by Eryn Scott
"That little..." Liv mumbled some choice words as she narrowed her eyes. "I'm gonna..." She grabbed a tot and stuffed it in her mouth, chewing vigorously. Liv froze mid-chew, though, her expression softening. "Why didn't you tell me about it earlier?" The hurt I saw behind her eyes felt like Sam had squeezed my heart instead of my wrist.
"I'm fine. Really." I tried to meet Alex's eyes, but he wouldn't look over at me. "I bruise really easily." I tried again, pulling my sleeve up and showing off my wrist. "It's barely anything. I'm sure it'll be gone in a few days." I wrapped my hand around it to show how not a big deal it really was, but the motion hurt way more than I was anticipating and my face tightened into a grimace.
"I can't wait to have a chat with him." Alex shook his head and looked like he was about to throw his beer when a commotion in the middle of the bar caught our attention. A chorus of "oohs" rang out from a big group of students sitting on the leather couches positioned around a big wooden coffee table. From the white-sleeved jackets, they were easily identifiable as members of one of NWU's mediocre sports teams.
"I have half a mind to leave you for a real man." Irritation raked down my spine as I recognized the voice which rang out, once the group went silent.
Heidi Shultz. Ugh.
A townie, like me, the comparisons between us stopped there. Even though her dad, Simon, was the owner of the local bookstore—and therefore one of my favorite people—Heidi was nothing like her quiet, bookish dad.
She had gone from being the meanest, most popular girl in Pine Crest High School to the meanest, most popular girl at Northern Washington University. I had dreamed the idea of cliques and social status would dissolve once we stepped into the hallowed halls of the college campus, too absorbed in studying and having deep, philosophical discussions to worry about such petty things. Alas, Heidi had still sat high, crown firmly in place throughout all of our four years. A local swimming star herself, the girl seemed to exclusively date jocks.
I cringed, leaning forward so I might get a glimpse of the poor soul she was torturing this time. A feeling of solidarity rose up in me, having been the topic of many of the infamous rumors she would start about people when she was bored.
Interestingly, her boyfriend, Nick Hall seemed to be the target today. The tall, dark, and hunky jock's face was red and his jaw clenched tight in an anger which seemed to mirror Alex's from moments ago.
"Oh, I heard about this," Carson whispered from behind me.
The three of us turned to him, our interests piqued. Liv and I were usually clueless about campus gossip and Alex was no longer a student, so he was equally in the dark. But Carson worked in student services and was pretty involved with the activities committee, so he fell on the other end of the spectrum from us.
Carson said, "At the game last night, against the Lions—"
"Which ball?" Liv asked, interrupting him.
"Er—" Carson squinted at her in confusion for a second.
"The small one, oblong one, or the kind ya kick?" Liv clarified.
After a quick chuckle, he said, "Baseball. The small one. They played the SWU Lions."
Liv and I nodded. We may not be sports people, but everyone knew about our rivalry with Southern Washington University.
"Nick backed down from a fight with their designated hitter. The guy got all up in his face and he kind of scrambled away. Everyone's been giving him a rough time about it," Carson added as we turned back, watching the group grow rowdier.
"Very funny, Heidi. We get it." Nick's deep voice sounded like business—one with ties to the mob.
She sighed. "I don't know. I've always thought of myself as a Marmot, but... maybe I need to switch to a Lion." Her voice just as loud and commanding as his, but from the way she clutched onto the back of the couch next to her, it was clear the girl was a few drinks in.
A round of laughter rang out from the crowd. At this point, she had the whole bar's attention, just the way she liked. She walked over to another guy who I could only assume was also on the team due to his baseball hat and muscles.
Heidi placed a hand on his chest and said, "Or just find me a Marmot who can fight like a man." She lifted a perfect eyebrow and flipped her blond hair, stumbling slightly from the movement.
Her friends cackled and everyone sucked in a quick breath, leaving her words hanging heavy in the silence. That was, until Nick slammed his fist down on the table, then stood up. "Do I need to shut you up myself?" His voice rocked the bar, a deadly aftershock to his fist-created quake. "We're done, Heidi. Finished." With a shake of his head, he shot one last narrowed look at Heidi and left.
The bar was silent for a second and then everyone began talking all at once. Heidi seemed to brush off the encounter, laughing and going back to her drinking and friends.
Wide-eyed, I turned back to my own table, forgetting for a moment I was dealing with my own angry guy. And while Liv and Carson whispered about the drama we'd just witnessed unfold, Alex turned to face me. The fight we just witnessed hadn't made him forget about the one we'd already been having.
"I cannot believe you would put yourself in danger like that." His voice sounded tighter than jeans after Thanksgiving and his face was full of I told you so.
I wanted so badly to reach out and touch him, show him I was fine. Instead I said, "I may not have training like you, but I'm not stupid, Alex. I can take care of myself."
"This is a serial murderer, Pepper," he said. "These people are twisted, tricky, and very dangerous."
I nodded. "I know. Which is why the police need all of the help they can get."
Alex paused, his eyebrows furrowing as he seemed to consider it.
I added, "The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them."
Alex exhaled a laugh. "Let me guess. Hemingway?"
Shrugging, I smiled at him.
"Aww, are you two making up?" Liv said from across the table.
My cheeks grew warm and I tried to busy myself with some tater tots. "Oh! I forgot to ask," I said, my hand flying up to cover my full mouth. "Did you check into Garrison's bank account?" The words spilled out of me before I could catch them.
Alex rubbed his hands over his face. "Brooks, you're seriously going to be the death of me."
Hating the disappointment filling his eyes as he looked at me, I said, "I'm sorry. It's just like I'm sitting in front of a half-finished puzzle and... well, you know how much I love puzzles," I said that last part to Liv who widened her eyes and nodded seriously.
"She's not exaggerating," Liv said. "We actually instituted a strict 'no puzzle' policy last year when I found her up at three in the morning, muttering something about 'just one more piece' over and over again. Puzzles are like Pepper crack."
I sent a pleading look in Alex's direction. "I'm in a six-step program, but I've been stuck on the second one."
"Which is?" Alex raised his eyebrows in question.
"Getting jiggy without the jigsaw," I mumbled, peeking up at him.
Alex folded his arms across his chest and leaned back. His expression stayed flat, but I could see something brewing under the surface.
Then a deep laugh bubbled out of him. It caught and spread around the table, and soon we were all laughing, hard.
Taking the last sip of my drink, my attention turned to Isaac, walking over to us with a big smile on his face.
"Can I get anyone another drink?" he asked, eyeing the empty glass I'd just set down.
"You are a drink wizard," I said in awe, eyes wide as I repeated Liv's words from our first visit last week. "I just finished this and here you are."
Isaac laughed, his blue eyes sparkling when they landed on me.
"I'll take another beer," Alex said then cleared his throat. He sat back in his chair and wrapped an arm around me, staring at Isaac the whole time.
I watched Liv bite back a smile from across the table. Isaac's eyes flicked to Alex, to his hand gripping my shoulder protectively, then he looked to the other side
of the table. While Liv and Carson ordered their drinks, I leaned into Alex, happiness tugging my lips up.
Heck, if getting attention from Isaac was what it took to get Alex to put the moves on me, I would take it.
After finishing off the drinks Isaac brought back to us, we headed home. Liv and Carson declined Alex's invitation to drive them, saying they wanted to walk. So it was just me and Alex sitting in his truck as he pulled up to our apartment.
He turned off the engine and turned to me. The streetlight threw enough light into the truck that I could make out his dark features.
"You never did tell me if Garrison's name was cleared," I said, my brain deciding to focus on that instead of the millions of questions running through my mind about us.
Sighing, Alex said, "You were right. The charges were there. We confronted him and he confessed to lying about his alibi."
"Because he and his wife didn't want it to get out that they were sleeping with students and they knew they were both innocent, so they decided to make things as uncomplicated as possible?" I asked.
Alex exhaled a laugh. "You've spent way too much time thinking about this."
"But?"
He nodded. "But, yes. You're right. When Mindy showed up dead, Garrison really didn't want to tell us because he thought it would implicate him in her murder."
"And they both had an alibi for the night Mindy was murdered?" I asked, thinking about Liv's insistence they could've worked together, each taken a night, each killed one of the victims.
"Yeah. They claim they were together, at home. Said it was really true this time."
I scoffed.
"That's pretty much how we felt about it, too. We're still watching them, for sure, but we're turning our attention to a few other suspects in the meantime."
"We could wrap this up so fast if you would just let me work with you," I said, shooting him a pleading look.
"Isn't it pretty to think so?"
Gasping at his use of the last line of The Sun Also Rises, I said, "You finished it?"
A smile pulled across his face and he nodded. "Last night."
I had finished the book over the weekend, myself, and the ambiguous ending to Jake and Brett's totally-should-be-together relationship had only worsened my depression over my fight with Alex.
"What did you think?" I scooted closer to him.
Alex's eyes roamed around the interior of his truck. Then he looked at me. "That I don't want to end up like them, mi pimienta," he said, using the adorable Spanish nickname he'd given me, my pepper.
Leaning forward, Alex pressed his lips lightly against mine. I closed my eyes and kissed him back. And all I could seem to think in that moment was, Thank you, Hemingway.
17
I just about floated around the apartment the next morning. Liv and I had stayed up dishing about my kiss with Alex, but tiredness couldn't touch me today. Not when I was so incredibly happy.
So when I walked onto campus for my first class, I was slightly taken aback by how upset everyone looked. Students were clumped together, whispering, their foreheads wrinkled tight. And by "students" I don't mean just a few. Literally everyone but me looked like they'd just learned that tuition had tripled over night.
My stomach churned as I thought of Katie and Mindy. Or maybe it was something so much worse than tuition.
Spotting a group of people I'd had a few classes with during freshman year, I decided to investigate.
"Hey," I said trying to tone down my smile so I wasn't in such contrast with everyone else. "What's up?"
One of the girls turned to me, teary-eyed, and choked out the words, "Heidi Shultz was found dead this morning in the university pool."
Campus spun around me as a lump formed in my throat. "What? Did she have an accident?" I croaked out the question. Heidi was almost constantly in the pool, training for whatever race she was bound to win next. Did accomplished swimmers like her still have slip-ups? She could've easily bumped her head on—
The girl shook her head, derailing my train of thought. My stomach dropped and I knew all at once.
Swallowing, I asked, "Like the others?"
Everyone in the circle nodded in somber acknowledgment.
"The swim team found her this morning when they went in for practice."
I cringed, hating this, hating how much we'd butted heads over the years, and hating ever having thought negative thoughts about her. No one deserved this. My thoughts settled on Simon, all alone in that bookstore. His wife, Heidi's mother, had never been part of the picture. I couldn't begin to imagine how he must be taking the news.
Muttering something I hoped resembled a goodbye, I stumbled along one of the footpaths, questions and theories crowding my brain, making it hard to pay attention to where I was going.
A third victim.
Heidi couldn't have been having an affair with Garrison, too, could she? Plus Garrison had been basically cleared. Right? So did these murders have to do with something other than affairs?
My heart stopped as I remembered last night. Nick Hall. Their fight. His outburst replayed in my mind. What had he shouted? Something about shutting her up?
A shiver ran down the backs of my arms. Those jocks took their reputations so seriously. The way she'd embarrassed him, emasculated him—in public—seemed like motive for murder.
My mind locked onto Sam and his campus water crusade. Mindy had been found in town, which didn't really make sense if he was trying to get the dean to focus on the campus water quality, but now there was Heidi.
In this instance, Nick seemed to be pulling ahead of Sam in motive, but the two other similar murders complicated that. Could Nick have used the same MO to make his crime look like one of the serial murders and avoid suspicion?
My phone buzzed in my bag, wrenching me out of my conjectures. I stopped on the side of the pathway, not trusting myself to text and walk simultaneously this morning. Pulling out my phone, I saw it was a text from Liv.
"Wanna dye my hair tonight? This is starting to get freaky."
I blinked at the screen. Dye her hair? Biting back an exclamation, I realized she was right. All of the victims had been blond. Blond and in their early twenties. Just like Liv.
"This is awful. It's gotta be Nick, right? At least this time."
"Yeah. Someone should check on that Lion he fought with, too. Nick seemed really angry."
"Oh right. I'll remind Alex," I responded. I had forgotten about the baseball player and their altercation at the game.
Liv simply sent back a worried looking emoji, so I tucked my phone away and headed to class.
Inside the English building, the hushed conversations filled the air like a Halloween smoke machine, heavy and eerie. I slipped into my seat, realizing I was early for once in the last few weeks. Knowing he would probably be busy, I texted Alex anyway.
"Do you think it was Heidi's ex-boyfriend, the guy from last night? Sounds like the other two murders, but he could've copied to cover his tracks? Maybe someone should check on that guy on the SWU Lions and make sure he's okay, too."
Technically, Alex and I had never truly resolved the issue of me being involved or not in this case—the kissing kinda took precedence—so I wasn't quite sure where we stood with all of that. I put my phone down and took out my copy of Hemingway shorts, only getting a few pages into a new story when I heard my phone buzz with a response.
"Working on it," was all that came through.
I grumbled and tossed my phone back into my purse. That man frustrated me to my core. What did he think? He could just kiss away my curiosity? Was that even a real kiss or a way to get me off his back?
Turning back to my book, I tried to lose myself in the words on the page instead of my anger at Alex. But there was something tugging at my attention like Hammy tugged at my socks when I tried to pry them from her mouth after accidentally leaving them on the floor. Liv had mentioned the Lion... I furrowed my brow and flipped through the stories until I reached The Short
Happy Life of Francis Macomber. Francis running from that lion and his wife emasculating him in front of everyone on the safari.
Sucking in a quick breath, I turned to Hills like White Elephants. I could practically smell the licorice from the couple's drinks as they sat looking out at the hills, discussing the procedure she was supposed to have. Katie had thought she was pregnant, an unplanned pregnancy, just like in the short story. That plus the licorice scent which had permeated the air at the scene of the crime felt like a possible homage to the famous short story.
Then there was Mindy's murder. I located the short story, A Clean, Well-lighted Place. The old man drinking brandy alone while the two workers talked about his attempted hanging, just like the crass science girls had discussed regarding Mindy's scarf. That, plus Mindy's body was found in a clean, well-lighted place. And now Heidi, killed after publicly humiliating her boyfriend for running from a "lion."
I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes and rubbed them for a few seconds. Maybe it was a stretch. Maybe I had been reading too much Hemingway. What did the drownings have to do with any of it? I mean, sure, Hemingway wrote about the water a lot, but... the fact that the victims were all blond also didn't fit. A few of his heroines had blond hair, but it wasn't an exclusive thing.
Going back to the short story I had been reading, I tried to push the thoughts of murder out of my mind. It was getting closer to class time, but I was still alone in the room, until—that was—Reuben entered and skittered toward me.
Glancing down at my phone, I thought about how Alex had brushed me off. He thought my Hemingway connection was completely off the mark. Which meant if I wanted to prove there was something there, I was going to have to do it myself.
Or maybe not all by myself...
My gaze locked on Reuben's disheveled mop of brown hair and tight posture. The guy was a Hemingway fanatic, he would believe me. Yes, I knew how sad it sounded that the only person I could turn to in this situation was a literature lunatic.
"Hey..." I turned my body toward him. We were alone in the classroom, and I knew it would only last for a few minutes, if that. I needed to act now.