Chapter 20

Natalie hurried to open the door and admit her, while the rest of them stared at Roxie in shock.

"Surprise!" Natalie called to everyone in the room, grinning like a pumpkin. "Roxie and I have become friends again!"

Roxie stepped inside but her look said maybe "friends" was a little overstating her relationship with Natalie. "Hello, I Eta Pi ," she greeted them. "Looks like we have a new member." She lifted elegant brows at Mac, who, like everyone else, was a bit bowled over at the sight of their long-lost classmate.

Roxie's hair was still blondish and artfully shaggy. She wore black Lululemon pants that hugged her slim figure and flared at the ankle, and a matching black top with a cream-colored fake fur jacket.

"You weren't waiting for Mia," Erin accused Natalie, unable to take her eyes off Roxie.

"I wanted to surprise you all!" declared Natalie.

"Natalie told me she was going to be here and I was coming through Portland so I thought, okay, I'll drop in." Roxie's lips lifted in a half smile. "You were expecting Mia?"

"She said she was coming," Leigh murmured.

"Who knows?" said Natalie.

"We were talking about the pledge to kill Ethan," explained Mac.

Roxie turned her clear blue eyes on Mac. "Really. So, you know."

"Just learned," Mac admitted. Her pulse had jumped when she'd heard about the pledge, but now she was trying to assess if it had propelled someone to actually kill Ethan or if it was just as Natalie claimed, a terribly prophetic joke.

Roxie drew her gaze over the rest of them. "And what about Gavin? And his little brother ?"

"None of this has to do with Ethan." Leigh's lips were tight. She looked at Mac. "It just doesn't."

"How do you know?" asked Roxie.

No one had an answer for that.

"Did you see the pills . . . when you were in Gavin's pool house?" questioned Erin. She hadn't looked away from Roxie since the moment she'd walked in.

"What are we talking about?" A slight frown marred her brow.

"Why don't you tell her, Kristl, since you brought Mac here? Or, Mackenzie, step right up." Natalie waved at hand at her.

Kristl looked at Mac and she looked back, but when Kristl shook her head, Mac took the opportunity. "Ethan and Ingrid died of fentanyl poisoning. Erin said she saw pills in the pool house on graduation night. Maybe they were fentanyl. Maybe Ethan took the fentanyl himself. But somewhere along the line he and Ingrid were overdosed."

Roxie listened with ever-growing seriousness. "My God, was it in Ethan's food?"

Erin blinked. "What makes you say that?"

"I don't know. I wasn't there graduation night. But before that . . . Erin, you were hanging by Ethan at the party where I got in so much trouble with Mia."

"When you slept with Ethan," Leigh reminded.

"I didn't sleep with him," Roxie shot back tersely. "Erin, you saw. He was getting that sandwich and someone . . . Gavin . . . was saying be careful because it could be poisoned."

"Because of you!" declared Erin. "He was joking because you were with Ethan that night and he said Mia might poison his food."

"Where is Mia?" Kristl demanded.

"We don't know if she'll even make it!" Leigh snapped. To Roxie, she said, "Well, he was joking, then. Mia didn't poison his food."

"Maybe she did," said Roxie.

Erin said, "I think someone took him something out to his car . . . maybe . . . I thought I saw his overhead car light come on."

Roxie's hand flew to her mouth and she looked both horrified and scandalized. "Oh, my God, was it pie ? I joked to him about ‘I ate a pie'! And he said cherry pie was his absolute favorite." She pulled herself up straight. "Whether you believe it or not, I hardly spoke to him after seeing him in the pool house. He wanted sex and I wasn't going there. I didn't like him. I didn't like anyone."

"You liked everyone ," Leigh countered.

"Stop being such a bitch, Leigh," Roxie snapped back, narrowing her blue eyes. "I knew that's what you all thought. My mom was in a ‘relationship' with our landlord, who was butt ugly and coercing her to have sex to help pay our rent. Made me sick, even though I understood it. I didn't think I'd ever like a guy again, but . . . Jeremy asked me to marry him and I said yes."

There was a pause, then Leigh said, "Jeremy Orsini ?"

Kristl gasped and Natalie looked pole-axed as Roxie said, "Yessiree. We both live in L.A. now. Just ran into each other and one thing led to another." Her smile was tender. "Never thought I'd feel this way, but here I am."

Natalie stared at her. "You didn't tell me it was Jeremy."

"You didn't ask," Roxie responded.

Leigh's phone blurped and she had to pull herself back to the present and finger-scramble through her purse to find it. She collected her phone, glanced at the screen, and took in a breath. "I got a call back!" she said in relief.

Mac's cell phone rang at the same moment and she pulled it from her purse. She recognized Mason's number. "Excuse me," she said and let herself out the front door and away from the house before answering. She didn't need The Sorority peppering her with questions she didn't want to answer.

She clicked on. "Hi, Mason."

"She's DEAD! Mia's DEAD! Someone killed her. Who did you talk to? Who knew where she was? It's your fault and that fucking psycho, Ben! I'm going to kill him. I'm going to KILL HIM!"

Her arms rose in gooseflesh. "Mason. Wait. Where are you?" she asked tersely. "What happened?"

"Her car's down the street. She just pulled off and died! Someone gave her something. They took her away in an ambulance but she was already DEAD!" He clicked off.

Mac looked back at the house, then stalked straight to her car. She put in a quick call to Kristl as she switched on the engine. "I've got to go. Sorry. Thank you," she apologized.

"What happened?" Kristl's voice was anxious. "Something's happened."

"I'll call you later," Mac promised, fairly certain she was lying, uncaring that she was.

* * *

"What did she say?" demanded Natalie as soon as Kristl was off the phone from Mac. She looked out the window toward the road, watching Mackenzie's car drive off.

"She just said she'd call later," said Kristl, following Nat's gaze.

"Something bad's happened to Mia!" Erin declared on a little gasp.

Leigh snapped her head around. "You don't know that." She'd put her phone back inside her purse and was waiting for Natalie and Kristl to make room at the front doorway so she could pass by them.

"Leaving so soon?" drawled Roxie.

Leigh shot her a fulminating glance. "I need to call Mia, make sure she's all right."

"And check in on your callback." Roxie smiled.

"Is that a crime?"

"No."

But the smile on her face irritated Leigh. "You are still such a bitch," she muttered as she stalked through the now open door that Natalie was holding for her.

"Back at 'cha," said Roxie.

Erin gazed after Leigh. "She's worried about Mia."

"We don't know anything happened to her," reminded Natalie.

"I need to go, too," Erin said.

"Didn't mean to ruin the party," drawled Roxie.

"Krissy?"

The sound wavered from the hallway. Kristl swore under her breath and glanced impatiently in that direction but didn't move.

"What do you have to do?" Natalie asked Erin.

"I have a life, Nat. And I need to get home to my cat."

"Your cat. Well, don't let us hold you back." Natalie rolled her eyes. She looked at Kristl, who'd turned in the direction of her mother's voice even though her feet were still planted, and then at Roxie, who'd pulled out her phone to check the time. "Don't tell me you have somewhere to go, too."

"You asked me to stop by. I did. Looks to me like the party's breaking up."

Natalie glared at her.

"I don't know what you want out of us." Erin picked up her coat from where she'd thrown it over a chair. "Now Mackenzie knows about what we said about Ethan . . . and now we know he was killed with those pills."

"He killed himself," Roxie reminded her. "By accident."

Erin looked troubled.

"Krissy!"

"Shit," muttered Kristl, heading in the direction of her mother's room.

"Sorry, Nat," she heard Roxie say. "Not the reunion you'd hoped for."

* * *

By the time Mackenzie got to the Beckwiths' street there were two patrol cars on site along with the crime team. Mac's heart was beating fast. Mia was dead. Dead.

She saw what was likely Mia's car parked at the side of the road, driver's door open, the tech team already taking pictures. Mason was talking to a woman whose hair was scraped into a tight, black bun, her back to Mackenzie. She parked her own car a block down the street and jogged back to find the dark-haired woman in the long camel-colored coat was Detective Elena Verbena, Cooper Haynes's partner at RGPD.

Lynda and Charles Beckwith were standing to one side, clinging to one another, maybe holding each other up, both pale as death themselves.

Mason saw Mac and she braced herself for another onslaught but his eyes were dull, his movements slow. It looked like all the fight had leached out of him.

Detective Verbena stepped back and let Mac approach. They knew each other from previous cases, but their relationship wasn't as warm as hers with Haynes, whom she'd been on the force with before Verbena was part of the team.

"I'm going to kill Ben," snarled Mason. In that, he hadn't changed, but his energy was down. He walked over to his parents and put his arms around them. They stood in a group of three, sobbing, shoulders shaking, heads bent together.

You were wrong, Taft. They turned to each other instead of ripping each other apart.

"Who's Ben?" asked Verbena.

Mac dragged her attention back to the detective, fighting a sense of depression at the loss of another high school classmate. "Mia's boyfriend."

"I got that. What else?"

Mackenzie filled her in tersely on what she knew about Ben, also explaining how she'd become involved in the Beckwiths' tragedy.

"We'll get the local police looking for him," she said grimly.

"Mia's death was definitely homicide?" Mac asked, looking back at Mia's car and watching the bright flash, flash of the tech's camera in the night.

"Overdose. Tried to give her NARCAN but it was too late. She was slumped up against the steering wheel. Looks like she just managed to pull over."

Overdose.

"Where's Detective Haynes?"

Verbena regarded her with dark, glittering eyes. Mac didn't understand why she was looking at her so intently until she said, "He's on administrative leave."

Mac stared back at her and instantly knew it was because Haynes had slipped the information about the cause of Ethan and Ingrid Stanhope's deaths to Taft at her request. "Art Stanhope complained?" she asked, her throat tight.

Verbena didn't answer but she didn't have to. Mac felt both guilty and angry. No wonder Verbena was so careful and cold. She probably blamed her, too.

Mac thought of Cooper and Jamie, pregnant and bed-bound, and Emma, and the rest of their family. At least Cooper would still be paid, but . . . shit.

She wrenched her gaze to Mason and she thought about Sam Stanhope and how they'd scored fentanyl on a stupid teenage lark and Ethan had wanted some. Though they swore they never gave him any, Ethan had gotten hold of some. The pills had been in the pool house, according to Erin. Who was the dealer? Same person? Someone they'd all been connected to?

Mason was trying to herd his parents back into their house. His mother looked ready to collapse and his father wasn't far behind. No sniping now. Mac excused herself from Verbena and followed after them. She knew Verbena wouldn't be far behind but she wanted a moment alone with Mason.

"Mason," she said at the door. He didn't respond and she followed him inside without being asked. Both Lynda and Charles collapsed in the same chairs they'd been sitting in when she'd been here the first time.

He came back to where she was standing near the front door. He glanced over her shoulder and said, "The detective's coming."

"Who was your dealer? Who got you the fentanyl?"

His mouth tightened but his lips were trembling. "I don't fucking know. That was all Sam. Who cares? Mia's dead, Ethan's dead, Ingrid's dead . . . Gavin's dead . . ."

"Mr. Beckwith," Verbena said coolly behind Mac. "I would like to talk to you. Excuse me, Mackenzie, this is police business."

Mac didn't stick around to argue.

She walked back to her car, reaching for her cell in her back pocket. She put in a call to Taft but it went to voice mail.

* * *

Taft was walking the pugs when his cell rang. He looked at the number, expecting Mac, but it wasn't one he knew. Thought about letting it go to voice mail but clicked on. "Taft."

"Mr. Taft, it's Veronica Quick."

He unconsciously straightened. Anything to do with the Mangella estate put him on high alert, and then there was her strange gift of "sight."

"You're working late," he said.

"I've already left the office." She exhaled carefully, as if she were dreading what she had to say next.

"You're going to tell me you saw her," he guessed.

"I wanted to talk to you . . ." she said uncertainly. "I don't normally involve myself personally in the firm's cases. I don't want to be misunderstood."

"You can cut to the chase, Ms. Quick. You saw my sister outside the window, like I did. My sister's been dead over ten years, so I'm still trying to figure out how that's possible."

"Call me Veronica, or Ronnie, please. I know you'll think I'm a crackpot, but I have to warn you. You're in danger from those women. One or both, I don't know. I just know you are."

"You already warned me."

"I don't feel you're taking it seriously."

"They're dangerous women . . . Ronnie. I'm in complete agreement with you on that. But I'm more interested in how you saw Helene. Have you been doing research on me? If it's a little trick, it's a good one."

"I understand your skepticism. I'm taking a real risk here. I think they're plotting against you."

"I'm the epitome of careful."

"Don't go there tonight. Please."

He had no intention of going anywhere. "To the Mangellas'?"

"I don't want to read about you in the papers tomorrow. That's an experience I only want to live through once." And then she clicked off.

Tree limbs shivered above him and a cold drop of rain ran down the back of his neck. He corralled the pugs on their leashes and hurried them back to his condo. He looked at the time. Ten p.m.

He wasn't going to Mangella's. Had no intention to. He looked down into the pugs' masked faces. "But what the hell is she talking about?" he asked them.

His phone dinged. Oh, right. A message. He'd heard Mac's message come in while he was talking.

Mia Beckwith is dead. Leaving Beckwiths now.

"What the hell?" he gritted out and was just starting to dial her back when the phone rang in his hand. Mac. "What happened?" he demanded. When she started to tell him, he interrupted and said, "Hold it. Come to the condo. Give me the whole story then."

* * *

Natalie waved to Roxie, who drove off with scarcely a lift of her hand. So much for her big reveal. Like everything else in her life, it was just a joke.

You're the joke , she told herself and she set her jaw.

She walked to her rental car and sat with her hands on the wheel for a long time. She wasn't interested in going back to the townhouse. The whole Portland idea felt like a mess. In her bones she could feel that things were going to blow up. She wouldn't get her new show off the ground because all the shit about pledging to kill Ethan was going to kill her career.

You can do something about it , that voice in her head reminded.

She switched on the ignition.

* * *

"Krissy?" her mother's voice wavered, though there was a thread of steel in it, too. It was maddening. Kristl felt the anger and despair and misery of all the broken relationships, of all the time taking care of her feeble yet demanding mother, of all the bad choices that had led to Tim's death and the likewise death of her dreams.

"Krissy!"

She was glad everyone was gone. Glad to drop the mask of friendship, wondering what the hell she'd been thinking by inviting Mackenzie Laughlin to the house. She barked out a short laugh. Well, she'd wanted a surprise, hadn't she? And it had fallen as flat as Nat's had when Roxie strolled in. No one really cared. Everyone was locked in their own private hells. Just like she was.

She stalked into the bedroom and gazed down at Mom, who was lying flat in the bed instead of sitting up in it. She looked pathetic.

"I can't get back up," she whined.

"You're too heavy for me to keep lifting you," Kristl told her.

"No, I'm not. You just don't want to."

Kristl inhaled a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Almost of their own accord, her eyes moved to the top drawer of her mother's dresser where deep behind the socks and old lady undergarments lay a small metal box full of pills.

Are they still potent after ten years? she wondered.

"Okay. I'll wrestle you up. Then I'll get you a glass of water."

"I don't need water."

"Then tea." She smiled and her mother regarded her a bit warily. A cup of tea and then Kristl would go for a nice long ride in her mother's car. It was a cold, crisp, dark night.

* * *

Leigh dug her fingernails into her palms. Parker had laughed when she'd told him about tomorrow's callback. Laughed! She'd tried to hide her enthusiasm a bit because he was such a downer about anything good that came her way. "How were the murdering bitches?" he'd asked her as soon as she returned. He, like Gavin, firmly believed The Sorority had taken Ethan out, and Leigh, in that first blush of love, had foolishly admitted to Natalie's pledge, thinking Parker could be trusted with their secret. He'd promised to keep it to himself, and so far she guessed he had, as it hadn't come back to bite her in the ass yet—though that cat was out of the bag now, thanks to Kristl—but he was untrustworthy and getting more so every day.

"You think you're going to get a big part?" His smile was wicked. "What about when they find out you and friends knocked off the stud you all slept with?"

"We didn't all sleep with him," she hissed.

"Oho. Somebody did, didn't they? Which one? How many?" He leaned in close to her face. "Was it you?"

Leigh shook her head.

"Screwing around on your best friend?"

"Shut up, Parker."

"Hit a nerve, did I?" He stood back again with that smirking smile. "You know they already cast the main parts. You might get something else but Roxie and Velma are out of reach."

"You don't know that," she ground out. She might get one of the two female leads. They hadn't said she wouldn't.

"You don't have the voice for it." He shrugged and walked away.

They'd been standing in the foyer, but now Leigh stalked back to the garage and her Tesla. Parker liked to torture her. That was the truth of it. He knew her weaknesses, her fears and insecurities. His words about Ethan made her feel ice cold with fear and red hot with fury at him.

* * *

Erin petted Chili so vigorously the cat meow ed in protest and slunk away. She almost grabbed for her, but held herself back. She still had the battle scars from the last time she'd tried that.

She had a lot to think about. A lot to think about.

She didn't like that Mackenzie had been there. She didn't understand why Kristl had invited her. Mac was fine, but she was an investigator and Erin really didn't want to be investigated. She had this picture of herself in a courtroom, on the stand, pointing fingers at everyone, herself included. They were all at fault for Ethan's and Ingrid's deaths. They'd wished it on Ethan, and Ingrid had gotten ensnared by default.

She choked on a sob and got her Hello Kitty diary out, flipping back to those last days of high school. She'd quit writing in it after she graduated, but she'd been fairly religious about keeping things in order before that.

I love Ethan. She looked at her scrawl with the little hearts around it. She'd wanted to have sex with him some more. But then he'd died and she'd never had sex again. She almost envied Kristl who was able to sleep with lots of guys, apparently. She tried to imagine that for herself and couldn't, so she'd purchased a vibrator but still hadn't had the courage to use it.

She thought back to what she'd said at The Sorority meeting. . . about the pills. She thought Roxie had remembered them, too. Erin had always suspected they were Ethan's, but she hadn't really wanted to know.

And Roxie . . . Ugh. She was still so pretty. And slim. And toned. And uncaring what other people thought. That was her superpower: aloofness. Erin couldn't manage that and neither could the rest of them. Natalie was too bullish and intense, Kristl was too dark and needy, Leigh was a pretty close second to Roxie, but she could get mad and stay that way, and Mia . . . Erin could hardly remember her.

When the knock came on her door, Erin started. It was late. Nobody stopped by at this time of night. She walked to her front door and looked through the peephole. Her brows lifted and she opened the door.

"What are you—"

That's as far as she got. The hypodermic hit her in the neck and she stared in utter shock as her attacker plunged whatever was in the vial into her system. She screamed and staggered toward the kitchen cabinets, holding her neck, eyes wide.

"Wh . . . why . . . ?" she cried.

"You talk too much," she heard.

What had she said? When had she said it? "I didn't say anything. I don't know anything!"

Her attacker remained silent and Erin began to feel numbness stealing through her body like a thief. She gripped onto the counter but her knees were growing weak and she slid down the bank of cabinets to the floor.

"Why?" she asked again on a sob, but there was no answer. She heard the door close behind her attacker. She tried to think, to remember. It didn't make sense.

Her mind focused on Roxie . . . her voice . . . I Eta Pi.

Pie . . .

Erin thought back to the moment she'd seen the pie, put in the back seat of Ethan's car.

She choked on another sob, tried to fight the numbness, vaguely remembered her phone was in her back pocket. She managed to pull it out. Saw the dial. Pressed the numbers. Nine . . . one . . . Her heart was beating in her ears. She could see her finger hover over the number. With her remaining strength she pushed ONE and sank back.

"Nine-one-one, what is the nature of your emergency?"

"Erin . . . Erin Humbolt . . . I'm dying . . ." she whispered.

The last thing she remembered was Chili stepping carefully past the phone as she gave it a hard look out of one golden eye, and then strolling away.

I drive the van back to its parking spot. Don't want to risk taking a car that might be recognized even though this van's a risk, too. But it had to be done. Erin is too unstable.

I'd practiced with the hypodermic. Thought to use it on Mia, but didn't need to.

Maybe I'm done now. Maybe the others will stay out of my way.

I need to shut down this investigation.

Mackenzie Laughlin . . . private investigator . . . wily and persistent.

I hope she's as inept as I think she is, otherwise she may turn out to be the biggest problem.