To Love and to Perish - By Lisa Bork Page 0,33

the accident.

Cory and I rose. As we walked to the door, I glanced at the pictures on Wayne’s credenza again. “Handsome boy. Your son?”

“Godson. He’s a great kid.” Wayne opened his office door. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.”

I doubted he was sorry at all. “Just one more question, Wayne.”

“Yes, Jolene?”

He said “Jolene” like Ray did when he was mad at me. Annoyed, I managed to smile in an effort to keep things friendly. “Do you think Brennan would push James Gleason in front of a car?”

Wayne’s response was immediate. “No. Brennan wouldn’t intentionally hurt anyone.”

He emphasized the word “intentionally,” leaving unspoken thoughts hanging in the air.

Brennan had hurt people, Wayne included. And apparently they hadn’t forgiven him.

TWELVE

THROUGHOUT THE DAY, TEMPERATURES had risen. When we opened the doors to the BMW in the insurance office’s parking lot, clouds of hot air billowed out. I took off my suit jacket, laid it across the back seat of the car, and rolled down my window before climbing in to singe my butt on the hot leather. Cory already had the engine running and the air conditioning turned up full blast.

I twisted in my seat to face him. “What did you make of all that?”

Cory grabbed the yearbook and flipped through the pages. “I’m relieved and overjoyed to hear he didn’t think Brennan was guilty of drunk driving or pushing Gleason into the street, but he didn’t seem to like Brennan much. I didn’t feel like he was all that forthcoming with information, either. I’m not even sure he was telling the truth. He definitely wasn’t looking you in the eye.

“I want to see … I knew it.” He turned the book around to show it to me. “Wayne was in drama club. Look, there he is playing a villain.”

The black outfit was a dead giveaway, as was the dark, vacant look in Wayne’s eyes. A giveaway in more ways than one.

“Oh my god, it’s him.” I pointed at Wayne’s picture. “That’s the guy.”

“Of course it’s him, Jo. His name is right under the photo.”

“No, no, no. Wayne’s the man I saw at the vintage festival. He stepped right in front of me, coming out of the beer tent. He wouldn’t get out of my way. I had to go around him, but not before I got a good look at him. It was him. Wayne. He even had on a Binghamton sweatshirt.”

“What’s the sweatshirt got to do with anything?”

“He had a diploma on his office wall from the university. He’s an alumnus. I know I saw him at the festival, Cory. I know it was him.”

Cory snapped the yearbook shut. “Should we go back in and ask him about it?”

“No.” I didn’t see where that would help us. Wayne had closed the door on us, both literally and figuratively when he escorted us out of his office. “It’s strange he didn’t know anything about Gleason’s death or Brennan’s arrest.”

“Yeah, well, the guy has acting experience, and he’s a salesman.”

“Oh, yeah, we all know what a bunch of slippery liars salespeople are.”

“Especially those car salespeople.” Cory grinned and, for a moment, I caught a glimpse of the guy I’d worked with for fourteen years. Then the shadow returned to his eyes. “I’d really like to ask Brennan if he saw him there, not that I think he would tell me.”

“Cory, did Brennan ever talk to you about high school or his friends or anything that might provide any insight into what’s going on here?”

He shook his head. “I knew he didn’t speak to his father. I knew his mom left him the money he used to start his company. Otherwise, we pretty much talked about the here and now—and sometimes about our future, you know, together.”

I wanted to hear more about their future together, but not right now. Something was bothering me. Brennan, Wayne, Elizabeth, and Monica had kept in touch enough to attend the reunion together, and only after that did their relationships end. “Wayne said the four of them were inseparable in high school. They even went to the reunion together. I don’t understand what could have happened to erase their friendship in one night.”

“You don’t? I do.”

“What?”

“Brennan must have told them he was gay. How would you like to be the high school girlfriend of a gay guy? Or his best friend, who never knew and shared a locker room with him? Even if your friends accept you, you’re not the person they thought you were. Everything changes.”

I considered