Colby Agency: Small-Town Secrets Part 14

She opened the window, took a breath and climbed through.

It was a tight squeeze. She should have taken off her jacket.

Her hands. .h.i.t the ground first.

Banging on the door to her room sent her heart cramming against her rib cage.

Hurry!

The rest of her body tumbled to the ground.

She scrambled up and ran.

Which way?

She scanned the dark alley.

Headlights came on to her right.

Run!

She didn't pause to think. She just ran.

She reached the front pa.s.senger door first.

"Get in the back!"

Ginger. She was in the front pa.s.senger seat.

Dana almost tripped getting to the back door. She wrenched the door open and threw herself in.

Tires spun and the car shot forward.

Dana glanced around the car as they pa.s.sed under a streetlight. Patty was driving. Lorie was in the backseat with her.

They were all here.

The three girls who'd made her life miserable the weeks and months before her sister and the others died.

"Where are we going?" Dana hated that her voice sounded so small and weak. She wanted to be strong.

Ginger looked back at her. "You'll see."

SPENCE RAMMED his shoulder into the door. It didn't budge. d.a.m.n it.

Was she in the shower?

He shouted her name again.

Still no answer.

"What's going on here?"

He turned to find the motel manager hovering a few feet away.

"I need the key to this room."

Henagar reached for the ring of keys on his belt. "Won't do you no good to get in there." He rammed the key into the lock.

"Why do you say that?" Spence demanded. Frustration with a hefty dose of fear had already ignited inside him.

Henagar hitched his thumb behind him. "She went out the window into the alley. Got in a car with some other people and took off."

"Can you describe the car or the occupants?" Spence pushed the door open and went into the room.

"Nope." Henagar leaned on the doorjamb. "Too dark."

"You didn't get the license plate or anything?" d.a.m.n. d.a.m.n. d.a.m.n.

Henagar shook his head.

Dana's purse was on the bed. He checked it. Her cell phone was inside. No recent calls except for the three from her mother.

"Did you see which way they went at the end of the alley?"

Another indifferent shake of his head.

Of course not.

Spence walked to the bedside table and picked up the receiver. He entered the necessary numbers for the chief. Two rings and the other man's weary voice came across the line. "Gerard, we've got a problem." Spence wasn't going to waste time explaining what Henagar had just told him. "I'm at the motel. Dana Hall is missing."

The chief a.s.sured Spence he would be right there. Spence dropped the receiver back into its cradle. He turned back to Henagar. "And you didn't see anything else?"

"Didn't have to see nothing," Henagar said. "I know who it was."

Well, h.e.l.l. "Who?" Spence demanded.

"The same ones who always had it in for Dana. The cheerleaders. They always picked on her. That sister of hers let 'em. Added fuel to the fire, if you ask me."

"Do you mean Lorie Hamilton, Ginger Ellis and Patty Shepard?" He'd known those three were hiding something.

Henagar nodded. "They always ran everything in school. If anyone gave 'em any trouble, they got their vengeance."

"What kind of vengeance?" Tension throbbed like a second heartbeat inside Spence. Memories of the little boy he'd helped rescue, only to have him returned to his mother, kept flickering one after the other inside his head. He wasn't having any repeats of the past.

Henagar shrugged. "They liked to embarra.s.s the ones who didn't wors.h.i.+p them. You know, make them sorry they were alive."

Spence could just imagine Dana-invisible, misunderstood Dana-being tortured by those b.i.t.c.hes.

"Do you have any idea where they might take her?"

"Could be most anywhere. They're sneaky like that."

Spence walked back outside, set his hands on his hips and surveyed the deserted street. They could be anywhere.

And Dana was vulnerable.

She could break down completely...could end up dead.

Or, she could lash out.

Was that what happened sixteen years ago?

No. Spence shook his head slowly, firmly. Dana Hall didn't possess the necessary quality to kill anyone, not even in self-defense.

The killer was here though.

And it seemed a whole lot of people wanted to keep his or her ident.i.ty a secret.

PATTY DROVE deep into the only cemetery in town.

Dana felt numb, but she wasn't afraid. She wasn't going to give them that much power. She had to be strong.

The car jerked to a stop and the women piled out. Dana got out a little slower. Take it slow, concentrate. This was her chance to learn the truth.

"We thought we'd visit your sister," Ginger said as she walked backward around the front of the car. "And her friends."

Dana's mouth was as dry as sand. Just words. Words can't hurt you.

Lorie came up behind Dana and pushed her toward the small, lonely headstone that belonged to her sister. She blinked back the tears. Her chest was so tight her heart could hardly beat. When her daddy had killed himself, her mother couldn't bear to come here and bury him next to Donna. Dana had been too numb to argue. She'd been a kid. Too much tragedy. Too much trauma.

She'd asked herself, though at the time, should she have killed herself? The pain would have stopped. But she'd never had the guts to do it.

She was a coward. She'd always been a coward.

"There." Ginger pointed to Donna's headstone. "See what you did."

Dana looked at her sister's eternal marker. Beloved daughter...cherished sister.

"That should've been you," Lorie snarled. "You were the one who hurt everything you touched."

Dana stared at the woman. As hard as she tried not to be injured by the words, they pierced straight through her heart. "I can't remember any of it." It was true. If she'd hurt someone's pet, she could not recall the act. Just like that night...the night her sister was murdered.

"Donna told us," Ginger shouted. "How can you keep pretending? Your own sister told us you killed Patty's cat." Her lips trembled. "She described in detail how you bragged to her about luring Pepper, my sweet puppy, into the woods behind your house." She shuddered visibly. "How could you do that to a poor helpless animal?"

Dana shook her head. "I was afraid of dogs." How could she have gone to Ginger's house and stolen her dog, walked it all the way back to her house and then...?

She didn't. That was the answer.

"Are you saying your sister lied?"

That wasn't possible. "No, I'm saying you're lying. Donna wouldn't have done that."

Ginger and Lorie laughed. "You're kidding, right?" Lorie demanded.

Dana didn't understand. None of this made sense.

"Your sister hated you," Ginger said. "She told us all about how pathetic you were. She didn't even like Sherry and Joanna. She only kept them around because they let her be the boss."

This was insane. "I don't believe you." Dana started to shake inside. They couldn't be right.

"Not long before she died, Donna said she was afraid of you."

Lorie couldn't be right. "She wouldn't have said that." Sharp, stabbing pains were hammering at Dana's head. She resisted the urge to squeeze her eyes shut against the building agony.

"We felt really bad for her when she didn't make the squad," Ginger said as she sat down on Donna's headstone. "But that's the breaks. She just wasn't good enough."

"She was so pathetic," Lorie chimed in. "We told her not to worry. If Sherry and Joanna died, she would be the only alternate."

Sherry and Joanna had died.

"Did you think you could make your sister love you if you cleared the way for her to be on the squad?" Ginger demanded.

"What?" Dana backed away a step. "This is insane."

"No," Lorie corrected. She pointed at Dana. "You're insane. Donna was worried that you were responsible. She was afraid to go to sleep at night in that room with you."

No. It wasn't that way at all. "You're wrong." The pain in her head had Dana rubbing at her temples. She shouldn't have come. All they had given her was lies. This couldn't be right.

"And then Patty conveniently fell down the stairs at school and broke her leg." Lorie claimed the step Dana had retreated. "That made room for an alternate to step up and be on the squad. Donna was the only alternate left."

Ginger stood, moved in next to Lorie. "The kids who saw it say you pushed her."

Dana couldn't hide her trembling now. She'd wanted to be strong. To stand up to whatever they threw her way. She was failing miserably. Her head was exploding.

"I didn't..." Dana turned to Patty. "I didn't push you. I didn't do any of this."

Patty just stared at her, looking almost as upset as Dana.

"The chief let you get away with killing three people," Lorie accused. "Just because he was friends with your father and felt sorry for your family. You were just a kid. How could they send you to prison? Your parents were already devastated."

"Death row is where they should have sent you," Ginger blasted. "You should just stop feigning amnesia, Dana. We all know the truth. You aren't the only one who wants this over. We've," she said as she banged on her chest, "tried to get on with our lives. But then you had to come back." She moved even closer to Dana. "Since you're here, you can make this right by going to the chief and telling him the truth."

This couldn't be right. It couldn't be.

Images of her holding that pillow...of pressing it down onto her sister's face exploded in Dana's brain.

Let me pretend to be you.