And When I Die, page 34
“I kind of wish I’d done that with my husband.”
Mason chuckled. “Well, for a first baby, she came quick. Just a few pushes really and she was out. She just couldn’t wait to get here. And the minute I looked at her, she just had me wrapped around her finger. I couldn’t believe it.”
“You and Shannon were close.”
“Oh, yeah,” Mason said. “We played tennis together every Saturday morning—she only let me beat her half the time—had dinner together just the two of us once a week at Strawberry Patch, which was her favorite. It’s been gone for years. Kind of fitting.” He fell silent. “Anyway, I used to have her page me when she got home from school or practice or whatever she was doing to make sure she was okay. She had her own code. 56892. I still remember.”
“That last day. Tell me about it.”
A deep, heavy sigh rumbled through Mason and he was quiet for a moment before speaking. “Normal Saturday. Shannon and I played tennis in the morning, then I saw patients until noon, grabbed a sandwich on the way home and crashed for a few hours. Julia went to the hairdresser then to the mall for something, I can’t remember what. We were meeting Julia’s co-anchor and his wife for dinner. Shannon said she was going to some drama club thing and someone was coming to pick her up.”
Ava shuffled through her notes. “Shannon had her own car, right?”
“Yeah.” Mason nodded. “Karmann Ghia. Birthday present when she turned sixteen.”
“Did you find it strange that she didn’t drive herself?”
“My wife took the call, and the killer, who we didn’t know at the time was the killer, but the killer said it was a big thing for the drama club—a surprise dinner—and that she’d been instructed to pick Shannon up and bring her to the teacher’s house for the dinner. Julia said the killer was very adamant about that.”
“Did your wife find it odd?”
“Not at first, but one of those hindsight things. I think she found it more unsettling as time went on.” He sighed. “Anyway, we left before Shannon did and we told her to have fun, be careful. The usual. To page me if she got home before we did.” Mason’s breath hitched around the last part and he held up his hand for a moment indicating he needed a minute.
Ava waited, allowing her eyes to settle once again on the picture of Shannon. In color, she was even more beautiful—stunning really—than she was in the gritty photos Ava had scraped from the Internet and library microfiche. Even hidden behind a pound of sparkly 80s makeup and hairspray, lost in a mound of ugly oversized sweaters stamped with wild geometric shapes that were the height of fashion once upon a time, the girl was gorgeous.
Mason cleared his throat and Ava swept her gaze back in his direction.
“Are you okay to continue?” she asked.
He nodded. “Yeah. Anyway, we uh, we were finishing up dinner when my pager starts going off. I don’t recognize the number, but I call back and there’s a man on the other end asking if I know a Shannon Kendall and telling me to get to Bellaire Medical. I found out later Shannon had knocked on his door, that his wife had gone to the hospital with her and that he found my number in her address book in her purse.” Mason slumped down in his chair, a tear rolling down his face. “By the time we got to the hospital, she was in surgery and they couldn’t get her stabilized. Then she was gone.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s been over thirty-five years and I still remember it like it was yesterday. Hurts just like it was yesterday.”
“When you found out that it was … Ruthie … what went through your mind?”
“Shock. Anger. Confusion. How a sixteen-year-old girl could do this. I still don’t understand it.”
“It’s hard to comprehend.”
“Julia was never the same. She went back to work for about a year, but the grief was just too much for her and she quit. Well, retired, I guess you could call it. She managed to hold it together long enough for the trial, to see that through, but after that, she pretty much closed up shop. Got into bed and basically never left it.” He shook his head. “The house was like death after Shannon. At any rate, my wife died from a heart attack at fifty-three. Really, though, she died the night our daughter did.”
The doorbell pealed and Mason wiped his eyes as Ava blinked back her own tears. “That’s Lyz and Sharla. Excuse me.”
Ava stood and edged closer to the photo of Shannon, snapping a quick picture with her phone before returning to her perch on the couch, the voices of Mason and two other women announcing their arrival. She smiled at the appearance of the two women who were about her age and held out her hand.
“Lyz, Sharla, this is Ava Ewing,” Mason said gesturing toward Ava.
“That’s L-Y-Z,” the woman said on autopilot, her thick Texas accent punching the syllables. Ava and Mason exchanged an amused glance, him throwing an ‘I told you so’ look her way.
As they all continued to exchange pleasantries, Ava did a brief, incisive inventory of the pair. Lyz’s simple yet obviously expensive black suit, hot pink acrylics, and shiny blond highlights screamed high-powered something. Sharla’s dark brown ringlets, sprigs of gray threaded throughout, pale, makeup-free face, gauzy caftan, and oversized crocheted tote amused Ava, as she doubted she’d traipsed through the halls of Willow Branch High School as the resident spiritual healer.
“We brought you a copy of our yearbook from junior year,” Lyz said, her Texas twang as pronounced as Patricia’s, as she extracted the book from her designer bag and handed it over to Ava, who eagerly took it, opening up the pages. “It’s for you to keep,” Lyz said. “My sister was yearbook editor so we had extras.”
“This is great, thank you,” Ava said, sliding the book into her bag, itching to pounce on the pages. “How long were you friends with Shannon?”
“Since elementary school,” Sharla said, her hushed little girl voice holding only a breathy trace of a southern accent. “We all grew up together.”
“What about Ruthie? Did you know her?”
Both Sharla and Lyz shook their heads. “I think she moved to Willow Branch in junior high, but we weren’t friends with her, no,” Lyz said.
“I had a math class with her once,” Sharla said, twirling her hair around the tip of an index finger. “What math do you take sophomore year?”
“Usually algebra or geometry,” Ava said.
“Geometry,” Sharla said, seemingly slightly delighted with herself. “I had geometry with her.”
“Do you remember anything about her?” Ava asked. “Anything that stood out?”
Sharla shook her head. “No, nothing. Just a quiet girl. Kept to herself. I think maybe she was in band? I have a memory of seeing her carrying a flute or clarinet case in class.”
“Did Shannon ever mention Ruthie at all to either of you?”
“Let’s be clear,” Lyz said. “Shannon and that girl were not friends. She was not in our crowd.”
Ava pursed her lips. “Any reason why not?”
Lyz sighed, almost as though she couldn’t believe she had to explain this straightforward concept to naive simpletons. “We were the popular crowd. The cool kids. The leaders. The overachievers. Everyone wanted to be like us, to know what we were doing, what we wore, what we did. That’s not who this girl was.”
“Oh my God, Lyz, you make it sound like we were horrible snobs,” Sharla said, laughing nervously as she swept an embarrassed look in Ava’s direction. “We really weren’t.”
“We were!” Lyz half-snapped, half-laughed. “Sharla, seriously, you’re telling me you would have said to that girl, ‘Hey come hang out at my pool this weekend,’ or ‘Let’s go to the mall after school.’ Come on.”
Sharla burned bright red, shooting Ava another flustered look. “It’s just that we all grew up together. We all knew each other. We were comfortable with each other.”
Lyz turned to look at Ava. “I’m not going to apologize that we had privilege or opportunities. Any more than I want my girls to feel bad about the things my husband and I are able to give them. We work damn hard for our lifestyle, same way my parents did.”
“Lyz, please,” Sharla mumbled as she laughed nervously, her gaze now pinned to her lap.
“I saw that Shannon and Ruthie were in drama club together?” Ava asked, eager to get off this fast road to nowhere.
Lyz rolled her eyes. “It’s a stretch to say that. All three of us—me, Shannon, and Sharla—tried out for the spring musical, as kind of a lark. Shannon got the lead, Sharla, you and me got what? Roles in the chorus? So, we dropped out. I think that girl—the killer—was also in the chorus. Shannon told me later the teacher or advisor asked her to join permanently and at first, she wasn’t sure if she was going to do it, but then she decided to give it a try.”
“That’s essentially what she told us,” Mason piped in. “She had so many other things on her plate, but ultimately decided it would be fun to do.”
“She did come on the class trip to Galveston,” Sharla piped up. “I can picture her. She had this kind of red striped bathing suit that didn’t really fit right and the rest of us had bikinis. Remember, Lyz? Remember that she was there?”
“No,” Lyz said flatly. “I don’t. Listen, the point is, Shannon never did anything to that girl. Period, point blank.”
“Shannon was the sweetest, nicest girl,” Sharla said as she grabbed for Lyz’s hand, the two women tearing up. “She’d never hurt anyone.”
And that’s when Ava saw it. Or more precisely them. She made a face as she abruptly turned to look at Shannon’s photo, confirming that she too wore one.
Gold Tiffany heart charm bracelets, dangling from Lyz and Sharla’s wrists. An identical one nestled against the sleeve of Shannon’s multicolored sweater.
Just like the one adorning Erica’s wrist. The one she fiddled with constantly.
Holy hell.
Ava leaned closer, her heartbeat quickening as she pointed to the two bracelets. “Excuse me, but I couldn’t help but notice you’re both wearing the same bracelet and I see Shannon is wearing one in her photo.”
The two friends glanced at each other, sharing a knowing smile. “All the girls in our group had one,” Lyz said. “It was Shannon’s idea, for our eighth-grade graduation.”
“My wife gave each of the girls one,” Mason said. “Shannon contributed part of her allowance.”
“We’ve never taken them off in all these years,” Sharla said, her voice catching. “It’s like a bond between us.”
“They think the killer stole Shannon’s when she stabbed her,” Lyz said, her voice dark with bitterness. “Shannon would have never taken it off.”
“The police searched the killer’s house for it,” Mason said. “They never found it. My wife was devastated.”
Over the next two hours, Ava moved through the rest of her questions, the links of the gold Tiffany charm bracelet tickling the back of her brain the entire time. With occasional interjections from Mason, Lyz and Sharla shared memories of slumber parties, travel trips for tennis and pom-pom, church camps. How brilliant, funny, and beautiful their friend was. How much they missed her. Still.
In the distance, the clatter of the front door opening, accompanied by the excited screeches of children and the exasperated voice of a weary mom commanding them to be quiet while simultaneously ordering them to put their things away and wash up for dinner, pulled everyone’s attention away from memory lane. The air in the room shifted. Ava could see a noticeable stiffening in Mason as he shot out of his chair, while Sharla also hurriedly got to her feet, Lyz staying seated as she rolled her eyes.
“I’ve taken up enough of your time,” Ava said, following Mason and Sharla’s cue as she gathered up her things. “I really appreciate all of you talking to me.”
Mason’s wife called out his name as she entered the room, stopping short at the threshold at the sight of the small crowd. Tall and tan, she looked to Ava as though she might have been an athlete at one point. One of those beautiful gargantuan girls who played beach volleyball when she wasn’t surfing or paddle boarding. The sun worshipper with saltwater blond hair, her freckled nose and shoulders in a perpetual state of pink and peeling. Mason planted a kiss on her cheek before she uttered a prim hello as she nodded politely in Lyz and Sharla’s direction, each of whom responded with their own strained greetings. The woman’s gaze settled on Ava, an open, questioning look on her face.
“Nikki, sweetheart, this is Ava Ewing. She’s doing a story on Shannon.”
Instead of the warm goo of understanding that Ava expected, it seemed as though the new Mrs. Kendall drew up a little too quickly, something cold and dark flashing across her eyes. She awkwardly stuck out her hand as though she had to think about it for a few seconds.
“Nice to meet you,” she said, limply shaking Ava’s hand.
“I’ve got to get home,” Lyz said as she finally stood and cleared her throat, which caused Sharla to jump and hastily follow her to the front of the house. Mason walked everyone out, shaking Ava’s hand, telling her to call him anytime, before Lyz and Sharla hugged him goodbye, saying they’d see him soon, quickly closing the door behind them.
“Good God, I was hoping to miss her,” Lyz grumbled as she deactivated the alarm for her Hummer.
Ava glanced back at the house. “Not your favorite person?”
Sharla bit her lip. “She’s okay.”
“Oh, please,” Lyz said. “Total bitch. I feel sorry for him every day being stuck with her. Nothing at all like Mrs. Kendall.”
Sharla sighed. “She’s Mrs. Kendall, too.”
Lyz scoffed. “A bargain basement version.”
“She’s probably tired of hearing about Shannon,” Sharla said as she shot Ava a skittish, worried glance. “It has to be really hard for her.”
“It’s what she signed up for.” Lyz turned to Ava. “When’s this going to run?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Ava said, her eyes darting around to avoid Lyz’s penetrating gaze. “I’ll let you know.”
Sharla pulled Ava into an embrace, a move that startled, though it didn’t necessarily surprise her. Mostly she was relieved to find she didn’t smell of patchouli, but rather, vanilla. “Thank you for your grace,” she murmured.
After releasing Ava, Sharla got into the passenger seat of Lyz’s car, the two women waving to her as they sped off down the street. She slid back into her rental car, pulling up the picture of Erica, shaking her head at the sight of the ubiquitous gold charm dangling from her wrist. Murderers almost always took a souvenir.
What had Erica stolen from Whitney?
81
ERICA
The images on Erica’s laptop floated into an indiscernible kaleidoscope of color. Concentrating on her work was impossible. The only thing she could focus on was Jordan.
It had been a little over a week since Erica had pulled her daughter out of East Lake Forest. Her first instinct had been to fight. To crush that smirking principal and her condescending kowtowing, first to the memory of Whitney Dean and then to the vipers who’d flung darts at Jordan’s back. Of course, Lauren Dean was the one who put the target there to begin with. Erica could have ground each and every one of them into powder, dust that she’d gleefully blow into oblivion.
She hadn’t counted on Jordan being relieved to be out of East Lake Forest. She hadn’t counted on Jay suggesting a boarding school in Connecticut and Jordan enthusiastically agreeing to it.
Once again, nothing had gone according to plan.
The bubbles screensaver for Erica’s laptop flicked on and she sighed, deciding to take the sign and save work for tomorrow. She closed the lid to the laptop and sat staring at it. Without thinking, she reached for her keys and unlocked the bottom drawer of her desk, extracting a plain white envelope, snug against the lip gloss Shannon had gifted her all those years ago. She turned the envelope over, the yellow ponytail holder falling into her hand. The silky black tresses of Whitney’s hair sprouted from the band, reluctant to let go. Just like Shannon’s bracelet, she’d been surprised to find it in her purse the following day. Her initial impulse had been to throw it in the trash, as she didn’t recognize it right away.
Now felt like the right time to wear it. A reminder of all she’d sacrificed for Jordan.
Even if she’d never know.
Even if she’d never be able to appreciate it.
She slowly gathered the ponytail holder around the strands of her hair.
82
AVA
A rush of icy air enveloped Ava as she hurried through the lobby of her hotel, her mind still numb after spending almost two hours in the heinous grip of Houston rush-hour traffic. She’d always thought the Dan Ryan was the devil; 45 and the 610 Loop had gleefully snatched the horns.
She crowded into the elevator with a group of conference goers, wondering how bad she smelled, the thought of a steamy, soapy shower with the high-end body washes courtesy of the in-house spa almost causing her to collapse with happiness.
Hygiene would have to wait, though, because her grubby little hands itched to paw at the pages of the 1986 Willow Branch High School yearbook.
Ava entered her room, kicked off her shoes, and threw down her bag after extracting the yearbook. She folded her legs underneath her on the bed and cracked open the book, mustiness and ink mixing together as they escaped the pages, making her wince.
It was a typical yearbook, filled with black and white photos of the student body at their best and worst. For every student studying quietly in the library or reading a book under a tree, there were students hanging out of cars, a cluster of football players with pacifiers sprouting from their mouths, yet another group of kids adorned in clown wigs and pajamas running amok in a crowded gym. The classic random pictures that are hysterical at the time, but the further you get away from that oh-so-important four-year span, fade in importance and amusement.
