A Dress to Die For

by Margaret Evans

  Of course, he knew there was no “if” because he had come this far and there was no going back. He could never un-read the letter or un-do the days he had spent with Edna Phelps. Forward was the only direction left to him—the only option.

  Her address was listed on Taylor Street in Raging Ford. That was his next stop, but he had to think about it before he went there. Just a little. Maybe he would go there later today.

  But he would not introduce himself just yet because he wasn’t ready.

  • • •

  After dinner, Laura and Connor were in his parents’ basement, dancing and discussing the missing girl case. Laura was gratified to see that Connor’s salsa steps and moves were getting smoother.

  “You got my emails last night.” At his nod, she continued. “So we have finally identified the girl who did not buy the red dress. The FBI now has that information, too.”

  “Who identified her for you?”

  “Jenna recognized her in the hotel a couple days after the auction items were stolen.”

  “Why do you think she was there? Is she connected with the robbery?”

  “I don’t know yet; it was just odd to see a local person in our local hotel, calmly reading a magazine. And she might not have any connection with either case, but it’s just odd.”

  “You told Jenna not to share this, right?”

  “Yes, and she agreed. And you and Nolan also both have Brianna’s and my notes and conclusions from talking to sixteen Mapleton High School girls.”

  Again, he nodded. “And I agree with your decision not to go to the other two schools. Two of the missing girls were from Mapleton; the rest of the schools had only one each. Although, that’s not proof of anything.”

  “I know, but one of the Mapleton girls we spoke with today winked and indicated to us that she was nominated for prom queen and had it nailed. She also made a comment about how everyone should ‘wait for that night, just wait’ as if something was supposed to happen that would get everyone’s attention.”

  “We should keep an eye on her and talk to her parents. Her name was in your notes. Got it.”

  “Good luck with that plan,” Laura said. “That girl won’t tell anybody anything, especially if it’s a secret between her and her boyfriend. And parents like hers won’t let you near her without a lawyer present.”

  “We still have ways to look into things.”

  “And maybe watch her throughout the evening of her school prom. We don’t know if whatever the plan was to take this particular girl is even in the works. It just looks suspicious.”

  “Yes. It does look as if the same thing is happening with our Mapleton girl as with the other seven. Did you ask her if she was wearing a red dress?”

  “No, Brianna and I didn’t think of that. I can call the school and ask what color their prom decorations are going to be.”

  “No, don’t bother. We’ll just notify Mapleton PD and offer to help them keep an eye out for what might happen at Mapleton’s prom in three weeks. They’ll tell us if they need our help with an undercover officer and coordinate with the FBI.”

  They did a tricky twirl and switched directions.

  “There are still so many leftover crumbs to Brittany’s case,” Laura continued. “How did she leave the prom? Did she leave with someone? Did she leave against her will? Did she leave voluntarily, and if so, why? If against her will, then how did they get her out of there without being seen? I still lean toward a message of some kind being sent to Brittany alone, five days before the prom, and supposedly from Dante, setting up a tryst and she’s told to wear a red dress, say nothing to anyone, and not even to him. She could have snuck out by herself and gone to a rendezvous where she expected to meet him. Her wink was outside the plan but would support that.”

  “The dogs found nothing. Brittany left her shawl wrap behind, so they had a scent to go by but never picked up anything beyond twenty-five yards from the building. Dante drove her to the prom, so she had no car.”

  “Had it rained?”

  Connor shook his head.

  “No footprints or tire marks to track. Then someone gave her a ride or picked her up—someone who could have already been there,” Laura concluded.

  “Frye said that everyone at the prom was interviewed, even the couple who left early. Everyone was accounted for and nobody else’s car was gone.”

  Laura’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Who left early and why?”

  “Probably in one of the officers’ case notes. I emailed you a copy of the online file. I’ll request the case notes from Eagle Junction, but I seem to recall reading that one of them wasn’t feeling well. The notes said they found some alcohol in one of the punch bowls and concluded that was the cause. Both kids were at home with their respective parents. The boy’s car was in the garage. They checked it thoroughly and found zip. Nothing else looked suspicious.”

  “No one saw Brittany leave?”

  “Correct. Not with or without another person.”

  “That’s weird. Could she have still been somewhere in the gym?”

  “The building was thoroughly searched, including the attic, storage closets, and underground crawl spaces. Grounds were searched for days, with the dogs. They even brought out a cadaver dog. Nothing was found. She vanished into thin air.”

  “Well, thin air isn’t as thin as people often think it is,” Laura said, her brows knitting. She recalled how easy it was to slip past her parents when she didn’t want to be seen. The thought made her miss the twirl and lose her balance.

  “Do you need more practice?” Connor inquired, neatly catching her.

  “Maybe,” she said, smiling.

  Connor changed the music to a different salsa, took her hand.

  “Did anyone else leave the dance, like a teacher or chaperone?” she continued, switching smartly to the new steps and rhythm. “Wiggle your body and toss your feet forward; wave your arms to go with the wiggle and toss. Then grab my hand and swirl me around to face you, and we keep going, only me backwards. Then we reverse that with my going forward and you going backwards and I twirl you.”

  Connor was a quick learner and light on his feet.

  “If they did, I don’t know if it’s in the case notes. I can’t be certain they asked that specific question, but Brittany was from a wealthy family, and I am sure the police on the case and the FBI would have been very thorough.”

  “Who was the girl from Raging Ford who disappeared two years ago? I can’t remember without checking my white board. Emily Something?”

  “Emily Macchio.”

  “I knew the Macchios from church and CCD classes. Connor—I just think,” Laura said, running through the salsa steps and movements with Connor, “that if no one saw any of them leave, and no one left with any of them, my thought that someone tempted or lured each of them away from their proms jumps forward, as I believe happened with Brittany. Her conspiratorial wink to Dante is a giveaway. Maybe they got rides in a pseudo-Uber or some other ride program—maybe even not a real one. You know what I would do? I would make up a company and make sure there was a coupon for a first ride free that went to that person, maybe even along with the luring note. When the car arrived to pick up the girl, they would take the free ride ticket from her, so there would be no evidence.”

  “They checked the girls’ emails at home.”

  “They could have set up emails at the public library. You can print things out for free there.”

  She stopped dancing and gave him a sober look, knew he was thinking the same thing she was.

  Michael Fitzpatrick took that moment to poke his head around the corner at them.

  “I’ve been listening to the two of you talking over the cold cases. You sounded like Frank and me talking over cases. Laura, are you
sure?”

  “I’m sure. Thanks for asking—again. But still not interested in joining,” she said, smiling, and continued her wiggles and arm waving. The DoorBell app on her iPhone buzzed and she stopped to check it, but it was just a man stopping to look at her shop who continued on his way a moment later. It happened all the time, and she didn’t give it another thought.

  • • •

  Justin discovered in the library that his twin owned a shop called Second Treasures in Raging Ford. He’d found the library and done some research on the town and was devastated to find stories online that confirmed the violent deaths of his birth parents. There was apparently a great aunt who snatched up the fifteen-year-old Laura Keene and whisked her to a city called Rockville in Maryland where the great aunt had a counseling practice at a local high school. There were no stories after that, but there were blog postings talking about Laura returning to Raging Ford following her aunt’s death. So apparently, she had come back to her home town.

  Now, in the early evening of Saturday, as he stood looking up at the shop sign, he also saw the Certified Public Accountant shingle hanging beneath it. He peeked into the window past the gigantic, white rabbit but saw little in the darkened store.

  So that’s how she got here, what she’s been doing since last fall, and I can’t believe she’s been so close.

  A large gray cat sat in the window staring at him, but he didn’t see it.

  • • •

  No one would have expected to see Eric Williams sitting in the back room of a talent agency. But perhaps it was exactly what was to be expected, given the topic of conversation between him and the elegant lady facing him.

  Williams wore what had to be a four-thousand-dollar silk suit, and his fine, Italian leather wingtips were polished to such a sheen that he could see his reflection in them if he looked down. His hair styling and manicure put him in a different echelon than the people of Raging Ford expected to find him.

  When the lady was finished going through her notebook, she looked up at Williams.

  “Are we in agreement, then?” she asked, her eyes sharp on his.

  “That depends on whether you can meet the demands of my client. We have already agreed to the price.”

  “Your demands will be met,” she returned. “I have never not met my customers’ demands.”

  “Then we’re both ready for tomorrow,” Williams said, and rose to leave the room.

  “Make sure the funds are ready and with you,” she tossed after him.

  “They will be.”

  After he left, she called in her assistant who frowned.

  “Too bad he wants to be the middleman. We’d make more money without a broker,” he said.

  “Don’t worry,” she replied. “We’re still making a lot. And if the end-client is happy, we can find a way to reach out to him without a broker for a better deal than he’s getting with a broker.”

  She put her notebook away.

  “Is our other friend ready to meet us tomorrow?”

  “Oh yes,” her assistant said. “He’ll be there on time and ready to roll.”

  • • •

  As Laura fell asleep that night, she was glad that it would be a quiet night and an even better Sunday with the silent auction. All was well with the world. They had found the silent auction items and were hot on the trail of finding out what had happened to Brittany Johanssen.

  thirty-five

  Early on Sunday, Justin took a cab from his hotel to the Harmington Hotel on Route 35. Jenna’s campaign on social media to spread the word confirmed Laura Keene would be helping at the big, silent auction event. At the veritable eleventh hour, he saw the instructions to register online for entry to the auction. He did so and printed his email confirmation on his hotel’s printer, after creating a new email account not in his real name as a precaution. Cars and buses were filling up the lot by the time he got there, but the auction wasn’t scheduled to begin for another two hours.

  So he settled in an alcove off the main lobby with a newspaper. He saw a couple of interesting things going on. While people were allowed into the main lobby, there were ropes preventing them from entering the hallway to the auction. The other thing he noticed was the heavy police and security presence. He was not concerned but surmised that some of the auction items might be valuable.

  He was buried in his newspaper for a good hour before hotel staff directed some of the growing crowd to the restaurant where they could order a late breakfast or an early lunch. In addition, the bar was always open.

  Since Justin wanted neither, he remained in his alcove and waited for the silent auction to begin so he could get more than a brief glimpse of his twin sister. He would not approach her, but he did want to take a good long look to see if he felt recognition…or anything at all.

  • • •

  The air crackled with excitement, and the items scattered about the tables on linens sparkled and glowed, waiting to be bid on and won, as Laura and her friends gave a final check on everything in the room where the silent auction was about to take place. Her hand on the knob, Laura peeked through a crack in the doorway and saw a huge crowd gathering at the end of the hallway to the lobby.

  “They’re out there, Jenna, in droves,” she said, pulling the door closed.

  Jenna was still worried, pulled her mink stole more tightly around her shoulders, despite the predicted sixty-five-degree weather.

  “Look, Jenna. Everything is perfect. The cops found the stolen goods and you got even more donations, so there’s a whopping big bunch of stuff for people to bid on. You have nothing to worry about,” Kelly said, straightening her friend’s stole.

  Jenna shook her head.

  “I’ve got a chill that something’s going to happen. Can’t explain it.”

  Erica swept over.

  “Everything is set, girl. Don’t worry. We’ve got police and FBI all over the place,” she said, nodding at the two cops eating cookies at the food table. “And my boyfriend Torrey has made sure the microphone and audio system works in both rooms. We can play soft music, salsa, or make announcements all we want. We’ve got chairs for older folks who tire or for some of us who have been on our feet all day. We’ve got refreshments for everyone on the tables up against the stage. You’re good to go—you did it! This is amazing!”

  The Fab Four gave themselves a group hug and opened up, hands still held.

  Big grins spread across all their faces.

  “I’ve still got a shiver about today,” Jenna said, her smile looking a bit strained.

  “You always have a shiver. You’re a chilly bean,” Laura said, laughing. “I’ll do a final walk-through in the lobby and get everyone revved up. And Kelly, thanks for picking up the duct tape for me. I see you got the super-big rolls. I’ll take the bag out to my car before the auction starts. Anybody want to come with me?”

  “I will,” Kelly volunteered, pulling her own sweater tight, as she pushed open the door to the hallway next to the lobby. “Ooh, it’s cold out there. They must have the front doors open because there are so many people. It may not have gotten up into the sixties yet.”

  “Here, Laura,” Jenna said, pulling off her mink stole. “Wear this so you won’t get cold. I’ll be fine in here.”

  Laura wrapped herself in mink and grabbed her bag, filled with the twelve super-sized rolls of duct tape Kelly had bought. She was afraid if she left it behind, it would get taken by someone accidentally, and she needed it to create the frame for the big bunny for the Easter Egg Hunt.

  The pair wove in and about through the crowds, laughing and greeting people, drumming up excitement about the auction, which was about to start. Lines ran out the front door, the reason for the doors being held open.

  Mink is really warm, Laura thought, but she was a little too
much of an animal rights activist to want her own. She enjoyed it while she wore it but realized it was getting a little too much to wear in a crowd this size. She snuck back to the auction room and handed it off to Jenna and then rejoined the crowd. It was almost time!

  • • •

  At that moment, two separate people spotted Laura in the mink stole.

  One of them stood in his alcove to get a good look at her through the crowd. She was pretty and looked happy. They had the same hair color. He just drank it all in. Once he got into the auction, he would stay out of her sight but watch her and learn about her.

  Across the room, another person spotted Laura, as well.

  “So, the little lady with her own shop also wears mink,” the woman mumbled to herself. To her partner, she whispered, “She’s the one.”

  He frowned.

  “But he said his client didn’t like blondes; he specifically asked for a brunette.”

  She sneered at him.

  “Don’t argue with me. Today, he’s getting a blonde. She needs to be taught to mind her own business, and she needs to be taken down a peg from her perceived social status.”

  “Is she the one who’s been looking into us?”

  “Yes, she’s been digging into my background and history, too. We can’t risk that going any further than it has. I can’t lose what I have.”

  He nodded.

  “Understood. When?”

  “Right now, while the crowd is thickest. No one will notice. Stay behind me and wait for my sign.”