Ever Present Danger (32 page)

“What happened?”

“Brandon burned out and quit. I was so upset with him that I broke off the engagement. I couldn’t accept that we’d never have the life I had envisioned. I’d let my shallow, social-climbing friends convince me that I was the center of my own universe. I mean, how dare Brandon change the plan?
I deserved
better.” Kelsey shook her head. “Hard to believe that I broke up with him over that.”

“Couldn’t he get a different job that made a lot of money?”

Kelsey’s eyes widened. “That’s what I said. But he wanted out of the corporate world and was looking for a job with
significance
—something that made him feel like he was making a positive difference. All I saw was all my hopes and dreams being shattered.”

“How’d you get back together?”

“It’s a really long story, but he went to Seaport, Florida, and moved in with his parents for a while. The Lord had some work to do in his heart, too. And a few months later, we were engaged again—only this time we both had our priorities straight. Now Brandon’s doing what he loves and feels God’s called him to, and I fully support him in it. We’ve learned to live on a lot less. But we’re right where we need to be.”

“Well, this log house is pretty nice.”

Kelsey’s face lit up. “It really is. But a year ago, I would’ve stuck my nose in the air at the idea of living at a Christian camp.”

“But that doesn’t seem like such an awful sin to me. Not compared to drug abuse.”

Kelsey refilled Ivy’s cup, and then her own. “Well, that’s the amazing thing about God—He doesn’t compare sins. None is acceptable. That’s what grace is all about. But you know that.”

“Yeah, but don’t you think some sins are beyond forgiveness?”

“Not if a person has trusted Jesus as his or her Savior.”

“What about a rapist or a child molester or a murderer?”

“Anyone who truly repents and asks for God’s forgiveness is forgiven.”

“What if it’s someone who knows better, like someone who used to be a believer?”

“Ivy, repentance is repentance. That’s the only requirement for forgiveness. Pretty amazing trade, considering Jesus gave His own life to make that possible.”

Ivy traced the lip of her cup with her finger. “What do you mean by repent?”

“I mean that a person is remorseful for whatever he’s confessing and really wants to change.”

“What if he can’t change?”

“Then I’d say he’s not trusting God. Because there’s nothing God can’t do—no heart He can’t change.”

“Well, what if he hasn’t told someone the truth about something? Does he have to go and tell that person the truth if he wants God to forgive him for lying?”

Kelsey paused and seemed to be thinking. Finally she said, “What I believe is that a truly repentant heart wants to make things right—whatever it takes.”

The phone rang.

“Excuse me just a minute,” Kelsey said. “I’m expecting a call from the gift shop that’s selling my quilts.”

Ivy pinched the last of the cake crumbs with her thumb and forefinger and put them in her mouth, thinking that, for now, doing “whatever it takes” sounded harder to cope with than living with the secret.

SHERIFF FLINT CARTER stood outside the interrogation room, his arms folded, and observed Lieutenant Bobby Knolls question Bill Ziwicki. He glanced at his watch. Bobby had already been at it forty-five minutes, and Ziwicki hadn’t given up anything useful.

“Sure I remember you told me Monday’s your busy day,” Bobby said. “But you wanna help us make an arrest in this case, don’t you, Bill? I mean, you don’t have anything to hide, right?”

“Of course not. But I’ve told you everything I know at least half a dozen times.”

“Okay, let me recap what you’ve said.” Bobby sat at the table, his hands folded, his gaze intent. “You went to the reunion alone. Ran into Ivy Griffith in the elevator and rode up to the second floor where the registration was set up in the hallway. You registered and got your name tag, and then you and Ivy went separate ways. You mingled some. Had a few beers. And spent the rest of the evening people watchin’. At approximately 1:45, you got up the nerve to ask Ivy to dance. After that you sat at the table with her, and she expressed concern that Pete hadn’t come back from takin’ Reg and Denny to their room and thought he might be passed out somewhere. Is that accurate so far?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Bobby leaned back in his chair, his hands clasped
behind his head. “Around 2:00 a.m., the band started packin’ up, and you offered to help Ivy find Pete. You followed her to the front desk, where the clerk gave her Morrison and Richards’s room number, which she called and got no answer. Then the two of you went up to Room 312 and found the door unlocked. You went inside and discovered the three victims shot to death. Is that accurate?”

“Yeah. And I’ve already told you that over and over. What are you tryin’ to get me to say?”

“You feel pushed, Bill?”

“Well, kind of. Seems like you’re harassin’ me, for some reason.”

“Why would you feel that way if you don’t have anything to hide?”

“I guess you’d have to be sittin’ in my shoes to know how it feels.”

Bobby flashed a phony smile. “And I thought we were becomin’ friends.”

“Look, I lost three friends in a really horrible shooting. Just ask me what you need to so I can put this thing behind me.”

Bobby got up and started pacing. “All right. You didn’t really need to ask for the room number, did you, Bill? That was all staged because you already knew Reg Morrison and Denny Richards’s room number. See, I’m thinkin’ maybe you and Ivy conspired to get rid of Pete.”

“What? This is nuts. Do I need a lawyer?”

“Not if you’re innocent.”

“Of course I’m innocent. Man, what’re you gettin’ at?”

Bobby put his palms on the table and leaned forward, his face close to Bill’s. “It seems a little too convenient that you and Ivy claim you weren’t seein’ each other prior to the shooting. And then immediately after, you went to the memorial service together and started datin’ without any grievin’ period. Did she hire you to kill Pete Barton?”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, I’m dead serious.”

Bill raked his hands through his hair. “Why would you think either of us had anything to do with this?”

“Did you?” Bobby said.

“Absolutely not! We were horrified when we found those guys dead. Why would we kill our friends?”

“I’m thinkin’ you had this thing for Ivy. And Pete was in the way.”

“Ivy wasn’t attracted to Pete anymore.”

“Or Pete didn’t find her attractive anymore. You know what they say, ‘Hell knows no fury like a woman scorned.’”

Bill shook his head. “You’re so wrong. Besides, do you think if we’d had anything to do with it, we’d be dumb enough to go anywhere near the murder scene?”

“Maybe you thought it would help you avoid suspicion if you acted like you stumbled into it.”

“You’re way off, man. Whoever killed those guys is out there somewhere, not in here! I passed all those tests you did on me. I didn’t shoot anybody!”

Bobby sat at the table again, his tone less offensive. “Okay, Bill. Let’s go back to when you first met Ivy. High school, right?”

“Yeah. Junior year. She was a knockout.”

“So would you say you’ve had a thing for her all this time?”

“I did in high school. I didn’t see her for ten years after that. I guess the chemistry’s still there.”

“Were you jealous of Pete?”

“Sure. Who wasn’t? He had it all: looks, build, smarts. He was a jock. And the girls drooled over him.”

“Did girls drool over you, Bill?”

Bill’s face turned red. “Are you gonna put me through this again?”

“Just answer the question.”

“No. I wasn’t popular. I had acne, and I was kinda shy back then.”

“Why do you suppose Pete, Reg, and Denny would let a social outcast sit with them at lunch?”

“I don’t know. I was just glad they did. It was always somethin’ I could be proud of.”

Bobby blew a pink bubble. “I’d like to explore that a little more.
I keep askin’ myself why three jocks would bend over backwards for a shy kid with acne that everyone called Icky Ziwicki.” Bobby leaned forward on his elbows. “I just don’t see Pete Barton bein’ tenderhearted.”

Ivy Griffith walked in the front door of her parents’ house and went out to the kitchen where her mother was putting away groceries.

“Hi, honey,” Carolyn Griffith said. “How was your visit with Kelsey?”

Ivy smiled. “Good. She’s really nice.”

“What did you two talk about?”

“Oh, lots of stuff. Girl talk mostly. Her house is really decorated nicely. Have you seen it?”

Carolyn put the milk in the fridge. “Uh-huh. She’s got more talent in her little finger than most of us have in our entire body.”

“No kidding. She’s like this young Martha Stewart.” Ivy picked up some canned goods and started putting them in the pantry.

“Oh, I almost forgot.” Caroline walked over to her purse and handed Ivy an envelope. “I ran into Evelyn Barton at the drugstore. She wanted you to have these pictures from the reunion. She couldn’t bear to keep them. Said she has plenty of pictures of Pete and doesn’t want to remember the reunion. She said if you don’t want them, either give them away or throw them out.”

“Sheriff Carter said we had to give him copies of all the pictures,” Ivy said.

“He has these. They’re duplicates.”

Ivy quickly thumbed through the photos and noticed a number of pictures of her at the table with Pete, Reg, and Denny. “Who took these?”

“She just said one of the classmates sent them to her.”

“Some of these pictures are really good. But I don’t know if I want them either.”

“Did you see the one of you dancing with Bill?”

“No, I missed that.” Ivy thumbed through the stack again until she found it. They almost looked as though they belonged together. “I don’t think my relationship with Bill is going anywhere.”

“Really? I thought you two were hitting it off.”

“He’s really sweet, but I don’t think he’s my type.”

“Maybe you should consider getting involved with the singles group at church. We draw young people from several churches in the region. I think someone said we have almost sixty singles now.”

Of which zero want to date a recovering drug addict
, Ivy thought.

“You want some lunch?”

“Thanks, Mom, but I’m not hungry. Kelsey made this awesome chocolate cream cheese cake, and I had two big pieces. I think I’ll go upstairs and read or something and just take it easy till Montana gets out of school—unless you need me to do something.”

“No. You go ahead.”

Ivy walked through the living room and grabbed a magazine and started to go upstairs, then went back and pulled her old Student Bible out of the bookshelf and went up to her room and closed the door.

She sat in the rocker hugging the Bible, remembering a time when she felt happy and filled with hope—the same hope that had been so evident in Kelsey Jones this morning. Sometimes she almost believed that God might take her back, forgive her past, and give her another chance at a normal life. But when she thought about how her silence had contributed to the murders of Joe, Pete, Reg, and Denny, it seemed too much to hope for.

How different things would have been had she never started compromising all those years ago. Never traded her virginity for Pete’s attention. Never let him talk her into taking the first drag of a joint. Never agreed to keep the pact. Her mind raced back through the excuses she had used to justify her lying and stealing and the drug habit she needed to silence the guilt. And all the degrading acts she had done for drug money.

Ivy opened the Bible and her eyes fell on a highlighted passage in 1 John:

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Her eyes stung and welled with tears, hope and fear pulling her in opposite directions. How she wanted to believe that promise for herself.

She wiped the tears off her cheeks and closed the Bible, then picked up the stack of photos and began looking at them, one by one. A heavy sadness fell over her as she saw the faces of her murdered friends—faces that haunted her almost every time she closed her eyes. She wondered if Mr. Hadley had trouble sleeping at night. Or if he felt so satisfied at having exacted his revenge that he hardly gave it a second thought.

Ivy held up the picture of Bill and her slow dancing and remembered how freeing it had felt to dance with him in front of her classmates and not care what any of them thought. She still marveled at how tender Bill had been with her, and already she missed it.

Had she been too impulsive in deciding to back off from her relationship with him? What if he possessed the exact qualities she needed in a husband? What if she were passing up a chance for a loving relationship and a crack at a “normal” future? Montana liked him. Her parents seemed to like him. Maybe she was way off base. Maybe she was just afraid of commitment. Afraid of being hurt. What difference did it make if they had different ideas about God? It wasn’t as though she were living it anyway.

Ivy’s heart was suddenly a kettledrum in her chest, and she felt as though she wanted to run, though she didn’t know what from. She tossed the pictures on the bed and hurried down the stairs and out to the front porch, then sat on the steps, hugging her knees.

Bill Ziwicki threw up his hands. “Why are you askin’ me all these questions about Pete? I hadn’t seen the guy for an entire decade. All I really know about him is he was nice to me sometimes when we were in high school.”