A Willing Murder Read online

  “Who is Mark?”

  Cheryl nodded toward a red leather case on the table. “My Mark Cross is full of things that are going to show the world the beauty that is within you.”

  “Mark better put on his work clothes because he has a big job ahead of him.”

  Cheryl laughed. “Go on. Get cleaned up...”

  * * *

  Elaine looked as though she’d come out of a trance of memory, but there was a smile on her face. “Cheryl gave me one of the best nights of my life. Jim and I sat with his friends—the glamorous people of the school—and I was on. Like a spotlight had been turned on inside me, I lit up. I thought, This is where I belong. With these people. And you know what? They never said it out loud but they were glad to be around Jim without his little entourage of Dane and Gena. We laughed and danced and were full of the joy of being young and alive.”

  “And what happened afterward?” Sara asked.

  “Jim went back to Gena and I took Cheryl’s advice to act like I didn’t mind. But that night at the dance had put a crack in the dam. The other girls loved the dress I wore and asked me to design theirs for the prom. A couple of times one of them would be talking to Gena and they’d leave her when they spotted me so they could show me a color they liked or a fabric. Sometimes just to chat. About two weeks later, Gena started throwing accusations at Jim and she broke up with him. He asked me to go to the prom with him—which I did. It was another magical night and that’s when we started talking about going to college together.”

  “You started all this by saying that you knew someone who hated Cheryl enough to kill her,” Jack said. “It seems like Gena would be angry at you.”

  “I thought she would be, but Gena was not only a control freak, she was also a spy. When we met that first time in the bathroom, Cheryl told me to act like I didn’t know her. After she helped me, she still insisted I keep up the charade. I didn’t like doing it, but I listened. Then, the first Saturday after graduation, I saw her outside the ice-cream shop and I asked her to go in with me. I was dying to tell her that her plan worked. We were sitting there with big chocolate malteds, laughing together, with Cheryl congratulating me, when Gena came to the table.

  “I’d seen her at school and I thought she’d be furious at me for picking up the boyfriend she’d thrown away. She’d given me some dirty looks but she’d never said anything. I thought I’d misjudged her, that she was actually a gracious loser.”

  Elaine paused, as though what she was about to say was hard for her. “Gena came to our table and didn’t so much as look at me. Her eyes were only on Cheryl and she said, ‘You did this, didn’t you?’ She jerked her head at me and said, ‘This one is too innocent to pull off what she did all on her own. All she knows how to do is make cow eyes at my boyfriend and cry herself to sleep.’”

  Elaine paused. “When I look back on it, I know I should have stood up to her and defended my friend but she really scared me. Gena sneered at Cheryl and said, ‘I knew that if I watched long enough I’d find out who really took my life away from me. There’s nothing innocent about you. When you want something, you go get it. I had everything planned and you destroyed it.’”

  Elaine looked at her hands for a moment. “What she said next haunts me. Gena said, ‘I’m going to do the same thing to you. Whatever it is that you want, I’m going to see that you don’t get it.’”

  Elaine took a moment to calm herself. “Gena left after that. She walked out with her head up and her shoulders back, like she’d won a battle. Cheryl and I hadn’t said a word. When Gena was gone, I reverted to a whimpering bag of mush and started crying. I was so afraid of her wrath. But Cheryl put her hand over mine and said I wasn’t to worry. She said she had a secret weapon that no one, not even her mother, knew about, and that everything would be all right.”

  Jack, Sara and Kate were quiet for a moment, absorbing the story, then Sara said, “Your last name is Pendal, so I take it that you and Jim married. Still together?”

  “Very much so. We have three beautiful children—two girls, and a boy born last year.” Elaine paused for a moment. “When I said I owed my entire life to Cheryl, I meant it. Jim and I went to UCF and I told him what Cheryl said I should do. He thought it was a great idea. We both majored in business but he was much better at it than I was. My mind was mostly on designing and sewing and selling.

  “After we graduated, we went to New York, and I got a job with a designer who eventually let me open my own label. Jim runs the business side of the company.” She smiled. “Remember Cheryl’s little red Mark Cross case? When I branded my line, I used half of that name.”

  Kate gasped. “You’re Elaine Cross?” She stood up. “Elaine Cross!”

  She smiled. “I am.”

  Kate turned, as though she meant to run to her own room, but she stopped. “Oh, no! You’re going to hate me. I copy... I mean I...” She sat back down. “I love your designs.”

  “I’ll send you this year’s collection. Anybody who cares about Cheryl is my friend.”

  All Kate could do was nod.

  * * *

  After Elaine left, the three of them stayed in Jack’s room. For a while, they just silently stared out the windows.

  Kate was the first to speak. “Do you think this Gena murdered Cheryl?”

  “Looking at it from a writer’s point of view,” Sara said, “I’d say no. She’d want Cheryl alive so she would suffer.”

  “But she didn’t get a chance,” Jack said. “Someone else wanted Cheryl out of the picture completely.”

  “Or Verna.” Kate stood up. “I’m going to see what needs to be done with the other people. Wonder if your mom found any more interesting notes.”

  Kate left, then soon returned to signal that it was okay for them to come out. The girls who’d pestered Jack and the people waiting for autographs had left. There were no more notes that had anything but platitudes on them. On the kitchen counter were the names and addresses of people who still wanted their books. Janet from church said she’d mail them out once Sara had a chance to sign them.

  “She’s a godsend,” Kate said absently as she started clearing up the debris from the party.

  It was after seven when it was done. Heather and Ivy had left, both of them hugging Kate and Sara, and exchanging cheek kisses. Jack was filling a bowl full of ice cream.

  Sara looked at her niece and said, “I don’t know about you but I could stand some Kelly.”

  “As in Chicago?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Smiling, the two women went to the big couch in the family room. Sara picked up the remote.

  Jack put down his crutches, made his way to sit between them and took the remote. “What are we watching?”

  “Severide,” they said in unison.

  Groaning, Jack turned on the TV and brought up Hulu. The women directed him to choose Chicago Fire.

  “Yet another man,” Jack mumbled.

  He started to eat his ice cream, but when he looked at the women curled up at the ends of the couch, their legs drawn up, he lifted his bowl.

  They stretched out, their feet in Jack’s lap. He pulled a soft lap robe off the back of the couch, covered their bare feet and put the ice-cream bowl on top. They settled in to watch back-to-back episodes of the TV series they all enjoyed.

  Sort of watched it. In their minds was the story they’d heard that day. Cheryl had done a very good deed for a girl she hardly knew. She had changed Elaine’s and Jim’s lives. And in a way, she’d changed the world. The Elaine Cross line of clothing wasn’t necessary to the earth’s health, but it provided jobs and gave pleasure. More couldn’t be asked.

  Yet Cheryl hadn’t been allowed to live to see what she’d done. The question of “where do we go from here?” hung in the air.

  During the credits of the first episode, Sara said, “We have to find Gena.”