Colby Agency: Small-Town Secrets Part 4

Chapter Five.

Dana managed to get through dinner without falling apart. She'd noticed Spence watching her on too many occasions to count. Everyone had been watching her. Mr. Bellomy. Mrs. Bellomy. She'd picked at her food, that was true. But how could she eat? That phone call. The voice. The warning.

Being here...in the house...right across the street was very nearly more than she could bear.

She'd scoured her memory banks in an attempt to put a name and face with the voice of the caller. No luck. She was sure Spence and the Bellomys had also observed her distraction. The only thing good about being distracted was that she had been able to block a good deal of the conversation regarding her childhood.

Picture-perfect. Her family, the town, all of it was nothing short of Norman Rockwell ideal. The words, the images they invoked, were like knives sliding deep into her flesh. She could scarcely abide hearing.

This was crazy.

She followed the others onto the front porch for coffee. Dana had come here to learn the truth and already she was ready to cut and run like the coward she was. That was the real truth here. She was a coward.

"It was a more carefree time back then," Mrs. Bellomy said as she settled into a wooden rocker. "Never locked our doors. We all sat on our front porches in the evenings. Even in October most evenings were still warm enough to do that."

A s.h.i.+ver danced along Dana's spine, as if to deny that a.s.sertion. Images from the past flickered in front of her eyes...urging her to look back. To see. Dancing through the woods. The damp gra.s.s...

She blinked, forced the nerve-jarring images back into that locked compartment that never really opened for her except in her dreams. It was as if her mind had segregated her memories, allowing only a haunting teaser of those she wasn't permitted to see. And only in her sleep.

"Without any children of our own-" Mr. Bellomy picked up where his wife left off "-we enjoyed watching the girls play in the yard across the street. They were like our surrogate kids."

Dana's attention settled on the dark house beyond the expanse of pavement making up Waverly Street. The home where she'd once lived still looked mostly the same. The paint was faded. The lawn was freshly mown, probably for the last time this season. But it was the windows, black holes against the weathered siding, that taunted her.

Empty.

Abandoned.

Like her life.

Hard as she'd tried to pick up the pieces after surviving college, she just hadn't been able to feel anything. She couldn't allow even one personal connection. She'd muddled through somehow. Existing. Until the nightmares started in force. She'd had the occasional one all along but not this night-after-night punishment. They stole what little focus she managed. Made her feel out of place in her own skin.

How was she supposed to go on without doing something? Without knowing?

But the thought of looking back, finding the truth, terrified her. Yet, she knew with all her heart that she had to do exactly that.

"Dana?"

She snapped from her disturbing musings. "Excuse me?" She'd completely missed whatever had been said. "I'm sorry I was...just thinking."

That everyone seated around the porch stared at her with something akin to concern sent heat flooding her cheeks.

"I was saying that we should probably be going," Spence repeated. "We've taken up enough of our generous hosts' time, and we have a full day ahead of us tomorrow."

Dana nodded jerkily. When Spence stood, she followed suit.

"Thank you for a lovely meal," he said.

"We'd love to have you come by again," Mrs. Bellomy said to Dana. "We've missed you. It feels like old times having you here."

Dana managed a smile. Her lips quivered.

"Let me know if there's anything at all I can do to help," Mr. Bellomy said as Dana and Spence descended the steps and walked toward his car.

Dana scarcely held it together until they were in the vehicle and headed down the dark street. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the headrest. Her heart wouldn't slow its frantic pace. Her skin felt hot and flushed. How had she for even a second thought she could do this? She had lost her mind. There was no question about that.

"Tomorrow we'll walk through the house and the woods where you and your sister were found."

Dana's eyes flew open. The heart that had pounded furiously all evening seemed to stutter to a stop. "I'm not sure I'm ready for that." The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. She was here. She had to be ready.

"That's why we're here, isn't it?" Spence echoed her thought as he braked for the turn into the motel parking lot. "To help you remember."

She couldn't look at him. He was right. That was what she'd gone to the Colby Agency looking for. Someone to help her find the truth.

How did she explain...without giving away her worst fear?

"It's just...harder than I thought it would be." Why was she fighting this? She needed the truth. Her life would never be her own until she knew what really happened all those years ago. She was twenty-nine years old. If she wasn't strong enough to do it now, she never would be. Feeling sorry for herself and being a coward wouldn't get the job done.

When he'd put the car in Park and turned to her, he said, "But that's why I'm here. My job is to make sure we find the facts and that you're fully protected every step of the way."

She couldn't tell him that the one thing she was afraid of most was...herself.

Outside her motel room, he hesitated. "So we're in agreement. Tomorrow we'll visit the house and the woods where you and Donna went that night."

"Agreed." Her throat felt dry. She could do it. She had to do it.

"Then we'll track down Lorie Hamilton and ask the questions that should have been asked of her sixteen years ago."

With a vague nod, Dana unlocked her door and stepped into her room. Her eyes squeezed shut; she closed the door behind her and leaned against it. His suggestions were good ones-made perfect sense.

Then why wasn't she relieved?

Dana forced her eyes open and exhaled a shaky breath. She should just tell him about her nightmares and be done with it. Leaving that aspect, real or imagined, out was undermining what she'd hired him to do.

But would he look for the truth-really look-if he thought she was the...killer?

Her gaze settled on the bed. She blinked, looked again. Terror lit in her veins.

One of the pillows had been pulled from beneath the bedspread and now sat in the middle of the bed. The ends had been scrunched as if someone had held it in both hands and used it to...

...hold over someone's face.

SPENCE UNb.u.t.tONED his s.h.i.+rt and dragged it off his shoulders. His client clearly couldn't make up her mind about what she wanted. For a woman who implied she wanted answers, she sure as h.e.l.l wasn't acting that way.

What was she afraid of?

He understood she had been traumatized that night in the woods by her sister's murder and whatever happened before and after the fatal act. Was she afraid of the murderer's ident.i.ty? Was it someone she knew? A parent? A friend? Or neighbor?

Spence had watched kids twist the facts and fabricate explanations to rationalize the horrific. Whether it was a self-protective mechanism or a way to protect others, a wall went up and nothing but those twisted facts and fabrications got past. The only way to get to the truth was to untwist those facts and peel away the layers of fabrications.

Sounded easy. But it wasn't. Even with an adult, like Dana, if the trauma occurred as a child, the decision to set aside the horror in her mind had already been made. That aspect of her past was still cloaked in childlike emotion.

Essentially he was looking for a missing child, her inner child. The one who'd gone into hiding from a reality too traumatizing.

A light rap on the door to his room drew his attention back to the present. Had Dana decided she needed to talk after all? Or did she have something to add to tomorrow's proposed agenda. She hadn't appeared too keen on his suggestions.

He opened the door and found a stranger standing on the other side of the threshold.

Female. Blond hair, green eyes. Late twenties, early thirties maybe.

"Mr. Spencer?"

He glanced left to see if anyone was waiting in the minivan she'd parked a few slots down from his door. That she'd chosen to park away from his room told him she didn't want anyone to know who she was here to see. Her strategy was somewhat pointless since Spence and Dana were the only two guests at the motel. And his car was the only one in the lot besides hers.

"You've got him." Might as well see what this was about. If he was really lucky, the reactions had already begun. The domino effect was the one quick and sure way to get information.

The woman glanced around. "I need to speak with you privately."

Spence stepped back, opened the door wide. "Come on in, Ms....? I didn't get your name."

The lady ignored his prompt. She stepped inside and waited until the door was closed before meeting his gaze once more.

"There's no one else here, right?"

Spence glanced around. Opted to reach for his s.h.i.+rt and pull it back on. "That's right."

She looked him straight in the eyes then. "You should tell her to go back to Chicago. The only thing she's going to do is make everyone have to relive that tragedy all over again. It's taken years for the people in this community to put-" she drew in a deep breath "-that behind us. We don't need anyone resurrecting those bad memories."

"I would think," Spence said carefully, "that you and the rest of the community would like to see whoever was responsible for those murders brought to justice. I'd say it's long overdue."

The woman just shook her head. "You don't understand," she said, her tone vehement. "She knows who killed them. She took that knowledge with her when she left, and we've learned to live with it. Coming back now, after all these years, is not doing anyone any good. It's done. Hurting people isn't going to change the fact that those girls are...dead."

"You have me at quite the disadvantage. Why don't we start over?" The lady was definitely not a fan of Dana's or of reopening the case. He extended his hand. "I'm William Spencer and you are?"

She glanced at his hand, looked taken aback. "I don't see how that's relevant. I just came here to warn you that you can't trust what she says. She isn't...right. She never really was, but after the murders she really lost it. There are things your investigation will resurrect that will serve no other purpose than hurting people all over again."

"I take it you're not a friend of Dana's." He dropped his hand to his side.

Anger blazed across the lady's cheeks. "You ask her," his visitor urged. "Ask her why she really came back after all this time." She moved her head side to side. "She isn't back here for us or even her sister. She's come back to hurt everyone all over again. She's still holding a grudge. She's a freak. She was a freak as a kid and she's still one now. If you can't see that then you're blind."

Well that was rather blunt and to the point.

When the lady was about to reach for the door, he asked, "Do you know how many of Donna's old friends still live in Brighton? I was hoping to talk to some of them, specifically Lorie Hamilton."

The audible hitch in her respiration told him he'd hit a nerve.

"Why would you want to talk to...her?"

Just as Spence suspected. His visitor was either Lorie Hamilton or a close friend of the lady's. "I have some questions as to her relations.h.i.+p with the victims. I'd like to get some clarification on exactly what the nature of their relations.h.i.+p was and when she last saw each of the victims."

Shoulders squared, the woman lifted her chin. "It was a mistake. That's what it was."

"The murders?" he countered. "Or Lorie's relations.h.i.+p with the victims?"

"Maybe you're one of those people who can't see the truth until someone's dead. That's what will happen with her back here." With a sharp about-face, she wrenched open the door and walked out. He watched her go. Noted her license plate number as she sped out of the parking lot.

When her taillights had faded in the distance, he closed and locked the door.

More questions.

Spence turned to the wall that separated his room from Dana Hall's. Instinct told him she knew more than she was telling, part or all of which might still be waiting on the other side of that mental wall she'd erected.

But what he'd just learned, that he definitely hadn't known before, was that she had herself at least one serious enemy in her old hometown.

Usually the only surviving victim of a tragedy was looked upon with sympathy.

Evidently not in this case.

What had Dana Hall done that would stick with a person for the better part of two decades?

...can't see the truth until someone's dead.

His gut clenched. He'd never been the one who couldn't see. Was he so determined not to let down his client that he wasn't really seeing what was right in front of him?

Until he knew that answer, they weren't going to get very far in their investigation.

It was time Dana Hall started talking.

Chapter Six.

Dana couldn't move.

She stared at the pillow. Waited for the pounding on the door to come. For someone to show up and to say out loud that she was the killer. That she had done this awful thing.

Do something!

She pushed away from the door. Walked slowly toward the bed. Her heart thundered, sending sharp pains deep into her chest. She couldn't breathe.