by Raven Snow
Tiffany didn’t answer at first. Their food had come. She thanked the waitress but left the food untouched. She turned her gaze to Rowen, frowning. “I don’t know how long I’ll be here,” she said. “Honestly, though? I was thinking about moving back.”
“Moving back where?” Rowen asked, immediately. It was a stupid question. She meant Lainswich. Of course, she meant Lainswich.
“To the house,” said Tiffany, raising an eyebrow at her daughter. “I mean, you’ve moved back. It’s so nice there with everyone.”
“Everyone isn’t there, though,” Rowen pointed out. “Grammy isn’t there.”
“Well, obviously,” said Tiffany. “I meant all the family that could be there. Grammy can’t exactly be with us right now. She’s paying for a crime that she committed.”
“She did it for the family,” Rowen said, looking down at her food.
“Of course, she did, sweetheart,” Tiffany said, in the same condescending tone she used to talk with Rowen when she was a child. “Murder is murder, though. Right? It’s out of our hands.”
“I know that,” Rowen snapped. “I was just saying… You were talking about the family. The whole family isn’t at home, that’s all I was getting at.”
Tiffany’s gaze softened, like she felt she understood what her daughter was getting at. “I know you miss her,” she said, gently. “I miss her, too. She was my mother. You can’t imagine how much I miss her.”
“Bet I can,” Rowen muttered, pushing her mashed potatoes around with her fork.
“What was that?” asked Tiffany.
Rowen couldn’t keep it to herself anymore. Her patience had been worn too thin. “I thought of Grammy like my mother,” Rowen said. She continued when Tiffany had the audacity to look confused by that statement. “She was around a lot more than you were.”
Tiffany’s face darkened. “That’s not fair,” she said, sternly. “That’s not fair at all.”
“How is it not fair?” Rowen couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You ran out on me when I was just a kid. You left me with your mom, and Grammy raised me. Heck, your sisters raised me more than you did. That’s not unfair, Mom. That’s just a fact.”
“I always came back,” Tiffany pointed out. “I never left for very long.”
“You left for years at a time. You came back for holidays, sure, but that was only half the time.” Rowen realized she was starting to raise her voice. She tried to keep it down before people started to stare at them. A few were glancing in their direction already.
“Don’t shout and make a scene,” Tiffany said. She took a deep breath. “We’ll talk about this later. The food is getting cold.”
Rowen looked back down at her food, sighed, and started to eat. “Fine,” she said, though it really wasn’t. They probably wouldn’t talk about this later either. They had had conversations similar to this one more times than Rowen could count. Each and every time, her mother found a way to change the subject. She wasn’t even sure why she tried anymore.
Chapter Four
The séance did not go well. They tried a proper séance at first. They set up in the storage room, set candles out in a circle, and held hands. Eric even dropped by. Rowen, Eric, Rose, Peony, and Willow all sat there and tried very hard to concentrate on the last victim.
They called out to Jason, but no one answered. Finally, they pulled out the Ouija board. Sometimes, they had better luck with that. Still, no one answered.
“We need Margo here,” said Peony. “She knew him. It’s easier to reach someone when you have a person they were close to.”
“Well, Margo isn’t coming,” Rowen snapped. She apologized immediately for that. “Sorry, let’s just try to concentrate.”
It didn’t work, though. Peony was right, of course. It would have been significantly easier had they had Margo around. Rowen had sent Margo a text. There had been no answer, though. In the end, they got nothing.
Rowen went outside to call Ben and tell him as much. She had hoped they could help. If this guy had killed twice, he could very easily kill again.
It was cool outside. The sun was already down, and Rowen wondered if Ben was even still at work. Probably. He was the sort to work long hours when things got rough.
Of course, now that Rowen had time to let it stew for awhile, she found herself becoming progressively more angry with Margo. She dialed her cousin.
No one answered. No surprise there. Margo had a tendency to give someone the silent treatment when they ticked her off. Rowen hated that about her. She waited until the phone went to voicemail and let loose.
“Hey, this is Rowen,” she said, stating the obvious. “We just got finished with a séance here at work. As I’m sure you know, that’s a pretty time sensitive thing. If we wait too long, there’s a chance he’ll move on, and then we’ll never be able to talk to him. If you were here, we might have had a better chance of getting ahold of him. We might have been able to solve this thing. I’m sorry you’re upset, but I’d think that would just make you want to help more, right? We could make sure that what happened to him never happened to anyone else. Instead, you’re off who knows where sulking, and-” A loud crack cut Rowen off. The brick of the building behind her splintered.
Placing the sound as a gunshot, Rowen shrieked and dropped down to the pavement. She lost ahold of her phone in the process. That was hardly her first concern, though.
The door opened behind Rowen. “What-” began Eric, but Rowen was already scurrying past him.
“Get in the back!” Rowen shouted, startling everyone. They all looked up from what they were doing but no one started moving immediately. They just stared at her. “Someone shot at me!” she amended.
That got everyone to move. Eric practically dragged her across the room and toward the storage closet after locking the door. They piled in, questions pouring from Willow and Peony. Rose, at least, had the presence of mind to pull out her phone and call 911.
“Are you sure someone was shooting at you?” asked Willow.
“Well, a bullet was involved,” Rowen said, frowning at her. “And it came awfully close to my head. I don’t know if they were aiming for me. I didn’t exactly stop to ask questions.”
Eric took Rowen’s face in his hands at that. He moved his fingers across her cheeks, looking down at her as if inspecting for damage.
Rowen managed a deep breath and a smile. “It’s all right,” she told him. “I’m okay. I’m just shaken up is all.”
“What if they come in here, though?” asked Peony, listening carefully near the door.
Rowen doubted that. They had shot from a distance, and they hadn’t used a silencer or anything. It didn’t seem like any well-outfitted assassin was after her or anything - just some guy with a gun. While similarly disturbing, she imagined he was long gone by now. Still, she didn’t suggest anyone venture from the storage closet until she heard the police outside.
The police called Rose back, confirming their presence at the front door. Everyone, finally, came out of their spot in the closet and headed for the door. Ben was standing there, wearing a concerned expression. Rowen appreciated that. There were also a couple of police cars with blinking lights out front. That had attracted a crowd - which Rowen didn’t appreciate nearly as much. She opened the door.
“Are you all right?” asked Ben, putting a hand on Rowen’s shoulder. It was unprofessional but touching.
“She’s fine,” said Eric, sweeping an arm around Rowen.
Ben frowned but didn’t push the matter. “We’re going to search the area,” said Ben. “I’ll stay here with you guys while my men canvas the area. The shooter is probably long gone by now, but I want you to stay in here until we give you the all clear.”
“You don’t even have to ask,” called Willow from the storage closet. She still hadn’t left the safety of it.
“Where did it happen?” asked Ben.
Rowen pointed to the front door. “I was right out there on the phone. You can see
the hole in the building where it missed me.”
“Did you see anyone?” asked Ben.
Rowen shook her head. “I wasn’t really looking. I just sort of realized what happened, dropped my phone, and ran.” Remembering her phone, Rowen looked to the front door. “Did you see it when you came in?” she asked, squinting at the place where her phone should be. Maybe it was just hidden in the dark, but she couldn’t see it.
Ben looked out the door himself. “No,” he said. “There’s no phone out here.”
“Do you think the shooter took it?” Already, Rowen was thinking of all the names she had in her address book. There weren’t any addresses attached, but those shouldn’t be difficult to find.
“A passerby could have grabbed it,” said Ben, though he didn’t sound convinced. That wasn’t something people normally did in a place like Lainswich. It was a small town. If someone found something that belonged to you, it was normally returned. Rowen had a feeling she wasn’t going to get her phone back.
Rowen gave Ben the number for her phone. With any luck, the guy had taken it and left the GPS on. It was over an hour before they could leave. The police had finished canvassing the area sooner than that, but they all had to give statements. After that was done, Willow had to be coaxed out the front door.
There was a nice gouge in the brick out front. Ben said he would have to get a ballistics expert to look at it, but it looked like a hunting rifle to him. That contributed to her theory that whoever had taken a shot at her wasn’t a professional. “And you have no idea who it could be?”
Rowen could only shake her head. “No one I can think of, specifically,” she said. Of course, there were plenty of people in town who weren’t overly fond of Rowen or her family. They had made some enemies with their paper and when they had helped to put the former police chief away.
Ben sent Rowen and her family home. He assured them he would have a patrol car drive by regularly to keep an eye on them, and instructed them to call if they had any reason to believe that their lives might be in danger.
“It could have just been some weirdo trying to scare you,” Eric said, once they were back in their trailer. He sat on the sofa with his arm around her. There was a movie on, but neither of them were paying much attention to it. “This is sort of a hick town. It seems likely someone here just wanted to make you jumpy.”
Rowen shrugged. “Maybe,” she conceded. That was a distinct possibility. Something told her that she wouldn’t be quite that lucky. A knock on the door made Rowen jump. She hadn’t realized how quite on edge she was.
Eric raised a hand when she started to get up. “I’ll get it,” he told her, heading in that direction already.
The door opened. “Can I talk to Rowen?” asked Margo, her voice sounding a bit strained.
“Rowen!” Eric called, but Rowen was already on her way to the door.
Margo went right past Eric and to her cousin. She threw her arms around her, squeezing her tight. Rowen couldn’t help but smile and hugged her back. “Guess you heard the exciting news,” said Rowen.
Margo pushed Rowen back to arm’s length and punched her in the arm. “I got just about the scariest voice message ever!” she said, pulling her phone from her pocket for emphasis.
Rowen put a hand over her mouth to a hide a smile that was certainly in poor taste. She could only imagine what that message must have sounded like. “I’m sorry,” she said. “For the message and… you know. Earlier today.”
“Forget it,” said Margo. “I’m too busy being worried about this now. Do they know who it was?”
“Not yet.” Rowen was hopeful that they would find out and soon. She wasn’t sure she was going to be able to rest easy any time soon after this.
“Do they think it could be the serial killer?” asked Margo.
That thought had occurred to Rowen. She had tried not to place too much stock in it, though. “I don’t see why it would be. It’s not really his MO. He’s more… you know… hands on. I’m not sure a gun is his style.”
Margo shook her head slowly as if deep in thought. “I guess it doesn’t matter if it is or isn’t. Either way, it’s a psycho.”
Rowen couldn’t disagree with her. She wished she would stop talking like that, though. It wasn’t like there was anything she could do about this whole ordeal.
“You need to come back to the house,” Margo announced, taking her cousin by the arm and tugging her toward the door.
Rowen blinked at her. “What?”
“You need to come back to the house,” Margo repeated. “No arguing. It’s safer in numbers, right? You’re coming back to the house.”
Arguing with her was useless. Eric wasn’t much help either. In the end, they headed back to the house. She had a point, after all. It was safer in numbers.
Rowen’s bedroom in the attic was free for her to use - which came as something of a surprise. It had been Tiffany’s old room when she was a girl. Rowen had thought, for sure, that her mother would take it back for a few weeks when she moved back in. Instead, Tiffany had taken Grammy’s old room. For some reason, that bothered Rowen more than anything.
Rowen tried to keep those thoughts to herself. She made nice with her mother and did her best to socialize with the rest of the family. There was talk about whether or not they should put what had happened in the paper. Of course they would. This was Rowen’s story to tell, and she was going to tell it if that meant bringing some positive attention to the paper.
By her usual bedtime, Rowen was more than a little ready to hit the hay. She went up to her room with Eric. The both of them settled down on the bed, closed their eyes, and… Rowen couldn’t sleep.
It was like her eyes were so tired that they didn’t want to stay open. Her mind kept racing, though. There didn’t seem to be anything she could do to still it. She thought of the sound the gunshot had made. She thought of the people it could have been. She was running through a list of probable suspects when a crash outside rocked her from any chance of sleep.
Rowen sat straight up in bed. Eric wasn’t far behind. “What was that?” he asked.
It took Eric a moment to sort out where he was and what had woken him, but he was out of bed as soon as Rowen was. “There was a loud sound outside,” she said, venturing to the window.
“Careful.” Eric put a hand on her shoulder. He got to the door before she did. “Someone ran a truck into the tree out front.”
“What?” Rowen went to the window to see for herself. Sure enough, there was the outline of a truck. Her favorite willow tree out front was splintered from the trunk up. Rowen swore under her breath. She had loved that tree. She left the room at a jog with Eric not far behind her.
“Hold on!” Eric called. “We still don’t know who it is. Stay inside. I’ll check it out, and you can call the police.”
“I know who it is,” Rowen said, ignoring him and continuing down the stairs. Already her cousins were venturing from their respective rooms.
Tiffany stepped out into the hallway as well. “What was that?” she asked.
“A truck crashed into the willow out front,” Rowen said quickly, continuing on to the front door.
“Who did what to Willow?” asked Margo.
“I’m right here,” said Willow.
“It wasn’t me,” said David coming out from behind Margo, looking wide-eyed and a little sheepish. Last time, he had been the drunk one to plow right into their garden.
Margo gave an exasperated sigh, no doubt coming to the same conclusion that Rowen had. She shouldered past David and followed Rowen out the front door. Sure enough, there was Terry. Margo’s ex husband had thrown the door to his truck open and was stepping out onto the lawn as Rowen and Margo crossed it to meet him. Beer cans and bottles poured out as he exited.
“You have to be kidding me!” Margo shouted. This wasn’t the first time he had pulled a stunt like this.
Rowen had to catch Margo by the back of her nightshirt before she could do anything she m
ight regret. “Are you all right?” asked Rowen, unable to force a whole lot of concern into her voice. Clearly, he was okay enough to stand.
Terry teetered where he stood. It took a moment, but his eyes focused in on Margo. He lurched toward her. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”
“Okay,” said Rowen, satisfied that he wasn’t hurt. She tried to pull Margo back toward the house. It was time to call the cops and let them sort this out.
“Excuse me?” asked Margo, holding her ground.
“Don’t play dumb.” Terry took a deep breath. He pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “We need to talk,” he said, trying a different approach to successfully communicating with his ex.