Lissa turned and swept down the hallway and quickly into her room. The door banged shut.
Kristen felt her cheeks flushing. She took one step after Lissa, then stopped. “You handle this,” she said tightly.
Ross, damn him, was grinning like a Cheshire cat. “I will.”
“Good.”
“It was just a kiss, Kris. A nice one. A very nice one. But just a kiss.” He slid his eyes toward the hallway where Lissa had disappeared. “We are grown up and married.”
Kristen groaned, more at herself than anything else.
“It’s not like we were ‘doing it’ here on the kitchen floor.” Unfortunately Kristen’s mind recalled a time when they had done it on the kitchen floor. Ross seemed to pick up on her thoughts, because he laughed and his eyes twinkled in the way that really got to her. “You’re just mad ’cuz you liked it.”
She made a strangled sound but couldn’t deny it. “Yeah, all right, I liked it. I didn’t want it, but okay, it was…nice.” She picked up her purse again and grabbed her laptop. “Doesn’t mean it’ll ever happen again.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” he said as she walked out the door and pulled it shut harder than she’d planned. What was it about that man that made her so crazy?
She decided she didn’t have time to think about it. Not right now. Not when she was on her way to Ricardo’s. Tucked inside one pocket of her computer case was the mutilated picture of Jake and her at the dance. In another compartment was the tape. Though she had a small cassette recorder with her, the one she used while interviewing, she didn’t intend to play the tape unless she had to.
Ross rapped softly on his daughter’s bedroom door, but before Lissa could shout out “Leave me alone,” he pushed it open and stepped inside the chaos that was Lissa’s room. Not quite a pigsty, it was still messy as hell. She was flopped on her bed, cell phone to her ear.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” she said, placing a hand over the receiver.
“Tough.”
“Dad. No. Not now.”
“Yep, Lissa, now. Hang up.”
She shook her head and he heard a voice, a male voice, saying something.
“Either you hang it up or I will.”
“Oh, puh-leez.”
“I’m serious.” He took a step forward.
“I’ll call you back,” she said quickly. “In a few minutes.” Then she hung up. Turning rebellious eyes up at him she said, “Satisfied?”
“Nope.”
“Oh…shit. You don’t even live here anymore.”
“I’m working on that. Clean up your language.”
“It’s just words, Dad.” She looked about to let fly with a blue streak of four-letter words, then caught his expression and changed her mind. “And don’t ‘work on it’ to move back in. Mom and me, we don’t need you.”
“Really?” He folded his arms over his chest. “Tell me about it.”
“I don’t need to tell you anything. You just want to come back here so you can go to bed with Mom.” She made an “ick” face as if the picture of her parents sleeping together was the most revolting image she could imagine.
“Your mother’s my wife,” he said, crossing the room, grabbing her desk chair, flipping it around, and sitting on it backward.
“Not for long.”
“You think?” He smiled. “We’ll see.”
She shook her head. “Don’t you get it? Mom doesn’t love you anymore.”
That statement stung, but he ignored it. “Let’s turn this around, okay? I didn’t have time to pick up anything on the way, so let’s go out for a burger. You can tell me all about your life then.”
She looked at him as if he’d suggested she eat banana slugs.
“Come on, Lissa. It won’t be so bad.”
“I’m…I’m a vegetarian.”
“Since when?”
She made a face and shrugged. “A while.”
“Great. I know a place where they make veggie burgers out of tofu or something.” He picked up her flip-flops and tossed them onto the bed. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 8
Kristen tried to ignore her case of nerves, but as she drove to the restaurant she couldn’t forget the night of the last reunion meeting and the fact that someone had followed her to St. Elizabeth’s afterward. Had it been one of the women on the committee? Or someone who had waited in the parking lot, then followed her Honda as she’d left? Was it the person who had stolen the picture of Jake and her from the attic where it had been hidden for years, or someone else?
Who?
And why?
The same old questions hounded her and she couldn’t help but check her rearview mirror and the surrounding traffic as she drove through the congested streets of Beaverton. Twice she thought she noticed a vehicle lagging back, visible in her sideview mirror, but the first time it was a truck with an older man in a baseball cap who had pulled into a convenience store, and the second time it was a dark SUV that passed her, the driver, a soccer-mom type, not giving her a second glance.
“You’re paranoid,” she told herself as she pulled into Ricardo’s lot. She spied Aurora’s Subaru wagon in a parking space near the front door and noted several other vehicles that could be reunion committee members’ cars. She didn’t see Haylie Swanson’s BMW.
Grabbing her computer and purse, Kristen locked the car and headed inside. Once again, the tangy garlic-laden scents emanating from the hidden kitchen made Kristen’s stomach growl. Somehow, she’d missed lunch and hadn’t noticed how hungry she was until this minute.
The restaurant was quieter than it had been the previous time they’d met. There were plenty of people seated at the tables, but the decibel level was lower due to the fact there was no preteen basketball party in progress.
Kristen waved a hello to Aurora. Most, if not all, of the other usual suspects from St. Lizzy’s had shown up. Only Haylie appeared to be missing, replaced by another woman Kristen recognized as Laura Triant, the girl who had married Chad Belmont from Western Catholic. Kristen was relieved. She didn’t want a replay of the last meeting’s scene. Hopefully Laura was a lot more stable than Haylie.
Three tables had been pushed together in a corner close to the bar. Once again notes, yearbooks, pictures, and printouts were scattered among bottles of wine and frosty mugs of beer or cola. Mandy, DeLynn, Bella, Aurora, and Martina were seated around one end of the working surface, leaving Laura Triant Belmont and April on the opposite side.
“Welcome, El Presidente,” Aurora greeted her.
“Sorry I’m late.”
“Nah…the rest of us are early.”
“Sure.” A lie. To make her feel better. She slid into an empty chair next to DeLynn and across from April. “Are we all here, or are we waiting for Haylie?”
“She’s not coming. I called,” Aurora said. “Left a couple of voice messages. She never called back.”
“Which is just as well, considering last time,” Bella pointed out. “For as long as she lives, she’s going to blame Jake for Ian’s death.” She shook her head, her hair as dark as her brother’s had been. In high school, she’d looked enough like Jake that people had thought they were twins, especially those who hadn’t realized Bella had skipped a grade in elementary school.
“She can find us, she has all our numbers,” Martina added, her dark eyes sober. “I’m with Bella. Haylie’s more trouble than she’s worth.”
“That’s not exactly what I meant.” Bella, slightly irritated, picked up her glass of wine.
“Sure it is. It’s what we’re all thinking…Oh, well, doesn’t matter. Let’s get on with it,” Martina said. “Kristen, you remember Laura? I told you she’s married to Chad Belmont?”
“Hi, and welcome to the committee.”
“Glad to be here,” Laura said. “We were just discussing the boys from Western. Martina and I see a lot of them.”
The conversation took off from there as they discussed some of the Western grads. Laura had brought a yearbook that caused lots of chuckles, sly glances, and comments like, “I so had a crush on him!” or “He was a friend of my brother. I couldn’t wait for him to come over and play basketball.” Or “Geez, he was always a nerd in high school, always hitting on me. I heard he made a fortune with some dot-com company.”