A Deadly Reunion (5 page)

He flicked his gaze quickly down. It
lingered over what I was wearing for a short moment before he shook
his head.

I was still in my pajamas, wasn’t I?

I’d kind of forgotten that.

Considering the night I’d had, I hadn’t
thrown on anything special for bed. I was in an old pair of gray
shorts and a tattered black singlet. In the right mood and the
right lighting that could be attractive. When you were feeling
bedraggled and overcome, it wasn’t.

“This isn’t my jurisdiction,” he said
calmly, “I found the body and I gave my statement – that’s it. I am
now out of the loop.”

“But isn’t your brother a cop in Wetlake?” I
began. “Annabelle told me.”

“Yes, he is, but he knows enough about
police work to keep it to himself. Look, Patti, I’m sure they are
going to do the best they can. They’ll have the killer in no
time.”

My expression crumpled at that. It seemed
like a promise Denver couldn’t keep.

Rather than say anything to him, I found
myself playing with the pin in my hand. Without opening my fingers,
I rolled it around against my palm, careful not to cut myself, but
aware of the sharp end as it traced against my skin.

Denver dwindled into silence, and then he
looked down at my hand. “What have you got there?”

He could not help but ask questions, could
he?

When I didn’t answer immediately, he
nodded his head down at my hand. “Why were you out on your porch...
in your pajamas, at this time in the morning?”

There he went again, with all of his darn
questions. While Denver had the kind of looks that could have seen
him land a career in film or modeling, he did not have the
personality to match. His persistence was as irritating as it was
childlike. No doubt when he’d been a kid, he would have been the
kind to pester his parents every moment of every day with questions
about why the Sun was round and why you couldn’t eat dirt.

“Patti?”

“Someone knocked on the door.” I had no real
reason to lie to him. Plus, I got the distinct impression that if
you lied to Denver, he would just pester you even more. The only
way to make him go away was to tell the truth and run.

“Who was it?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “They seemed
pretty darn insistent. They woke me up. But when I got to the door,
they weren’t there. Maybe... I wasn’t quick enough. They must’ve
got bored and walked off.”

His eyebrows descended right down to his
eyes. He did not look convinced. “What’s in your hand?”

I clenched my teeth. For a brief moment, I
wondered why on earth I had ever found this man attractive. All of
those classes spent scribbling out his likeness on my pencil case.
They had clearly been a waste of time. For my teenage self had
obviously not been intuitive and wise enough to see Denver for what
he was: the world’s most irritating man.

“Patti?”

“A pin,” I opened my palm. “A blue pin.”

“Like the one you found behind your motel
room,” he pointed out immediately. “Did you go around to pick it up
again?”

I shook my head. “When I opened the door,
there was no one there. But there was this pin. I’m not entirely
sure how it got there. It’s probably some coincidence. Maybe one of
the motel guests had a whole box of pins... and they dropped them,”
I trailed off. My excuse was lame, after all.

Again he didn’t look convinced. Instead he
jutted out his hand. “Let me have a look.”

It wasn’t “can I have a look,” or “could you
please show me the pin.” No, Denver just pushed out his hand and
looked ready to wrestle it out of my grip if I didn’t give it up
willingly.

I handed it to him, and then promptly
crossed my arms in front of my chest. It was for more reasons than
one. I wasn’t wearing a bra, my singlet was pretty old and
threadbare, and goddammit, I was feeling suitably defensive. Who
did this guy think he was running around asking questions and
harassing women early in the morning?

A Federal Agent, a rational part of my mind
replied at once. And it was a pretty good answer.

Feeling irritated at myself and everything
else in this blasted town, I pressed my fingers into my brow and
pushed them up and down as I let my eyes flutter closed.

When I blinked one eye open, it was to see
Denver still staring at the pin, rolling it around his hand, and
poking at it with one of his fingers.

I doubted it held the secrets of the
universe, but considering the fixed attention Denver was now giving
it, you would be forgiven for thinking it did.

“Can I go back to bed now?” I asked
quickly.

Denver glanced up at me. “You do what you
want, Patti Smith.” With that, he waved at me briefly, turned, and
walked off with my pin in his hand.

I stared at him as he wandered off. From his
shined shoes to his pressed pants to his particular stride, he was
every inch an FBI agent, and in no way the dreamy high school crush
I’d once remembered so fondly.

That being said, he had a certain authority
about him, and in just the right light, and at the right time, it
was dammed attractive.

Now was not the right time
unfortunately.

I promptly turned, walked back inside my
motel room, closed the door, locked it, and flopped face-first onto
my bed.

At some point I drifted back to sleep. I
spent a few fitful hours rolling about in my pile of sheets and
blankets until I forced myself up. By that time, it was
mid-morning, a point my belly reminded me of by letting out a
resounding rumble.

Shifting around until my arm was on the
pillow and my fingers trailed through my hair, I briefly stared up
at the ceiling before I forced myself out of bed.

It wasn’t until I bothered to get a glass of
water that I realized there was no longer anything keeping me in
Wetlake City.

Though the drinks on the lawn had only been
the first stage in my high school reunion, the rest would have been
canceled now, right? Annabelle had planned a whole weekend for us,
replete with drinks, lunches, and a final proper reunion dance at
the old school hall. Well, now a dead body had cropped up in the
rose bushes, and that had a way of really ruining a party mood.

Placing my glass of water down on the table,
I turned, walked back towards the bed, and poked my suitcase with
my foot.

I could go.

So why the hell wasn’t I going?

I’d come back for the reunion based on my
mother’s manipulation, but now I’d seen what I had to, and I was
within my rights to go home.

Plus, I wanted to get as far away from this
place and that murder as I could. Every time I closed my eyes, I
saw the blood trailing through the gravel and dappled over the
green leaves and white petals of the roses.

With renewed energy, I started to pack. And
by pack, I mean I shoved everything into my suitcase. I didn’t care
if it was expensive. I didn’t care if I would have to iron the
garments for a week to get the creases out. I crammed them in with
all my force, chucked my suede high heels on top, and made an
effort at neatening the bed, considering it looked like someone had
performed an exorcism on top of it.

With suitcase and bag in hand, I opened my
door and walked out.

It was a strangely sunny day for Wetlake.
There were barely any clouds in the sky, and there wasn’t even a
fell, chill wind racing off the mountains behind the motel.

I took this all as a sign that it was high
time to leave. The gods obviously agreed with my decision,
otherwise they wouldn’t have made a break in the weather for me to
escape.

Allowing the briefest of smiles to curl my
lips, I shoved my luggage in the car, locked it, and wandered over
to the front office to hand back the keys.

In my mind, I was already halfway across the
country. I wanted to be home so bad. I wanted to crawl in the door,
call my dogs to me, and flop on the couch to watch romantic
comedies for an entire week.

Opening the door to reception, I was met
with a peal of high-pitched laughter.

I knew who it was way before I saw a flash
of ice-blond hair.

Nancy.

She was standing there, leaning on the
reception counter, one elbow pressed flat into the old, chipped
wood, as her bosom practically covered the guestbook.

She was dressed in an extremely small and
tight leopard-print dress. I mean, I called it a dress, but in
reality it was a handkerchief with a seam.

She had killer black stilettos on, and one
of her legs hooked over the other as she continued to lean further
into the counter.

There was a surprised, spotty teenager
behind it, who was at eye level with nothing but
leopard-print-encased cleavage.

Adjusting my bag high onto my shoulder and
feeling extremely proper – even though I was in tight jeans, boots,
and a close-fitted blouse – I waited.

Then I waited some more.

And then some more.

I couldn’t exactly tell whether Nancy was
flirting with the guy or just trying to waste everybody’s time. I
wanted to call what she was having with the teenager a
conversation, but it wasn’t. Every now and then the poor kid would
chuckle or laugh or even nod his head in agreement, but that was
it.

I cleared my throat. When that didn’t work,
I cleared my throat again. Yet no matter how politely I tried to
get their attention, they wouldn’t look my way.

Slowly I started to get extremely
irritated. Okay, who was I kidding? Almost immediately I felt
exceedingly pissed off. Not only was Nancy wasting my time and
using her leopard-print cleavage to stop the kid from doing his
job, but this was... inappropriate.

I was a self-confessed romance junkie – so I
certainly wasn’t a prude – but for crying out loud, yesterday Nancy
had attended a school reunion where a classmate had wound up dead
in a rose bush. Barely eighteen hours later, she was laughing,
flirting, and continuing her life without a hint or sorrow or
remorse.

“Excuse me,” I interrupted, “but I’m trying
to hand my keys back here.”

The kid jumped up, and Nancy turned on me
slowly. Really, really slowly. She arched her back, shifted her
shoulder to the side, waited for her hair to trail across her cheek
and neck, and then flicked her eyes my way.

She was not trying to seduce me; she was
shooting me the most languid, sultry warning I’d ever received.

I stared back at her, my expression a
crumpled, irritated mess.

Without another word, I marched up to the
counter, slammed my keys down on the wood, and nodded politely at
the kid. “You have my credit card details; charge me for two
nights.”

“Ah, yes, of course. Hold on,” the kid –
looking particularly nervous, flushed, and sprung – typed something
on the computer behind the desk, and then cleared his throat,
“aren’t you meant to stay for another two nights? We have you down
on the system as staying until Monday morning.” He coughed
quickly.

“I have to cancel,” I gave him a polite
smile.

Though I could have gone on to explain
exactly why I had to cancel, no doubt he knew the story. Wetlake
City was a small town. It had been a small town back when I had
been in my senior year. In many ways, it felt even smaller now that
I had seen how big the rest of the world was in comparison. News
spread around a place like this like wildfire through dried scrub.
Every single person would know what had happened at the school.
Though Denver had assured me this was a police matter, it wouldn’t
stay that way. Someone would tell their mother, who would tell
their sister, who would tell their neighbor, then – hey presto –
everyone would know. So rather than explain myself, I nodded at him
one last time and turned to walk away.

“Oh no now, you can’t be leaving, not yet
anyway; the reunion weekend is meant to last, well, the whole
weekend,” Nancy said as she flopped a hand my way. Straightening
up, she towered a good few feet above me, helped by her
ridiculously high and unsafe stilettos.

I arched an eyebrow and looked back at
her.

Was she really that clueless? Had she
blanked from her mind what had happened yesterday?

“Your name is Patti Smith, isn’t it? We had
a lot of classes together. Now you must remember me; I’m Nancy,”
she shoved her hand at me.

I was repulsed by it, because right now, I
was repulsed by her. But considering my mother had brought me up to
be ceaselessly polite, I found myself accepting the hand and
letting her do all the shaking. Then I let my hand drop to my side,
and not so surreptitiously, I found myself wiping my palm and
fingers on my jeans. “I know who you are,” I forced myself not to
be sarcastic, but it was exceedingly hard, “unfortunately I’m
afraid I still have to go. I assume the reunion has been canceled,
and I really need to get back to work.”

“Get back to work? Now, now, I thought you
were rich, Patti Smith? Surely you can afford to have a weekend
off?”

I stiffened. Wouldn’t you? It wasn’t just
the tone, and it wasn’t just the way she rested her elbow on the
counter, leant her head to the side, and smiled at me. It was
everything. It was the fact she was mentioning I was wealthy in the
first place. Clearly Annabelle had spread the news around.

“It was nice to see you, Nancy.” I turned to
walk away.

She put a hand on my shoulder. I say put –
it was a sharper move than that. Her French-manicured fingernails
dug into the fabric of my blouse.

“Patti Smith, you can’t have come all the
way over to Wetlake for your reunion, only to leave halfway
through.”

I turned on her. I was done with being
polite. “The reunion will have been canceled, Nancy,” I said,
moving my lips slowly and making my voice as clear as I could.
“James Wood was found dead in the rose bushes. You do know that,
right? So you’ll forgive me if I’m not in a mood to reminisce
anymore.”