by D. L. Wood
On the upside, only a few people asked about Finn. Given that they had been married in Boston, and that Sasha and Peter were the only friends she had invited from home, she wasn’t even sure many knew she had been married at all. Dani dismissed the few polite inquiries with a quick, “we aren’t together anymore,” at which point the person always quickly changed the topic, which was perfectly fine with her.
“I thought the tribute to Jennifer was lovely,” said the woman talking to Sasha, who, after a minute of straining, Dani eventually recognized as Ellie Camper, a former Skye Warriors cheerleader.
“We needed to do something,” Sasha replied. “It didn’t feel right not to.”
“Absolutely.” Ellie clasped Sasha’s arm, her french-tipped nails making indentions in Sasha’s skin as she lowered her voice. “I saw on the news that Dr. Beecher was killed in prison.” Her mouth turned down, disgust creasing her lips. “Serves him right.”
Heat flushed up Dani’s neck. Though her divorce hadn’t come up much, Dr. Beecher’s death had been discussed incessantly, prompted by a sensationalized news report earlier in the day that splashed it all over the airwaves. She had been forced to listen ad nauseam to the steady stream of vicious gossip—in particular the general consensus that Dr. Beecher had it coming—without rising to his defense because she didn’t want to make a scene.
She slammed her wine glass down on a table, causing Ellie to jump. “Um, Sash, I’m going to go grab something to eat. I’ll be back in a minute,” Dani said, and barreled away to the buffet on the opposite side of the room.
Though she hadn’t realized she was hungry, her stomach rumbled at the zesty scents greeting her as she neared the long row of tables displaying the sumptuous feast catered by The Skye Grille. Willett had outdone himself, venturing far beyond the Grille’s standard offerings to include shrimp skewers and cocktail sauces in three levels of spice, mushroom caps stuffed with goat cheese and rosemary, a variety of salads and sides, and a mouth-watering carving station serving roast beef that seemed to melt at the touch of the knife.
Maybe I can just stand here and stuff my face for the rest of the night and avoid having to talk to anyone else.
She filled her plate, and was just looking for an empty bar-height table to hunker down at, when a male voice spoke right behind her left ear, his breath warm on her skin.
“Hungry much?”
She turned to see her high school sweetheart, Bailey King—six foot four, blond as ever, though perhaps a little more filled out than she remembered, but in a good way.
“Bailey! Oh,” she exclaimed, and went to hug him, then realized she had the plate in one hand and her drink in the other. After fumbling to set both down on the buffet, she embraced him with a vigorous, though slightly awkward hug.
“High school sweetheart” might have been stretching it a bit. They had only dated four months during her senior year, but it was the longest relationship she ever had in Skye and she had adored him. Even now, her heart did a little flip at the nearness of him, such a surreal thing after so long. The irony was, she was the one who broke up with him, and had only done it out of insecurity. He was popular, a star of the basketball team, and she convinced herself that it was only a matter of time before he dumped her. He had fought her over it, but she hadn’t relented. Later, when her feelings didn’t fade and she had to watch him go out with other girls, she had kicked herself for being so stupid. He was funny and kind, not one of those high school jocks out to prove something all the time, loved the same kinds of books and movies—even Titanic, which he publicly scorned, but secretly loved, taking her to see it no less than eight times. And he had been very easy to look at.
Still was.
For five glorious minutes they conversed about all things not related to Jennifer Cartwright: where they were living—he was in Providence—what they were doing—he was an investment advisor—and the fact that they were both single.
He’s single. That surprised her. “Never found the right woman,” he had said.
A warm, fuzzy feeling slowly spread out from her center as their conversation rolled along easily.
His eyes are greener than I remember.
“I thought I’d hate it when the company transferred me to Providence, but I love it,” he said.
“I had no idea you’d moved up north. Last I heard you were in New Orleans.”
Those olive eyes narrowed playfully. “Looks like that may have been an oversight on my part. I’ll have to update my address book.”
That grin. Dani’s stomach flipped again, and the sensation almost made her laugh. “Um,” she said quickly, in an attempt to suppress the reflex, “maybe it was.”
He was flirting with her.
Providence isn’t that far from Boston. An hour-and-a-half drive, maybe? It’s not out of the realm of possibility.
Then the hammer fell.
“So, I remember how you were involved in, well…finding Jennifer Cartwright. I heard about Dr. Beecher today. Killed in prison—crazy stuff.”
Her heart sank. So here it was again. A knot formed in her chest, hardening as the seconds ticked by. She just couldn’t get away from it. Then the strangest thought occurred to her.
Maybe I’m not supposed to get away from it. Maybe the fact that it keeps coming up again and again actually means something. Like a sign—a sign that I shouldn’t give up too quickly. Am I supposed to keep pressing?
Yes, she thought.
She straightened up, fresh resolve blossoming. Just because the authorities and Mr. Holmes saw no reason to push any further, didn’t mean she had to give up. She wasn’t in it for the money, didn’t care about the politics, and the fact that Dr. Beecher was dead didn’t mean she couldn’t clear his name. That alone would mean so much to his children and give meaning to the price Jennifer’s parents were going to pay for the unearthing of her diary.
Not to mention finding the actual murderer.
That thought electrifying her, she looked around the venue and realized she was smack-dab in the center of a room full of potential witnesses. People who had known Jennifer. People Jennifer might have confided in. One of them could even be the mysterious boyfriend. Or the stalker.
“I don’t think Dr. Beecher killed her,” Dani replied starkly, her words firm.
Bailey’s forehead wrinkled. “You don’t?”
“I never did. I knew Dr. Beecher well, and there’s no way he did it.” Energized, she plunged in. “In fact, did you know that Jennifer had a boyfriend at the time she died?”
“No, I didn’t,” he said.
“Are you sure? You guys dated for a while, right?” Her words were coming fast now, all business. The detective in her was taking over.
“Just briefly in our freshman year. Long before you and I did.”
“But you never heard about her dating someone during the summer she died?”
“No, I really didn’t.” He shifted his weight to his back foot, tilting his head as if appraising her anew.
“What about anyone she had a problem with? Someone who might have been paying her too much attention? Stalking her?”
He squinted and something about his stance tensed. “Dani…why all the questions? Are you looking into this? Are the police?”
She pressed her lips together, calculating what to say. She didn’t want to overstep and get in trouble with the Chief by implying something that wasn’t true, but she needed her involvement to sound legitimate.
“There’s…been some new information that’s come across my path and I just wanted to follow it up. A room full of people who knew Jennifer seems to be the right place to ask those questions. Teens always talk to other teens. I’m just trying to help out.”
This seemed to satisfy him, and his shoulders relaxed. “Couldn’t leave the detective work in Boston, huh?”
“Something like that.”
“Well, I wish I could help, but, wait...hold on,” he said, and called out to a couple standing a few yards away,
motioning them over.
“Hey, Bailey,” the man said, shaking Bailey’s hand.
“Dani, you remember Toby White?” Bailey asked, gesturing toward the man. “And this is his wife, Tina. Toby, you knew Jennifer Cartwright pretty well, right?”
“Some, I guess.”
“Did you ever hear about her having a boyfriend at the time she died or….”
Bailey repeated the same questions Dani had posed, eventually handing Toby and his wife off to her. As others approached just to make general conversation, Dani made the same inquiries after quick reintroductions, hugs and handshakes.
Adrenaline coursed through her as she peppered classmate after classmate with the same questions, hoping that eventually she might find someone who remembered something, no matter how trivial, that could help. With thoughts of Bailey King and his singledom long forgotten, she went from the bar to the dance floor to tables, chatting and questioning as she went. Forty-five minutes later, as she stood beside the punch table finishing up with three not-so-helpful couples, Peter and Amy approached, laughing as they came off the dance floor.
“I am getting too pregnant for this,” Amy joked, reaching for a cup of non-alcoholic punch.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Peter said, grabbing a beer from the bartender. “You’re keeping up with the best of them.” He sidled up to Dani. “Hey there, kiddo,” he said, bumping shoulders with her. “You’ve got quite the audience going here.”
“She’s investigating,” replied a woman in a tight-fitting red sheath dress, standing across from Dani in the little circle.
“Oh, yeah? Investigating what?” Despite the question, his frown told Dani he knew exactly what.
“Jennifer Cartwright’s murder,” said the woman, whose name tag read,“Denise Foley, Class of 1998.”
Peter’s expression grew more dour. “Oh, really?”
“I’m not investigating,” Dani said. “I’m just asking a few questions about…well, the boyfriend Jennifer had that summer and another person—someone giving her a hard time—that she was concerned about.” Peter already knew all this, but she said it for the sake of the group. She tried to keep her tone light, but his jaw had seized and his face was stony.
“I thought you were done with that,” he snapped.
“Well—”
“Seriously, Dani—when?” His voice was raised now, with a sharp, frustrated edge to it. “When are you going to be done with this?” Amy moved in behind him, her face wrinkling in consternation.
“Well, I don’t know, Peter,” said Dani, and she could hear frustration bleeding into her tone as well. “I guess when I feel I’ve done everything I can to clear Dr. Beecher.”
“Clear him?” He was nearly yelling now, apparently audible even over the music booming through the speakers, given that heads several yards away were turning in their direction. “Clear him? He killed her Dani. Killed her!”
Amy placed a hand on Peter’s arm. “Peter—”
He shook his wife’s hand off, but did lower his voice as the others in the circle, looking quite uncomfortable now, made subtle steps to back away. “No. Amy, look, Dani is one of my oldest and dearest friends and I’m so tired of watching this eat away at her year after year. Jennifer’s dead. Dr. Beecher’s dead. There’s nothing more to do. There’s no one to save! Whoever this boyfriend and the creep are, it doesn’t matter because the case was solved years ago and Dr. Beecher got what he deserved.” Throwing his hands up in surrender, he backed away. “I need some air,” he said, and strode out of the room.
“It’s not you,” Amy offered kindly, her short, cocoa-brown hair swishing as she turned to Dani. “He’s always been sensitive about the Jennifer Cartwright thing and how it affects you. He knows what it did to you back then and hates to see it still affecting you now.”
Peter may have just yelled at her and walked out in anger, but even so, embers of adoration flickered in Dani’s heart. While Sasha had been her partner in crime through the years, Peter had been her rock. Especially when it came to Jennifer Cartwright and dealing with the trauma in the aftermath. Sasha had been her encourager, her cheerleader, dragging her out to parties and school events and refusing to let her wallow; Peter had been her sympathizer, sitting with her more nights than she could count, his arm around her, quietly providing support. Literally letting her cry on his shoulder. Even crying with her too…
Creep.
The word, unbidden, resonated in her mind, and a bombshell exploded within her.
Creep!
“Dani? What is it?” Amy asked, her eyes growing large at whatever dumbstruck expression had overtaken Dani’s face.
But Dani couldn’t answer. She couldn’t think. Her heart was thundering in her ears. Racing away. Pounding, pounding…
“Dani,” Amy said, shaking her. “Are you okay?”
“I, um, I just…with Dr. Beecher today, and my parents, and now this…I just need a minute. I’m going to the restroom for a sec, okay?’
“Sure, yeah,” Amy said, her voice ripe with worry. “Do you need me to go with—”
“No, thanks,” Dani cut her off, already moving toward the exit.
Pounding, pounding, pounding…her heart slamming against her ribs. She pushed through the lightheadedness threatening to overtake her, forcing herself to walk calmly, until she reached the door at the back of the room and slipped through.
The second it shut behind her she began running.
She crashed through the door leading out of the front of the building into the still, muggy air, frantically scanning the parking lot. After two passes she saw Peter, standing alone in the dark at the far left corner of the building, staring up at the sky. She hurtled to him, grabbing onto both arms, twisting him toward her as his face snapped down to meet hers.
“It’s you, isn’t it?” she asked.
He wrenched out of her grip. His gaze, normally so warm and inviting, was like granite. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Dani’s heart imploded. Oh, Peter. “The boyfriend. Jennifer’s boyfriend. It was you.”
His frame collapsed on itself and he seemed to shrink, as if her words had knocked down the very supports that had been holding him up all these years—the bars of the cage in which he had locked up this secret for so long. “How…how did you know?”
A solitary tear rolled down her face. She hadn’t wanted to be right. “Creep. You called the stalker a ‘creep.’ Jennifer called him that in her diary, but you haven’t seen the diary. At least not since I found it. And I never mentioned the term ‘creep’ to any of you. The only person Jennifer used that word with was her boyfriend.”
Peter’s hands went to his hips, his head dropping even lower. Dani moved to embrace him and he jerked back out of her reach as if he were tainted. As if he were afraid for her to touch him.
She stood her ground. “Why didn’t you say something, Peter?”
“When—now or then?” he asked, his voice trembling.
“Either?” she answered gently.
“It’s a long story.”
18
“We started dating at the end of our sophomore year.”
Dani and Peter sat on a bench outside the Civic Center, in an area off to the side that held several picnic tables. His body was rigid, facing forward, while she curved toward him. She had to fight every instinct she had to not pull him close, hug him tightly and swear that everything would be okay. The pain he was feeling was nearly tangible, engraved in every wrinkle in his tortured expression.
“She and I were a strange match. She was the popular kid, I was the artistic oddball. It was like some kind of lame teen movie premise.” He let a sad chuckle escape, but his visage remained dark.
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Because I was afraid. Afraid of what you’d say. Afraid it wouldn’t last—that she’d grow tired of me and dump me and then I’d look like an idiot. And Chip Matthews had a crush on her—I didn’t want him and his football
buddies shoving me in a locker or something. It was just easier to keep it to ourselves.”
“Which is what she wanted too.”
“Sort of. She didn’t want her parents to know, so she was happy with us not telling anyone, because it would get back to them. She thought they would have a problem with me—unpopular kid, not the best grades, and worst of all, absolutely no money. Her family lived in Deerfield Meadows and owned half the rental real estate in the county. We lived in a trailer park and my dad mowed yards for a living.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“No, but she was sure they wouldn’t like it. And she made me swear to not even tell my own parents. Eventually, though, I didn’t care. I didn’t care who knew at school and I actually wanted her parents to know. I felt like I was living a lie. I didn’t like hiding things from them. I felt she was ashamed of me. Eventually, we started fighting about it—well, you probably know that, don’t you? You read her diary.”
“But when she was killed—why didn’t you say something then?”
“Because I was terrified they would think I did it. I knew about that diary. She always had it with her. She didn’t trust leaving it anywhere. Not even at home. Didn’t want her parents to find it. She wrote everything in there. Called it her “silent best friend.” She promised that she hadn’t mentioned me by name, but I didn’t know what else was in there. I figured that eventually they would find the diary and realize there was a boyfriend, and they’d start looking at him as a suspect. I was fifteen, Dani. Fifteen. I was scared that if they knew I was the boyfriend, they’d think I did it. It didn’t help that the ring I gave her—the one with the twisted vines—was taken. I thought that only made me look more guilty.”
“What about after the diary wasn’t found?”
“It didn’t change anything. What if I came forward as the boyfriend no one knew about? They might still pin it on me.”
“But the stalker…this creep she talked about…you knew about him. You could have told the police. They would’ve had a lead.”
