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.Annie came after her, stood a few feet away.“I’m sorry.” Annie knew her words were inadequate.“Was she a good friend?”Fran’s makeup was stark against blanched skin.“We played together when we were little.” Tears spilled down her face.Annie wished she could retract the question.Fran’s distress made the answer only too obvious.Fran drew a ragged breath, wiped at her face, turned to Annie.“Are they looking for a stranger?”Annie had a devastating vision of the cord twisted and tied behind Iris’s neck, the black line that had looped around the hurricane lamps, part of a centerpiece celebrating life on a sea island.“No.” No stranger had taken advantage of steel mesh gloves on the shucking table to pull free the line meant for decoration and carry it into the woods.Fran’s eyes widened.“How do you know?”Annie made a helpless gesture with her hands.“Iris was killed with a cord from one of the picnic table centerpieces.”“That’s dreadful.” The cry was hopeless and despairing.“Are they sure? Cord looks alike.Someone from outside could have brought it.”Annie shook her head.The answer was inescapable.Someone at the picnic, someone they knew had pulled black cord loose from a centerpiece on a picnic table and tucked it in a pocket or purse.Fran wrapped her arms tightly across her chest.“I hate the pavilion.”Annie knew enough now to understand.“Because of Jocelyn Howard?”Fran pressed her hands against her face as if blotting out an unbearable sight.Her hands slowly fell away.“You know how it is in high school, everybody has a group.We hung around together, Jocelyn, Iris, Cara, Liz, and me.We were all there the night Jocelyn went off the pier.Except for Sam, Jocelyn’s brother.He had…died.Buck and Russell were his best friends.” It was as if the words bubbled from deep within, not ordered or thoughtful.“We were all there again last night.” The words came slowly, as if saying them hurt.Fran lifted a shaking hand, brushed back a strand of hair.There was a faint spicy scent of carnation.Annie was sure it was an expensive fragrance.Everything about Fran was expensive, including silver bracelets that jangled on one thin arm and the deep green of an emerald in a delicate gold setting.“It all seems so long ago, but none of us forgot Jocelyn.” Fran’s face was haunted.“She was upset that night.Everybody said that’s why she jumped from the pier.When Iris ran away, I wondered if she knew something.Something was terribly wrong that night.Jocelyn was upset, especially with Russell.But he wouldn’t push her off the pier.She must have jumped.She couldn’t swim.We all knew that.Whenever I think about her, I remember how Russell treated her that night.He did his best to stay away from her.They’d broken up a few weeks before the picnic.After she died, he looked awful.I thought he felt guilty because he’d been mean to her.” Fran pressed a shaking hand against her mouth.The emerald gleamed in the sun.Had Russell avoided Jocelyn because he was the kind of person who didn’t want to be around unhappiness? Or was the reason deeper and darker? “You said he was mean to Jocelyn.What did he do?”Fran abruptly came to her feet.“Forget what I said.I don’t know what happened that night.” She rubbed her temple as if it ached.“Iris ran away not too long afterward.She came back to the island and somebody killed her.” She spoke slowly as if listening to her own words, trying to adjust what she knew with what had happened.“Maybe Iris saw someone with Jocelyn, but I don’t know anything.I don’t know anything at all.”Annie’s voice was sharp.“You have to tell Billy Cameron.”Fran looked shocked.“About Russell? That would be crazy.It would be like accusing him.He could have been mad because Jocelyn was acting odd that night.They could have quarreled about anything.He’d been accepted at The Citadel.After they broke up, maybe she wouldn’t let go.Breaking up’s no reason to kill anyone.We were just kids.Look, promise you won’t say anything, especially not to Billy.”Annie would never do anything to hamper a murder investigation, but this time she’d been told not to meddle.Billy had already decided the death—murder?—of Jocelyn Howard was connected to Iris’s murder or he wouldn’t have closed the file.That meant he would be talking to those present the night Jocelyn drowned [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]