoping maybe it wasn’t as bad as she’d first thought. But it was a rayon linen blend, and whoever had searched her room had left it in a crumpled heap on the closet floor. It was fatally wrinkled. Not even an iron could help it now.

  “I’ll figure out something.”

  Cade turned his head, listening. “The washer’s almost done.”

  “I’ll get it.” Laurel headed for the bedroom door just as he did. They bumped shoulders as they both tried to go through the door at the same time.

  She pulled back and lost her balance. Cade caught her in the nick of time before she took a header over a stack of boxes. She steadied herself against his chest.

  “Careful,” he said softly. “I can’t have you hurting yourself.”

  By the time she regained her balance, his thumbs were tracing little circles on the sensitive skin inside her elbow. She shivered.

  “Why?” she managed. “Are you afraid I’d sue?”

  He shook his head and smiled, his blue eyes shimmering like the ocean. “Nope. You’re my ticket to the reunion party tonight.”

  For the first time in her life, Laurel felt a sexual thrill from an innocent touch. But looking into his eyes, she realized it wasn’t just a touch—it was the fantasy she’d harbored in her heart since the first time she’d laid eyes on him in high school.

  She’d always dreamed that one day he’d walk up to her, pull her into his arms and kiss her.

  But it had never happened. Until now.

  “Cade?” she whispered.

  His thumbs were still caressing her arms. His chest felt as hard and sculpted as it looked. She swallowed. He was going to kiss her.

  His head dipped toward hers until she could feel his breath fan across her cheek. A voice in her head recited the chronology of events that had led to this moment, and tried to make sense out of them. But how she’d gotten to this point was the last thing she cared about. She just wanted to stay.