by Raven Snow
Margo sighed. She pushed soggy leaves of salad around on her plate. “Things were good between us. I really cared about him.”
“All of that sounds like it’s in the past tense,” Rowen pointed out. “You’re allowed to fall out of love with people, you know? If you don’t remember, you even have an ex-husband. I’m betting you loved him too at some point.”
“David was a heck of a lot better than Terry ever was,” Margo said quickly.
“Then tell him that. Still doesn’t mean you have to stick things out with him if you really don’t want to.”
“I don’t know what I want,” Margo admitted. She propped her head up on her hand and gave a weary sigh. Rowen could tell she had been holding this in for a long time and thinking about it for even longer. “I want to stay in Lainswich,” Margo said. “At least, mostly. I like traveling some, but not as much as David has to for work. I don’t want to be tied down, but I want some security.” She rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
Rowen offered her cousin a smile. “It doesn’t have to make sense, does it? You can always just keep your options open for a while. Shop around. See what you like.”
“As long as that involves giving Jasper another chance so I can help you solve a mystery, hmm?”
“Something like that.” Rowen glanced away. Said aloud, it did sound like a lot to ask from her. “I mean, it’s for a good cause.”
“I guess it is.” Margo groaned. “Fine. I guess I want answers, too… Seems like a really mean thing to do to Jasper, though.”
“Unless he had something to do with it.”
“No way.” Margo sounded sure of his innocence. “He tries to act big and tough, like he’s got his family’s legacy under control no problem, but he’s a mess. I don’t buy that he would have the nerve to murder anyone. Did you know his parents still give him written tests on rituals and stuff? He’s had me help him study. They give him anxiety.”
“People can surprise you. Maybe he had a hand in it because of how loyal he is to his family.”
“Maybe,” Margo conceded. “But I doubt it.” She pulled out her phone. “I’ll send him a text and let him know I want to meet up,” she said, doing just that. She flashed Rowen her phone screen. ‘Meet me tonight?’ it read. ‘I think we should talk.’
“How long do you think it’ll take him to text you back?” Rowen didn’t even get through her sentence before Margo’s phone pinged with a new text.
“He’s really stuck on me. What a handful.” Margo sighed like that annoyed her, but Rowen knew her cousin too well. She knew she got a sick kind of satisfaction out of the attention. “He wants to know where we should meet up.” Margo raised her eyes from the text to Rowen, like she should have the answer to that.
“I don’t know. Meet up wherever you want.” Rowen wasn’t sure why she got a say in this. “I mean, I suppose that motel you two have been using would work just as well as any place else.”
“I don’t know.” Margo put her phone back down on the table. “I don’t want things getting too intimate. Actually… I would prefer it if you were there.”
“Me?”
“You’re the one putting me up to this, so why not?” Margo nodded to herself, like that settled it. “Some place open would be good. I could meet him tonight at the park. We meet at that bench near the statue. You know. The weird modern art one. We’ll sit there, and you can hide nearby.”
“Who does that help?”
“You’ll be moral support. I’ll feel better knowing you’re there.” It didn’t sound like Margo was going to be talked out of this. “And if he says anything incriminating, you can wander up like you just so happened to be in the park. You can press him on whatever it was he just said. You can get more info out of him.”
“Seriously?” Rowen laughed. She couldn’t help it. “How in the world do I wander up like I haven’t been stalking you?”
“You were stalking us then.” Margo shrugged her shoulders like it didn’t matter. “Even better. You were following us and I didn’t know about it. I act all annoyed and keep my hands clean of this little investigation of yours.”
“That’s… not a bad idea.” It sounded like a lot of trouble. It also sounded like the handiwork of a crazy person. Even so, something in Rowen liked it. It sounded like their best bet at getting some real information and soon. “Alright, let’s do it.”
“I’m still mad at you,” Margo assured her cousin as she picked the phone back up and started texting Jasper instructions.
“That’s fine,” said Rowen. “I’d be madder at you if your infidelity wasn’t coming in so handy.”
***
Rowen had to talk Eric out of coming with her. She hadn’t actually mentioned it until she was dressed for a night of skulking around. With her black leggings, black hoodie, and soft-soled sneakers, she looked like either a stage hand or the world’s worst night runner. “I have to sneak around in the park tonight,” Rowen answered when Eric asked. “She’s trying to get some answers out of Jasper.”
“Answers? What answers? Hold up.” At this point, Eric could no longer hide that he thought his wife was really reaching with her theories of meditation murdering her grandmother.
Rowen really felt like she was on the right track. She tried to communicate that now. “Margo has him tied around her little finger. He’ll spill whatever he knows under the right conditions.” She pulled her hair back with a red scrunchie. She didn’t own a black one. “He won’t even see me unless I let him.”
Eric gave his wife an unimpressed once over. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure.”
Despite her husband’s objections, she still managed to get out the door and to the car on time. She got to the park well ahead of schedule. It would be at least an hour before Margo showed up, but Rowen needed to get in place before that. She needed to get in place before even Jasper, if he decided to get there early.
The park wasn’t crowded at this hour. It wasn’t crowded at any hour, really. There was no playground on it. There was no trail and no impressive gardens. It was mostly used for town functions and festivals. The rest of the time it was just sort of there. Rowen found the modern sculpture no problem. It was big and… well… angular. It was sort of like a cube within a cube within a triangle. She didn’t really get it, but she supposed you weren’t always supposed to “get” art. She hid behind one of its massive corners and waited.
It felt like ages. She pulled out her phone after a while and played on that for a bit. She almost didn’t even realize it when Jasper wandered up to the specified bench. She was lucky that the light from her phone screen hadn’t given her away. She quickly pocketed her phone and waited properly. She had almost fallen asleep more than once by the time Margo showed up.
“Hey.” Margo’s footsteps slowed as she approached Jasper. She sounded like she wasn’t sure she should be there. Rowen couldn’t tell if that was part of the act or how she really felt. “Am I late?” she asked.
“No,” Jasper assured her. “I got here sort of early.”
“Well, thanks for meeting me on such short notice.”
“It’s no problem. I always have time for you.”
Rowen couldn’t quite see them from where she was. She moved forward a bit, toward the line of shrubbery that walled the grass off from the path. It was riskier there, but Rowen could at least make out the people she was trying to spy on. She watched them sit down beside each other on the bench. Both of them seemed still, nervous.
“So, you wanted to talk,” Jasper prompted. He didn’t ask what about. He must have assumed it was their relationship.
“I do.” Margo shifted a bit where she sat, like what she had to say next made her uncomfortable. “You’ve made me change my attitude about your family, you know that, right?”
Even from a distance, Rowen could see Jasper’s eyes grow wide. “Really?” he asked, leaning toward Margo as if fascinated.
Jasper leaned back, putting the distance he had closed
back between them. “Really.” She didn’t explain why at first. She finally spoke when it became clear he wasn’t going to. Obviously, he expected some sort of explanation as to why she felt that way. “I really only knew you based on what my family said and based on how you acted at school.” She raised her shoulders in a small shrug. “My relatives are biased. Plus, they don’t know your generation of Stonewalls. And, I mean, I guess you can’t judge people by what they’re like in high school.”
“You were a snob in high school,” Jasper said, making it difficult for Rowen not to laugh. She didn’t have to see Margo’s expression to know what it looked like. “Obviously, you’re not now.”
Was he so sure about that? Margo was just about the snobbiest person that Rowen knew. Not that Margo thought that. A snobby person wouldn’t. “Right,” Margo said, slowly. “Anyway, my opinion of you is high now, for whatever that’s worth.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” said Jasper, even though ‘my opinion of you is higher’ was a pretty darn vague thing to say.
“Which is why I feel like I should warn you.” Here, Margo paused again. She looked down at her feet like she was torn. “One of my cousins went to volunteer at the prison with your sister recently.”
“Rowen, right?” Jasper asked, sounding like he didn’t see why that was a bad thing. “Amber mentioned it to me. She said your cousin is going to try to come more often. It’s a real long drive for Amber with all the other volunteering that she does. She was talking about quitting that place soon. Having a meditation class once or twice every other week sounds better for the inmates than no class at all. It sounds like a good thing to me.”
“It does,” Margo agreed. “But I’m afraid it’s not that simple. I’m afraid that she might have ulterior motives.”
“Ulterior motives?” Jasper repeated, sitting up straighter and squaring his shoulders. “Like what?”
Margo shifted in her seat, her gaze still on the ground. “I would rather not say. It’s embarrassing and, well, sort of horrible.”
“What is it?”
“She thinks… and this isn’t something she’s officially run by the rest of the family, but she thinks that the Stonewalls are responsible for Grammy’s death. She thinks your family conspired to murder her.”
“What?” Jasper couldn’t seem to help but raise his voice. “That’s ridiculous. Why in the world would— what reason does she have to think that?”
Margo shrugged and shook her head. “I really don’t know. I didn’t want anything to do with this weird investigation of hers. I…” She let the sentence trail like she was debating on whether or not she should even tell Jasper the next part. “I do know that a big part of it has to do with the money that was left to your parents.”
“Why would we murder her for that?” Jasper shook his head. “Why would we murder her at all?” he rephrased.
“Money is a good enough motivator for most people, I guess. For the record, I don’t buy it. You’ve met my cousin, though. She can be too nosy for her own good when she sets out to be.”
“We don’t need the money.” Jasper was fixated on Rowen’s opinion rather than Margo’s. That was good. “My parents are wealthy. I couldn’t tell you for sure how wealthy, but have you seen their house? I don’t imagine they could keep something like that up without money to spare.”
That was a fair point. Rowen had seen the Stonewall’s home years ago. It was like a Gothic mansion straight out of a period film. It was larger than the Greensmith home by nearly half and settled on three times as much land. Rowen had never figured out why they needed a place that big. Maybe they had just decided to show off their wealth when forced to move to Tarricville.
“I’ve tried telling her that,” Margo lied. “I can’t get through to her. You don’t know why your parents were left so much money, do you? I can’t lie. I’m sort of curious about it myself.”
“Well,” Jasper began. He hesitated like he was trying to come up with a good reason. Obviously, he wanted to answer her question. “I don’t know, honestly. I asked them myself, but they said it wasn’t my business.”
“I don’t suppose anyone else in the family knows. Aside from your parents?” asked Margo. It was a good question. If the grandparents knew, maybe Eric could get some answers.
“I don’t think so. Amber was with me when I asked.” Jasper paused and rephrased that. “Well, Amber was the one who asked. I just tagged along because I was curious. It’s not like we were going to get any of the inheritance money.”
“Does Amber need money for anything?” asked Margo. That was another very good question on her part.
“Why would she need money?” Jasper asked with a laugh. His parents paid for him after all. It stood to reason that they paid for her as well. “She lives at home. She’s as well off as the rest of us.”
“Is there a future for her in that? Living at home?”
“She’s a Stonewall.” Jasper said that like it should be reason enough in and of itself.
“Well, yes, but she’s not going to be head of the family.” At this, Margo reached out and gave Jasper’s arm a squeeze like the title was super impressive. “What does the future hold for her?”
“She’s part of the family.” Jasper lapsed into silence like he couldn’t immediately come up with something else. “She could do volunteer work. She likes doing that. The family would pay for her to keep up her lifestyle while she did.”
“And she’d be satisfied with that?”
“Sure. I mean, I think so. Why wouldn’t she be?” Jasper stared at Margo for several moments. “Wait, do you think that Amber had something to do with your cousin’s crazy theories.”
“No,” Margo said quickly. “Of course not. I was just wondering. That sounds kind of sad for your sister, doesn’t it? It sounds like she’s locked into one lifestyle there. Maybe she’s happy, but I know I couldn’t be.”
“No, volunteer work isn’t really your thing, is it?”
Margo gave him a playful punch on the arm. “Rude. No, what I mean is that I couldn’t stand having my future locked in and planned for me ahead of time. That would suck, knowing that my parents didn’t have anything special planned for me and that they didn’t want me going out and accomplishing something great on my own.”
“I think her volunteering as much as she does is great.” Jasper inclined his head toward Margo. “But I see what you’re saying. Amber has never acted like she had a problem with it.”
“Have you ever asked her?”
“No, I haven’t really had reason to. I figure I’d be able to tell.”
“What about me?”
“What about you?”
“What kind of plans did you have for me if we had started up a relationship?” asked Margo. She was drifting away from her reason for being here. It was like she genuinely wanted to know if their relationship had ever stood a chance. Rowen didn’t fault her for it. She didn’t think they were going to get much more out of Jasper. It felt like he had already told them all that he knew, which meant there was no reason for Rowen to come out of hiding.
“I figured we’d date for a while.” Jasper said that like it should be obvious. “We’d just date and see where it went from there, right?”
“It’s important to have plans,” Margo insisted. “Especially with families like yours and mine. I’d hate to get a relationship going only to find out there’s no future in it for either of us.”
“It’s a bit soon to be thinking about the future.”
Margo wasn’t backing down. “It’s irresponsible not to think about that future.”
That really got Rowen’s attention. She hadn’t realized that Margo had matured this much. Not that there had been anything particularly wrong with her before. Living life by the seat of one’s pants wasn’t against the rules or anything. Hearing this, though? Rowen liked it. She liked that Margo was thinking more long-term. It was a trait a lot of her family probably needed to focus on a bit more.
“You would want me to take the Stonewall name, I assume. If we had kids, they’d be Stonewalls.”
Jasper scooted away on the bench at the mention of kids. “Getting a little ahead of ourselves, aren’t we?”
“Are we? I don’t think so. This relationship is too high maintenance to be just about sex. I’d never hear the end of it from my family.” Margo was ignoring Rowen’s presence entirely. She was thinking rationally about this. “If it’s anything more serious, it has to have a future. It just has to.”
“It could,” Jasper said after staring at her for a while. “I mean, I’m sure we could sort something out.”
“Could we?” Margo sounded like she doubted that. She also sounded like she thought a little less of Jasper for his unwillingness to talk this out with her. “I don’t think we should see each other again after all.”
