Killing the Secret by Donna Welch Jones

to do this? What did you girls do to make someone want you all dead?”
    “What did we do?” Jamie clenched her fists at her sides. “So you think we were a team of demons who generated enough hate that we provoked someone to murder all of us?”
    “I’m not blaming any of you. I just have to figure out why this is happening. Who would do this?”
    There wasn’t anyone, and as I said earlier, you can leave now.”
    Jamie followed her to the back door. Lexie turned to ask another question just as the door slammed behind her. She watched as a crack appeared in the window and curved upward.
    Back in the patrol car, Lexie headed toward Loretta’s house on the other side of town. The front door was open. Lexie held the door ajar and called, “Loretta?”
    “I’m here,” she answered. Loretta sat on her blue velvet sofa. She wore a perfectly coordinated gown, robe, and house shoes of pink satin. Her blonde hair was tied back with a pink ribbon. Her husband apparently didn’t want to join them.
    “You know?” Lexie asked.
    “Yes. Jamie phoned to warn me that Psycho-Sheriff was coming to break down my door.”
    “Who do you think wants to murder you and your friends?” Lexie questioned.
    “We didn’t do anything to die for. There were plenty of girls jealous of Heather and me. We were the two prettiest girls in the school. People were irritated by Terri’s caustic remarks. Jamie wanted to be the boss of everything. The other two, Beth and Abbey, were always so damn goody-goody. Hardly a group to bring out the killer instinct—especially twenty years later.”
    “Yet something has. One of you must know something even if you don’t realize it. You’ve got to think this through.”
    “I already told you I don’t know anyone who’d want to kill us. It’s your duty to figure this out, Sheriff. If you’d listened to Abbey, she wouldn’t be cold and dead.” Loretta’s lips turned up slightly at the corners and she looked at Lexie with an unblinking stare.
    Lexie stood to leave. “You need to be with someone at all times to be safe.” Lexie forced some authority into her words and demeanor. “The next one may be you.”
    “Thanks for the reassurance, Sheriff.”
    Lexie locked the door on the way out. She drove her vehicle toward the lake. Perhaps in the light of morning she’d find something that would lead to Abbey’s killer.
    She didn’t feel sleepy. Her body was in hyper vigilance and her brain played the previous hours over and over. It was like a horror movie without an end and she was the evil monster.
     

Chapter Seventeen
    Delia rose to her feet when Tye walked into the sheriff’s office. “Where’s Lexie?” she asked.
    “Don’t know. Haven’t seen her since we investigated the murder site early this morning. I thought she’d be here,” answered Tye.
    “No, I haven’t seen her. She isn’t answering her cell phone or her radio. Clay hasn’t seen her either. He said that Lexie was taking Abbey’s death real hard. Is that right?”
    “Yes,” Tye nodded. “Any calls about the murder?”
    “At least nine—all of them angry with Lexie. One said she didn’t have any business being sheriff. Another guy shouted that she was the cause of Abbey’s death. One woman said she hoped Lexie came to the same end. I’m afraid one of those lunatics will hurt her. She shouldn’t be runnin’ around by herself.” Delia patted her white cotton hanky under each eye.
    Tye put his arm around her shoulder. “You forget. Our girl has a gun and she can blow a cap off a bottle. I know that because she ruined a lot of my beer perfecting her shot.”
    Delia added her subdued laugh to Tye’s loud one.
    “Anyone call with any tips on who might have killed Abbey?”
    Delia shook her head and said, “Nothing to help, only hate.”
    Tye glanced at his sister’s cracked leather chair and headed out the door.
     

Chapter Eighteen
    Somewhere there is a forest that doesn’t have the faces of sad children