Death of a Cupcake Queen (17 page)

Chapter 32

“Why bring up something that happened so long ago?” Sabrina scoffed, nervously stopping to tie her shoe.

Hayley had invited her for a casual stroll along the shore path while her boy toy Mason was working out at the local gym keeping those impossibly ripped abs hard. Sabrina had hesitated at first, but ultimately decided to trust Hayley when she told her she wouldn't ask any more questions about Vanda Spears.

And she kept her promise.

She was now pumping her about the night Julian Reed died.

“I just remember that being a tough night for me. I thought you and Ivy and Nykki were my friends but then you ditched me to go to a party,” Hayley said.

Sabrina took more time than necessary to finish the knot because she was obviously using the extra seconds to get her story straight in her head.

She finally stood up and gave Hayley a quick sideways glance. “I just don't understand why you're so hung up on that. We were young and shallow and frankly not that nice, but times have changed.
We
changed.”

That was debatable, but Hayley wisely chose to keep her mouth shut.

“We matured. Don't you think it's finally time to let all that go, Hayley, especially given the fact that Ivy and Nykki are no longer with us?”

Sabrina zipped up her lime green hoodie over her black sports bra and launched into some light stretching while they were stopped on the path.

She was willing to do anything to avoid making eye contact with Hayley.

“I had no idea you were on your way to Julian Reed's house that night. I mean, he was my favorite actor. I had a poster on my bedroom wall of him as the air force cadet in
Flight School
. That was, like my favorite movie when I was in eighth grade!”

Sabrina froze in mid-stretch.

She hadn't expected to hear the name Julian Reed.

“I would've given anything to have had the opportunity to meet him. What was he like?” Hayley said casually.

Sabrina erected herself and continued walking at such a fast pace Hayley had to jog to keep up. She started to sweat underneath her own lumpy, misshapen gray sweatshirt she chose for comfort as opposed to trying to be fashionable like Sabrina's colorful number.

Sabrina, out of sorts, a panicked look on her face, was about to break into a full run to escape Hayley, but Hayley anticipated the move and locked on to her wrist.

“Sabrina, talk to me. I know you and Ivy and Nykki went to Julian Reed's house the night he died.”

Hayley wasn't positive that's what happened.

It was more of a guess.

But by the look of horror on Sabrina's face, she knew she had just hit pay dirt.

“Who . . . who told you? Vanda?”

“Vanda? No, it was . . .”

Wait.

Vanda Spears.

It was all starting to make sense.

“Something happened up there, didn't it? Something ugly,” Hayley said, releasing her grip on Sabrina, who was too shocked and upset to even move a muscle. “The three of you were there when something happened and he wound up dead in the swimming pool.”

“No . . .” Sabrina protested half-heartedly, but mostly she was resigned to the fact that the secret was out.

“Were you somehow responsible for his death?”

Sabrina nodded slightly.

Just enough for Hayley to know she was right.

And then Sabrina let out a wailing sob and doubled over as if in pain.

But it wasn't pain.

It was more a sense of relief.

It felt so good not to have to keep all that dark awful energy tucked deep inside her anymore. Especially now that she was the only one of the three girls there that night who was still alive and carrying around this long kept secret.

Sabrina fell into Hayley's arms and released twenty years of pent up fear.

It poured out of her being.

Hayley held her tight and rubbed her back.

Then Sabrina pulled away, wiping the tears away, fighting to regain composure. “It really wasn't our fault. It was an accident. But we were so scared . . .”

“What happened?”

“We ran into him on Main Street earlier that day and we screamed like groupies and begged for his autograph. He was so nice. He invited us up to his house that night. Can you imagine? Three local yokels partying with a major movie star like Julian Reed? We were beside ourselves! I mean, it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to us! I really wanted to include you, but Ivy insisted just the three of us go.”

Now in hindsight, Hayley was grateful for the snub because if she had gone that night, her life might have changed forever too.

“When we got there he was really sweet and polite and had pizza and beer waiting for us. It was like a dream. He even put on some Whitney Houston and we all danced and laughed and it was all so innocent. But before long, he disappeared inside the house and when he came out he was wearing just a robe and we could all tell he didn't have anything on underneath. He set down a silver tray and there were pills and cocaine and god only knows what else. He also had a bottle of whiskey and dared us to do shots. Nykki and I got a weird feeling and so we didn't take anything but Ivy was really into it and started downing shots and snorting coke and just going with it. Pretty soon she was a complete mess. We tried to get her to leave but before we could talk her into it Julian grabbed her and half carried half dragged her into the house to his bedroom. Nykki and I were so scared. We didn't know what to do. We sort of convinced ourselves she would be okay, but then we heard her screaming inside the house so we ran in and found Julian lying on top of her trying to get her clothes off. Nykki just lunged forward and gave Julian a shove and he toppled over and off the bed landing on his butt. It was almost funny. But it infuriated him and he started swearing at us and calling us teases and told us to get the hell off his property. So we got on either side of Ivy to help her walk and hurried out of the house. I thought that was the end of it. But then, just as we got to the pool, Julian came bursting out of the house. We were only a few feet from the back gate. We were as good as out of there. But he was wild with rage and told us we weren't going anywhere until we showed him a good time. He came at us, swinging his fists at Nykki, who managed to duck but he still clocked her on the side of the head. I didn't know what to do. I just started screaming. That's when Ivy just lost it. She threw herself at him and shoved him as hard as she could. He stumbled back, and somehow lost his footing, and then he fell and his head hit the cement pavement. I just remember this sickening crunch. It was so loud. I heard him moaning. He tried to get back up but he lost his balance and fell into the pool. We just stood there, watching him float face down, not sure what to do. We were afraid if we tried to pull him out he would kill us. So we ran out of there as fast as we could.”

“Leaving him there to drown,” Hayley said, putting a comforting arm around Sabrina's still shaking shoulders.

“We were up all night trying to figure out what we should do. Ivy wanted to go to the police but Nykki said,
no
. We'd be arrested and then we would never get to go to college or see each other again or live normal lives. We were just out of high school and had our whole lives ahead of us. We were so scared we would lose everything! We'd always be those girls who killed Julian Reed! So the next morning we made a pact never to speak of it again. We were the only three that really knew what happened there that night.”

“But you weren't. I just spoke to the maid who worked for Julian Reed that summer. She was there and witnessed the whole thing. But she was so disgusted by what she saw go down, she kept mum.”

“I had no idea . . .” Sabrina said, her voice trailing off.

“And then there was Vanda Spears.”

“Yes. Vanda.”

“She must have been hanging around the estate that night hoping to catch a glimpse of her favorite actor and she probably saw the three of you running away.”

“The three of us never discussed it after that night. Not once in twenty years. But when we came back to town for the reunion Vanda started making trouble. She said she knew what had happened and wanted us to make it worth her while to keep her mouth shut.”

“We all know about Vanda's personal demons she's had to deal with and at the time she probably never even thought about going to the police with what she knew. She was too wrapped up in her own crazy world, and my guess is she just lost track of you. Maybe she even forgot what she saw,” Hayley said, sitting down on the grass of Albert Meadow just off the Shore Path next to Sabrina, who had planted herself and was hugging her knees tight.

“She's always been mentally unstable and practically lived on the streets so the odds of her having her own computer and finding us on Facebook were pretty much nil,” Sabrina said.

“But when she saw the three of you back in Bar Harbor for the reunion, something must have clicked. The memory of that night somehow came rushing back to her and since she was always having money troubles and couldn't keep a roof over her head she saw an opportunity. That's why you paid her off with the money she used to buy her car.”

“I wanted to go to the police from the moment she first approached the three of us and tell them everything, but Ivy insisted we give Vanda anything she wanted because she was afraid if the scandal came out her cupcake business would be adversely affected.”

“And after Ivy was killed, Nykki remained convinced the best option was to keep Vanda happy.”

“Yes. I told her Vanda would never go away. She would always come back and ask for more, but Nykki didn't care. She just wanted her to stay quiet.”

Hayley couldn't imagine how difficult it must have been for the three women to be haunted for so many years, looking over their shoulders, frightened that someone might discover the truth and their lives would be over as they know it.

She felt sorry for Sabrina.

But at least she was still alive.

Ivy and Nykki hadn't been so lucky.

Which begged the question.

Who had it out for them?

And was it connected to the secret pact they made to never tell anyone the role they played in Julian Reed's death?

Chapter 33

If anyone was an expert on Eighties superstar Julian Reed, it was Randy.

When Hayley called him at the bar and invited him over for happy hour cocktails later that afternoon, Randy jumped at the chance. He swung by his house he shared with husband Sergio and picked up a box of old magazines and newspaper clippings of all his Hollywood crushes that he kept stored in the basement and rushed right over leaving his trusty bar manager Michelle in charge of Drinks Like A Fish.

Hayley had his favorite drink, a Mojito, waiting for him when he arrived and the two sat at the kitchen table sipping their drinks while Hayley pumped Randy for information that might shed some light on who might be the one targeting Ivy, Nykki, and Sabrina so many years after that fateful night at Julian Reed's summer rental estate.

“I was devastated when I heard the news,” Randy said, licking the sugar off the side of the glass. “I remember I went into mourning for weeks. He was my favorite movie star of all time and he died right here in my home town! I couldn't fathom it!”

“I don't remember you being so upset over Julian Reed dying,” Hayley shrugged.

“Of course you don't. You never paid any attention to me back then. It was all about chasing boys and partying with your friends. I could barely crawl out of bed I was so destroyed. That is until
Goldeneye
came out later that fall and I found a new obsession with Pierce Brosnan! You know how much I go for older men with hairy chests! I remember watching him in
Remington Steele
when I was a little kid but he didn't really excite me like he did when he first appeared on screen as James Bond looking so dashing in that tux and brandishing that Walther PPK and . . .”

“Yes, Randy. Pierce Brosnan. I remember. Can we get back to Julian Reed?”

“Sorry. I tend to get distracted when I drink Mojitos.”

“When I was at the library researching his death I saw a lot of conspiracy theories.”

“Oh, yes! They started coming out the day after he died,” Randy said, standing up from the table and reaching into his box of mementos and hauling out a stack of magazines.

He set them down and began leafing through them. “Every week there was a new story. A crazy mistress. A closeted gay lover. His mother. His uncle. His cousin. His chiropractor. His massage therapist. I think everybody who ever came in contact with him was considered a suspect at one time.”

“But the police concluded his death was an accident . . .”

“Yes. And they also said Marilyn Monroe died of an accidental drug overdose. That didn't stop everyone from speculating that the Kennedy brothers were there that night and killed her to cover up her affair with JFK.”

“I see your point.”

Leroy scampered into the kitchen and stopped to sniff at his empty bowl on the plastic mat with paw prints in the corner. It was the universal sign he was hungry and that he expected his dinner without further delay.

Hayley stood up and crossed to a cupboard in the far corner to fetch a treat since it was too early for his dinner. “Well, I think we know now what really happened that night.”

“All these years those girls kept it to themselves. They never told anybody. I don't think I could have done that,” Randy said, shaking his head.

“That's not exactly breaking news. You've always been terrible at keeping secrets.”

“That's because there are only two kinds of secrets. Ones not worth keeping and ones too good to keep.”

Hayley tossed a chewy treat to Leroy, who scooped it up in his mouth and sauntered out of the kitchen to find a comfortable place to gnaw on it. She then mixed herself another Jack and Coke and joined Randy back at the table, who was flipping through an old magazine.

“Oh, I remember this story in the
Enquirer
! This one is from 1989.”

“You always used to run to the grocery store with your allowance every Wednesday when it came out to buy a copy. Please tell me you don't read that rag anymore!”

“I will neither confirm nor deny,” Randy said, slapping the magazine down in front of Hayley.

On the cover was a picture of Julian Reed, coming out of a modest suburban house, his hand covering his face as he avoided the paparazzi while a young blond girl, no more than sixteen, in dark sunglasses, her mouth agape, clutched his shirt sleeve. She had an obvious baby bump. Plastered across the front was the headline “Julian Reed's Secret Love Child!”

“This one was particularly juicy! It was all about how Julian Reed got an underaged fan pregnant and then paid off the girl's family to keep quiet because he was worried about his image!”

“Not to mention being arrested for having sex with a minor! Do you think there was any truth to the story?”

“Of course there was! Otherwise the
Enquirer
wouldn't write about it!” Randy said, a defensive tone in his voice.

Hayley gave him a withering stare.

“Come on, you know as well as I do where there's smoke, there's always fire! According to the
Enquirer
, the girl's parents were strict Catholics so an abortion was out of the question.”

“So she must have had the baby!”

“Yes! And the gossip rags hounded her for months despite all parties denying she had any kind of sexual relationship with Julian Reed. She finally moved away to a small town in the Midwest just to escape the glare of the spotlight. Eventually, all the hoopla died down and Julian Reed went back to being a box office star until six years later, when he died. Well, that cranked up the rumor mill all over again and that's when one reporter tracked the girl down and got a photograph of her buying an ice cream for a six-year-old boy.”

“Do you have that issue?”

“I think so. These are all in chronological order. If I didn't become a bar owner I could've been a librarian. And I'd be a whole lot cuter than Agatha Farnsworth.”

Randy set one stack of magazines to the side and began rifling through the box for more before yanking out a copy of the
National Enquirer
from 1995. “Here it is!”

He handed the magazine to Hayley.

Sure enough. On the cover was the girl, now a few years older, more conservatively dressed and her hair in a bun, with an adorable wide eyed little boy who bore more than a passing resemblance to Julian Reed.

“Whatever came of this?” Hayley asked, studying the picture.

“Nothing. The girl denied the boy was Julian Reed's son. There was no way to prove it. She certainly wasn't going to subject him to a DNA test. So eventually the story died on the vine. Another salacious celebrity scandal popped up and everybody sort of forgot about it.”

Hayley studied the photo of the little boy.

What if the story was true?

What if this really was Julian Reed's son?

What had happened to him?

“Dustin! Can you come down here? And bring your iPad!” Hayley yelled before picking up Randy's now empty glass and making him another Mojito as a reward for a job well done.

After a few moments they heard feet pounding down the stairs and Dustin, sleepy-eyed and bored, ambled into the kitchen, his iPad in his hand. “What's up?”

“Weren't you telling me about an app you downloaded that can age a photo to see what a child would look like years later as an adult?”

“Yeah FutureFace. It's really cool.”

“Could you show me what he would look like today?” Hayley asked, pointing her finger at the boy on the cover of the Enquirer from 1995.

“Sure,” Dustin said, snapping a photo of the boy with his iPad camera and then opening the app. He set the device down on the table between Hayley and Randy and they watched in awe as the boy's face slowly transformed into a twenty-five-year-old man.

Randy grabbed the iPad and squinted at the adult face. “Isn't that . . . ?”

“Sabrina Merryweather's boyfriend! The high diver! You met him at the bar!”

Hayley then snatched up the 1989 copy of the
Enquirer
and frantically flipped through the pages until she got to the two page spread detailing all the salacious details. “Cassidy! The girl's name was Rhonda Cassidy! Mason's last name is Cassidy! It's him! He's Julian Reed's long lost son!”

“Since everyone denied Julian was the boy's father, he probably just took his mother's name!” Hayley said, throwing the magazine back down.

Dustin held out his hand. “What do I get for cracking the case?”

“A mother's eternal gratitude! Now get back upstairs and finish your extra credit for History so you don't have to go to summer school!”

Dustin rolled his eyes and shuffled out of the kitchen.

“If Mason found out Julian Reed was his father and somehow discovered that Sabrina, Nykki, and Ivy were responsible for his death he might want to exact revenge!” Randy said, downing his second Mojito excitedly.

“And that's motive and opportunity,” Hayley said.