Good Night, Gracie

He’d skipped his own high school reunion last year, where he no doubt would have felt as alien as he did now. Those days were a blur to him, mixed with unhappy memories of his father’s abandonment when he was thirteen years old.

After he’d been made the man-of-the-house by default, Zach had given up sports and other school activities so he could go to work and help his mother keep their household afloat.

More than once, Zach had fallen asleep in class, exhausted from working double shifts at his job at the all-night delicatessen.

That was where he’d first considered a career in law enforcement, since it was a prime spot for the cruising patrolmen to take their breaks. He’d listened to their stories as he worked, enthralled by the excitement of it all. Compared to slicing salami and shredding lettuce, it had seemed like a dream job.

Now he knew that excitement came at a price. Like almost losing your partner. Or leaving a case unsolved. That still bothered him and he found himself scowling at the blond woman approaching him.

“Well, hey there,” she said with a slight Southern drawl, “you don’t look like you’re having a very good time. Maybe I can fix that.”

He pushed thoughts of the case out of his mind, forcing his face to relax into a smile. “I’m sure you can,” his gaze dropped to the name tag on her ample chest, “Sandra.”

She laughed. “You don’t remember me, do you? Nobody’s recognized me yet. I used to be a brunette back in high school. And a bit of a tomboy. Now, don’t tell me your name. Let me guess.”

He wondered how long it would take before she gave up, but he didn’t mind waiting. Gracie hadn’t shown up yet, so he had nothing better to do.

Sandra tilted her head to one side, looking him up and down. “You’re Gilbert Holloway, aren’t you?”

Zach blinked in surprise. He and Holloway were close to the same height and both had dark hair and eyes, but nobody would ever mistake them for twins. “How did you know?”

“Because I’m the official reunion greeter and the only two men who haven’t picked up their name tags yet are Gilbert Holloway and Mitch Putnam.” She laughed again. “But even with that Boston accent, I know you’re not Mitch.”

“Of course not,” he agreed, wondering how she made the distinction. But he didn’t want to blow his cover by asking. He was certain Gracie would realize he wasn’t Gilbert as soon as she saw him. He just hoped she’d give him a chance to explain before revealing him as a fraud to everyone in the room.

Zach realized now that he’d been crazy to come here. Gracie wanted to see Gilbert, not him. She didn’t even know him. Or realize that she’d been communicating with a complete stranger these past few months, telling him all her desires, spilling all her deepest secrets.

Making him fall in love with her.

Zach shook that unsettling thought from his head as soon as it appeared. He wasn’t in love with her, just intrigued, maybe even infatuated. But that’s as far as it went. That’s as far as he’d allow it to go.

Despite his second thoughts, he’d come too far to back out now. Once he met Gracie and satisfied his curiosity, he could put her behind him. It might not be easy, but he’d done it before. All he wanted now was this one weekend with her. One weekend to fulfill the fantasies he’d had about her since her very first e-mail had touched something inside his soul.

Sandra peeled back the adhesive on Gilbert’s name tag, then slapped it on his chest. “Can you believe how much everybody’s changed? I wouldn’t have recognized Stacie Winston if I’d passed her on the street and we started kindergarten together.”

“A lot can happen in ten years,” Zach replied, feeling more confident about pulling off this charade. Sandra didn’t hesitate in accepting him as Gilbert Holloway.

Of course, he’d picked up on a few of the guy’s mannerisms and speech patterns while acting as his bodyguard. Zach knew all Gilbert’s favorite foods and little idiosyncrasies. And he’d read his journal, as well as all the e-mails exchanged between Gilbert and Gracie for the past decade, which were saved in a special file on Holloway’s computer.

In some ways, he knew Gilbert better than he knew himself.

“I still can’t believe it’s been ten years since we graduated.” Sandra leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Did you know Andy Winkleman’s been married three times already? And Kendra Nebbles has four kids from four different men. I guess her parents shouldn’t have forbidden her from taking that sex education class.”

He knew all their names, having memorized them from the yearbook during his flight to Texas. Zach had treated this like any other undercover assignment, covering all his bases before he went into action. Only this assignment was personal and there was no set strategy—other than meeting Gracie.

He checked his watch, hoping he didn’t have to wait much longer. “Do you know if Gracie Dawson’s arrived yet?”

“Not yet.” Sandra gave him a sly smile. “So tell me, were you two really just friends back in high school or was there more going on?”

That was a question Zach couldn’t answer, so he hedged a little. “We’ve always been close.”

She laughed. “And you’ve always been so secretive. I never could get any juicy tidbits out of you.”

“I guess I’m just not a juicy kind of guy.”

“Maybe not back in high school,” she replied, her gaze roaming voraciously over his body. “But you have definitely improved with age.”

Zach sensed it was time to move on, but before he could make an excuse to end their conversation, Sandra sidled closer to him.

“Can you believe it?” she asked in a hushed whisper, her gaze fixed across the room. “I think that’s Allison Webb. Right over there, next to the punch bowl. Imagine her just showing up here like she graduated with all the rest of us! That certainly takes some nerve. Especially since I didn’t even send her an invitation.”

Zach followed her gaze and saw a tall blonde scoping out the room. “Did she drop out or something?”

Sandra looked up at him with a snort of disbelief. “How could you forget? It was the talk of the school for months. Allison just disappeared in the middle of our senior year. No warning. No explanation. Some people said she got pregnant. Others claimed she got busted for drugs and thrown in jail. But nobody ever knew for sure.”

Now it clicked. In the back of the yearbook had been a mock-up of a wanted poster with Allison’s picture on it and text underneath that read:

The senior class of Kendall High is offering a reward of one dollar for any information about AWOL classmate Allison Webb. She was last seen in the computer lab, wearing a pink sweater and white denim jeans.

“Well, it looks like the mystery will be solved tonight,” Zach said. “All we have to do is ask her where she went and why.”

Sandra smiled as she swept her arm in Allison’s direction. “Be my guest, Mr. Holloway. I’ll be waiting to soak up all your juicy tidbits.”

Zach walked across the room, driven more by a desire to escape Sandra than any curiosity about Allison. As he approached her, she caught sight of his name tag, her eyes widening in surprise.

“Gilbert Holloway?” she said, looking him up and down.

“That’s right,” he replied. “How are you, Allison?”

“You know how I am.” She moved closer to him and whispered, “The question is, what are you doing here?”

“Catching up with old friends,” he replied, caught off guard by her reaction.

“Are you nuts?” she hissed. “This isn’t the time to be playing games. There’s too much at stake.”

His instincts as a cop kicked into high gear at her words. It looked like there was more to the mystery of Allison than anyone here had imagined. There was something going on between her and Gilbert. Not a physical relationship, obviously, since she didn’t realize he was an imposter—which left another incriminating possibility.

“I guess I like to live dangerously.”

“I know why you’re here,” she accused, her gaze narrowing on him. “You want to see goody-two-shoes Gracie.”

The jealousy in her tone was unmistakable. But he still couldn’t be sure about her connection to Gilbert. He needed to draw her out and make her reveal something that would lead him in the right direction. “What makes you say that?”

“Maybe the fact that you’re compromising the entire plan by showing up here tonight. Why did you insist that I make contact with Walker Mullen if you were planning to be here?”

Walker Mullen? The name didn’t sound familiar. Just how many alumni from the class of ’95 were involved in this case?

“In case you’re interested, he bought my story about the stalker and is making the plans for us to travel incognito. I’m supposed to pick up the airline tickets at his agency on Monday.”