High School Reunion

“Flew in from where?”

“D.C. I work at FBI Headquarters. I’m a criminologist with the Division of Unsolved Mysteries.”

His gaze sharpened, but all he did was nod.

“Misty invited me to stay with her. I tried to call her several times, on her cell and her home phone, but she never answered, which was odd since she’d made me promise to call. I pulled into her driveway at 8:03 p.m. Rang her bell, knocked on the door, then drew my weapon and turned the knob. It was unlocked.”

Cade turned around and crossed his arms. “You said that. Do you know how unlikely that is? Misty’s—”

“Borderline agoraphobic. I know.” She nodded. “Not to mention a tad obsessive-compulsive. Even in grade school she couldn’t stand to be inside a house alone with the doors unlocked.”

“Which means either she let someone in or they picked the lock.”

“That lock’s at least sixty years old. It could probably be opened with a credit card.”

“So you walked into a dark house that you knew shouldn’t be unlocked, not knowing whether you’d find a burglar, a murderer or a rapist?”

“Or my best friend from high school.” Laurel kept her expression neutral, but it was an effort. “I’m a trained agent with field and crime-scene experience. I know how to enter a suspicious dwelling.”

His face darkened. “Without backup?”

Laurel shrugged. She knew he was right to question her, but she wasn’t wrong. Not totally. She let it drop. “So what do you think about her position?”

“Someone conked her from behind.”

“While she was sitting on the couch?”

“Nope. She’d have slumped over.”

Images of what must have happened played out in Laurel’s head. “Picture this.” She turned to look at the foyer door. “I come in the door. Either it’s unlocked—doubtful—or I somehow unlock it without Misty hearing me.” She stepped toward the couch and raised her hand. “I’m holding the baseball bat. Did I bring it in or pick it up here?”

Cade still had his arms crossed. He nodded toward the couch. “I’m thinking the bat was Misty’s. It was probably near the front door—for protection.”

“What did you do with it?”

“I gave it to Shelton—Officer Phillips—to check for prints.”

“Okay, I’m holding the bat. I raise my arm and swing—” She demonstrated.

“What are you doing?”

The scene in her head freeze-framed. She looked up at him. “Trying to get a picture of what happened.”

“You do realize you’re talking as if you’re the attacker?”

“Oh. A lot of the time I work alone, looking at forensic evidence from photographs or video. I talk to myself.”

His brows drew down. “So you walk in the perp’s shoes. I reckon I see the crime unfolding like a movie—it’s how my dad always did it. I guess everybody’s got their own way of doing things.” He scrutinized her. “So, Gillespie, if you’re acting out what the attacker did, you need to use your other hand. The blow was to the left side of Misty’s head.”

She felt her cheeks heat up. “You’re right. The attacker had to be left-handed.” She looked at her hands. “Wouldn’t you think at least one perp would use the wrong hand, just to throw off the police?”

Cade’s mouth turned up at the corner and Laurel’s pulse jumped at the hint of his killer smile.

He shrugged. “Plus you’ve still got Misty sitting on the couch.”

“Okay. Let’s start over.” She started to turn back toward the door.

“Hold it.” Cade stopped her with a hand on her arm. A large, blunt-fingered, warm hand.

Crime scene, she thought. Crime scene, not high school.

“Are you planning to act out the entire thing?”

“I like to when I can.”

He cocked his head to one side. “Okay, go ahead.”

She gave him a sheepish smile. “Why did Misty get up? Did she hear something and turn around? Here. You be the attacker and I’ll be Misty.”

Cade sent her a look. “Might as well. We don’t have much else to go on. Shelton lifted prints off the dining table, but Misty had a reunion committee meeting here a couple of days ago, so there are going to be dozens of prints.”

“It was three days ago. You stand here, behind the couch.” She moved to go around to the front but Cade caught her arm again.

“Aren’t you going to give me the blunt object?”

“Ha ha. Don’t make fun of me unless you have a better idea.”

He shook his head.

“Here’s something else to think about. Look at the couch.”

“Yeah, I know. Blood spatter across the cushions. Proves she wasn’t sitting.”

“Have you taken samples?”

“Got a few. Don’t forget that this isn’t D.C. It’s Dusty Springs, Mississippi. We’re not equipped to handle a lot of lab work, and I can guarantee you that the state lab won’t consider a minor breaking and entering, even with injuries, top priority.”

Laurel didn’t comment. She knew she could use the FBI lab in D.C., but if she offered, Cade would want to know why she’d use their resources for such a relatively insignificant crime. And she wasn’t ready to explain the reason she’d violated her promise to herself never to set foot in Dusty Springs again. She knew the suspicion that had drawn her back here was flimsy at best. She needed to gain Cade’s confidence before she told him her theory.

“Okay,” she said. “I’m sitting on the couch, watching TV. I hear something. I get up and turn around. It would explain the blow to the left side of her head—”

Cade swung the imaginary bat. “But not her position on the floor.”

“Use your left hand.” Air stirred against her cheek as he feigned a blow to the left side of her head. “I crumple into the exact position where she was found.”

“So she had to be facing the TV.”

“But if she stood because she heard the intruder, why didn’t she turn around?”

“Her cell phone.” Cade said it at the same time as Laurel spotted it on top of the TV.

“She got up to answer her cell phone.” Her stomach sank to the floor. “It was me. I called her from the airport at that very moment.”

“Your call may have saved her life.”

Laurel frowned at him.

“If she’d been sitting on the couch, the attacker would have had a much better angle, and the blow would have struck much harder. It could have killed her.”

Laurel looked at the cell phone. “Have you got gloves?”

“Nope. You’ll have to use a tissue.”

“Misty assured me she’d be at home. She always watches Secret Lives at six. At first I thought she didn’t answer because she was engrossed in the show.” She pulled a couple of tissues from a box on the end table and used them to pick up Misty’s phone. She accessed the incoming calls.

“I called her at 6:25 when the plane landed. Then at 6:58, and 7:20.” She looked at the muted TV. The logo in the corner of the screen identified the station that carried Secret Lives. “If she was watching the show, then she was attacked after it started but before it ended. So she was attacked between 6:00 and 6:30.”

As soon as she’d seen Misty’s floor littered with photos and paper, she’d known what the attacker was after. But now she had to face her own responsibility for Misty’s attack. Her mouth tasted like cotton. She couldn’t delay any longer. No matter what Cade thought of her shaky theory, she had to come clean. She needed his help.

“So you think my phone call kept her from being hurt even worse. I suppose that’s some comfort, considering—” She stopped. This was as hard as she’d known it would be.

His intense blue eyes held hers, lasering holes in her confidence. “Considering what?”

She didn’t know if he was reacting to the guilt that must be written all over her face or the sudden tension that tightened like springs through her entire body, but his demeanor changed.

He uncrossed his arms and casually flexed his fingers near the pocket of his sweats. At the same time he shifted his weight to the balls of his feet. He was poised and ready for anything. The transformation was an awesome and frightening sight.

“Do you see what’s all over the floor? Photos. Scrapbooks. Journals.” She gestured toward the hardwood floor. “I know why Misty was attacked.”

Cade didn’t speak, nor did he move his hand.

“All this—” this time she included the bloodstain on the floor and the couch in her sweeping gesture “—is my fault.”

Chapter Two

Cade Dupree didn’t know what it was about Laurel Gillespie, but he was having a devil of a time taking his eyes off her. If it hadn’t been for one glaring incident back in high school, he wouldn’t even have remembered her. She’d been a year behind him and two years behind his brother. His memory of her was of braces and glasses and wildly curly red hair.

The reason he remembered that much was because of the part his brother James had played in embarrassing her in front of the whole school.

She’d changed. Now her dark red hair was pulled back into a loose braid, but it still wasn’t totally tamed. Wisps and waves floated around her face. Unobscured by braces and glasses, her delicate features were lovely.

Yep. She’d changed a lot.

“Cade, I want to get to the hospital and check on Misty. She’s going to be scared to death when she realizes where she is.”

Cade took off his baseball cap, folded the brim and stuck it into his back pocket. “Five seconds ago I’d have said go ahead, but you just inserted yourself into the middle of this. You want to explain why this is your fault?” He leaned against the door facing and crossed his arms.

To his surprise, her face turned pink.

“I got an invitation to our ten-year high school reunion, but I hated high school. I never intended to come back to town. But Misty begged me to come. I told her I’d think about it.”

Cade blew out an impatient breath.

“This is relevant, Chief Dupree. I was going to wait a day or two and call her back with an excuse. In the meantime, I pulled out snapshots from high school—mostly of graduation night. I wanted to review faces and names.” She turned back toward him and reached into her jacket pocket.

Instinctively, he tensed. It was a ridiculous reaction, totally at odds with her words and body language.

“I found something.”

He flexed his fingers as she pulled out a small stack of snapshots. She held them out.

He took them and shuffled through them. “Yeah? What?”

“Something that would never happen in a million years.”

He frowned at her but she just leveled a gaze at him. He stepped over to a small desk and turned on a lamp. He scrutinized the photos under the bright light. They were mostly snapshots of Laurel and Misty.

The two girls wore white dresses and held their caps and gowns. Both were grinning from ear to ear. Cade studied the awkward high-school Laurel. She wore a dress that hung on her like a sack. Her delicate bone structure and pretty features were not quite obscured by those ugly glasses and braces.

If he or any other guy had bothered to really look at her, they’d have seen what he saw now. Little skinny carrottop Laurel had been destined to be a knockout.

“Put the photos side by side.”

“You could just tell me, you know.” He laid them out like a game of solitaire, then leaned over to study them more closely.

“Back then, I didn’t notice anything odd in the photos, but looking at them now, with seven years of experience in criminology under my belt, what I see doesn’t add up.”

“Who are these people?” He pointed. “I recognize Misty and you. Nice braces.”

She sniffed.

“Who’s that standing behind you two?”

She stepped closer and Cade got a whiff of the scent of gardenias floating around her.

“That’s Wendell Vance.”

“Vance? Where do I know that name?”

“He died that night.”

A vague memory surfaced. “He hanged himself.”

Her nod stirred the air near his cheek. He picked up one of the photos and looked at it more closely under the light.

“Notice anything odd?”

“No. I barely remember him.”

“Look at his face.”

“Okay. His face is red. Embarrassed?”

“You don’t remember what happened that night? What the CeeGees did?”

He shook his head. He’d been at Ole Miss when Laurel’s class graduated. “The CeeGees?”

“The Cool Girls. You know, Debra Evans, Kathy Hodges, Mary Sue Nelson and Sheryl Posey. Their mission in life was to prey on shy girls and geeky boys.”

The girls who’d played the prank on her.

“They taped a sign to his back during graduation that said Wendell Vance has a pencil in his pants.”

“Ouch.” He suppressed a grin—almost.

“It’s not funny.” Her hazel eyes sparked.

“Yeah. It is.”

She propped her fists on her hips. “They humiliated him in front of his parents, his teachers, his classmates.”

He nodded. “I remember Dad talking about it. He thought that was the reason Wendell killed himself.”

“So did everybody. But look here.” Laurel tapped the snapshot with a trimmed manicured nail.

He squinted. “A girl’s hand on his shoulder. So?”

“Not just any girl’s hand. That’s—”

“Cade!”

Laurel jumped. Cade looked toward the door. Oh, damn. It was Debra, Fred Evans’s daughter.

“Dad told me something happened to Misty. What is it? Can I do anything to help?” Her eyes darted around the room and came to rest on the blood in front of the couch.

“Oh, my God!” She turned white as a sheet, then scurried into the room, a plump hand covering her mouth. “I think I may throw up.”

Laurel eyed her. Interesting that she had rushed toward the bloodstain as she threatened to throw up. But then Debra had always been a bit of a drama queen. Based on how she was acting, Laurel would wager that the former CeeGee knew exactly what she would find in Misty’s living room. The only thing that wasn’t fake was her pallor.

In two long strides, Cade reached Debra’s side. “Deb, your dad’s a police officer. You know better than to cross crime-scene tape.”

“But—why would anyone hurt Misty? Was it a burglary?” She turned and spotted Laurel. “Who—?”

Laurel saw the blank look on Debra’s face. She’d expected it—she looked a lot different without braces and thick glasses. Still, it sent that ridiculous knee-jerk reaction through her—disappointment that someone who’d known her didn’t recognize her. She thought she’d left those high-school insecurities far behind.

“I’m Laurel Gillespie, Debra.”

“Laurel? Oh, Laurel Gillespie. So you’re not married yet? I guess you’re here for the reunion?”

Laurel nodded.

Debra turned to Cade. “Why does she get to be here?”

Cade stepped closer. “Because she’s an FBI special agent.”

Debra’s face drained of color again. “FBI? Cade, oh, my God. Did you call in the FBI?”

Cade put his hand on the small of Debra’s back and guided her toward the door. She smiled up at him and put her arm around his waist.

Laurel clamped her jaw. This wasn’t high school. So why was she letting these small-town divas get to her?

Just as Cade guided Debra into the foyer, she glanced back at Laurel. For a microsecond her eyes narrowed and dropped to the photographs in Laurel’s hand. Then she looked her straight in the eye. Laurel saw something in her gaze—something she couldn’t put her finger on.

She was sure of one thing, though. Debra wasn’t as shocked and faint as she pretended to be.

Cade came back in, shaking his head. “There are still a few folks outside, watching the house like vultures. This is the biggest crime Dusty Springs has seen since old man Rabb shot his son-in-law in the butt.”

He walked over to her. “You were telling me why this is all your fault.”

“We were talking about what the CeeGees did to Wendell on graduation night.”

“You think this is all about a silly high-school clique from ten years ago? What’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is that they didn’t care who they hurt. They ridiculed Wendell Vance on the most important night of his life. When he walked across that stage to accept the Science Medal—the school’s most prestigious award, nobody applauded. Everybody laughed. It was horrible.” She felt tears prick her eyes. “Then the next morning—”

“It was discovered that he’d hanged himself down by the creek using the old rope swing. What does that have to do with this?”

“It’s in the photo. The hand on Wendell’s shoulder. Look really close.”

He held the photos directly under the lamp. “Okay. I see the hand. Could we stop playing twenty questions?”

“That hand belongs to one of the CeeGees.”

“How do you know?”

“See the ring. Kathy had them made special for herself and the other girls.”

“I still don’t get it. So she’s making a big deal over Wendell. So what?”

She spread her hands. “If a CeeGee was flirting with a guy like Wendell, then it had to be because they weren’t through with him. They were planning something else that night.”

“You really resent them, don’t you?”

“This is not about me. It’s about what happened to Wendell.”

“What? What happened to Wendell? Besides the fact that he was obviously a troubled kid. I don’t get your point. You said what you saw in the photo didn’t add up.”

Laurel blew out a frustrated breath. “That’s right. I can’t shake the feeling that this photo is telling us something important. Think about it. Wendell got the Science Medal. It carried a ten-thousand-dollar scholarship with it. I remember wishing I could win it, but by the beginning of our senior year it was obvious that it was a two-man race—Wendell Vance and Ralph Langston.”

“Ten grand. I didn’t realize that.”

She nodded. “Wendell had been accepted at Vanderbilt. With all that ahead of him, why would he kill himself?”

“Maybe he couldn’t take the humiliation of what they did to him.”

“That’s not enough.”

“Kids kill themselves because they get turned down for a date. It’s sad but true.”

Laurel heard the doubt in his voice. Her frustration grew. She knew her theory was shaky.

Shaky? It was barely more than a niggle of intuition fed by a couple of odd occurrences. Cade was about two seconds away from dismissing her as a conspiracy theorist.

“The more I looked at this photo, the more sure I was that this went beyond a kid hanging himself because somebody pulled a prank on him. I had to come back here and at least see if I could unearth anything about his death.”

Cade pushed his fingers through his hair, and then rubbed the back of his neck. “Wow. As theories go, yours is pretty thin.”

“I know. That’s why I called and asked Misty to pull out her photos. But I screwed up. I should have made sure she was alone before I started talking.” She spread her hands. “She was in the middle of a Reunion Planning Committee meeting. Everybody in the room overheard her talking about Wendell and the graduation night photos. I tried to stop the conversation once I realized she had company, but it was too late.”

Cade looked at his watch. “I don’t get what you’re driving at.”

“You know who’s on the Reunion Planning Committee?”

“Sure. Ann Noble from the Mayor’s office, Ralph Langston, Kathy Adler, Debra Honeycutt and—” he paused for an instant “—and Mary Sue Nelson.”

“Right. Three of the CeeGees. It was one of them who attacked Misty.”

“How do you figure?”

Laurel looked at Cade’s solemn face. Would he believe her? He had to. Without his help she didn’t have a prayer of uncovering the truth.

“Those three snapshots are the only ones I had that caught Wendell in them. And none of them show the CeeGee’s face. I was hoping Misty had a shot that revealed more.”

Cade’s gaze sharpened. “You’re thinking Misty’s attacker was after her photos.”

Laurel steeled herself against Cade’s possible ridicule. “Yes. I think the owner of that hand was planning a bigger humiliation for Wendell than a rude sign on his back.” She tapped the photo with her fingernail. “A CeeGee would never go near a geek like Wendell. I’m afraid Wendell didn’t commit suicide. I think when we find out whose hand that is, we’ll find Wendell’s murderer.”

LAUREL’S WORDS stunned Cade. He was still chewing on her theory that Wendell Vance might have been murdered when they got to Three Springs Hospital. He understood what Laurel was getting at, but it was a damn big stretch to go from a flirtation captured by a photo to homicide.

Misty Waller was in an emergency room cubicle. Her pretty, round face was almost as pale as the bandage on her head. The skin around her closed eyes was a faint purple. She was going to end up with a couple of shiners.

“I’m so sorry,” Laurel said, squeezing Misty’s hand. “This is my fault.”

Cade leaned against the wall with his arms crossed. Laurel had asked him to let her talk to Misty first. He didn’t like it, but he couldn’t think of a good reason to say no. Misty might tell her more than she’d tell him.

“Don’t be silly. You couldn’t know someone would break into my—” Misty’s voice cracked and she lifted a trembling hand to touch the bandage on her head. She turned her pale blue eyes toward Cade. “I can’t stay here, Cade. Make them let me go home. My cat—my house—”

Cade caught Laurel’s eye. Misty’s voice was too high. She was on the verge of hysteria.

“We’ll get you home just as soon as the doctors tell us we can,” Laurel said, patting Misty’s arm. “But right now, I need to know what happened. Everything you can remember.”

Misty closed her eyes and licked her lips. “I don’t remember anything. Can you call the doctor now? I have to get home.”

“He’ll be here in a few minutes,” Laurel said gently. “Did the nurse give you something?”

Without opening her eyes, Misty nodded. “She said it would calm me down but it’s not working.”

Laurel met Cade’s gaze. “It will. Just give it time. You had a shock. What you were doing this afternoon?”

“While I waited to hear from you, I finished transcribing a stack of depositions for the law firm I work for. Then I turned up the sound on the TV and watched the latest episode of Secret Lives.”

Cade stepped closer. “You turned up the sound? When did you turn it back down?”

Misty frowned up at him. “I didn’t. At least I don’t think I did.”

If Misty hadn’t turned the sound down, that explained why she didn’t hear the attacker. But why was the sound off when Laurel got there? He made a brief note to double-check the prints on the TV.

“So watching Secret Lives is the last thing you remember? What about your high-school pictures? Did you find them?” Laurel asked.

“Yes.” Misty smiled wanly. “I was looking at them this morning. I can’t believe what we looked like. Oh, jiminy, Laurel. We were so skinny.”

Laurel laughed softly. “And we were always dieting. And then running out at midnight for ice cream.”

Misty nodded and winced.

Enough reminiscing. Cade stepped forward, but Laurel held up a hand.

He clenched his jaw. Did she think he was going to sit back and let her run this case? She might be an FBI agent, but she couldn’t do anything unless he officially asked for the Bureau’s help.

His granddad had been chief of police in Dusty Springs before his dad. And although everyone had expected Cade’s brother James to take over the job, now it was his. He was the law in town and he knew how to handle a crime. He didn’t need a big-city FBI agent to do his job for him.

The two women laughed. One laugh was high and tinkly, like broken glass. The other, Laurel’s, was low, throaty, sexy. A thrill of pure lust streaked through him, surprising him.

Down boy. This wasn’t the time or the place. He shifted his weight and tried to keep his expression neutral. Even if it had been a long time since he’d been so strongly and immediately attracted to a woman.

He concentrated on Misty. At least Laurel had managed to calm her down.

That was her intent, he realized suddenly. Still—two minutes. No more. Then he was going to step in and ask the important questions.