by Raven Snow
“Oh, the usual,” said Tiffany, sounding weary of the subject already. “He couldn’t handle a Greensmith girl.”
Rowen was beginning to think that her family just used their spotty history with men as an excuse. Rowen knew good and well that her mother didn’t like to be tied down to one place for long. It seemed likely that she had simply gotten tired of him. Even now, she was getting tired of this line of conversation.
“And who is this handsome man?” asked Tiffany, her eyes straying to Eric.
Eric put on a smile. It was charming, as usual. He extended a hand. “Eric Richardson, ma’am. Your daughter and I have been dating for awhile now.”
Tiffany ignored the proffered hand and hugged Eric instead. “Oh, how nice. And look at you. My girl always did have fantastic taste in men.”
“Yeah,” Rowen agreed, trying to reign in her general annoyance with her mother. “He’s great.”
Tiffany separated herself from Eric. She turned back to her daughter again, wearing a hopeful smile. “Well, I know you just finished dinner, but what do you say we have some girl time with your cousins back at the house. It’ll give us time to catch up. I’m sure we have a lot to tell each other about.”
Rowen felt her heart grow heavy in her chest. Her smile faltered for a moment, but she recovered. “I don’t know,” she said, formulating an excuse even while she spoke. “I have a lot that needs to be finished. I have the paper, and-”
“A paper?” Tiffany interrupted.
Rowen nodded. “I own a paper now. The Lainswich Inquirer.”
“Oh, my goodness!” Tiffany exclaimed. “That’s so great! I’m so proud of you!”
Again Rowen nodded. “Yeah, well, right now there’s this whole thing about a murderer that’s still on the loose. Gotta stay on top of that, so…” Rowen trailed off, hoping her mother would take the hint.
Tiffany wasn’t quite that clueless. She headed for the door. “Of course. Don’t let me keep you from what you’ve got to do. Rain check, though?”
“Definitely,” Rowen assured her. “We’ll catch up soon.” She meant that, too. It wasn’t like she could avoid her forever. Eventually, she would have to sit down with her mother, and they would have to talk.
Tiffany gave her one last hug. “I love you. It’s so good to see you.”
“I love you, too,” said Rowen. She watched her mother go down the stairs then closed and locked the door behind her. As soon as that was done with, she gave a sigh. Her posture relaxed immediately. It was like some sort of oppressive aura had lifted.
“I didn’t think you had any work left to finish tonight,” Eric said, pointing out the obvious. “You said you finished it all earlier today.”
“You caught me,” Rowen grumbled, heading away from the door and toward their sofa.
Eric followed her. He didn’t sit beside her just yet. He simply stood and watched her. “Why did you lie?” he asked. There was no judgment there. He just sounded a bit curious.
Rowen didn’t answer him at first. She reached for the remote and switched on the television, trying to distract herself. “I just… She got here all of a sudden. I need a little while to get ready, you know? I have to kinda prepare myself before I spend time with her. It… I don’t know. It takes a lot out of me, I guess.”
Eric came around the sofa and sat down beside her. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not really.” Rowen leaned against Eric, making herself comfortable on the sofa. She watched television and did her very best not to cry.
Chapter Three
In the morning, there was a second murder. This time, it was someone Rowen knew. She didn’t find out until she went across the lawn and into the house to get some of whatever breakfast her aunts had cooked.
Instead of everyone eating breakfast, Margo was crying in the dining room. David was standing just behind her, patting her shoulder awkwardly. He looked up when Rowen entered the room and mouthed at her to come and help.
Rowen hurried over to Margo. She knelt down beside her, immediately concerned. “What’s wrong?” she asked, expecting to hear some absolutely awful news. The way she was crying, she expected someone in the house to be dead.
“Jason was murdered,” Margo managed to choke out between sobs.
“Who?” Rowen couldn’t help it. She didn’t know any Jason. It took her a moment to place even one. “The guy who hosted the party Lindsay Martel was at right before she was murdered?”
Margo gave an anguished sort of nod.
It was then that Rowen recalled Margo had dated Jason back in high school. Granted, he had been an absolutely terrible boyfriend, but his murder still had to hit close to home for her.
“I’m sorry, Margo.” She offered her cousin a hug before going out into the hallway. David mouthed for her to come back, but she only raised a finger at him, indicating that she needed a minute.
Rose, Willow, and Peony were all standing just outside the kitchen, speaking to one another in hushed voices. They looked up when Rowen approached. “I guess you heard?” whispered Peony.
Rowen nodded. “More or less… Mostly less. What happened, exactly?”
“My friend at dispatch called this morning,” said Willow. “She remembered Margo and Jason dated in high school and thought she deserved to know.”
Willow’s friend in dispatch more than likely just wanted to gossip. Rowen didn’t bring that up, though. She just nodded and waited for more details. Willow seemed happy to provide them. She loved gossiping, too.
“They found him this morning,” Willow continued. “There was a party last night.” She indicated her sister. “We didn’t go, thank goodness. We haven’t gone to a single one of his parties since you-know-what happened.”
“Well,” Peony interjected with a small voice. “Maybe, we went to one.”
Willow glared at her sister. “Just one, though.”
Rowen rolled her eyes. She wasn’t fond of hearing that, but they were adults. They could make their own decisions… even bad ones. Besides, it wasn’t like they could go to another one of his parties. “Just tell me what happened.”
“Right,” Willow went on, realizing she had gotten off topic. “So, it was a big party. A lot of people came, and some of them ended up spending the night. In the morning, when people were sort of waking up to head home, this girl was trying to find the bathroom or something. She ended up in the hallway, opened a closet door, and- bam. There was Jason. He was dead. She called the police. The police come, examine the body and realized his tongue was cut out.”
“His tongue was cut out?” Rowen repeated that last part with fascination. “So, they’re thinking it was the same person who killed Ursula.”
Willow nodded. “Obviously.” She didn’t seem nearly as torn up about Jason’s death as Margo was.
“Either that or a copycat,” Peony offered.
Willow glared at her sister again. “As if there would be a copycat killer in a town this small.”
Peony made a face and shrugged. “I’m just saying. It could happen.”
“We were just out here talking about whether or not we should run the story in the paper,” said Rose, cutting through the nonsense of the sisters fighting to get to the heart of the matter. “If we go now, we can have it out before anyone else, I bet.”
“Have the police released a statement?” asked Rowen. She didn’t want to release any information they didn’t want public. She also didn’t want to get Willow’s friend into any kind of trouble.
“No,” said Rose. “But there were a ton of people at that party. Word is going to get out, if it hasn’t already. They’ll release a statement quickly. Everything we know is already being passed around by every partygoer in the town. You better bet they’re social people.”
Rowen nodded, already running possible headlines through her head. They should probably publish this to the blog right away. They might even beat Julia Martinez.
“We’re just worried about Margo,” said Rose, i
nclining her head toward the sobbing girl in the dining room. “She’s pretty torn up about all of this.”
Rowen bit at the inside of her mouth. It wasn’t like they had been dating when this happened. Margo had the tendency to make a big deal out of tragedies that didn’t directly affect her. She liked the attention. “Get started on the story. I’ll go talk to her.”
Rose nodded and headed off in the direction of her bedroom where she kept her laptop. The sisters were on her heels.
Rowen went back into the dining room much to David’s visible relief. “You all cried out yet?” Rowen asked, gently, offering her cousin a smile.
Margo looked up from the table. Her bottom lip was trembling, but she managed to pause her sobbing long enough to wipe at her eyes.
Rowen tried to figure out how best to broach the subject. Before she could get any semblance of words out, her mother rushed into the room. Aunt Lydia and Nadine were right behind her. “Oh, honey,” cooed her mother. “We just heard! I’m so sorry!”
Lydia and Nadine moved between Rowen and Margo. They smothered her with hugs and sympathy. David could only stand back and watch. Rowen did the same for a few moments. She lost her patience when her mother started in with the tales of how she could still remember when Margo was younger and had been dating Justin.
Rowen left after that. She would just eat breakfast in the trailer. Pulling out her phone, she shot Rose a text while she walked.
Don’t worry about Margo. Run the story.
They ended up scooping Julia Martinez for once. Granted, it wasn’t monumental, but it did feel like something of a personal victory. The police did release a statement that afternoon. There were no suspects yet, but the police were following every lead available to them.
Apparently, the police really were desperate for leads. Once at the office, Rowen found that she had several missed calls from Ben. He had her cell number, so it struck her as a bit odd that he hadn’t just called that. Maybe he was just trying to keep things professional.
“The Chief here,” Ben answered after a couple of rings.
“Police Chief,” Rowen repeated, trying out the name. “Nice. Has a good ring to it. Police Chief.”
“Hello, Rowen,” Ben said with a sigh.
“Hello, yourself.” She leaned back in her desk chair. “I saw I missed a few calls from you. What’s up?”
Ben was silent for awhile. Rowen heard him sigh. Whatever he had to say, he seemed awfully hesitant to actually say it. “I was just wondering,” he began, finally. “Have you tried contacting either of the deceased yet?”
Rowen couldn’t help but laugh. She was surprised to hear that from a guy like Ben. She supposed she shouldn’t have been, though. It seemed a bit like a given that he would go to her for help in matters like this. He knew what she and her family were capable of.
“We tried with Ursula,” said Rowen. “There was no response, though. That’s not too uncommon. We didn’t really know the woman. Death can be pretty jarring. Sometimes, it’s hard to get their attention. By now, she might have even moved on.”
“Did you try with Jason?” Ben asked, not giving up on that idea just yet.
“Not yet,” said Rowen. “It’s on the agenda, though. We were hoping to have Margo with us before we tried. She was the only one of us even remotely close to him, after all.”
“That’s right,” said Ben, as if only now remembering this himself. “How’s she doing?”
“She’s pretty torn up about it,” said Rowen with a sigh. Honestly, she was shocked she was milking it for this long. “She’ll come around, though. We’ll have the séance by the end of the day, I’m sure.
Margo did not come around, and they did not have the séance by the end of the day. At this point, it would be highly unlikely if they had a séance at all with Margo any time this week.
“You wrote an article without asking me?!” Margo demanded, storming into the office with fire in her eyes. She slammed a printout from the blog on Rowen’s desk.
Rowen sighed. She wasn’t up for this. Her mother had already set her temper to a short fuse simply by virtue of her being in town. Rowen didn’t need drama with her cousins, too. Rowen tried not to be too harsh with Margo. “I’m sorry, Margo. You were upset and busy with Lydia and Nadine and Mom. I didn’t think it would be a big deal.”
“Not a big deal?!” Margo exclaimed. “You should have asked me.”
That was it. Rowen had had it. She shoved the printouts right back at Margo. “Come off it,” she said, frowning at her. “You didn’t even like the guy. You didn’t like him that much when you were dating. Don’t act like this is some huge personal tragedy.”
Margo took a step back from the desk, her eyes wide like she couldn’t believe what Rowen had just said to her. “How can you be such a-”
“You’re looking for attention, Margo. I’m not going to let that hurt our business.” Rowen pointed at the article. “We deal in news here. I know we’re not normally on top of breaking news, but we can’t ignore something like this. We got the scoop ahead of Julia Martinez. You should be happy!”
“Well, I’m not.” Margo snatched the papers from the desk, balled them up, and hurled them right at Rowen’s face.
Rowen batted them away at the last moment. She watched as Margo turned on her heel and marched for the door.
“You can keep your business,” said Margo. “I quit!” She made a point of slamming the door to Rowen’s office.
The door was opened less than a minute later by an uncertain looking Rose. “What was that about?” asked Rose, keeping her voice down even though no one else was in the building right then.
Rowen waved a hand as if it didn’t much matter. “Margo quit.”
Rose closed the rest of the distance between herself and Rowen’s desk. “Margo quit?” she repeated, as if she hadn’t quite heard that right.
“It’s not permanent,” Rowen said, sure of that. Margo had a flair for the dramatic. She always had. “She’ll cool off after awhile. I give this a week. Tops.” Of course, even as she said that, she was already having second thoughts. It wasn’t like Margo needed the money from this job. Right now, she was dating David. If Eric’s income was any indication, the guy was loaded. Before that, Margo had made a tidy living as a secretary. It was likely as much, if not more, than she made here at the Lainswich Inquirer.
The door opened. Both Rowen and Rose glanced up. Rowen hoped it might be Margo. Maybe she had changed her mind already. Rowen was prepared to apologize. Already, she regretted losing her temper with her. Margo might have been overreacting, but that was just who she was after all.
“Hi, sweetheart,” said Tiffany, wearing a smile and carrying shopping bags. “I was in the area, and I thought maybe you would like to grab some lunch with me.”
Rowen looked down at her computer. She had work to do, but she had to eat some time, and it wasn’t like she could just keep ignoring her mother. Eventually, she would have to sit down and spend some time with her. “Yeah,” she said with a sigh. She tried to put on a more convincing smile. “Sounds good. Let me just finish up here, all right?”
“All right, dear,” said Tiffany, looking pleased. “I’ll wait for you right outside.”
Rowen gave Rose some instructions and filled her in on the séance they would need to attempt later today. After that, she headed to the diner across the street with her mother. There, they got a booth and sat down with a couple of menus.
“I’m so proud of you,” Tiffany said, after they had ordered.
“Thanks,” said Rowen, feeling too awkward to say anything else. Honestly, it hurt her a bit that she hadn’t heard this from her mother before now. It was great that she was proud, but who cared? She hadn’t been proud enough to keep an eye on her life before now.
“And you have a nice man in your life.” Tiffany leaned a little closer, lowering her voice like they were a couple of girlfriends confiding in one another. “I’m so jealous, if we’re being honest. I’ve
never had a man like that.”
“You spent a long time with the last guy,” Rowen pointed out, unable to keep herself from being annoyed. She hated that her mother was so willing to admit she had abandoned her own daughter over a guy she didn’t even like that much.
Tiffany leaned back in the booth they were seated at and rolled her eyes. “He was a pain. He lived so far off the grid. I thought that was because he was a free spirit, but then he started getting clingy and talking marriage. You know how I feel about that.”
“Yeah, I know,” said Rowen, growing progressively more annoyed. Her mother wasn’t one to be tied down by much of anything. “So, how long do you think you’re back in town for?” Her tone sounded a little cruel to her own ears when she asked. She couldn’t help it. Rowen wasn’t willing to get used to the idea of her mother sticking around. She would be on her way to some other town soon enough. Rowen wasn’t even sure that she wanted the alternative.