Once Upon a Murder

by Kodi Heart

  My commute brought me down from Twin Lakes, just north of Rathdrum in Idaho. Elisha, a new member, drove all the way in from Moses Lake. We also had some people as far away as Missoula, Montana. They would come and stay for the weekend.

  For the first time in a long time, I actually felt like going out with them to a restaurant or something. I nodded slowly, and met Robyn's gaze. “Yeah, I think that sounds really good actually. Thanks, Kami. I'll talk to Robyn.”

  Kami placed her hand on my arm. “You’ll feel better soon, I just know it.” She smiled and continued, “I'll be there a little bit later. They asked me to help put things away here. Can't turn down the library when the library might hold your book someday, right?” It was the pang of the writer's existence – anything for exposure. In Kami's case, she was trading physical labor for a chance that something of hers might be read in that small building.

  Robyn liked to joke that she would have to trade her body for readers. That girl had an obsession with prostitutes.

  I approached Robyn, sighing. The idea had become exhausting to go out. I didn’t want anyone to see my face, but at the same time, I didn’t want to be alone. “Want to go to dinner with the rest of the writers, or do you want me to take you home first?”

  She shook her head quickly. “Nah, I'll catch a ride. I bet Grant will be heading home soon. I can probably bug him.” But she avoided my gaze. Something was up and I couldn't tell what, but she was a big girl and I didn’t want to seem clingy. She already did so much for me. “Okay, thanks. Let me know if you change your mind. I can swing back this way and take you home.”

  I followed the rest of the writers in my car to Denny's. A bowl full of clam chowder and some of their rolls would definitely be comfort food that night.

  A small part of me was disappointed that David hadn’t shown up. I kind of wanted to see Robyn murder him. Was I wrong to feel so vengeful toward him?

  Chapter 2

  I sat in the middle of the booth with Stephen and Cindy sitting to my left. I had a spot open for Robyn, just in case she showed up, to my right.

  Where was she? I couldn’t shake the sensation that something was up. I dug through my purse, looking for my phone. Heck, where was that thing? I usually had it tucked in the side pocket. My notifications had been unusually quiet since I left the writers’ group.

  Why hadn't I heard from anyone? There was my paranoia again, rearing its ugly head. Even surrounded by so many people in the group, I still felt all alone.

  With my purse on my lap, I searched with one hand, dragging my bag closer to my stomach, and shuffling things around inside. Since my bag had fallen to the ground, everything was out of place. Inside the voluminous bag, I stored a planner, pens, pencils, erasers, my dictation headset, recorder, some notebooks, a binder, and, oh nice, a candy bar I’d lost in there last week. Everything was in a shamble, and I frowned as I searched further.

  Tucking the bar into a side pocket so I would have it for later, I yanked up the sides of the bag and rammed my hand all the way through to the bottom.

  “How was your last book launch?” Tiffany tapped her finger on the table in front of me. She sat across from me at the table, her blue eyes wide. “I've been watching you on Facebook and watching your rankings. You're getting better and better. Every launch is hitting the bestsellers’ lists. Do you think you'll hit USA and NYT this time?”

  “I'm not sure. It was pretty exciting.” I laughed, uncomfortable with all the questions. Ever since I had gone into publishing about a year ago, I wasn't comfortable with all the different forms of attention I was getting. My erotica romance pen name – Roxxy Wild – was shooting through the roof, both in rankings and in sales, but I wasn't even sure it was what I wanted to write.

  I really wanted to write inspirational romances, the feel good books, the ones where the sex isn’t what matters, where the girls prayed for their heroes instead of screaming at them. To make things even worse, David had expected me to be just like the characters in my books. I was as shy and inexperienced as they came, and he didn’t like that I never wanted to do anything with him. I refused to.

  Some guys you just didn’t let too close.

  Tiffany winked at me. “I would love to get some tips from you. Maybe I can come over tomorrow or sometime next week? I have a book releasing in a couple weeks and I'm pretty nervous to fall on my face.” Her laugh tinkled around the nearly empty restaurant. The Denny's in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho was usually a little less busy than the one in Spokane.

  “Yeah, let me talk to Robyn and see what I have open.” The sad part of all of it was Tiffany didn't even like me before I started hitting the list, and I wasn’t so stupid as to believe she and I would be buddies.

  “Hey, did anybody see Sylvia Williams tonight? Why wasn't she at the meeting?” Tesha ran over her attendance list. She was one of the best vice-presidents the group had ever had. We kept hoping the president would step down since she was never there, but she had to be present for that to happen.

  But Tesha kept us all inline, which meant she probably would never be released from the board. She wasn’t totally in love with the job, but she did it anyway.

  Craig cleared his throat. “Sylvia and David were supposed to be going out tonight.” He glanced uncomfortably at me. He raised his hands to chest level, palms out. “I didn't know until I got a text from him a little while ago. He said that's...”

  I shook my head, neutral on the whole thing. “I don't care. But thanks, Craig, for thinking of me. Sylvia can do whatever or whoever she wants to.” I glanced around at the group and noticed a few people were missing. “Did Sandy say why she wasn’t coming?” I had to change the direction of the topic of conversation from David to anyone else.

  “Well, I heard Sylvia is out of town, so I’m not sure how much I would trust David. And you know Sandy. She's been trying to get out of the group for a while. She keeps trying to make me take her treasurer position.” Tesha laughed. “But I'm good as vice. That way I can stand in when needed, but I'm not the final answer.” She shook her head and glanced up when Craig spoke.

  “I’ll take treasurer. That’s what I do for work. It’d be simple enough.” He wiped at his nose and peered at the menu. He checked his watch and drummed his fingers on the table in front of him.

  “I’ll ask Sandy, if we can do that. That might be a great solution to never having our treasurer present.” Tesha jotted the note down on her pad of paper.

  “Did anybody see where Kami went to?” Without my phone, I had no way to contact my friends. I didn’t even know where Kami was. It shouldn't take that long to stack chairs.

  “She just walked in.” Craig shifted from the bench seat to let Kami into the booth beside me.

  Kami pushed at the knot of hair she’d thrown together. She seemed out of breath, but overall just rushed. “Sorry, guys. I had to stack at the library, and then I had to help Robyn get a ride home.” She’d had time to put makeup on and she had the features of a model.

  “It's okay, I couldn't find my phone to call you. I probably left it in the car or something.” I leaned over and squeezed her shoulder. “I’m glad you made it.” I smiled at her and shifted back as the waitress placed my bowl of clam chowder in front of me.

  I sighed as steam rose above the bowl.

  Craig leaned forward and grabbed his jacket. “Well, ladies, I need to get going. I'll see you next week.” He laughed, his abrupt departure expected, because it wasn’t the first time pulled it. Craig was a guy. With the kind of stuff he wrote, who knew what he was going to come up with.

  After he had exited the front door, Shana and Cindy leaned forward. Shana's voice was in a hushed whisper as she leaned across her onion rings. “Did you guys read Craig's chapters that he submitted for critique?”

  I hadn't. With all the drama with David and being under deadline, how was I supposed to have time to critique everyone’s stuff? In fact, I was extremely relieved when Robyn suggested that we not do the critique until next
week. “I didn't have a chance to.”

  Shana pursed her lips. “It's all about this guy who's going to rescue these girls, and they’re like underage prostitutes. What he does is he ends up using them as his own prostitutes, and then, like, it turns into some kind of love story. He’s their pimp and he's like four times their age at like fifty, right? These girls aren’t even legal age.”

  Cindy nodded jerkily. “Yeah, and the guy is obviously a bigot. He called them the N-word and commented on their skin color more times than he commented on their breasts, which is saying a lot.”

  I rolled my eyes, leave it to Cindy and Shana to focus on the negative. Although to be honest, Craig’s stories ran right on the line of appropriate and censor-necessary. We constantly had to rein him in on what would be acceptable for readers and what wouldn't. The fact that the girls in his stories were underage was not surprising.

  His last book had been a sci-fi on some kind of moon with women who were fifteen-years-old and older, and they worked as miners. We never understood what the plot was. The entire book was filled with descriptions of the women's bodies. Something was definitely wrong with Craig, but no one said anything out loud.

  Tesha shrugged. “We’ll just continue to make our suggestions to Craig, and if he likes our suggestions, great. If not, then that's gonna have to be up to him to make the changes that are needed.”

  But was it okay? Were we even making helpful suggestions to everybody? Had anyone even read David's work? He’d gone to a publishing house with an agent and he had gone big. Fast.

  Behind my back. I didn't care he had gone the traditional route. That was what was so nice about writing in the 21st century. You could be any kind of author you wanted to be. Traditional, hybrid, or indie. It didn’t matter.

  What mattered was the fact that he hid it from me. It would take more than just a month to write a potentially best-selling great book. Especially for someone who only went to writers’ groups because he wanted to control me and make sure I wasn't flirting with any of the guys there. And Craig was our only guy, which should be pretty telling on how controlling David was.

  I couldn't find my phone, and I crunched my bag in frustration. It was most likely in the car. I needed a purse with zippers.

  Dinner with my friends was exactly what I needed. I dipped my spoon into the clam chowder. Where was Robyn? And why the heck had Craig left early?

  I ignored the fact that Sylvia might be out on a date with David. If the woman wanted to write erotica with BDSM thrown in, she could have at it. She could get all the beatings she wanted from David.

  Glaring at my clam chowder, I took a deep breath to calm down. My bitterness wouldn’t salt my dinner. I wasn't going to let anything ruin my night. I took a bite of the creamy goodness and chewed on the potatoes.

  Life was good.

  Maybe, just to soothe my bruised cheek a little bit, I would let myself get a huge Denny's cookies and cream milkshake.

  Not maybe. I was ordering that as soon as the waitress came back around.

  ~~~

  I wiggled my fingers at Cindy and Shana as I slid into the front seat of my car. I was definitely an addict for the Honda Fit. The small lines fit me very well, and I maneuvered it easily through the rain-splattered streets.

  I didn't have any problems with the dark drive home, until I started thinking about what a dark ride home it was. I had forty minutes to get me from the bright lights of town to the head-on lights of semis and other cars passing me. Oncoming traffic dwindled as I got further out into the woods.

  Jaunting up Highway 41, I ignored the fact that I hadn't seen another car in almost five minutes.

  I turned left to head out toward Twin Lakes, where I had inherited a lake property from my parents six months before. Dad had died soon after Mom. All the family I had left were my two aunts. David had tried to take them away from me, too. I swallowed the bitterness at him and the things he’d cost me.

  Thankfully, I had left him before I lost all semblance of self-esteem, but even that had worked its way to where it was barely salvageable. Too bad I couldn't slap a review on his forehead, preventing other women from dating him. “One star. Not a good kisser. Even worse boyfriend.” Like the random reviews left by reviewers on all kinds of books, like a forewarning for future purchasers.

  I pulled into my driveway, the long gravel ruts highlighted in my headlights. I turned my brights on, as if that would help anything to dispel the creepiness of a rainstorm thundering down on the hood of my car in the middle of the forest at eleven o’clock at night.

  Nothing was really helping me come home by myself lately. I had felt a lot safer when I was dating David. At least then I hadn’t worried he might show up and beat me to within an inch of my life.

  I shook my head and shifted into park with my garage door reflecting my headlights back at me. “Come on, Liv, you’re okay. His car isn’t here. No one’s going to get you.”

  My phone still hadn’t shown up. I reached up and turned the overhead light on and dug around in the seat creases and in between the crevices by the middle console. Where had that thing got to?

  I hoped I had left it at the library. If it had fallen out and maybe slid underneath the table or something, that would be awful. I didn't feel like driving down to the Post Falls library again, at least not anytime soon. But at least it would have a dry place to be.

  I ignored the fact that I would be there again next Friday. I sighed. Of course, I was going to go inside. I couldn't sit there in the car, with the darkness encroaching upon me. I would go out there, I would have to walk into my house.

  Was anything waiting for me in the shadows? We had a serious coyote problem in the summers. The rain would probably keep them at bay, but that didn’t help me feel any more secure. I glanced out into the darkness, as if I could see anything.

  I shoved open the door and grabbed my bag, the clink of the items in it reassuringly familiar in the dark.

  David hadn’t gone to the writers’ group. Was he waiting for me somewhere? Was he waiting to hit me again? Or maybe he was mad at me. Or maybe he wanted to gloat some more. I had no idea. I hated the uncertainties.

  I needed to talk to Robyn. My hands shook, and I tried focusing on the scent of the fresh rain and the pine trees all around me.

  Approaching the front door, I reached for the cold brass handle. Then I stopped. Of course, I forgot I had locked the doors. Which I never did. Nobody locked their doors out there. Just recently someone had said something in our neighborhood watch group about teenagers trying to break in and steal things. Not exactly the most comforting thing I could think of. So, I had resolved to lock my doors for the first time in forever.

  But I couldn't remember where I had left my spare key. I didn't keep one with my car keys. My mama told me once that it just wasn't a smart idea. As I stared at the locked keyhole on my door, I couldn't remember what the reason was.

  I kept my spare by the backdoor, underneath a log in the firewood pit. Yay for me! I got to go and walk around in the dark, searching for a small key amongst a stack of logs.

  Why hadn’t my dad put in outdoor light switches?

  I rounded the corner of the house on my wraparound deck, and slowed. The back-porch light was on. That didn't make sense. I didn't leave it on. I slowed my walking, my footsteps echoed off the vinyl siding.

  Had I forgotten to turn them off? I took a deep breath. That must be it. I must've just forgotten. Nothing else made sense. Nobody would come to my house and turn the lights on. At least not a thief. I didn't think so.

  Or would they? I’d never been robbed before, so I didn’t know what the proper robber etiquette was.

  Did I ever give David a key in the year and a half we were together? I couldn’t remember. Oh, my gosh, so I was going to be killed. Was it going to happen right there?

  Okay, Olivia breathe, your imagination is getting carried away. Nobody is even there.

  I chuckled softly. There I was, stirring myself int
o a hissy fit, and nothing had even happened. So what if my light was on? It wouldn’t be the first time I had left it on and forgot.

  A crash to my right startled me and I stumbled against the side of the house, my arms tight against the wall. My eyes widened, and I stared into the dark as much as I could see.

  Stormy, my mom’s cat, slumped onto the porch in front of me, her gray matted hair at odds with her beautiful, striking blue eyes. The cat had come with the house. I clutched my hand against my chest. She might not survive the night.

  “Stormy, you almost killed me. You have got to be quieter than that. What are you doing on top of the roof anyway?” My heart beat with a fierce pounding and I couldn’t get it to calm down.

  She looked up at me, something red on the paws of her feet. Great, now what was she killing?

  I shook my head and peeled myself from the wall. “All right, I'll feed you in just a minute. I need to get inside. No, you're not coming inside, there's nothing for you in there.”

  Was I talking to myself or was I talking to her? The comfort of my voice wasn’t as comforting as I’d hoped, but the sound of my voice mixing with the lake lapping against the beach was more comforting than the silence and beating of my heart.

  I stepped forward, bit by bit, uncomfortable with the fact that my lights were on and my cat had almost killed me, or I her. I couldn’t be sure.

  As I rounded the corner, I gasped, covering my mouth with my hands.

  Now I knew where David was.

  His body sprawled across the deck, his left leg bent at an angle with the foot dangling off the porch. His head faced away from me, positioned as if he watched the pair of glossy, red high heels facing away from him. A red handled pair of scissors protruded from his chest.

  I held my hand over my mouth and tried not to scream.

  Had David come there for me? Had he come there to kill me? There was something oddly familiar about the way the scene was set up. As if I'd read it somewhere, but I couldn't remember where. Certainly, it wasn't my work, I wrote romances, and pretty dirty ones. Where had I seen it before? More importantly, why wasn’t I rushing to see if he was still alive?