Once Upon a Murder

by Kodi Heart

  If Grant didn’t consume my thoughts, I’d consider pursuing Ethan in a heartbeat.

  “I need to work on my book.” I couldn't wait to get home. “Do you think Stormy is okay?” The cat wasn't mine, but that didn't mean I hadn’t grown to love her. She came for food. I could pretend that she missed me. She was the only thing that relied on me and I needed to be needed.

  “Why don't you call Grant? He'll know.” How nonchalantly she tossed us together when she had no idea what she was doing to us.

  I couldn't admit to her that calling Grant wasn't really an option. Maybe I could text him.

  As I pulled my phone out of my pocket, it buzzed in my fingers. Maybe we were connected. His text read, “Your house is a crime scene. Don’t go there. I'll let you know when you can return. Davis thinks I’m hiding something. You might need to come in for questioning soon. Any luck?”

  I didn't want to tell him we had no luck. There was zero luck to be had. Someone was hogging all the luck and I wanted some.

  “He texted me to stay away from my house. I guess now is the time to tell him Tesha has an alibi.” I ignored her humming under her breath. She wasn’t even listening to me anyway. I texted Grant back. “My cat is there. Can you make sure she has food? She's probably scared with everything.” I couldn't say anything else. What would I say? I have a killer after me... I’m with your sister... I’m desperately in love with you and I can’t have you? Because I’m too worried about losing Robyn... There were so many things that could be said right there, but why say them? We would just be rehashing history.

  Well, except for the killer part. As far as I was aware, I’d never been stalked by a killer before.

  I sent him a second text because I needed to ease my mind and also seem like I was thinking hard about the case. “Do you think Paul could have been jealous of David? Would he have done it?”

  His text back took a few minutes and was frustratingly short. “Anything’s possible when you love someone enough.”

  What did that mean? I glared at the screen of my phone. Like I didn’t love Grant enough to ask Robyn? Was that what he meant? I slapped my phone into my purse and decided to ignore it for as long as I could hold out.

  “Do you mind if we stop in at the post office? I need to get my mail. It’s been a couple weeks since I checked it last.” I reached into my purse and pulled out the brass PO Box key I kept in there for the random visits to town.

  “Of course not.” Robyn took the exit in Post Falls.

  Usually she got my mail. I paid her a lot of money to be my assistant and look pretty. We both made out really well on the success of my books. When she had time, she gathered my mail and sent out signed copies of my book covers, and anything else that needed done.

  We pulled into the post office and Robyn climbed out. I was the only one with the key, because the last time she had a key, she’d lost it and cost me fifty dollars. We had agreed I would keep the key and she would stay away from it unless I was with her or she needed it. I handed it across to her and smiled. She liked flirting with the mailman who looked like an Elvis impersonator.

  In moments, she returned from the mailbox with a package and a stack of envelopes in different colors. I cocked my eyebrow at her. It wasn't my birthday, so I wondered why I had a box.

  She climbed in the car and stuffed the packages on my lap with the stack of envelopes. “You either have a secret admirer or someone doesn't know when your birthday is. There's no return address.” She tapped the top of the box where the return address would be.

  “Did you do this? What did you order? I hate surprises.” I pressed my lips together and playfully snarled while opening the box with the mailbox key she handed back to me.

  “I didn’t do it. I promise.” Robyn put us in reverse and glanced over at me and the box. “What is it?”

  I opened the flaps and groaned at the large amount of tissue paper and bubble wrap filling the box.

  Robyn smirked as she pulled onto the street and headed towards Highway 41. Since I was staying with her for the next few days, I could safely say we were heading home. I wasn't sure if Grant would be there or not. I didn’t dare ask, since it would put more focus on him and I than I was comfortable with.

  The box was beautifully put together once I got past the large amount of bubble wrap. Tissue paper wrapped around tissue paper and what looked like a small note. “There's a little letter in here. Oh, my gosh, look at how cute this envelope is.” The envelope wasn't more than two inches by one inch. I had a thing for miniature or smaller than normal things.

  A small card came out made of extremely thick paper. I slowly opened it, careful not to tear the paper.

  “Well, read it.” Robyn reached over to try to take it as she screeched to a stop at a red light.

  Jerking it out of reach, I pointed at the road. “Just drive, princess. Jeesh. It says For the ending that never was.”

  Robyn stopped at a red light and leaned over. “There's a small red heart. How weird. What’s wrapped up?”

  I slid the card back into the envelope and set it on her the center console between us.

  Carefully pulling out the contents, I made sure to unwrap it with care. An ornately designed quill set made from what looked like ivory had been packaged in a clear glass box. The box was only made of glass, no metal for hinges or clasps or anything. The top came off like a shoebox, the lid whispering quietly when glass grazed glass.

  Nestled inside on white satin padding, the quill set had been nested beside a small vial of dark red ink.

  I exhaled in awe. “This is beautiful. I've never seen such an ornately designed piece of ivory.” I was careful not to touch the pen itself. Knowing my luck, I would break the pen and it would turn out to be an antique.

  Robyn held out her hand and I placed the box on it. She inspected it through the glass, glancing at the road and the box in alternating seconds.

  “I think that’s ivory. We'll have Grant look at it. That's really beautiful. Who is it from?” She handed it back carefully, returning her eyes to the road.

  I shrugged, glancing through the package one more time for any hint of who it might have come from. The generic bubbles and tissue paper didn't tell me anything helpful.

  Whoever had sent it, they were thoughtful nevertheless.

  “What do you want for dinner tonight?” Robyn leaned forward and turned the radio on just a little bit. I knew she would turn the volume up as soon as we finished talking.

  I didn't mind either. We had raised the roof of the car because the clouds were more ominous in Idaho than they’d been in Washington. A little bit of music to drown out my thoughts would be more than welcome. “I don't care. I’m not even hungry.”

  Robyn scoffed, resting her wrist on the bottom of the steering wheel. “Well, get hungry. Grant’s coming over and he'll definitely want a big meal. That man can eat. I don’t think it’s fair that he got the height and the metabolism.”

  A butterfly started flying in my stomach, and it was more than excited. Even with my trepidation and warnings warring inside my head. With as much stress as I was under, I deserved a little bit of a break. Seeing Grant was definitely my treat. I ignored the fact that the only reason we were seeing so much of each other was a murder. Before David’s death, I hadn’t seen Grant for a while before that. I had gotten pretty good at ignoring things.

  What would we talk about? How Tesha had a better alibi than Robyn and I did? Well, than I did? Robyn’s was solid.

  No one had really addressed my theory that Paul made a good suspect.

  Chapter 11

  Grant set a plate of chocolate cake and ice cream in front of me. Was that challenge in his eyes?

  Challenge or not, I couldn’t do it. I groaned and put my hand on my stomach. “No more. I can't take anymore. This is all way too good.” I held my laughter in. He didn't need to know that I ate when I was nervous, and he made me extremely nervous. Although, as long as we’d known each other, he probably already
knew that.

  He put on the face of a hurt puppy dog, which only enhanced the attractive angles of his face and the dark in his eyes.

  “But I bought it from Costco. This thing is like a foot high. You have to eat some of it. Seriously, Olivia, you cannot leave me with this cake. Either that or you have to make Robyn eat it.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

  I rolled my eyes and muttered something he could take as a curse word, but was really just me muttering gobbledy gook. “Fine. Robyn's not the only one that can take one for the team.” I laughed, and we stared into each other's eyes for a drawn out moment. Could I take one for the team?

  In the end, he would be the one suffering. I didn't have what it took to be the type of person that he needed me to be. I couldn’t even ask Robyn for permission to see her brother. What was wrong with me? He was a great guy. Better than Da- but I didn’t want to think ill of the dead.

  We were staying away from the topic that was in the forefront of our minds. What was that saying? The elephant in the room? Yeah, this was a whale and he was squirting whale juice all over the place.

  A buzz from my phone on the side of the table broke our connection. Grant cleared his throat and took his plate to the other side of the table. We had way too many things going on between us. Soon as the murder case was solved, I needed to return to my original plan of staying away from him. Nothing good would come from us being around each other.

  I grabbed my phone as if it were a safety net. Opening the text, I didn't recognize the number. For all I knew it could be anybody. Once I opened it, the message inside couldn't be more clear. “My brother is dead. I need to see you now. The cops said you did it.”

  Slapping the phone down on the table, I jerked my hand away like the phone might start to self-destruct. Was I being stupid? Kyle couldn’t see me. I hadn’t done anything. Then why did I feel so guilty? I stared at the message on the screen until the backlight turned off.

  Kyle.

  What kind of a person was I? I hadn't even thought about what it would do to Kyle.

  Kyle was David's younger brother. Younger but not by much. They were so close it was scary. The pain Kyle must be feeling... When David and I had first started dating, Kyle had warned me that David would be a problem. Then Kyle had gone and been more of a problem, constantly telling everyone how much he loved me and how much he was going to marry me. He’d even yelled at David multiple times at family gatherings how much David would miss out on if he lost me.

  We’d only ever been friends. And while Kyle had been a friend, he'd been uncomfortable to be around as well.

  Shame flooded me and I glanced at Grant. “David's brother just texted me. He wants me to meet him. The cops told him I did it.”

  “Do you want to go see him?” Grant's bluntness got right to the heart of it. I wanted to tell Kyle I was sorry but I didn't want to take the blame for something I didn’t do. My apology would be taken as a confession to guilt and who knows what it would trigger in David’s brother. Kyle was an emotionally unstable man and I didn't want to take the chance that he might hurt me or him. Or someone else.

  Did I want to? I’m not sure I wanted to, but I know I needed to. I should. David and I didn’t have a great relationship, but I was very close with his family.

  I threw one last anxious glance at Grant before texting Kyle back. “What do you have in mind? We could meet tomorrow?”

  His reply came back immediately. “I’m at Mike's. In the back.” Mike’s was a tavern in Athol that most of the locals went to. I’m not sure if it was because they liked the beer on tap or because options for watering holes were rare up in the forests of north Idaho. Either way, it was dark and dirty. Not my idea of a “public” place to meet someone.

  Glancing up, I shot my gaze between Grant and Robyn. She had moved to stand beside him from the kitchen and she wiped her hands on a yellow dishtowel. “He's at Mike's. He wants to meet right now.” At least that's what I understood his text to mean. He hadn't said yes or no to the next day. The tone of his message told me to go to him right now. I swallowed. I didn't want to see him.

  Was he the killer? Had he had enough of David’s antics? Was he really that jealous of David and me? Had David told Kyle we were getting back together? If I met Kyle at Mike’s, would I be the next one to end up dead?

  Studying my stricken expression, Grant licked his chocolate frosting covered fork. “I'll take you to see him. You're not going by yourself.” He glanced at Robyn and smirked. “You're certainly not going with Robyn here. She’s about as scary as a canary.”

  Robyn slapped his shoulder. “Hey. I resemble that remark.” Robyn was the worst when things came down to physical confrontation. If we were attacked, she’d probably just stand there and scream with her hands clenched at her sides. She acted scary, but she was all talk. I loved that about her.

  I swallowed, more grateful for his protection them I could say. If I told him the depths of my gratitude, my words would put more restraints on our relationship, more expectations and they would all funnel down to the expectations of everything resting on the shoulders of me. Would I ask Robyn...? I wanted to, but I wouldn’t. Grant didn't need more failures from me to add to the ones we already had.

  Tossing the towel toward the counter, Robyn thrust a hand on her hip and commented with a nonchalant tilt to her head. “I have a friend coming over anyway.”

  Grant clenched his jaw and sighed through his nose.

  I widened my eyes and pressed my lips together. Things were tense again and I didn’t want to be there when Ryan showed up.

  Returning back to Robyn’s that night probably wasn’t high on Grant’s list of things he wanted to do. He packed up the leftovers Robyn had dished him and I followed him to his car. We wouldn’t be gone long. I hoped. He could drop me off at his sister’s afterwards and I could just find my way upstairs. I had a book to write anyway.

  I settled into the bench seat beside him in his truck. Clicking my seatbelt, I angled my legs away from him to watch the clouds out the window. I chewed on my inner cheek, my eyebrows furrowed.

  “What’s wrong, Andrews? You have that look.” His words came softly in the dark, startling me.

  Twisting my lips to the side, I tried not letting my discouragement come through in my tone. I failed miserably. “I didn’t kill David. Can a cop say I did it? Without charging me or talking to me? I know the evidence points toward me, but is it okay to do that? Is it even legal?” I leaned my elbow on the windowsill and blinked back my frustrated tears. Sometimes, being a woman was hard. I didn’t love David, but I was still messed up about his murder.

  “Hey, it’s okay to be upset. You have a lot going on.” Grant’s tone shifted and he gripped the steering wheel with a pale knuckled grip. “Paul does what he wants. I told you to stay away from him for a reason and it wasn’t because...” He shook his head as if that would put our past behind us. “I wasn't joking about Paul. There’s something off about him. Let's consider the fact that you're dodging him when you’re a suspect. I don't think there are a lot of rules in place right now.”

  Of course, he was right. If I wasn’t going to play by the rules, why the heck should I expect Paul to?

  Grant cleared his throat and shifted on the seat, the movement jostling over to my side. “Tell me about Kyle. He was listed in David's phone. He sent quite a few text messages and there were a few missed calls from him, as well. He even had a long connected call, but I’m not sure on time of death, so I can’t time the call.”

  Pushing the button on my phone, I checked for messages or any calls out of habit. No one had reached out in the few minutes since I’d last checked, but talking about Kyle was more intimate than I wanted to own right then. But for the sake of the case, I dropped my phone to my lap and stared straight ahead while I spoke. “Kyle is David's younger brother. He's the heir now to the family fortune, the resort... everything.” I chuckled like the rest was a joke. “He’s professed to love me as long as I've known David.
Like psychotically obsessed love, but he's never treated me bad or been aggressive towards me.”

  The silence stretched between us. The tops of the trees caught the moonlight but only when the clouds allowed the man in the moon to peek out. The heater hummer softly by my feet and I tried not to imagine what it would be like to snuggle up to Grant like I belonged there.

  He turned onto Highway 54 and headed toward Athol. After another mile, he spoke. “Why did you date David? He's not even your type.”

  “You aren’t an expert on what my type is. And he,” I shrugged, because the truth was more pathetic than I could make up – even as an author. “He had me pretty convinced that no one else would want me. I wasn't enough to where someone would want to commit to other than him. I was a pity relationship for him. Well, I’ll tell you there, for a while, it tended to ring true. Some things are hard to shake.” I wouldn’t look at Grant. He didn't need to see my shame since he was hearing it loud and clear.

  Now he would know one of the reasons I couldn’t be with him. I didn’t want to go through the struggle with Robyn only to have Grant realize I wasn’t what he was expecting and he didn’t want to be with me.

  We almost got to Athol before Grant spoke again, his voice had grown hoarse and his words were thick. “Since he's with the Wilson family, does he inherit everything? I heard the Wilson patriarch was pretty sick.”

  I nodded, even though he wasn’t looking at me. “Yeah, he’s the heir of the resorts and the press. David used to tease him and laugh about the hundred thousand dollar life insurance Kyle would get if David ever died. It was a joke because David was insured, but Kyle wasn't.” The family dynamics had left me more confused than anything, but they’d welcomed me and that was sometimes more than enough.

  Grant finally shot a look at me, filled with surprise and a little pleasure. “Really? I think he might be our guy. Sounds like an awful lot of incentive to kill someone, especially since he professed to love you. That's a pretty big deal there as well.”