Secrets She Knew: A Secrets and Lies Suspense Novel Read online

  Her parents' street was just ahead on the right. Applegate Lane. 1108 Applegate Lane. Allen and Marie’s home for the last thirty years. The only home Dani had ever known outside of Boston. Normally, she would be going straight there to see them first. To settle in. To bring her bags to her old room, wallpapered with pale-pink posies and grey shag carpet, sit at their memory-soaked kitchen table—home of ten thousand family dinners—and have a cup of fresh ground coffee far too late in the afternoon to allow for a good night’s sleep. But when the light turned green, she drove through the intersection, passed by the street and continued on toward the center of town, sadness squeezing her heart like a vise.

  This was not a normal trip.

  I’ll never have a normal trip here again. Whatever “normal” was.

  Brushing away a tear, she turned her thoughts to Green’s Drugs where, with any luck, Sasha and Peter were already waiting for her. She rolled down Main Street, the well-kept line of two-story brick buildings on either side still resembling something out of Mayberry: Glenda’s Gift Shop on the corner; Perry & Pear Men’s Clothiers on her right, and beside it Hinkle’s Toys and Books. And just beyond that, Green’s Drugs.

  A welcome lightness seeped through the sadness, spreading into the corners of her as she imagined it—the long, melamine counter, with its high stools and chipped edges, where they would order root beer floats and cheeseburgers, and laugh and catch up, and maybe, just maybe, for a precious little while, she might be able to pretend that nothing was different at all.

  Not surprisingly, Green’s Drugs was packed, as usual. Every seat in the place was taken—every single one at the long counter and tables—the space noisy with chatter and thick with the smell of grilled ground beef and grease. A few years ago, when the AllMart had opened up just half a mile away, it had killed off Green’s drugstore business. But the soda counter was so popular that the owner had given it one last go, converting it into a full service diner. The gamble had worked and, so now, though they couldn’t buy hairspray there any longer, they were able to order amazing cheeseburgers and fries to go with their milkshakes. Keeping the name “Green’s Drugs” often proved confusing to town visitors, but the locals loved it. And it made it easy to tell who the outsiders were—anyone who came in asking where they could find the painkillers was clearly only passing through town.

  Dani, Peter and Sasha sat on three adjacent, black-pleather stools at the end of the white counter farthest from the front door. Dani sat between the other two, all of them hunched over their food, sucking down milkshakes as they talked and laughed.

  “…and then, five hours later, I finally found them. In the kids’ toilet. Trent said he decided my keys needed to ‘go potty,’” Sasha said, putting a hand to her brow and shaking her head. “Do you believe that? My keys? I mean, why?”

  Dani had seen Sasha perform that little gesture of frustration a million times during their decades of friendship. She felt a smile blossom at the familiarity as she dipped a fry in ketchup, stuffed it in her mouth and nodded, continuing to listen as Sasha shared her woeful tales of chasing after her two young children. Despite the exhaustion Sasha claimed to experience daily at the hands of her little ones, she was as beautiful and vibrant as ever, with her flawless deep-brown skin and shiny black hair in tight ringlets that framed her face before extending nearly a full foot below her shoulders. Almost as if it were a scripted joke, at that moment Dani looked up from her plate, her gaze passing across her own reflection in the mirrored wall behind the counter.

  I look tired.

  Tired, but not terrible, really. Just a bit…rumply. Her bright blond-treated hair, wavy and dropping to just beneath her shoulders, had flyaways poking out here and there. The oversized short-sleeved shirt she wore over cropped yoga pants was wrinkled after two hours of flying from Boston to D.C., a two-hour layover there, followed by another two-hour flight to Birmingham and the hour-and-a-half drive from the airport to Skye. And there were the beginnings of black mascara smudges beneath her brown eyes. She ran a hand over herself, smoothing her hair, straightening wrinkles and rubbing away the mascara smudges, although she couldn’t do anything about the faint circles their removal revealed.

  Peter shook a finger at Sasha. “That boy is gonna be trouble. You’re gonna have to be tougher on him,” he said, before taking a huge bite of cheeseburger.

  “Yeah, you say that now, but just wait,” Sasha said, a knowing smirk on her face. “When that baby comes next month, you’ll be singing a different tune. You’ll get one look at her and be putty in her hands. It’ll be ‘anything you want, baby.’”

  Peter shook his head in protest, but Dani nodded. “She’s got you there,” she agreed, then licked the salt from the fries off her finger. It wasn’t ladylike, but she did it anyway. Ladylike wasn’t really her style.

  “You both sound like Amy,” Peter said. “She’s afraid she’ll have to be the bad cop of our parenting duo.”

  Ten years after graduation, Peter still looked like a kid to Dani, dressed in a white polo shirt and khaki shorts, not a face wrinkle in sight, his shaggy brown hair ending in big curls at his ears and neck. Maybe it was working with kids as the director of the town’s Recreation and Youth Center that kept him looking young. Whatever it was, she wished she had it. She had found two grey hairs last month hiding amongst her subtle blond-highlights, prompting the more thorough, full-on blond dye job she now sported.

  “Well, if your wife needs any help figuring out how to play bad cop, have her call me,” Dani said, as the bell suspended over the front door jingled. Out of habit and training, she instinctively glanced over. A couple of teenagers slid inside, looking for a seat.

  “What would you know about it?” Peter said, baiting her with his tone. “You’ve only been a detective for two months.”

  “Maybe, but I've been a cop for six years and the good-cop-bad-cop routine is the first thing they teach you in the academy.”

  “Like they would have to teach you that,” Sasha said, rolling her eyes.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Dani asked, doing her best to look legitimately offended, but knowing exactly where Sasha was headed. She didn’t mind. The banter was one of her favorite things about coming home to see them. It was what made this home.

  “Please. In a room full of people, you’re going to be the one looking to start something,” Sasha pressed.

  “Um, are you saying I’m antagonistic?” Dani said, working hard not to laugh, all too aware of her long-standing tendency to stir the pot whenever possible.

  “Um, I’m saying you’re a troublemaker,” Sasha replied.

  Dani fixed her face in mock outrage. “I don’t think that’s fair—”

  “I’ll bet the Andrews twins didn’t think it was fair that you announced in pre-cal that one of them had been seeing the other’s boyfriend, with them both in the room,” Sasha said, looking as if she had just played the high trump card in a game of spades.

  Dani pursed her lips. “Well,” she recovered, shrugging, “the truth needed to come out somehow—”

  “So,” Peter boomed, causing Dani and Sasha’s heads to swivel toward him. “Subject change,” he said, his tone softening as he eyed Dani intently. “Have you been to the house yet?”

  The lightness of the easy banter of a moment ago evaporated as a weight thudded to the floor of Dani’s chest. “No,” she answered, then sighed impatiently. “Could we just not talk about this right now? Okay? Not yet. Tell me more about what’s been going on with you two—”

  “It’s just, we’ve been here for half an hour,” Peter said, “and other than telling us that you’re okay and you don’t want to talk about it—”

  “That’s because I don’t want to talk about it, all right? Not now. I just wanted…a little normalcy first,” Dani said.

  “Sure,” Peter relented. “Whatever you need. I just want you to know that if we can do anything, if you want help sorting through things or packing up—”

  S
asha reached across Dani to cover Peter’s hand with her own, gently squeezing it where it rested on the counter. He fell silent. “She gets it, Peter. She knows we’re here for her if she needs help. Don’t you, Dani?”

  Dani nodded. “I do. Honestly, I’m fine. It’s something I need to do by myself, I think.”

  “But,” Sasha started, “when it’s box-moving time—”

  “You’ll be the first one I’ll call.”

  “No, he’s the first one you call for the heavy lifting,” Sasha said, pointing a finger at Peter. “I’m an excellent supervisor, though.”

  Dani chuckled. “Right. Speaking of supervising, how’s the reunion coming?”

  Sasha straightened up proudly. “The Skye High Class of 1998 Reunion is nearly all set,” she said, rubbing her hands together.

  “Which means it’s nowhere near done,” Peter dead-panned.

  Sasha’s eyes flashed, an aggrieved expression washing over her face. “I know you didn’t just say that.”

  “You planned my wedding reception, remember?” he said, his brows rising. “I have two words for you—no shrimp.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you, it’s not my fault the caterer didn’t check her email—”

  “Soooo,” Dani drawled, holding the o’s out until the other two had stopped chattering, “what I want to know is how you got roped into heading this up, Sash?”

  The bell at the door jingled again and, again, Dani automatically glanced over. Single adult male. Over 6 foot. Very dark hair, almost black, cut short, tips curling at the ends, dark eyes, slight five o’clock shadow. Sweaty T-shirt and running shorts. Handsome—Stop, she finally told herself, giving her head a little shake. You’re not on duty. But before she turned away, the man caught her looking and smiled amusedly as Dani broke the connection, feeling her face turn hot. Clocking “handsome” as an identifying characteristic of an individual was a bit of a stretch for a standard rundown, but hey, she was human, wasn’t she? Still, she felt…busted. Shoving down the lingering flickers of embarrassment, she returned her full attention to Sasha.

  “…and the class president always gets the honor,” Sasha said, spreading her hands wide and grinning, her white teeth gleaming. “So it fell to me.”

  “Don’t worry, Dani, she’s been spreading the love,” Peter said wryly. “I don’t know if she’s told you, but you’re down for the decorating committee. And you got your director of music right here,” he said, patting his chest. “Picked the band, the set list, the song for the memorial—”

  At the word, “memorial,” Dani’s nerves fired, as if she had plunged a finger into a socket. “What memorial?” she asked, and in the mirror behind the counter, she watched Peter’s gaze cut sharply to Sasha before shooting quickly down to the countertop, where it remained. An undercurrent of tension prickled the hairs on Dani’s skin.

  They’re holding something back.

  “We didn’t want to say anything before now,” Sasha finally said after several silent moments. “We thought if you knew, you might not come.”

  “What memorial?” Dani repeated, though she thought that she already knew the answer.

  Sasha sighed. “Jennifer Cartwright’s.” She twisted in her seat toward Dani, her body curving slightly, almost as if trying to draw Dani into her thinking. “She would have graduated with us. A lot of people have asked whether we’re doing something to honor her, and it just felt wrong not to acknowledge her somehow. I’m sorry I didn’t warn you, I just know how sensitive you are when it comes to her—”

  “No, it’s fine. I get it,” Dani said, and forced a small smile that she did not feel to prove it. “It’s a nice idea. She deserves that.”

  I just wish you’d told me. So I could prepare myself.

  “It will be nice, I promise. Not overdramatic or long or anything. So…you’ll still come, right?” There was a note of pleading in Sasha’s voice and the concern lining her eyes made it clear she was truly worried that Dani would find the memorial a deal-breaker and blow off the reunion altogether.

  “Of course, I’ll come.”

  “And decorate?”

  Dani narrowed her eyes playfully. “And decorate,” she said grudgingly, pushing her plate, with its two remaining fries, away from her. As long as she left a couple on the plate, and a sip or two in the milkshake glass, she could feel like she hadn’t completely cheated on her resolution to eat cleaner this year. She lazily ran a finger around the edge of the glass, aware that the conversation had taken a turn that gave her the opening to bring it up, but dreading it all the same. Finally, her finger dropped from the glass and she dove in. “So, since we’re on Jennifer…I think I’m going to visit him.”

  Peter squinted, a small hiss of air escaping his lips. “You just saw him in March. I thought you were done with that.”

  “Last time you said it was too hard,” Sasha added.

  Dani picked up the wrapper from her straw and began playing with it, folding it in half, and then in half again, and again. “You know no one else visits him from here?” she asked, her focus still on the wrapper.

  “Yeah, we know. You’ve told us,” Peter said.

  “So, I’ll bet he hasn’t had a visitor since me.”

  “He’s a convicted murderer,” Sasha said. “And—” she reached out to squeeze Dani’s arm just as Dani opened her mouth to speak, “before you start in, I know you think he’s innocent—”

  “He is innocent,” Dani protested.

  Sasha offered a thin smile, ripe with understanding. “We go through this every time you visit. I know you believe he’s innocent, but no one else does. And you can’t prove it. No one here wants anything to do with the man that killed Jennifer. It’s a chapter they want to keep closed.”

  “They didn’t know him the way I do. The way I did. He didn’t kill her and he’s been sitting in that prison, rotting, for thirteen years.”

  “Every time you go, you just rip the wound open,” Peter said. “Last time you told us to remind you why you shouldn’t go back. So, we’re reminding you.”

  “Well, I was wrong. I’m not ripping a wound open, because it never healed in the first place, because they never found her killer. I found her. And I couldn’t help them. I couldn’t give them anything that led to real answers. So, they put the wrong person away because it was easy, and it’s haunted me for nearly half my life. The least I can do is visit him. It’s thirty minutes. I think I can spare it.”

  Silence fell between them, as Sasha and Peter shifted uncomfortably in tandem. Dani understood. Really, she did. They went through this every time she came back down here. They had to be tired of it by now. After every visit she would tell them to remind her why she shouldn’t go see him on the next trip down, because it was just so hard and dragged up so many demons. But then months would pass in Boston, and the guilt would set in and the obsession would gnaw at her, hungry for attention and the injustice would cry out to be undone…

  “It’s just…we worry about you, Dani,” Peter said, his eyes soft. “Not letting this go. It’s like the cop in you can’t accept that there isn’t a mystery to be solved here. I don’t know, it won’t let you…move on. It won’t let you rest.”

  “I live in Massachusetts. I think I’ve managed to move on.”

  “You know what I’m saying.” His words were pregnant with meaning, conveying the history, care and concern borne of a two-decade friendship. The smile that curved his mouth was kind but sad, and Dani’s love for this sweet man, this unwavering friend, overtook her. She wanted to throw her arms around him, wanted to say “thank you for loving me so well, Peter,” right there in the diner. But instead, she lightly bumped her shoulder against his.

  “Yeah, I do,” she said. “But, I’m fine.” When the doubt creasing her friends' visages failed to dissipate, Dani widened her eyes, letting an exasperated chuckle escape. “I’m serious, guys. I’m fine. Okay?”

  In a way that seemed to Dani more like surrender than actual belief,
Sasha and Peter exchanged a knowing look, then exhaled, their postures easing.

  I’ll take it, she thought. “Good,” Dani said. “Besides, we’ve got more important things to discuss, like,” she turned her gaze to Sasha, “why in the world you would put me on the decorating committee when you know good and well my idea of decorating my apartment involved throwing a blanket over a pull-out sofa I found on the street and hanging a plastic-framed poster of George Costanza over it?”

  They stayed there for another hour, rehashing old, funny stories and sharing all the new ones. But as she listened, with a perfectly content and well-adjusted expression appropriately pinned to her face, all Dani could think about was the new loss that awaited her when she left there, and the old loss that, no matter what she had told her friends, was compelling her to rip the stitches from her poorly patched-up veins and bleed out all over again, a guilt payment to the ghosts of her past.

  3

  Dani allowed herself one last heaving sob, blew her nose again, and inhaled a broken breath. Leaning her elbows on the old kitchen table, she rubbed her hands hard across her cheeks, then over her head, whisking the better part of the tears away.

  All it had taken was one cup of coffee. One stupid cup of coffee. She had been fine when she walked into her parents’ kitchen through the door that led in from the garage. She was fine when she flipped on the light and dropped her stuff right at the door, the loud thud sounding incredibly hollow in the uninhabited house. But very quickly a weariness had set in as she looked around at it all—all her parents’ things, their whole lives sitting there in the quiet. In the dark, with no one left to own them. I’ll make a cup of coffee, she had thought, and just sit and breathe for a minute. That’ll help.

  It hadn’t.