Haunting Olivia (29 page)

“I can understand that,” Zach said. “Her mother’s been threatened. Her sponsor has disappeared in 274

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what looks like violent circumstances.” He paused.

“Maybe all the girls should drop out, Rorie. This is beyond dangerous now. I think we should suggest to Colleen that the damned pageant be cancelled.”

She was silent for a moment. “That would be so unfair to the girls,” she said finally. “Look, Zach, your Kayla seems like a nice girl and all, but let’s be honest, Cecily is Cecily. She’ll win the competition.

It’s a lot of prize money and a monthly column in the paper. This could help her get a scholarship to the ivy league. We just have to get through one more day.”

Cecily is Cecily? She’ll win the competition? Excuse me?

“We might not have one more day,” Zach said.

“Do what you feel is right for your daughter,”

Rorie said. “I’ll do the same.”

Zach hung up and filled in Olivia.

“Oh my God, Zach,” Olivia said, “I just realized something. That makes two sponsors who are missing. Taffy and Johanna. Who’s Deenie McCord’s sponsor?”

“I assume whoever owns the jewelry store that Jacqueline works for,” Zach said, picking up the phone. “I’m calling the police to see if there’s any news about Taffy.”

A minute later, Zach hung up, more frustrated than he’d been before he’d called. Supposedly, Taffy Johnson was having a hot and heavy relationship with a guy with a temper. They’d had two huge arguments in the past month, both of which resulted in overturned displays. Once she went missing for two days and came back annoyed at all the HAUNTING OLIV IA

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hoopla; she’d been shacked up in a motel with her boyfriend.

“So they’re not even conducting an investiga-tion?” Olivia asked. “What did they say when you mentioned that the former coordinator of the pageant also just up and disappeared?”

“They claimed that Shelby did no such thing, that she left a note explaining she was moving to Florida for the weather.”

“I don’t know, Zach. Two weeks before the pageant? Why make such a big commitment, then?

Shelby had signed on to the pageant just the week prior to leaving town.”

“Do you know anything about her?” Zach asked.

“I think she was a teacher at the high school. Biology or chemistry, I forget which. I could do a little asking around. Namely of Pearl. She’s been laying low about everything that’s been going on. Perhaps it’s time I paid her a little visit.”

“I’ll go with you. For all we know, she’s the one.”

Olivia tried to smile, but she didn’t have one in her.

“I’ll be fine, Zach. Her office is on the ground floor of the town hall, right near the entrance. You need to stay with Kayla anyway. I’ll be back in an hour.”

Zach nodded. “There’s no way any of this is a coincidence. The former coordinator disappears two weeks before the pageant. Threats start getting made. You’ve been targeted since you arrived. And two sponsors have disappeared into thin air.”

“You know, Zach,” Olivia said, grabbing her coat from the hall closet. “I just realized that maybe what was going on with me wasn’t connected to the pageant. I had no connection to it the first day. And that 276

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first break-in at the house, the smashed figurines, that occurred on my
first
night in Blueberry.”

“So maybe we’re looking at two different situa-tions, two different psychos. The more the mer-rier,” Zach said, letting out a deep breath. “The only decent thing the officer said was that there would be an officer assigned to the pageant, given

‘all the hijinx.’”

“One officer?” Olivia said. “I hope he carries a big gun.”

Olivia wasn’t the only pageant mom to want answers from Pearl. As the town’s manager of recreation, the pageant was her responsibility, period.

And Colleen, who liked bossing and barking orders more than dealing with the fears of concerned parents, had fled the building a half hour ago.

“I want to know what will be done to protect my daughter!” Marnie was shouting when Olivia arrived. “If the police think that one lousy officer stationed in the back of the room is good enough, then I call for the elimination of Kayla Archer from the pageant. We might not have proof that she’s been responsible for what’s been going on, but there is
evidence.
And that should be red flag enough for you people.”

“We people don’t eliminate contestants from the pageant because they
might
be guilty, Ms. Sweetser,”

Pearl responded wearily. Clearly Marnie had been at it for a while.

“I’m glad to hear that, Pearl,” Olivia said, stepping inside the office.

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Marnie turned around and glared at Olivia. “I’m glad you heard what I said. Everyone wants Kayla out. So why don’t you do the right thing for once?”

“The right thing would be for me to wait outside until you’ve finished your business here,” Olivia said, stepping back out.

Marnie jumped up. “I am through. And after tonight, your daughter will be through, too. As if there’s a chance she could win or even come in second. She’s got all the inner beauty of the devil.”

Olivia gasped. It was one thing for Marnie to hurl insults at Olivia, quite another to say something so despicable about a child.

Marnie rushed past Olivia, knocking her against the door frame as she stormed out.

Olivia rubbed her shoulder. “Pearl, if you can spare me a few minutes, I want to ask you a few questions about Shelby Maxwell.”

“Why, is she back? I have half a mind to—”

“No, Pearl, she’s not back. As far as I know, anyway. You said she just up and left, leaving a note behind for you. Do you happen to still have that note?”

Pearl stood and walked over to the ancient stack of file cabinets on the wall. “I’m sure I put it in her personnel file. I wanted it on record that she left us completely in the lurch. I’m sure the high school did the same.”

“So she sent a note to the principal too?”

“What’s odd is that she sent the letter to me, but cc’d the principal, as though coordinating the pageant was more important than her full-time job as a 278

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biology teacher! That’s how nutty she clearly was.

Who runs off to Florida with a man she met on-line?”

As Pearl nattered on while searching through Shelby’s file, Olivia was beginning to think that poor Shelby might be the victim of the nut. Or, for all anyone knew, the nut herself.

“Ah, here it is,” Pearl said, handing Olivia a plain piece of paper, the kind anyone would use to print letters.

Ms. Pearl Putnam

Blueberry Town Hall

Blueberry Boulevard

Blueberry, ME 04000

cc: Principal Smith, Blueberry High School
Dear Pearl,

I regret to inform you that I will not be able to take
on the coordinatorship of the Inner-Beauty Pageant,
after all. I’ve decided to move to Florida to hopefully
marry a man I met via the Internet on a dating site.

I’m sure you’ll understand, as will Principal Smith,
that this is an opportunity I can’t pass up.

Thank you.

Shelby Maxwell

Olivia flipped it over. Nothing written on the other side. Nothing unusual about the envelope, either. Pearl’s name and address were typed neatly in the center of the envelope.

“She didn’t even sign her name,” Olivia said.

“That’s odd, isn’t it? Usually people sign their name HAUNTING OLIV IA

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to letters between the close and their typed name.

If they bother typing their name at all.”

“The whole thing is odd,” Pearl said. “I just know that whoever she met has her brainwashed. That letter doesn’t even sound like Shelby. I’ve never heard Shelby use an officious tone like that. She’s a real people person, bubbly.”

Someone wrote the letter for her. Typed on plain white paper, like all the notes.

Next time I’ll tighten it. . . .

What the hell had happened to Shelby Maxwell?

“I’ll bet the boyfriend wrote it for her,” Pearl continued. “Something a controlling type would do.

And he’s clearly a controlling type if he convinced her to move to Florida and give up her entire life here.”

Olivia would bet quite a lot that a man had nothing to do with it at all.

Chapter 23

The Inner-Beauty Pageant was well attended. The controversy brought out practically the entire town.

But while people sat buzzing in their seats about teenaged girls going for each other’s throats, Zach sat seething. He wanted to jump up and tell the morons behind him—grown women—that there was nothing amusing about girls being vicious to each other. About anyone being vicious to each other.

What Olivia had told him about Shelby Maxwell had him on edge all day. He didn’t know Shelby well; he’d only seen her in passing a few times. She hadn’t lived in Blueberry. And he doubted she now lived in Florida. Something terrible had happened to her. And showing the police a polite resignation letter, copied to her place of employment and her volunteer position, would hardly constitute a threat against her. The police would tell him to get lost.

He’d have to see this through. The pageant. He had a sick, sick feeling in his gut that tonight the psycho behind everything would make some kind HAUNTING OLIV IA

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of final move to win this thing. His only consolation was that Kayla would be in view at all times. When it wasn’t her turn to speak, she would be sitting down in a chair just a few feet behind the podium.

Zach glanced at the back of the auditorium. The officer, in uniform, stood by the doors. That barely helped the knot in Zach’s gut.

Kayla was ner vous too, but she hadn’t seemed nervous about the threat made against her or the fact that someone was working so hard to frame her.

She’d tried on so many different outfits today, and Zach had never been more grateful that Kayla considered him hopeless at fashion. She’d only wanted Olivia in her room, helping her with her hair, her clothes, her make-up, which Zach had limited to only enough to cover up her imaginary pimple on her chin, and lip gloss.

The front row in the auditorium was reserved for parents. Zach sat on the far end, Olivia next to him.

Rorie Carle sat beaming next to her, fussing with a video camera. Jacqueline McCord was late, which wasn’t a surprise. Marnie was next to Rorie.

Colleen, the assistant coordinator, sat at the ver y end, looking exhausted.

The four contestants sat in chairs behind the podium. Kayla was biting her lip and alternating between bursts of smiles and looking like she might throw up. Cecily, next to her, was a model of poise.

Deenie slouched and reminded Zach of a deer caught in the headlights. Her eyes were wide open and she stared straight ahead, as though afraid to actually see how many people were in the audience.

“Welcome to the Thirty-First Annual Inner-Beauty Pageant!” Pearl Putnam announced from 282

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the stage. “The pageant celebrates and values our girls ages thirteen through seventeen who know that beauty is only skin-deep. Each girl will read an essay on what inner beauty means to her, and then she will give an oral presentation on the most influential person in her life. Finally, she will answer three questions, one from each judge. The judges will then tally their scores and a runner-up and the winner will be announced. The winner will receive two thousand five hundred dollars in cash, awarded by our sponsors, and she will also be given her own monthly column for an entire year on the subject of inner beauty in the
Maine Daily News.
” Pearl took a breath. “So without further ado, let me introduce our contestants!”

There was a round of applause. Pearl read each girl’s name and age, and each girl stood up and smiled, then sat down. Deenie had chosen to wear such a long skirt that she stepped on the hem when she stood, and there was some obnoxious snickering from the teenagers in the audience. Red faced, she shot back down.

Zach glanced at the row of parents. Jacqueline still hadn’t arrived. Deenie appeared to be looking for her, her gaze straight ahead over the audience.

Just as Pearl opened her mouth to speak, the auditorium doors swooshed open, and Jacqueline strode in. She took her time walking to the reserved row, smiled at Deenie, and took her seat.

“All rightie!” Pearl said. “Our first contestant is Kayla Archer.”

Kayla smiled and walked to the podium. She cleared her throat, then began reading her essay.

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If any of you asked my dad to describe me, he’d
probably say that I’m quite a handful. That’s how
people have described me my whole life anyway.

Teachers and counselors at camp. And I have been
a handful. I’ve said things I regret. I’ve done things
I regret. I’ve been mean. Rude. I’ve been suspended
from school for smoking in the bathroom. I made my
little neighbor—he’s only five now—cry because I
told him monsters were going to eat him. I’ve called
girls fat. I’ve called boys stupid losers. I’ve cheated
on tests. I could go on and on about the bad things
I’ve done. The bad person I used to be. Used to be is
the key phrase. The Inner-Beauty Pageant completely
changed me. Changed how I think about things. My
mother won the pageant when she was fifteen, and I
want to make her proud of me. I want to be the kind
of daughter that a winner of the Inner-Beauty
Pageant would be proud to have. But having inner
beauty isn’t about being a good person so that other
people will like you. It’s about being a good person
just because.

Zach’s eyes filled with tears. He noticed Olivia dabbing away at her eyes, so he knew she was full-out crying. Olivia reached for his hand, and they both squeezed.

Kayla read on, each word, each sentence making him prouder, making his heart move in his chest.