Halloween in Paradise (Tj Jensen Paradise Lake Mysteries Book 6) (2 page)

“So you had both the brains and the brawn represented at the event,” Gina concluded.

“Basically. I remember Mackenzie Paulson was there. She was the smartest kid in school and ended up as our class valedictorian. She works for the government now as some sort of high-tech scientist. Mia Monroe
was there as well, and she normally had no use for the popular kids.”

“Mia Monroe the actress?”

“Yeah, although back then she was just Mia Monroe the drama geek with an attitude. There were also a couple of kids from the stoner group, and the student body president and the yearbook editor. Like I said, it was an eclectic group who all knew one another because we all went to the same school, but we weren’t what you’d call friends. If you think about it, the only real link between us that night is that we all got bored with the dance and decided to hang out in the parking lot. A few of the other guys from the team and their dates showed up at Brett’s after the word got out that he was having a party. In the end there must have been between twenty and thirty of us there.”

“Jim made it sound like he was at the party. He’s too old to have been a student.”

“He was a teacher then, too. In fact, my senior year was his first year teaching. I don’t think he was at the party long, but I do remember he stopped by early on to congratulate the team.”

“I can’t imagine stodgy Jim would attend a student party for any reason.”

“He was really different back then. I know he’s really uptight and rigid now, but he was a fun guy when he first started teaching. He could often be found hanging out with the students, and he definitely was the teacher to go to if you had a problem.”

“It’s so weird to try to picture him in the young-and-cool-teacher role.” Gina giggled.

“He really has changed a lot in the past ten years,” Tj admitted. “Sometimes I look at the distant man he’s become and vow not to lose the connection I have with the kids the way he did. I asked him if he was coming to the homecoming dance and he reminded me that the dance was for the kids and teachers should attend only in a chaperone capacity.”

“Except it’s homecoming and a lot of alumni attend,” Gina pointed out.

“I know, and I plan to be there and have a good time. Jim can stay home and write out detention slips while the rest of us dance the night away.”

“Are you going to the Halloween Ball on Saturday?” Gina asked.

“I thought I might skip it this year. I have the homecoming dance on Friday, and trick-or-treating with my sisters seems like it might be more fun than getting all dressed up two nights in a row. Are you going?”

“Not unless I have a date, which so far I don’t. I think I’m going to attend the homecoming dance, though. I heard Nathan Fullerton is going to be there.”

When Tj was in high school, Nathan had been the editor of the school newspaper. He’d been a talented student who went on to become a
New York Times
best-selling author.

“He is going to be there,” Tj confirmed. “Bookman knows him, so he invited him to stay at his house. I’m pretty sure he’s already in town. My grandpa mentioned something about meeting him when he went to his regular poker game at Bookman’s last weekend. I remember Nathan as having a sort of stoic personality. It’ll be fun to see if fame has changed him.”

“I’m really excited to meet him,” Gina shared. “I wasn’t even going to go to the dance, but when I found out he was going to be there I volunteered to go as a chaperone. Nathan Fullerton—wow. A bigger babe has never been born. And his writing is ... Well, it’s awesome.”

“Sounds like someone has a celebrity crush,” Tj teased.

“Big-time. Of course I still have a noncelebrity crush on Kyle. Will he be there?”

Kyle Donovan was the grandson of an elderly man Tj had befriended. After he was murdered, Kyle had inherited his house and his money. He’d moved to Serenity and Tj and he had been the best of friends ever since.

“He will, but I’m sorry to say he’s going as the date of one of my classmates. Jada Jenkins was a computer geek in high school, but she went on to develop some software and is now a multimillionaire.”

“Wow. I can’t even imagine that much money.”

“Yeah, me neither. It seems she’s still socially awkward. She told me that she never takes the time to date, so she doesn’t really know any men. Still, she didn’t want to come to the dance alone, so I offered to set her up with Kyle. I think they’ll get along, but I wouldn’t worry about a long-term thing. Jada is a loner who’s totally married to her work. Besides, she lives in LA, and Kyle seems content with his life here.”

“I’m not worried. I have zero chance with Kyle anyway.” Gina groaned. “He’s rich and cute and so, so nice. Let’s face it: He could have any superhot girl he wanted.”

Tj didn’t respond. Gina wasn’t wrong. Kyle could probably have any girl he wanted, but he wasn’t really the serial dating type. In Tj’s opinion, Kyle was simply biding his time until the right woman came along. Gina had a certain girl-next-door quality about her, but Kyle and Gina had known each other for over two months, and so far Tj hadn’t seen the interest in Kyle’s eyes that she’d seen in Gina’s.

The first bell, notifying the physical education classes to head into the locker rooms, sounded in the distance. Tj knew that in a few minutes the hallway would be filled with students. She began setting files aside and turning things off.

“Coach Jensen, you have a call on line one,” the student aide announced over the intercom.

Tj glanced at the phone.

“I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later.” Gina got up to let herself out.

Tj answered the phone after Gina closed the door behind her.

“Hey, Tj; it’s Roy.”

Roy Fisher was the deputy sheriff who served the Serenity branch of the Paradise County Sheriff’s Department.

“Hey, Roy. Why didn’t you just call my cell?”

“I tried to, but you didn’t pick up. This is kind of important, so I decided to call the school line. I figured if you weren’t in your office I could at least be certain you’d get a message.”

“What’s wrong?” Tj asked with a tone of dread in her voice. If Roy was calling her at work someone was most likely dead. Tj had helped Roy out with more than one murder investigation lately. After his assistant had been arrested over the previous winter, he was alone in the local office, and he depended on her help when there was a complex case to solve.

“Samantha Colton.”

“Who’s Samantha Colton?” Tj asked.

“She’s one of the investigators on
Second Look
.”

“
Second Look
as in the show that investigates cold cases and then airs their findings on television?”

“That’s the one. She’ll be in town tomorrow, taking a ‘second look’ at Holly Riverton’s murder. She wants to talk to everyone who was at the party the night Holly died, including you.”

Tj swiveled in her chair and looked out the window at the colorful fall foliage. What were the odds that she would receive a call concerning Holly’s murder just as she finished discussing it? It felt a lot like one of those déjà vu moments, when you realized something greater than chance was at work. Tj made a point of taking the little signs the universe threw her way seriously, but this week she really didn’t have time for otherworldly side trips.

“I’m happy to talk to her,” Tj answered. “And you know I’m always happy to help you out, but I’m really swamped this week.”

“I arranged for her to come to you,” Roy informed her. “She’s going to stop by the school tomorrow during your prep, so it shouldn’t interrupt your day in the least.”

“Oh, okay. If she wants to come by during my prep period tomorrow I’ll talk to her. I’d planned to grade midterms then, but I can take them home and tackle them tonight. Did you provide her with the time of my prep and the location of my office?”

“I did. And I appreciate your meeting with her. There’s one thing you should be aware of, though. She’s known for being very aggressive in her bid to find the truth. Anyone who might have a secret of any sort should be prepared to have it revealed.”

Tj frowned. “What do you mean by
aggressive
?”

Roy sighed. Tj could tell he was feeling uncomfortable about asking her to meet with the woman, but apparently he had little choice but to cooperate. “She does her homework and it seems like she sees a motive in almost every situation. She’s good at what she does. I think you’re her first appointment in this area, but she stopped off in Los Angeles yesterday and spoke to Mia Monroe and Jada Jenkins. Both women called me in a rage and indicated they no longer plan to attend the homecoming reunion this weekend.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. I was looking forward to catching up with both of them. What could this woman possibly have said to convince them to change their plans at the last minute?”

“I think it’s more how she said it and what her comments implied. Do you remember Mia as being passive-aggressive in high school?” Roy asked.

Tj thought about it. Mia definitely tended to march to her own drummer but passive-aggressive? “Not really. She was always very self-confident. She was a drama geek who really had no use for the popular kids. It seemed like she believed herself somehow to be above the popular crowd, even though a lot of those kids made fun of the way she dressed and the odd interests she seemed to have.”

“Odd interests?”

“She was really into supernatural stuff like astrology and past lives. And she liked to dress in very loud colors. I’m talking bright green pants paired with a hot pink T-shirt topped with blue hair. She also tended to do things she knew would invite ridicule. I think she liked the negative attention.”

“What kind of things?” Roy asked.

Tj smiled as she remembered some of Mia’s theatrics. She really had been a unique individual.

“Sometimes she would stand up on one of the tables in the lunch room and start reciting Shakespeare. She really did have a flare for the dramatic. Or other times, she’d sing at the top of her lungs while she walked through the hallways on her way to class. She certainly wasn’t afraid to call attention to herself, which I guess partially explains why she’s been so incredibly successful as an actress.”

“She really is talented,” Roy agreed. “I was totally mesmerized by her last movie, and I’ve already marked the date of the premiere of her next one on my calendar. I was really looking forward to meeting her, but she seemed adamant that she would no longer be coming to town. She actually called me to file a complaint. She thought it was unwise that I had cooperated with Ms. Colton in the first place. She felt she was being unjustifiably harassed and partially blamed me for her inconvenience because I had given Ms. Colton her contact information. I have to admit that wasn’t the first impression I wanted to make.”

“You have a little celebrity crush on Mia?” Tj teased.

“Maybe.”

“So what did Colton say that made Mia so mad?”

“Ms. Colton indicated that, given her profile, Mia made an excellent suspect in Holly’s murder case.”

“What?” Tj turned away from the window and back to her desk. “Why would Mia kill Holly?”

“Ms. Colton seems to think Mia was jealous of Holly’s popularity and killed her in some sort of psychotic rage. Or at least that’s what Mia said. She was very upset, so I suspect she might have embellished Ms. Colton’s words just a bit.”

“That’s crazy. I realize I can’t possibly know what was going on in Mia’s mind when she was in high school, but she didn’t seem like she was jealous of anyone.”

“Were you friends?” Roy asked.

Tj thought back to her time as a high school student. She was a popular cheerleader who knew pretty much everyone, but the truth of the matter was, she was only really friends with the A crowd. Now that she was older and had a better perspective, she realized she should have tried harder to befriend a wider range of students, but at the time hanging with the kids at the top seemed the prudent and relevant thing to do.

“No,” Tj answered honestly. “I have to confess I thought she was as weird as everyone else did, and I was prone to mocking her. I wasn’t exactly a bully in high school, but I also wasn’t the type to defy social convention by hanging out with nerds and geeks. I really am sorry Mia isn’t coming to the reunion, although I was sort of surprised when she RSVP’d in the first place.”

“Surprised why?” Roy asked.

“She’s rich and famous, with a million adoring fans. I couldn’t imagine that she had the time or the inclination to hang out with the mere mortals who gave her a hard time during her youth.”

“Maybe she just wanted to rub her wealth and fame in everyone’s face,” Roy suggested.

“Yeah, maybe. Although as much as I knew her, she didn’t seem the type to care about making people jealous. I don’t think she cared what people thought of her at all.”

“Maybe she just wanted to catch up with the people she shared her teen years with. People who knew her before she was Mia Monroe.”

“She was always Mia Monroe.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I do. This Samantha Colton sounds like a real piece of work. Are you sure I need to meet with her?”

“I can’t force you to, but it will make it look like you have something to hide if you don’t. The woman seems to be on a witch hunt, and I don’t think she’s leaving without her killer.”

“Why exactly was the killer never caught?” Tj asked.

“I’m not sure. After Ms. Colton called I took a look at the original file. It looks like there was an adequate if not inspired investigation into the girl’s death.”

“I’ll meet with the woman tomorrow and I’ll tell her what I can. It’s been a long time, so I can’t promise how helpful I’ll be, but I’ll try.”

“Thanks. That’s all I can ask.”

“I have to go pick up my sisters now, but I’ll call you back later this afternoon. I’m dying to hear what Samantha Colton said to make Jada mad enough not to come to the reunion. If there was anyone at our school other than Saint Hunter who was beyond reproach it was Jada. I can’t believe Colton dug up anything negative on her.”

“Believe it.”