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Synopsis
At their twenty-fifth high school reunion in Portland, Maine, P.I. partners and moms Maya Kendrick and Sandra Wallage must figure out which of their former classmates should have been voted most likely to kill . . .
After all these years, Maya and Sandra have mixed feelings about seeing their high school classmates, but in one sense the evening promises to be something of a red carpet event. A shy wallflower in school, Alyssa Turner has blossomed into an Oscar-nominated actress—and she’s coming to the reunion.
To their surprise, before the event, Alyssa contacts Maya and Sandra. She’s going to be playing a private eye and would like to hear about their experiences. When they meet, she confides she was bullied in school by cheerleader Tawny Bryce and her mean girls’ clique while also having a huge crush on Tawny’s boyfriend, the star quarterback.
When Tawny’s body is discovered the night of the reunion behind the bleachers, the spotlight is on Alyssa. She turns to Maya and Sandra to find the real killer. But is she as innocent as she seems—or turning in another Oscar-worthy performance?
Release date: July 1, 2025
Publisher: Kensington Books
Print pages: 288
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Murder at the High School Reunion
Lee Hollis
Sarah walks through the park with Rufus, her energetic and beloved German shepherd. The sun filters through the trees, casting dappled shadows on the pathway. Sarah smiles as Rufus happily trots beside her, his leash securely in her hand.
Suddenly, Rufus spots a squirrel, and his instincts take over. With a swift jerk, he breaks free from Sarah’s grip, bolting across the park.
“Rufus, no!” Sarah cries.
Sarah takes off after him, her heart pounding with worry. She weaves through the park, dodging trees and benches in pursuit of her runaway pup.
As Sarah rounds a corner, she sees Rufus skidding to a halt in front of a familiar figure. It’s Jack, her exboyfriend, who is kneeling down, trying to coax Rufus closer.
“Rufus, come here, boy!” Sarah calls out.
Rufus, panting, hesitates for a moment before bounding over to Jack, wagging his tail furiously.
Sarah approaches cautiously, her breath still coming in gasps.
Jack has yet to see her. “Hey there, buddy. Where’s your mom?”
Sarah reaches them, her eyes locking with Jack’s. There’s a mixture of surprise and tension in the air as they stand face-to-face for the first time since their breakup.
“I’m sorry. He broke free from his leash. I hope he didn’t cause any trouble,” Sarah says cautiously.
“No trouble at all. He just missed me, didn’t you, Rufus?”
Jack scratches Rufus behind the ears, and the dog leans into his touch, clearly enjoying the attention.
“Yeah, he . . . he does miss you.”
There’s a moment of awkward silence as they both remember the bitter custody battle they went through over Rufus.
“Well, I miss him too. And you,” Jack mutters under his breath.
Sarah looks up at Jack, her heart fluttering with conflicting emotions.
“Jack, I . . .”
Before she can finish, Rufus suddenly darts off again, this time toward the nearby lake.
Sarah, exasperated, sighs and says, “Oh, for the love of . . .”
Sarah and Jack exchange a knowing look before chasing after Rufus once more, their laughter echoing through the park.
As they reach the edge of the lake, Rufus sits proudly between them, wagging his tail as if to say, “Mission accomplished.”
“Well, I guess it’s true what they say . . . dogs really are man’s best wingmen.”
Jack chuckles, and Sarah joins in, feeling a warmth spreading through her chest as she realizes that maybe, just maybe, there’s still hope for them after all.
“Doggone it, Sarah, I still love you.”
“Did you really just say that?”
“Sarah, come on, admit it, we’re still fetching each other!”
“My God, please, enough with the dog puns!”
“Without each other, we’re both still just chasing our tails—”
She stops him with a long, languorous kiss. Jack wraps his arms around her and holds her tight, the tension between them dissipating like the mist in the morning sun, as Rufus, tail wagging, looks on with a triumphant smile.
There was a loud groan.
Sandra elbowed her boyfriend, Lucas, who was sitting next to her in the Nickelodeon Cinemas in downtown Portland, Maine.
“This is so lame!” Lucas chuckled.
Sandra, who was a sucker for any kind of romantic comedy, even a badly written one, was holding back tears. She was not about to let Lucas see her cry over such a schmaltzy movie. Luckily, he was munching on the last few kernels in his bag of popcorn and did not notice her eyes brimming with tears over Sarah and Jack’s emotional, heartfelt reunion.
Sandra glanced over at Maya, her BFF and business partner in a private detective agency, who was sitting on her other side. Maya, nonplussed, watched the credits roll, not sure how to react. Next to her was her husband, Max. His head drooped, and his eyes were closed, and she could hear him snoring. He had slept through most of the film.
The lights came up in the theater, and the audience began filing out. Maya shook Max awake, and they stood up, waiting for Sandra and Lucas to lead them out of the row to the aisle. Lucas upended his nearly empty bag of popcorn, pouring what was left into his mouth and tossing the bag into a trash bin as they strolled out.
It was unusually cold for a late-summer night, and Sandra wished she had remembered to bring a sweater. Lucas, almost as if reading her mind, flung an arm around her and rubbed her shoulders to keep her warm.
Sandra turned to Maya and Max. “I hate to ask, but what did you think?”
Lucas jumped in. “I thought it was the worst movie I have ever seen!”
“I wasn’t asking you. I know what you thought of it. You kept sighing and groaning and making snide comments through the whole thing! I want to know if Maya and Max liked it or not.”
Max yawned. “I can’t honestly say. I don’t remember much. They hadn’t even gone to court over who gets to keep the dog before I first dozed off.”
“I thought the saucy best friend, the short girl from Bridgerton, was pretty funny, but otherwise I was kind of bored,” Maya said.
They strolled through the Old Port District on their way to a late dinner reservation at the Little Tap House Restaurant.
“So, what did you think of her?” Sandra asked the group.
“She’s always the same in every role she plays nowadays. She’s never been as good as she was when she was nominated for that movie with what’s-his-name where she played the paralegal who became a whistleblower against her own corrupt law firm; I can never remember the name of it.”
“I think it was just called The Whistleblower,” Lucas guessed. “Or something close to it. I saw it when I was a kid.”
Sandra cringed.
Of course Lucas had been a kid when he had seen the film.
He was almost fourteen years her junior.
And it still rankled her, even though her close friends were always encouraging her to just forget the large age gap between them.
“She’s very likable,” Sandra said as they rounded the corner and walked inside the restaurant. Max stepped over to check them in, and a gruff host, who was overwhelmed by a very busy night, escorted them to their table.
Once they were seated and water was poured and their drinks order had been taken by a perky waiter, Sandra steered the conversation back to the movie, or more pointedly, to the star of the movie, Alyssa Turner, who played Sarah.
“It’s going to be very strange seeing her after all these years. Who could have known when we were in high school that she would become this huge Hollywood megastar?”
“She was so shy back then, as I recall, but frankly, I barely remember her,” Maya shrugged, perusing the menu.
Alyssa Turner would have been the last classmate that anyone would have assumed would achieve massive wealth and stardom. Sandra remembered Alyssa as a painfully awkward wallflower, sometimes targeted by the mean girl cliques, who hid in the last row in class, just trying to melt into the background. But now, armed with an Oscar nomination from when she was in her early twenties and with a string of box office smashes and prestige television projects under her belt, she was now headlining a mawkish, middling romantic comedy called Puppy Love. Sandra, always a sucker for rom-coms, had strong-armed Lucas, Maya, and Max into attending the early-evening showing with the promise of dinner at Little Tap House following the film.
Maya and Sandra had not double-dated often with their respective partners—Max preferred socializing at home—but Sandra thought it might be fun to catch Alyssa’s latest Hollywood production before seeing her in person at their upcoming twenty-fifth high school reunion.
“I heard ticket sales to the reunion tripled after Alyssa announced on social media that she was going to show up,” Lucas noted.
“I think her parents still live in the area,” Maya said.
Max placed a hand on top of Maya’s. “Are you still planning to boycott the reunion, hon?”
“What?” Sandra gasped.
“It’s not a boycott. I just don’t want to go.”
“You have to go!”
“Says who?” Maya scoffed.
“But you missed the twentieth reunion. We all did.”
“Yes, because there was a worldwide pandemic.”
“Aren’t you just a little bit curious to see everyone?”
Maya scrunched up her nose. “Not especially. A lot of our classmates still live in the area, and I see them all the time.”
“Not Alyssa Turner,” Max cracked. “I think we should go.”
Maya raised an eyebrow at her husband. “Oh, are you a fan?”
“She has certain attributes which I admire, yes.”
Maya laughed. “He’s not talking about her acting. He’s referring to the beach scene in the beginning of the movie where she first meets Jack and Rufus and she’s wearing a bikini. The rest of the movie she’s fully clothed, which is why he fell asleep and missed the rest of it.”
Lucas guffawed, then, with a reassuring smile, said to Sandra, “She’s got nothing on you, in my opinion.”
“I wasn’t asking,” Sandra sneered, before fixing her gaze back on Maya. “You have to come. We can all go together. There is safety in numbers.” She studied Maya’s face, trying to get some kind of readout.
But Maya remained stoic, unmovable, like a statue. She had always been very upfront about how much she’d hated her high school years. Unlike Sandra, who was head cheerleader, class president, your typical overachiever, Maya was mostly an outcast. She struggled to fit in and spent most of her time loitering in the smoking section, near the school parking lot, when there was one, and dating all the bad boys.
“Okay, if you won’t go for me, go for Max,” Sandra pleaded.
Max perked up.
“It would be a shame for you to deny him the opportunity to meet one of his favorite actresses.”
Max grinned. “She’s right, hon. How many chances am I going to get to meet an honest-to-goodness Hollywood celebrity?”
“I even bought a new sports jacket for the occasion,” Lucas piped in.
Maya at first refused to be worn down, but by the time they had ordered their entrées and another round of drinks, with Sandra applying even more pressure, Maya finally, reluctantly relented, on the one condition that she be allowed to bolt at any time she started to feel uncomfortable.
It was official.
They were all going to be in attendance at the SoPo High Class of 2000 Reunion.
A decision that would ultimately come back to haunt them.
“He’s a pathetic, lying cheat, and I want you to prove it,” Tawny Bryce sniffed, eyes blazing.
She sat on the couch in Maya and Sandra’s office, her Gucci clutch bag resting on her lap. Tawny always dressed to impress, wearing an eyelash tweed mini-dress and sporting some expensive-looking jewelry. Sandra priced the dress at around sixteen hundred bucks, having seen it on the Saks Fifth Avenue website. The jewelry was probably from Tiffany’s, she guessed.
Sandra had been surprised to get a call from Tawny. The two hardly ever spoke. They knew each other in high school, but did not stay in touch much after graduation, occasionally running into each other at PTA meetings when Sandra was president.
Sandra tried to keep her distance, remembering Tawny as one of those awful queen bees who liked to cruelly target other girls and make their lives miserable. She was the Regina George of SoPo High during her reign in the late nineties. As head cheerleader and part of the popular clique, Sandra luckily had some protection from Tawny’s merciless taunts, unlike Alyssa Turner, who was regularly teased and humiliated by Tawny’s band of marauding mean girls.
Tawny had married swoon-worthy football tight end Chad Bryce right out of high school. And, remarkably, they were still married twenty-five years later. None of their friends or classmates, Sandra included, ever thought they would last very long since the rumor was Tawny used a fake pregnancy scare to coerce him into proposing. By the time the rings were exchanged and they were on the plane to their honeymoon in the Bahamas, Tawny broke the news that the first test was a false positive and the second test had come back negative. By then, the deal was sealed, and for his part, Chad decided to stick around to try and make the marriage work. They were married five years before the couple had their first kid, Lianne, who was in Sandra’s son Jack’s class. Two more followed, all three now living away from home at various colleges across the country.
Sandra was not surprised that Tawny suspected Chad was having an affair behind her back. He was always something of a cad, but what did surprise her was the fact that it took him this long. Or perhaps this was the first one Tawny had become privy to, which was a definite possibility, in Sandra’s opinion.
When Sandra called Maya to tell her about the meeting with Tawny, Maya had to consult her high school yearbook to remember who she was, since back then Maya had no use for girls like Tawny, who strutted down the hallway with a perpetual air of superiority and perfectly styled hair and designer outfits, casting disdainful glances at anyone deemed beneath their social standing and belittling others to boost their own egos.
No, Maya was more interested in spending her time with the bad-boy biker types with their smoldering gazes and a penchant for breaking rules and defying authority, which just made them all the more alluring. Maya had always craved danger and excitement, which explained why she later was drawn to her husband Max, a former cop and now ex-convict.
Her taste in men had never changed.
“How do you know Chad’s cheating on you?” Sandra asked, crossing her legs and leaning toward Tawny.
“Because whoever this home wrecker is has been sending me text messages flaunting the affair in my face. It’s despicable!”
“Can we see these texts?”
“Of course,” Tawny replied, opening her Gucci bag and extracting her phone. She handed it to Sandra.
Maya hopped up from her desk and circled around to join Sandra so they could both read the texts in question.
Hope you don’t mind me borrowing your husband for a bit. He seems to enjoy my company more than yours. Oops!
Sorry, not sorry. Your husband just can’t get enough of me. Looks like you’ve got some competition, sweetie.
Hate to break it to you, but your marriage isn’t as solid as you think. Your man can’t resist me.
Sandra handed the phone back to Tawny.
“What kind of person would do something like that? Find pleasure in taunting me, laughing at me?” Tawny sniffed. She turned to Maya. “That’s a lovely suede jacket, by the way.”
“What? Oh, um, thanks,” Maya muttered, flustered by Tawny so quickly shifting gears from devastated spouse to cool fashion critic.
“Tawny, did you confront Chad when you started receiving these texts from this mystery woman?”
“No, of course not!”
Sandra exchanged a curious look with Maya. “Why not?”
“I don’t want him to know that I’m aware of his infidelities just yet, because I want to gather more incriminating information on him. I need names and addresses and photos, anything I can get my hands on—incontrovertible proof—in order to build a rock-solid case when I file for divorce. Chad will no doubt try to lowball me in the settlement, so I’m just trying to get the upper hand early. That’s where you two come in.”
“So you want us to help you take him to the cleaners,” Maya remarked, wandering back over to her desk and leaning against it.
“Yes, I’m looking for a fat monthly alimony payment I can use to travel the world with my girlfriends. Do you know I have never been to Europe? Chad was always coming up with excuses why we could never go. Every year, it was the same old vacation. Visiting his parents in Boca Raton and, once every blue moon, a cruise in the Caribbean, where he would overeat at the buffet, drink too many margaritas, and pass out in the state room by nine o’clock. I’m ready to start a new chapter, see more of the world, have some fun without him always dragging me down.”
“Sounds like you’ve really thought this through,” Sandra said warily, as it slowly dawned on her that she still did not care for Tawny Bryce all that much.
In Tawny’s mind, however, the three of them were now best buds. She smiled conspiratorially. “I came to you two because I think it is imperative that the team responsible for taking down that misogynist weasel are all women. Chad’s never truly respected women; he basically sees them as either maids doing his laundry and cooking him dinner to playthings doing his bidding in the bedroom. It will be so richly rewarding to see his face when we ruin him financially and otherwise.”
The vindictiveness in Tawny’s voice was slightly disconcerting. But if she was painting an accurate portrait of what kind of man Chad Bryce was, then it might be worth accepting the case, in Sandra’s mind.
Tawny sensed that she might be coming on too strong, so she softened her stance. “I feel so betrayed. I just want him to be held to account for his actions, see justice served, and then maybe he will understand the pain he has caused me. You have no idea how difficult it’s been for me, especially with our twenty-fifth reunion coming up.”
“Are you and Chad both planning to go?”
“Chad wouldn’t miss it. His ego won’t allow him to. And I have no choice. I’m in charge of the planning committee. I tried to get out of it, but I got strong-armed into taking over when Patsy Baumgarten got Covid for the umpteenth time. Honestly, I wish there was someone else. You were class president, Sandra; you should be the one in charge, but you never returned Patsy’s emails.”
“Maya and I have been so busy with other cases,” Sandra fibbed. They had not had a case in a few weeks, but Sandra had no intention of taking on such a thankless task.
“Well, I hope you have time to take on mine,” Tawny said, her eyes almost begging.
Sandra was not exactly excited about working for her former cheerleading rival, who had treated her, if not cruelly, then at least dismissively in high school. Why dredge up all those unpleasant memories? But then Sandra glanced over at Maya, who was already jotting down all of Tawny’s contact information.
Sandra knew the drill.
Although Sandra was dedicated to their private investigation agency, she was financially independent. She could be choosey when it came to accepting cases.
Maya, on the other hand, was decidedly not.
She and Max had been struggling since his release from prison, especially now that their daughter was enrolled in a very expensive college. She needed every case they could get their hands on.
So Sandra chose to remain mum as Maya readily accepted Tawny’s case, rattling off their hourly rate plus expenses and eagerly passing along their own info so Tawny could conveniently Venmo them the retainer fee on the spot.
Maya and Sandra followed at a safe distance behind Chad Bryce’s Midas muscle car, the epitome of a midlife crisis on wheels, an over-the-top manifestation of Chad’s desire to recapture the glory days and stand out from the crowd. He had not changed one bit since high school. With each turn, they kept a safe distance to make sure Chad was not aware he was being followed.
It had taken him less than ten minutes to emerge from the house after Tawny left for her monthly book club meeting. He wore an open collar shirt that showcased a forest of chest hair, some casual designer jeans, and a pair of expensive loafers. Maya could almost smell the aftershave he had no doubt slapped on his cheeks, a distinctive blend of invigorating and masculine scents, before taking one last look in the mirror and giving himself a thumbs-up.
They had tailed too many cheating husbands to count in the few years they had been in business together.
Chad was showing all the typical signs of an oblivious, entitled man who thought he would never get caught.
This was going to be a walk in the park.
The Midas swerved to the left.
“Of course he didn’t think to use his blinker,” Sandra snapped. “Why would he waste time considering other drivers?”
Maya sped up and turned down the street in pursuit. They saw Chad pull his monstrosity of an automobile up in front of the Press Hotel, a meticulously restored newspaper building, now a boutique hotel blending modern luxury with historic charm.
Maya and Sandra pulled over to the curb about a hundred feet from the hotel entrance and exchanged a knowing glance. This was the moment they had been waiting for.
“It’s almost too easy,” Sandra said with a sly smile.
“We still have to catch him in the act,” Maya said, popping an earpiece into her right ear “You wait here in case I lose him and he comes back out. Plus, this is a no-parking zone, and I can’t afford another ticket.”
“How are you going to do this?”
Maya shrugged. “I’ve done this so many times. I’ve learned it’s best just to wing it, be prepared for anything.” Maya held up her phone. “I’m going to call you. Stay on the line so we can communicate.”
Sandra pointed toward the hotel. Chad was handing his keys to a valet and rattling off a stern warning to treat his precious baby with the utmost care before pressing a twenty-dollar bill into the palm of the valet’s hand. “You better go now.”
Maya jumped out. . .
Suddenly, Rufus spots a squirrel, and his instincts take over. With a swift jerk, he breaks free from Sarah’s grip, bolting across the park.
“Rufus, no!” Sarah cries.
Sarah takes off after him, her heart pounding with worry. She weaves through the park, dodging trees and benches in pursuit of her runaway pup.
As Sarah rounds a corner, she sees Rufus skidding to a halt in front of a familiar figure. It’s Jack, her exboyfriend, who is kneeling down, trying to coax Rufus closer.
“Rufus, come here, boy!” Sarah calls out.
Rufus, panting, hesitates for a moment before bounding over to Jack, wagging his tail furiously.
Sarah approaches cautiously, her breath still coming in gasps.
Jack has yet to see her. “Hey there, buddy. Where’s your mom?”
Sarah reaches them, her eyes locking with Jack’s. There’s a mixture of surprise and tension in the air as they stand face-to-face for the first time since their breakup.
“I’m sorry. He broke free from his leash. I hope he didn’t cause any trouble,” Sarah says cautiously.
“No trouble at all. He just missed me, didn’t you, Rufus?”
Jack scratches Rufus behind the ears, and the dog leans into his touch, clearly enjoying the attention.
“Yeah, he . . . he does miss you.”
There’s a moment of awkward silence as they both remember the bitter custody battle they went through over Rufus.
“Well, I miss him too. And you,” Jack mutters under his breath.
Sarah looks up at Jack, her heart fluttering with conflicting emotions.
“Jack, I . . .”
Before she can finish, Rufus suddenly darts off again, this time toward the nearby lake.
Sarah, exasperated, sighs and says, “Oh, for the love of . . .”
Sarah and Jack exchange a knowing look before chasing after Rufus once more, their laughter echoing through the park.
As they reach the edge of the lake, Rufus sits proudly between them, wagging his tail as if to say, “Mission accomplished.”
“Well, I guess it’s true what they say . . . dogs really are man’s best wingmen.”
Jack chuckles, and Sarah joins in, feeling a warmth spreading through her chest as she realizes that maybe, just maybe, there’s still hope for them after all.
“Doggone it, Sarah, I still love you.”
“Did you really just say that?”
“Sarah, come on, admit it, we’re still fetching each other!”
“My God, please, enough with the dog puns!”
“Without each other, we’re both still just chasing our tails—”
She stops him with a long, languorous kiss. Jack wraps his arms around her and holds her tight, the tension between them dissipating like the mist in the morning sun, as Rufus, tail wagging, looks on with a triumphant smile.
There was a loud groan.
Sandra elbowed her boyfriend, Lucas, who was sitting next to her in the Nickelodeon Cinemas in downtown Portland, Maine.
“This is so lame!” Lucas chuckled.
Sandra, who was a sucker for any kind of romantic comedy, even a badly written one, was holding back tears. She was not about to let Lucas see her cry over such a schmaltzy movie. Luckily, he was munching on the last few kernels in his bag of popcorn and did not notice her eyes brimming with tears over Sarah and Jack’s emotional, heartfelt reunion.
Sandra glanced over at Maya, her BFF and business partner in a private detective agency, who was sitting on her other side. Maya, nonplussed, watched the credits roll, not sure how to react. Next to her was her husband, Max. His head drooped, and his eyes were closed, and she could hear him snoring. He had slept through most of the film.
The lights came up in the theater, and the audience began filing out. Maya shook Max awake, and they stood up, waiting for Sandra and Lucas to lead them out of the row to the aisle. Lucas upended his nearly empty bag of popcorn, pouring what was left into his mouth and tossing the bag into a trash bin as they strolled out.
It was unusually cold for a late-summer night, and Sandra wished she had remembered to bring a sweater. Lucas, almost as if reading her mind, flung an arm around her and rubbed her shoulders to keep her warm.
Sandra turned to Maya and Max. “I hate to ask, but what did you think?”
Lucas jumped in. “I thought it was the worst movie I have ever seen!”
“I wasn’t asking you. I know what you thought of it. You kept sighing and groaning and making snide comments through the whole thing! I want to know if Maya and Max liked it or not.”
Max yawned. “I can’t honestly say. I don’t remember much. They hadn’t even gone to court over who gets to keep the dog before I first dozed off.”
“I thought the saucy best friend, the short girl from Bridgerton, was pretty funny, but otherwise I was kind of bored,” Maya said.
They strolled through the Old Port District on their way to a late dinner reservation at the Little Tap House Restaurant.
“So, what did you think of her?” Sandra asked the group.
“She’s always the same in every role she plays nowadays. She’s never been as good as she was when she was nominated for that movie with what’s-his-name where she played the paralegal who became a whistleblower against her own corrupt law firm; I can never remember the name of it.”
“I think it was just called The Whistleblower,” Lucas guessed. “Or something close to it. I saw it when I was a kid.”
Sandra cringed.
Of course Lucas had been a kid when he had seen the film.
He was almost fourteen years her junior.
And it still rankled her, even though her close friends were always encouraging her to just forget the large age gap between them.
“She’s very likable,” Sandra said as they rounded the corner and walked inside the restaurant. Max stepped over to check them in, and a gruff host, who was overwhelmed by a very busy night, escorted them to their table.
Once they were seated and water was poured and their drinks order had been taken by a perky waiter, Sandra steered the conversation back to the movie, or more pointedly, to the star of the movie, Alyssa Turner, who played Sarah.
“It’s going to be very strange seeing her after all these years. Who could have known when we were in high school that she would become this huge Hollywood megastar?”
“She was so shy back then, as I recall, but frankly, I barely remember her,” Maya shrugged, perusing the menu.
Alyssa Turner would have been the last classmate that anyone would have assumed would achieve massive wealth and stardom. Sandra remembered Alyssa as a painfully awkward wallflower, sometimes targeted by the mean girl cliques, who hid in the last row in class, just trying to melt into the background. But now, armed with an Oscar nomination from when she was in her early twenties and with a string of box office smashes and prestige television projects under her belt, she was now headlining a mawkish, middling romantic comedy called Puppy Love. Sandra, always a sucker for rom-coms, had strong-armed Lucas, Maya, and Max into attending the early-evening showing with the promise of dinner at Little Tap House following the film.
Maya and Sandra had not double-dated often with their respective partners—Max preferred socializing at home—but Sandra thought it might be fun to catch Alyssa’s latest Hollywood production before seeing her in person at their upcoming twenty-fifth high school reunion.
“I heard ticket sales to the reunion tripled after Alyssa announced on social media that she was going to show up,” Lucas noted.
“I think her parents still live in the area,” Maya said.
Max placed a hand on top of Maya’s. “Are you still planning to boycott the reunion, hon?”
“What?” Sandra gasped.
“It’s not a boycott. I just don’t want to go.”
“You have to go!”
“Says who?” Maya scoffed.
“But you missed the twentieth reunion. We all did.”
“Yes, because there was a worldwide pandemic.”
“Aren’t you just a little bit curious to see everyone?”
Maya scrunched up her nose. “Not especially. A lot of our classmates still live in the area, and I see them all the time.”
“Not Alyssa Turner,” Max cracked. “I think we should go.”
Maya raised an eyebrow at her husband. “Oh, are you a fan?”
“She has certain attributes which I admire, yes.”
Maya laughed. “He’s not talking about her acting. He’s referring to the beach scene in the beginning of the movie where she first meets Jack and Rufus and she’s wearing a bikini. The rest of the movie she’s fully clothed, which is why he fell asleep and missed the rest of it.”
Lucas guffawed, then, with a reassuring smile, said to Sandra, “She’s got nothing on you, in my opinion.”
“I wasn’t asking,” Sandra sneered, before fixing her gaze back on Maya. “You have to come. We can all go together. There is safety in numbers.” She studied Maya’s face, trying to get some kind of readout.
But Maya remained stoic, unmovable, like a statue. She had always been very upfront about how much she’d hated her high school years. Unlike Sandra, who was head cheerleader, class president, your typical overachiever, Maya was mostly an outcast. She struggled to fit in and spent most of her time loitering in the smoking section, near the school parking lot, when there was one, and dating all the bad boys.
“Okay, if you won’t go for me, go for Max,” Sandra pleaded.
Max perked up.
“It would be a shame for you to deny him the opportunity to meet one of his favorite actresses.”
Max grinned. “She’s right, hon. How many chances am I going to get to meet an honest-to-goodness Hollywood celebrity?”
“I even bought a new sports jacket for the occasion,” Lucas piped in.
Maya at first refused to be worn down, but by the time they had ordered their entrées and another round of drinks, with Sandra applying even more pressure, Maya finally, reluctantly relented, on the one condition that she be allowed to bolt at any time she started to feel uncomfortable.
It was official.
They were all going to be in attendance at the SoPo High Class of 2000 Reunion.
A decision that would ultimately come back to haunt them.
“He’s a pathetic, lying cheat, and I want you to prove it,” Tawny Bryce sniffed, eyes blazing.
She sat on the couch in Maya and Sandra’s office, her Gucci clutch bag resting on her lap. Tawny always dressed to impress, wearing an eyelash tweed mini-dress and sporting some expensive-looking jewelry. Sandra priced the dress at around sixteen hundred bucks, having seen it on the Saks Fifth Avenue website. The jewelry was probably from Tiffany’s, she guessed.
Sandra had been surprised to get a call from Tawny. The two hardly ever spoke. They knew each other in high school, but did not stay in touch much after graduation, occasionally running into each other at PTA meetings when Sandra was president.
Sandra tried to keep her distance, remembering Tawny as one of those awful queen bees who liked to cruelly target other girls and make their lives miserable. She was the Regina George of SoPo High during her reign in the late nineties. As head cheerleader and part of the popular clique, Sandra luckily had some protection from Tawny’s merciless taunts, unlike Alyssa Turner, who was regularly teased and humiliated by Tawny’s band of marauding mean girls.
Tawny had married swoon-worthy football tight end Chad Bryce right out of high school. And, remarkably, they were still married twenty-five years later. None of their friends or classmates, Sandra included, ever thought they would last very long since the rumor was Tawny used a fake pregnancy scare to coerce him into proposing. By the time the rings were exchanged and they were on the plane to their honeymoon in the Bahamas, Tawny broke the news that the first test was a false positive and the second test had come back negative. By then, the deal was sealed, and for his part, Chad decided to stick around to try and make the marriage work. They were married five years before the couple had their first kid, Lianne, who was in Sandra’s son Jack’s class. Two more followed, all three now living away from home at various colleges across the country.
Sandra was not surprised that Tawny suspected Chad was having an affair behind her back. He was always something of a cad, but what did surprise her was the fact that it took him this long. Or perhaps this was the first one Tawny had become privy to, which was a definite possibility, in Sandra’s opinion.
When Sandra called Maya to tell her about the meeting with Tawny, Maya had to consult her high school yearbook to remember who she was, since back then Maya had no use for girls like Tawny, who strutted down the hallway with a perpetual air of superiority and perfectly styled hair and designer outfits, casting disdainful glances at anyone deemed beneath their social standing and belittling others to boost their own egos.
No, Maya was more interested in spending her time with the bad-boy biker types with their smoldering gazes and a penchant for breaking rules and defying authority, which just made them all the more alluring. Maya had always craved danger and excitement, which explained why she later was drawn to her husband Max, a former cop and now ex-convict.
Her taste in men had never changed.
“How do you know Chad’s cheating on you?” Sandra asked, crossing her legs and leaning toward Tawny.
“Because whoever this home wrecker is has been sending me text messages flaunting the affair in my face. It’s despicable!”
“Can we see these texts?”
“Of course,” Tawny replied, opening her Gucci bag and extracting her phone. She handed it to Sandra.
Maya hopped up from her desk and circled around to join Sandra so they could both read the texts in question.
Hope you don’t mind me borrowing your husband for a bit. He seems to enjoy my company more than yours. Oops!
Sorry, not sorry. Your husband just can’t get enough of me. Looks like you’ve got some competition, sweetie.
Hate to break it to you, but your marriage isn’t as solid as you think. Your man can’t resist me.
Sandra handed the phone back to Tawny.
“What kind of person would do something like that? Find pleasure in taunting me, laughing at me?” Tawny sniffed. She turned to Maya. “That’s a lovely suede jacket, by the way.”
“What? Oh, um, thanks,” Maya muttered, flustered by Tawny so quickly shifting gears from devastated spouse to cool fashion critic.
“Tawny, did you confront Chad when you started receiving these texts from this mystery woman?”
“No, of course not!”
Sandra exchanged a curious look with Maya. “Why not?”
“I don’t want him to know that I’m aware of his infidelities just yet, because I want to gather more incriminating information on him. I need names and addresses and photos, anything I can get my hands on—incontrovertible proof—in order to build a rock-solid case when I file for divorce. Chad will no doubt try to lowball me in the settlement, so I’m just trying to get the upper hand early. That’s where you two come in.”
“So you want us to help you take him to the cleaners,” Maya remarked, wandering back over to her desk and leaning against it.
“Yes, I’m looking for a fat monthly alimony payment I can use to travel the world with my girlfriends. Do you know I have never been to Europe? Chad was always coming up with excuses why we could never go. Every year, it was the same old vacation. Visiting his parents in Boca Raton and, once every blue moon, a cruise in the Caribbean, where he would overeat at the buffet, drink too many margaritas, and pass out in the state room by nine o’clock. I’m ready to start a new chapter, see more of the world, have some fun without him always dragging me down.”
“Sounds like you’ve really thought this through,” Sandra said warily, as it slowly dawned on her that she still did not care for Tawny Bryce all that much.
In Tawny’s mind, however, the three of them were now best buds. She smiled conspiratorially. “I came to you two because I think it is imperative that the team responsible for taking down that misogynist weasel are all women. Chad’s never truly respected women; he basically sees them as either maids doing his laundry and cooking him dinner to playthings doing his bidding in the bedroom. It will be so richly rewarding to see his face when we ruin him financially and otherwise.”
The vindictiveness in Tawny’s voice was slightly disconcerting. But if she was painting an accurate portrait of what kind of man Chad Bryce was, then it might be worth accepting the case, in Sandra’s mind.
Tawny sensed that she might be coming on too strong, so she softened her stance. “I feel so betrayed. I just want him to be held to account for his actions, see justice served, and then maybe he will understand the pain he has caused me. You have no idea how difficult it’s been for me, especially with our twenty-fifth reunion coming up.”
“Are you and Chad both planning to go?”
“Chad wouldn’t miss it. His ego won’t allow him to. And I have no choice. I’m in charge of the planning committee. I tried to get out of it, but I got strong-armed into taking over when Patsy Baumgarten got Covid for the umpteenth time. Honestly, I wish there was someone else. You were class president, Sandra; you should be the one in charge, but you never returned Patsy’s emails.”
“Maya and I have been so busy with other cases,” Sandra fibbed. They had not had a case in a few weeks, but Sandra had no intention of taking on such a thankless task.
“Well, I hope you have time to take on mine,” Tawny said, her eyes almost begging.
Sandra was not exactly excited about working for her former cheerleading rival, who had treated her, if not cruelly, then at least dismissively in high school. Why dredge up all those unpleasant memories? But then Sandra glanced over at Maya, who was already jotting down all of Tawny’s contact information.
Sandra knew the drill.
Although Sandra was dedicated to their private investigation agency, she was financially independent. She could be choosey when it came to accepting cases.
Maya, on the other hand, was decidedly not.
She and Max had been struggling since his release from prison, especially now that their daughter was enrolled in a very expensive college. She needed every case they could get their hands on.
So Sandra chose to remain mum as Maya readily accepted Tawny’s case, rattling off their hourly rate plus expenses and eagerly passing along their own info so Tawny could conveniently Venmo them the retainer fee on the spot.
Maya and Sandra followed at a safe distance behind Chad Bryce’s Midas muscle car, the epitome of a midlife crisis on wheels, an over-the-top manifestation of Chad’s desire to recapture the glory days and stand out from the crowd. He had not changed one bit since high school. With each turn, they kept a safe distance to make sure Chad was not aware he was being followed.
It had taken him less than ten minutes to emerge from the house after Tawny left for her monthly book club meeting. He wore an open collar shirt that showcased a forest of chest hair, some casual designer jeans, and a pair of expensive loafers. Maya could almost smell the aftershave he had no doubt slapped on his cheeks, a distinctive blend of invigorating and masculine scents, before taking one last look in the mirror and giving himself a thumbs-up.
They had tailed too many cheating husbands to count in the few years they had been in business together.
Chad was showing all the typical signs of an oblivious, entitled man who thought he would never get caught.
This was going to be a walk in the park.
The Midas swerved to the left.
“Of course he didn’t think to use his blinker,” Sandra snapped. “Why would he waste time considering other drivers?”
Maya sped up and turned down the street in pursuit. They saw Chad pull his monstrosity of an automobile up in front of the Press Hotel, a meticulously restored newspaper building, now a boutique hotel blending modern luxury with historic charm.
Maya and Sandra pulled over to the curb about a hundred feet from the hotel entrance and exchanged a knowing glance. This was the moment they had been waiting for.
“It’s almost too easy,” Sandra said with a sly smile.
“We still have to catch him in the act,” Maya said, popping an earpiece into her right ear “You wait here in case I lose him and he comes back out. Plus, this is a no-parking zone, and I can’t afford another ticket.”
“How are you going to do this?”
Maya shrugged. “I’ve done this so many times. I’ve learned it’s best just to wing it, be prepared for anything.” Maya held up her phone. “I’m going to call you. Stay on the line so we can communicate.”
Sandra pointed toward the hotel. Chad was handing his keys to a valet and rattling off a stern warning to treat his precious baby with the utmost care before pressing a twenty-dollar bill into the palm of the valet’s hand. “You better go now.”
Maya jumped out. . .
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Murder at the High School Reunion
Lee Hollis
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