The yearbook was filled with scrawled notations, greetings from classmates. Love ya, Holly! You’re the best! I’ll never forget you!
“What were you voted in high school?” I asked Derek when he came back into the living room.
“Voted? Oh, most likely to have the crap beat out of me by the Stenham twins.”
“Really?”
“Sure. That and most likely to become an MD. No surprise there.” He looked around, nose wrinkling at the mess and the sour smell of old beer.
“Holly was voted most likely to marry well. She was in the drama society, and a cheerleader and prom queen.”
“I’m not surprised,” Derek said, wandering over to look over my shoulder. “She was a knockout, wasn’t she? Are there any more pictures?”
“Of Holly? Probably.” I flipped pages until I found photos of the cheerleading team and the drama society. “Here. Feast your eyes on this. Looks like they did Grease that year.”
Holly was dressed in skin-tight capri pants, an equally tight halter top, and high heels, with her hair teased to monstrous heights.
Derek nodded. “She wasn’t cast in the lead, obviously. That’d be this girl; the chubby blonde in the poodle skirt and little white blouse in the middle. Candy, isn’t it? She’s lost some weight, hasn’t she?”
“Candy Millikin as Sandy,” I recited from the caption under the photo. “Holly White as Rizzo. Rizzo was the trampy one, the one who thought she was pregnant. Travis Robertson as Danny Zuko. So that’s Denise’s husband.” He was good-looking, dressed in the obligatory leather jacket and jeans, with his hair slicked back with Brylcreem. “No wonder she wanted to hold on to him. And look at this.” I pointed to one of the other young men peering over Travis’s shoulder. “Here’s Lionel.”
Derek chuckled. “He looks kind of like Opie, doesn’t he? Can’t be fun, having the voice to play the leading man, but to miss out because you look like an overgrown kid.”
I nodded. “It hasn’t hurt Ron Howard, but yeah, I bet nobody ever took him seriously. No wonder he never had a girlfriend; he probably never dared ask anyone out.”
“He asked Candy to the prom,” Derek said.
“But it’s not like he was interested in her. She said he always ogled everyone else. Including Holly.”
“Whatever.” Derek took the yearbook out of my hand, closed it, and put it on the table. I took it back, opened it, and left it on the floor, where I’d found it. “I think we’ve done all we can do here. Let’s go check out Lionel’s house.”
He headed for the door. I followed, making sure to flip the lights off as we exited the house and pull the door shut behind us.
The TV was on in Lionel’s house, but no one was watching. There was a gap in the curtains allowing us to see most of the living room and dining room combination, all the way into the kitchen. There was no sign of Brandon, but Lionel himself was sitting at the dining room table, eating dinner. He must have been really hungry, or else in a hurry to get somewhere, because he was scarfing down his food in a way any doctor in the world would tell him was unhealthy. Here I’d always thought Derek ate fast, but he had nothing on Lionel. And he kept glancing over his shoulder, furtively, as if he was afraid someone was sneaking up on him.
“Should we knock?” I whispered. Derek shook his head.
“Let me have a look around first. I want to go around the house and see if I can see in through the other windows. Stay here. Let me know if he moves.”
I nodded. “Be careful.”
“Always.” He grinned and disappeared. I put my eye to the window again.
Lionel didn’t seem to be aware of being observed. I didn’t know what Derek was doing on the other side of the house, but whatever it was, it didn’t alert Lionel, who just kept the fork going at warp speed between plate and mouth.
We’d had no qualms about knocking on Irina’s door, and Arthur Mattson’s, and Denise’s, but here, by tacit understanding, we were sneaking around, peering through the windows. Derek’s thoughts must have followed the same paths mine had, and he’d come to the same conclusion: that Lionel bore looking at extra carefully. He’d known Holly, and he might have been in love with her. Candy hadn’t seen anything romantic in his constant attentions and his devotion, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t had romantic feelings toward Holly. He’d talked about wanting to go to New York to pursue a career in theater, but instead he was here, working as an electrician. Venetia knew him and would probably open the door for him. He knew Brandon, knew where Brandon lived, and he also knew where Derek and I lived, and where Derek’s truck would be parked. He saw our empty house every day of his life-so he’d known that it would make a perfect place to stash a body. And I didn’t like the way he was behaving. He seemed jumpy, nervous.
At this point in my cogitations, Derek came sidling around the corner again and crouched next to me.
“There’s no sign of Brandon,” he whispered, his mouth so close to my ear that his breath tickled, “although Lionel’s mom’s in the kitchen, cleaning up. There are no curtains anywhere, just blinds, and I was able to look into pretty much every room. I even peered into the bathroom, just in case. I don’t think Brandon ’s in the house.”
“Damn.”
He nodded. “This is interesting, though: Lionel’s room looks like a shrine to Holly. There are several pictures of the two of them, from school plays and field trips and such.”
“You’re kidding? That’s creepy.”
“Totally,” Derek nodded, with a faint grin. I opened my mouth to say something else, but before I could, Derek’s cell phone chirped. He slapped a hand to it, but it was too late: Lionel looked up and at the window, alertly. We both ducked out of sight.
“Damn,” Derek breathed. He glanced at the display. “It’s Wayne. Maybe he’s found Brandon.”
I nodded. “You need to take it. Run. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Right.” Derek scooted away from the window and faded into the darkness, up toward our house. I did the same, but before I could clear the yard, the front door opened and light flooded out onto the stoop and grass.
Lionel’s small frame stood outlined in the light. I threw myself flat on the ground and held my breath.
He looked around, suspiciously. I concentrated on not moving and on not making a sound. Lionel did the same. After a moment, his head turned. Away from me, up the street. Derek had opened the door to the truck, and the light inside had come on. I could see him standing there, cell phone to his ear, but of course he was too far away for me to hear what he was saying. Lionel watched for a moment, then ducked back inside the house.
He left the door open, so I figured he’d be coming back out, and I thought I might not get a better chance to move. So I got up into a crouch and made for the driveway, where I planned to duck behind the van. It was only a few yards from where I was; I didn’t think I’d have any problems getting there.
And I didn’t. The problem came when I arrived. I was slinking along the back of the van, preparatory to darting into the next yard and behind some bushes, when I heard a faint banging noise from inside.
Electrical tools don’t move around on their own, so obviously someone-or something-was inside Lionel’s paneled van. It wasn’t Derek, who I could see farther up the street. And it wasn’t Wayne, who was on the phone with Derek. And I couldn’t imagine Denise or Irina or Linda White scrambling around in the back of Lionel’s van. But Brandon was missing, and this was somewhere we hadn’t looked for him.
In retrospect, it might not have been the smartest thing to do. What I should have done was go get Derek and then make him check the inside of the van. But in addition to the banging, there were weird, muffled moaning or keening sounds coming from the van, and I was worried. What if Brandon was hurt? Or choking? What if he couldn’t wait another minute? I pulled open the back door and crawled in, pulling the door shut behind me. Gently, so it wouldn’t make a noise.