Love Can Be Murder

laughed, padded into the bedroom, and picked through the hodgepodge of clothing spread out on the yellow comforter. She stepped into underwear and a pair of denim shorts, and pulled on a pink tank top.
    "Can I borrow a horsehair brush?" Angora asked, running her fingers through her nearly dry golden hair. "I can't afford to get split ends."
    "There should be a brush in here," Roxann said, opening the top drawer of the bureau. "But I can't promise horsehair." She rummaged through miscellaneous items that resurrected memories: key chains, dog-eared paperbacks, her name badge from the dress shop where she'd worked during high school, her Notre Dame tassel. Why hadn't she taken it with her when she left home?
    Why, indeed.
    "Our Magic 8 Ball!" Angora lifted the vintage toy—a pajama powwow prop—from the clutter with a squeal. "Wonder if it still works?" She placed her hands on the ball and closed her eyes. "Am I a big loser jilted bride?" She opened her eyes and consulted the "magic" window. " 'Yes, definitely.' " She looked up. "It still works."
    Roxann laughed, relieved to see her cousin's sense of humor returning. "If memory serves, the thing is broken—it only says 'Yes, definitely.' "
    "Is this a college annual?" Angora asked, removing a bound book embossed with "1992." She squealed again, and Roxann was reminded of her cousin's annoying habit of squealing. Angora's split ends were forgotten in her glee to locate her picture. "Here I am. Oh, that jacket is dreadful, isn't it?"
    Roxann looked over her shoulder. "Who can see the jacket for that big hair?"
    "Okay, let's see your picture, smartie." She flipped back to the Bs, then frowned. " 'No picture available.' "
    Roxann grinned. "Sorry to disappoint."
    Then from the pages of the annual, an envelope fell and twirled to the floor. A memory chord stirred as Roxann bent to retrieve it.
    "A love letter?" Angora teased.
    "Yeah, right." Neither she nor Carl had dared to write down their feelings for each other.
    "Open it."
    She slid her finger under the envelope flap, and pulled out several sheets of yellow legal-pad paper. When she unfolded them, she was swept back through a time tunnel. "You won't believe this."
    "What?"
    Roxann held up the sheets for her to see the writing on the top of the pages: my life list.
    "Our life lists?" Angora murmured. "Omigod."
    Oh my God was right. What more torturous exercise to face during an early-life crisis than to be reminded of all the things you'd planned to accomplish at the ripe old age of eighteen? "Let's break open that tequila."

Chapter Eight

    ROXANNE DECIDED tomato juice and tequila was quite possibly the most noxious combination of liquids ever concocted. Thank goodness the pepperoni pizza overrode the taste. "Do you remember what we were doing the night we made our life lists?"
    Angora tucked her legs beneath her on the comforter Indian-style and pulled the T-shirt down over her knees. She was wearing her tiara, and her eyes were already bright from only half a glass of the "tequato" juice. "I was smoking my first and only joint." Angora leaned closer. "I don't suppose you have any marijuana on you right now?"
    Roxann cracked a wry smile. "Uh, no. Sorry to tell you this, Angora, but I grew up. Besides, you were sick for a week after you smoked that joint."
    "I don't remember that."
    A convenient trait of Angora's—selective amnesia to go along with her penchant for embellishing the things she did remember. "I suppose you don't remember where we'd been the night we made our lists?"
    "No."
    Roxann studied her cousin's face, wondering how much of their college experience Angora had managed to block out. Roxann had thought her cousin would be thrilled to be away from Dee, but instead she had suffered from bouts of depression and homesickness, even anxiety attacks. Four torturous years. "We were at a memorial service for that girl who was run down in front of the Science Building."
    Angora bit into her lip. "Tammy Paulen."
    "Right," Roxann said, turning to the senior class where she skimmed the thumbnail black-and-white photos. "Here she is—Tammy Renee Paulen, philosophy major." On the page, Tammy was an attractive blonde with a wide smile, frozen in time in a big shoulder-padded blouse and permed hair. When she'd posed for the picture, Tammy probably couldn't have imagined she wouldn't live to graduate.
    Steeped in melancholy, Roxann leaned against the headboard with a denim pillow at her back. "Tammy was in one of my