by Raven Snow
“You know? Did you ask him?”
“Of course I didn’t! Look, do you want the story or not?”
“We do.” Rose stepped in. “Thanks for the call.”
The rest of their time at the hospital was spent reviewing the information Julia had for them. There wasn’t a lot to go on, but there was certainly enough for a story. Something happening to Darren Hawthorne was big news in this town. When Channel 2 mentioned him briefly on the news tonight, the citizens of Lainswich would take to the internet looking for news on what had happened. They needed to have something up by then.
Julia stayed, but Rowen and Rose headed back to the Lainswich Inquirer. There was a lot to be done, especially if their cousins had already gone home. They were likely to do that when no one was watching him. Peony and Willow were social butterflies. Margo verged on lazy when she wasn’t doing something she enjoyed, though credit where it was due, Margo had begun to like the idea of making an effort lately. She said it made her feel more accomplished.
The parking spaces in front of the building were full. That was a good sign if not a bit inconvenient. The air was on the uncomfortably chilly side and Rowen and Rose made their way down the sidewalk and toward the building. Rowen already had her keys at the ready. “Do you think this is a good idea?” she asked.
“We won’t go into too much detail,” Rose assured her. “Just the facts. We’ll voice our concern. It’ll be very straightforward.”
“No mention of the safe thing then?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Seems weird, though. Doesn’t it?”
“I’m not going to make any judgments until we have more information. Right now, I’m just hoping that he pulls through.”
Rowen unlocked the front door and let them both in, making sure to lock it behind herself. Despite the cars out front, the only people still there were Eric and Margo. They were sitting across from each other at desks chatting. They both stood when the front door opened. It seemed that the sisters had left. Rowen wasn’t even surprised. At least they probably didn’t need them for this. They didn’t do a whole lot on the writing side of things.
“We were wondering if you were coming back.” Eric went to his wife and gave her a hug. She hugged him back, though not for long. She was still a little annoyed about this morning. How could he not want to eat the breakfast she had cooked for him? “How much longer do you think you’re going to be?”
“Hard to say. We have a big article to push out tonight.” Rowen watched Rose already moving into her office. She was wasting no time at all. “Another couple of hours, at least.”
It was hard to tell what Margo thought about all of this. She didn’t want to help on an article that needed to be rushed, but she was always one for gossip. From the corner of her eye, Rowen saw her hurry into the office after Rose. No doubt she had a lot of juicy questions she needed answered.
Eric didn’t look to be quite as interested in what had happened. “I might wait around with you. There’s a creepy guy who’s been parked out front.”
“What?” Rowen glanced toward the door. It was difficult to see out since it was dark outside. “How long has he been there?”
Eric shrugged. “I only just noticed him when I was leaving from next door. He was just sitting in his car. I came in here and watched him for a while with Margo. He hasn’t moved for at least thirty minutes. Do you think we should get Rose to get her boyfriend involved? He could send someone down here to check it out, just in case.”
“Hold off on getting him involved just yet.” Ben was the Chief of Police, and Rowen didn’t like abusing that. She also wasn’t sure if it was necessary or not.
“I guess I can go out and see what’s up. At the very least, he shouldn’t be here. This is private parking.”
Rowen opened her mouth to reply, but a knock on the door cut her off. She jumped. This place didn’t get too many visitors. The people who usually visited always had keys or they called ahead. Rowen looked at the door. She still couldn’t see a whole lot.
Eric crossed the room immediately and opened the door. He didn’t open it wide enough for whoever was out there to come in. “We aren’t exactly open to the public,” he said through the gap. “If you’d like to meet with someone here, please send an e-mail or make an appointment.”
The person outside the door said something. Rowen couldn’t quite make it out. She moved close to try and see if she recognized whoever it was.
“Like I said, man. Just call tomorrow and make an appointment.” Eric started to close the door.
“Is Rowen in, though? I’m an old friend. I just wanted to swing by and say hello.”
It was Flint’s voice. Rowen recognized it as soon as she heard it. She tapped her husband on the back. “It’s fine. I know this loser.”
Eric glanced back at his wife. He quirked an eyebrow, but he opened the door wide enough for Flint to come inside anyway. “Sorry,” he said, not like he actually was. More like he wasn’t sure what to say.
“No problem.” Flint raised a hand like it was no big deal at all. “I’m sure I’d react the same way if some stranger showed up on my office doorstep without an appointment.”
“Why did you anyway?” Rowen wasn’t upset. Quite the contrary. It might be poor timing on his part, but she was happy to see him. It made her glad to know he really did want to make an effort at keeping in contact this time.
Flint shrugged like he had no real answer. “We got our conversation cut short today. Not that it could have lasted much longer. Seraphina needed us back inside.”
“You work for Seraphina?” asked Eric.
“As one of her lawyers.” He nodded at Eric before turning back to Rowen. “Anyway, I was just in the neighborhood. I was passing by and thought I would stop in.”
“You sat out there for at least thirty minutes,” Eric pointed out. His arms were crossed and his eyes were fixed on Flint. He didn’t trust him, which was unusual for Eric.
Flint’s freckled face colored a bit. “I suppose I did sit in my car and do some work until I realized you were here,” he admitted. “I didn’t really want to get turned away by any of your other relatives.”
“Oh, I don’t think they would turn you away.” Rowen paused. “Well…maybe they would.”
“I’m sorry.” Eric forced himself into the conversation. “Who is this?”
“Oh!” Rowen realized she hadn’t introduced them yet. “Eric, this is Flint. Flint, this is Eric, my husband.”
“Ah.” Flint raised his eyebrows as if that answered a lot of questions about Eric’s behavior. He held out his hand to him, and Eric hesitated only briefly before shaking it. “Nice to meet you. I’m an old friend of Rowen’s. She and I go way back.”
Eric’s tense shoulders relaxed a bit. “That sounds nice.”
Flint nodded. “We were very close. Sorry if I seem like I’m keeping to the shadows a bit, like I was out there in the car. Her family was never all that crazy about me.”
Again, Eric raised an eyebrow. Rowen imagined he was skeptical because he had never had any problems with her family. If anything, they had always been enthusiastically nice to him. They were enthusiastically nice to most people. It was entirely likely that Eric had never even seen them be mean. “Really? You seem nice enough.”
Flint’s smile broadened. He had a nice smile and always had. It was bright and white and almost seemed to glow when it was dark out. “Well, thanks. I suppose it made things worse that Rowen and I parted on…well…not the best of terms.”
Rowen nodded in agreement. “They definitely weren’t happy about that.”
It was easy to see that Eric was curious but not sure if it was right to probe into personal matters when Flint was there. Fortunately, Flint decided to just come right out with it. “I left for college with no real plans of ever coming back, and Rowen and I were engaged at the time.”
The words just hung there for a good long while. Eric had his mouth open like he had been ab
out to say something, but he never did. He just stood there, looking at Flint, sizing him up.
She had never talked to her husband about that chapter of her life. It seemed odd that she hadn’t now. Eric had told her most everything about himself. Wasn’t a previous engagement something you told your husband about even before you got married? Had she just wanted to keep those years to herself?
“It’s no big deal.” Flint must have sensed the awkwardness and stepped in before it could get too weird. “It was a long time ago. We’d just gotten out of high school. We were still basically kids, honestly.” He laughed. “I’m not here to sweep her off her feet or anything. Looks to me like she has a fantastic husband now.”
“Of course I do.” Rowen reached out and took her husband by the arm to reassure him. That seemed to snap Eric out of his daze.
“Sorry.” Eric smiled and tried to laugh off his reaction. “You just caught me off guard. I thought she would have mentioned something like that by now.”
Flint gave an over-dramatic sigh. “You wound me, Rowen. Are you really that embarrassed by me?” He was smirking while he asked.
“Yes,” Rowen teased. “You’re a huge embarrassment.”
The door to Rose’s office opened and Margo stuck her head out. “Rowen, are you coming? We sort of need you in here if we’re going to make it home by—” Margo stopped talking as her eyes settled on Flint. Her gaze lingered on him for a bit before she made a face like she’d just bitten into something sour. “Just come when you can,” she said before withdrawing into the room. No doubt she wanted to go get a second opinion on what she had just seen from Rose. At least she hadn’t come marching on up to cause some drama. That was definitely what she would have done way back when.
Flint raised his eyebrows and gave a low whistle. “Well, would you look at the time?” He spoke without even glancing at a clock. “I guess I should probably get going. I was going to ask you if you wanted to catch a bit of dinner with me and talk, but it seems you’re busy. I would have called ahead, but your phone went straight to voicemail.”
“I had it off because we—” Rowen realized she couldn’t mention the hospital and Hawthorne to Flint. “It should be on most of the time.”
He nodded. “I’ll make sure to call ahead next time then.”
Rowen’s heart constricted a bit as she watched him turn for the door. “Make sure you do it soon,” she called after him quickly. “I’ve missed having you around. We still need to catch up.”
Flint turned around with a smile. “Of course. I’ll give you a call in the morning. Maybe we can do lunch.”
“It’s a date.”
“Not that kind of date,” Flint added, giving Eric a playful wink. The door opened and he headed out into the night.
Rowen moved to lock it behind him. When she turned, Eric was giving her a hard to read look. “What? Are you mad?”
“No, not exactly,” Eric said quickly, which was a small relief. “That was just a weird kind of history lesson is all. I didn’t think you’d been engaged before. Your family never talks about it.”
“My family likes to pretend it didn’t happen.”
“They didn’t like Flint?” Eric sounded confused, like he didn’t think the Greensmiths were capable of hating anyone enough to just not talk about them. “They liked Ben just fine, and you only dated Flint back in high school, right?”
“More or less.” Rowen shrugged. “Maybe that’s why I agreed to marry him. I was just sort of rebelling against my family.”
The door to Rose’s office opened again. This time it was Rose herself poking her head out. She looked around the office like she was trying to determine if Flint was still hanging around. “If you have a second, we really need to get working, Rowen.”
“Yeah, of course,” Rowen called back. She turned to smile at her husband. “I appreciate you trying to defend my honor and all, but you really don’t have to worry about Flint. Maybe you can come out to eat with us.”
Eric waved a hand. “I wouldn’t want to intrude. You catch up with your friend.”
Rowen knew what he was doing. He was trying to play this off like it was no big deal. He was making sure that it was clear that he knew Rowen wasn’t still tempted by an old flame.
Rowen stood up on the tips of her toes and gave her husband a kiss on the cheek. “Don’t wait up, babe. This might take a while. You should go on and head home. I’ll get a ride back home with Rose.”
“Are you sure? I don’t mind waiting out here.”
“Seriously, go on. I’ll rush if I know you’re out here, and this isn’t something that should be rushed.” Rowen steered him toward the door. After a minute or so, he relented and she went into the back to meet up with her cousins.
Neither cousin looked at Rowen, though Margo did speak. She raised her eyebrows, staring studiously at the screen of her laptop. “I’m surprised a Stonewell thought they could show their face back in town.”
“Haven’t you grown out of that?” Rowen hadn’t been looking forward to this particular conversation. She had hoped it wouldn’t be much of an issue. “He’s just a person, and he’s a nice person at that.”
“Is that why he left before the two of you could get married?”
Rose looked up from her own computer screen and frowned at Margo. “That’s such a mean thing to say. Don’t start fights.”
Even after being chastised, she didn’t look apologetic in the least. Margo just shrugged. “What?” she asked, feigning total innocence. “It’s true.”
“What’s true?” Rowen snapped at her cousin. “It’s true we were engaged. It’s true he wanted to get out of this town, and I decided not to go with him then. It’s not a big deal. We were kids, and I’m married now.”
Margo still had her eyebrows raised, like she didn’t buy Rowen’s story. Like she knew better than Rowen on matters like this. “You might want to make sure Eric knows.”
“Make sure Eric knows what? That we’re married? I think he can solve that one for himself.” She flipped open her own laptop. “Now are we going to get this story finished or what?”
Chapter Five
The story took far longer than expected. They got the initial news out easily enough but were at the office until well past midnight working on a longer piece, walking that difficult line between sympathetic breaking news and shameless click-bait. Most of their difficulties came from snide little comments between Margo and Rowen.
Rose didn’t participate, of course. She didn’t think much of Flint, but she wasn’t going to be rude to Rowen about it. It wasn’t in her nature. It was more in her nature to be concerned—which was probably worse as far as Rowen was concerned.
It felt like ages had passed by the time they had something they could all agree on putting up. Rowen hoped it was actually good work and they weren’t just saying it was good enough because they all wanted to go home. She didn’t stay longer than she had to in order to figure that out. Rowen gave her cousins a cold farewell and headed out for her car just before realizing that she had told Eric to take it home already. She swallowed her pride and went back to ask for a ride from her cousins.
Rose had to stay after to work on something or another, but Margo agreed to drive Rowen home and, boy, was that a tense car ride. They were both so tired and annoyed at each other. They didn’t even want the radio on. It was just irritable silence the whole way home. Rowen wasn’t even sure it was about Flint anymore. She got the feeling that Margo was more annoyed that Rowen wasn’t taking her advice.
At least it didn’t take long to get home. Rowen thanked her for the ride and hurried inside. She was too tired to even hunt down some dinner. She went right upstairs, stripped out of her day clothes and crashed. She was vaguely aware of Eric beside her and of the dog at her feet. If either of them acknowledged her being there, she wasn’t awake long enough to notice.
The next thing Rowen knew, it was morning. There was sunlight coming in through the curtains. She got out of bed
, realized that she wasn’t wearing much of anything, and threw on a robe before heading downstairs. It was when she was on the landing that it hit her. A burning kind of smell assaulted her, smoky and acrid. The first thought that came to mind was that the place was on fire. She took the stairs two at a time. “Eric!” she called. “Chester!”
Chester came bounding up. As an old dog, he didn’t do a whole lot of bounding. Yet, there he was. He stood poised to run back into the kitchen, tail wagging like this was the most excitement he had seen in quite some time.
“What’s up, boy?”
Chester didn’t stay for any petting. He turned and headed for the kitchen. Rowen followed him. “Eric?” she called again, now that she had a better idea of what was going on.
“What?” Eric called, followed by a crash and some swearing. Rowen rounded the corner to find him on his knees, desperately trying to gather up black lumps of char now spinning across the floor. The baking pan lay nearby. The lack of any kind of oven mitt painted a pretty clear picture of what had happened.
Rowen bit her tongue. Given the way her husband was clutching his hand and swearing, it wasn’t the time to reprimand him for being careless. “Okay,” she said instead. “Okay, babe, let’s get you to the bathroom.”
Eric looked up, like he had forgotten she was there even if he had heard her calling. “What if Chester eats one of those?” He indicated the blackened lumps on the floor that Chester was currently barking at. He’d venture close enough to sniff and bat at one before darting away.
“He’s not going to eat those, sweetheart.”
“How do you know?”
“Let’s call it a premonition.” Rowen led the way to the downstairs bathroom. There was a first aid kit in there. She felt fairly certain it had some spray for burns inside of it. “Let me see.”
Eric hesitated but showed her his hand. It wasn’t that bad, really. It wasn’t the kind of burn that would cause any lasting damage. If anything, it would just hurt for a while. Rowen sprayed it down anyway. “What were you doing in there?”