Diamonds and Dreams by Brenda Bone

secretly
amused at the same time, the way I feel now with my boys.”   Nicole looked across the room and called,
“Ariel!   Come here!”
    Swallowing
hard, Lindsay spotted Ariel Cash, a hazel-eyed brunette that looked petite and
stylishly dressed in a taupe Ralph Lauren dress.   Ariel had been Connie’s constant rival.   Lindsay spent many hours through the years,
listening to Connie sob and cry after becoming the target of Ariel’s contemptuous
schemes.
    “Hi!”
Ariel greeted them.   “Isn’t this a fun
party?   Did you see all the old
homecoming pictures of me on the bulletin board outside in the hall?”
    Some
people never change, but remain self-absorbed all their lives ,
Lindsay thought.
    “Yes.   There are pictures of each member of the
class on the board,” Nicole told her, and then pointed at Lindsay.   “Did you know this is Connie Blair’s younger
sister?”
    “No.”   Ariel’s face took on a strange
expression.   “But that explains why I
felt like I saw a ghost earlier.   Nice to meet you, Lindsay.   I can’t tell you how affected I was by Connie’s death.   She and I fought often and competed hard
against one another, but underneath it all, we respected each other.   We understood one another in ways that others
didn’t understand us.”
    Liar!   Lindsay remembered that Connie felt as close
to Ariel as a fly would being near a spider.   She had to force herself to be courteous.   “Many people, myself included, felt shocked
by Connie’s death.”
    “Are
you talking about Connie Blair?” asked a man who stood within hearing
distance.   About 5’11 with glossy black
hair that began to recede on his forehead, he introduced himself.   “ Rafe Wagner…former captain of the high school football team.”
    “Hi, Rafe .   Yes, we were sharing memories of Connie,”
Nicole replied.   “Lindsay is Connie’s
sister.”
    “Her
sister?” he echoed as if he found the news difficult to believe.   His brown eyes contained an eerie, haunting,
almost misty quality.   “I never forgot
Connie or how innocent and pretty she was.   Many times through the years I envisioned her in my mind the way she
looked the night of the party.”
    “I
remember that night,” Ariel recalled.   “She seemed extraordinarily happy then…so vibrant the last time I saw
her as she jotted down something in her address book.”
    “Yes,”
Nicole confirmed.   “I was by the door
when she left.   Smiling, she didn’t look
like she had any idea that misfortune was about to strike.”
    “You
all attended the same party that Connie did on the night of her death?”   Lindsay wondered why she never heard this in
the past.   And why did Connie take her
address book to the party?   She rarely
even used it and hardly ever took it out of her room.
    “Yes,”
Nicole answered.
    “The
police questioned each of us,” Ariel added.   “It was frightening.   Everyone
that attended the party was treated like a possible suspect.   I never felt so indignant in all my life.”
    Rafe agreed and then rubbed the ugly
pear-shaped tattoo on his upper arm.   “Me, too.   But the
police were only doing their job.”
    “I
suppose so,” Ariel muttered, “but I resented the way they hinted that I might have known something more about
Connie’s death!”
    Nicole
remembered, “You and Connie argued at the party because your ex-boyfriend asked
Connie instead of you to go with him to a dance the following weekend.   That’s probably why the police were harder on
you than they were on the rest of us.”
    Lindsay
sighed, a bit upset that, until now, she never heard these details regarding
the last hours of her sister’s life.   Glancing across the room where Brant attended to the music so it flowed
continuously, she wished he was beside her now.
    “I
still think about Constance from time to time,” Rafe said solemnly.   “She was a special person
that didn’t deserve to die so young.   If
I could’ve