Small-Town Secrets

But Spence didn’t know any of these people. Each one was as much a suspect as the other in his opinion. And from what he’d learned so far there was only one way to go about solving this mystery.

Start at the beginning. Nudge the players and watch for the reactions.

He gathered his notepad and pen and headed for the room next door. Dana’s room. She had blocked the memories of the events that night. But the memories were there. His goal was to cautiously prod those memories loose from the layers of fear and disbelief that had them buried.

Cooperation was key.

To cooperate she had to get past her fear.

Just like the kids he had worked with for the county. Guide them away from the fear and toward the light of truth.

They still had more than half an hour before they were to arrive at the Bellomy’s. Time enough to topple that first domino.

Spence rapped on the door of the room next to his. A moment later, probably after visually identifying who had knocked, the door opened.

Dana Hall looked tired and pale. Interaction with the chief and her former neighbor, Mr. Bellomy, had shaken her. They’d barely arrived in town. His investigation had scarcely gotten out of the gate. If she wanted the truth, she was going to have to rally the necessary courage to go the distance and face her past.

Her lack of cooperation was the one primary stumbling block to getting the job done.

“I’d like to go over a few details with you.” He indicated the pad and pen. “We have a little time before dinner with the Bellomys.”

She looked past him, then at the pad he held. “I’ve told you everything I know twice already.”

There was some truth to that. She had gone over all she claimed to remember at the agency and then again en route. But there was much more she didn’t want to remember, and that was what he needed.

“This part of the investigation can be tedious, but it’s necessary if we hope to succeed.”

She considered his statement for a moment before relenting and allowing him into her room. That one instant of hesitation, like so many others he had noticed since meeting her, was the part of this mystery that puzzled him the most.

If she didn’t want the truth, why come to the Colby Agency looking for it?

He understood how difficult this was for her, but murder was never easy.

As she sat down on the edge of the bed, he settled into the chair at the nearby desk. He placed his pad on the desktop and clicked his pen into writing position. “Start at the beginning.”

She licked those plump lips and took a deep breath. “It was our birthday party.” She stared at the beige carpet as she spoke. “The party was okay. Mom insisted on having it in spite of what had happened. Not so many kids came, but there was lots of laughing and presents and two cakes. One for each of us.”

Her silence dragged on until he prodded, “After the party, what happened?”

“We had a late dinner with our family and went to bed.”

“But your sister wasn’t ready to sleep.” Dana had consistently maintained that it was her sister’s idea to leave the house that night.

She nodded. “It was really late but not late enough to deter Donna. She was always the outgoing one. I was the quiet bookworm.” Dana clasped her hands in her lap. “She loved walking in the woods. It was a full moon. She said we’d go to the stream and look at the stars. We did that a lot in the summer.”

“But this was October. Had to be pretty chilly.”

She nodded. “We bundled up, grabbed a blanket and sneaked out of the house.”

“Was this the first time you’d left the house at night without telling your parents?”

A quick shake of her head. “We’d done it a couple times before. We’d meet Joanna and Sherry at the stream. Sometimes Lorie would come, but not that last time.”

There was a name he hadn’t heard. “Who’s Lorie?” This was exactly the reason for going over and over the details. Something new eventually surfaced.

“Lorie Hamilton. She was a friend of my sister’s. Most of our friends were really my sister’s friends. I guess I was a little too boring for them. Too shy. Too much of an introvert.”

Spence could see the remembered pain in her eyes.

“Lorie and my sister didn’t hang out together often. Lorie was fourteen and had friends her own age.”

Spence hadn’t seen an interview report on a Lorie Hamilton in the case file. “Did you mention to the police that Lorie occasionally came to the stream with you?”

A frown furrowed its way across Dana’s brow as she bit her lip. “I’m not sure. She wasn’t there that night so I probably didn’t.”

“Your parents never suspected the two of you left the house without their knowledge?” That part nagged at him. But then, he’d grown up in the city. Maybe that was the difference.

“My parents slept upstairs. We used the downstairs den for a bedroom because of my sleepwalking.”

Something else he hadn’t heard about. “You walked in your sleep?”

“When I was younger. They were afraid I’d fall down the stairs or something. They kept the deadbolts secured…or they did until I’d stopped doing it. By then Donna and I didn’t want to move back upstairs. We’d gotten used to the room.”

Spence imagined that her parents had beaten themselves up over and over again for that decision.

“What did the two of you do after you left the house?” He guided the conversation back to the details of that tragic night.

“We danced around in the yard. Let a couple of leftover balloons go in honor of Sherry and Joanna, then headed into the woods.” Other than lacing and unlacing her fingers repeatedly, she sat perfectly still. “When we got to the stream we spread the blanket and laid down to stare up at the stars.”

“Donna didn’t fall? Hit her head?”

Dana shook her head. “Nothing like that happened.” Inwardly she cringed at the thought that her sister had been hit in the head with a rock…or fallen against one. Why couldn’t she remember any part of that?

“What did you talk about?”

She stared at the wall across the room, her gaze distant. “How much she missed her friends. How we couldn’t wait until we were old enough to get our driver’s licenses. Nothing in particular.”

More of that prolonged silence.

“Who fell asleep first?”

Dana thought about the question, then said, “I guess I must have. I could still hear her talking as I drifted off.”

“What happened when you woke up?”

Her gaze collided with his. “I don’t remember waking up. I told you that.”

Her defensive tone also told him she didn’t want her claim disputed and definitely didn’t want to try remembering.

Move on for now. “Okay. So tell me more about Lorie Hamilton.”

Dana blinked. Her frustrated expression relaxed fractionally. “She was a cheerleader. Very popular. Everyone loved her. She and Donna got to know each other when my sister tried out for the cheerleading squad for the upcoming school year.”

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