by Susan Harper
“How have you been?” Monica asked, at last acknowledging Felicity’s presence as the actor made his way across the street, past the gazebo and toward the group of homes where filming was currently being done.
“I’ve been better,” Felicity said. “How about you two?”
Jesse shrugged and took a large gulp of her drink. “I’m all right. I’m just tired of all the reporters crawling around. A van blocked me into my parking spot this morning just because they were trying to get video shots of that elevator.” She took another swig of her drink and pursed her lips thinking about it.
“You and me both,” Monica huffed. “Honestly, it’s not like there’s anything there worth seeing. He’s not there anymore. He’s still at the morgue in Newnan.”
“You mean Charles?” Felicity asked. “How do you know he is still at the morgue?”
“I work at the hospital,” Monica said.
“Oh, that’s right,” Felicity said, recalling a few pictures she had seen online of Monica in scrubs. “Sorry, I had forgotten you had graduated from the same university as Autumn.”
“Yeah, except Monica doesn’t work with the creepy dead bodies,” Jesse quipped.
“Oh, shut up, Jesse,” Monica said. “At least Autumn has a career. How’s that plan to bag a rich one going?”
Clearly there was some hostility between the two friends, and Felicity was not sure how to take it. Half of their high school yearbooks were filled with pictures of the two cheerleaders posing together for pictures. Their friendship back then had seemed almost idolized, but they weren’t teenaged girls anymore. They were women who, it appeared, had taken very different paths while still winding up back home in the same town. “So what do you do at the hospital, Monica?” Felicity asked in hopes of removing the women’s attention off each other.
“I pretty much just draw blood all day,” she said. “I’m an incredibly underpaid nurse is all.”
“Do you like your job?” Felicity questioned.
“Of course—”
Jesse interrupted. “Don’t let her fool you. She’d rather not work. You’re no different than me, Monica.”
Felicity hesitated for a moment. “Is everything okay between the two of you? You two aren’t still hostile over being catfished by Charles, are you?”
“Is that why you asked us to coffee?” Jesse questioned. “To gossip about our embarrassing online dating experience?”
“Honestly, yes,” Felicity said, earning an annoyed smirk from both women. “It’s not because I’m trying to dive into your personal lives or anything. I’m just trying to figure out what happened to Charles. You see, my friend Bobby has been accused by the local police of killing him, and I’m just trying to clear his name. The police don’t seem interested in continuing their investigation, and it’s just not fair. They’ve arrested him over circumstantial evidence, and no one is doing anything about it.”
“Doesn’t that cutie you dated in high school work at the local station?” Jesse asked. “Jack Huddleston, right? Mmm… Whatever happened between you two?”
“He tried to tell me what to do,” Felicity said, knowing that the girl-power comment would probably lighten the mood with these two. They both laughed along with her for a moment. Now that the atmosphere was a little friendlier, she asked, “So, do you two mind answering a few questions? I’m really just trying to help Bobby out.”
Monica shrugged. “Ask away.”
“Could you two tell me exactly what happened between you both and Charles?”
“Well,” Monica said, taking the reins. “This cute guy friend requested me online, and we started chatting it up. I showed his picture to this back-stabbing tramp, so she starts messaging him too, and—”
“You two weren’t a thing,” Jesse hissed. “So stop getting mad at me because I messaged him. Besides, he liked me better—”
“You can have him. He’s at the Newnan morgue,” Monica said and laughed uncomfortably. “Well, anyway, he tells us both that he’s coming up to Senoia from Florida for the car show, so obviously we both show up.”
“I saw him first,” Jesse said and her face turned bright red. “I went right up to him and started talking, and then he tells me he has no idea who I was! ‘Um, it’s me, Jesse,’ I tell him, and he just shrugs.”
“She went up to Brandon,” Monica explained. “But as it turns out, Charles had been using his son’s picture to flirt with younger women online. It was all really embarrassing, and honestly, Jesse, I’m glad you were the one who ran up to him like an idiot before I had the chance to.”
“Whatever, Monica!” She slammed her cup down and glared at her so-called best friend, who replied with a halfhearted smirk.
“Whoa, hold the phone,” Felicity said, waving her arms slightly to calm Jesse down. Monica seemed to find the situation a bit more humorous while Jesse was getting increasingly agitated by the second. “Charles used his son’s picture to flirt with women online?”
“Yeah. Brandon was so embarrassed,” Monica said. “Charles was a creepy, old pervert who was looking to cheat on his wife, or at least maybe get some inappropriate pictures. You never sent him any, right, Jesse?”
“No!” Jesse snapped, and Felicity instinctively looked around to make sure no one was eavesdropping or staring. Felicity recalled Brandon telling her about getting into a fight with his father. The picture must’ve been what set them both off. She considered how unnerving it had to be to have a complete stranger run up to you gushing about a relationship you didn’t know you had. No wonder he’d been angry.
“You should have been there,” Monica said, seemingly trying to hold in a giggle. “Charles called Jesse his online lover, and Brandon backed away like he was really creeped out by them both.”
Jesse stood up, almost knocking her chair back. “All right, I’m done with my coffee, so I’m going home. I need a bath.” She seemed to be practically seething now, and Monica was eating up every bit of it. Felicity wondered how two people who clearly pushed each other’s buttons so much could maintain a friendship, and as if like clockwork, Monica lobbed another jab at her retreating friend.
“Going to wash off the creepy old man germs?” Monica teased, and Jesse made a rather crude hand gesture before calmly bidding farewell to Felicity and heading out the door.
“That was pretty harsh, Monica,” Felicity said. She’d known Monica to be callous on occasion, but she still wasn’t one for kicking you when you were down.
“She kind of had it coming, Felicity,” she said and took a sip of her almost empty coffee mug. “Look, I’ll be honest with you. I totally set her up, well, not exactly, but I knew she wasn’t really talking to Brandon online.”
“Wait, so you were talking to Brandon?” Felicity asked.
“I’ve known Brandon for, like, a year. Jesse saw his picture on my phone and then tried to find him online, but she friend requested Charles instead of Brandon and started chatting him up because Charles already had this fake profile he used to creep on younger women.” She stifled a giggle with her hand as she kept going, the memory of the story still saturated in amusement for her. “She showed me she was talking to him, and I realized right away that it wasn’t Brandon she was talking to. I had video-chatted Brandon on occasion, so I knew I had the real deal.” She leaned in closer to Felicity as she said this, as if it were a secret she shouldn’t be telling. “The guy she was suddenly friends with online only had, like, ten friends online and had liked all these old guy fan pages like golf and crap like that. Brandon had told me once that he had busted his dad doing this before, so I pieced together that Jesse was probably talking to Charles, like, six months ago.”
“And you just let your best friend get catfished like that?” Felicity asked, feeling slightly disgusted. She could never imagine letting someone she cared about be so viciously lied to and manipulated.
“Well, yeah,” Monica said and crossed her arms. “Look, Jesse and I are friends, but I wanted to kind of teach her a les
son. She always does this.” She let out a low sigh and scowled a bit. “If she had snagged Brandon away from me, he would have been boyfriend number five she weaseled out from under me. This insanity has been going on since high school. I think she was always peeved off that she never made head cheer leader or something. She dated all of my exes, cheated with more than one of my boyfriends, and she followed me off to college but couldn’t hack it in nursing school.” She was visibly upset at this point as she gripped her mug, sloshing coffee onto the table. “Now she creeps on me online, and she had the nerve to try and steal Brandon too, so when I realized what she had gotten herself into, I just kept my mouth shut and let karma take care of the rest.” She took another breath, leaning back in the chair and attempted to compose herself.
“That’s kind of cold,” Felicity said, but if half of what Monica had just said was true, she couldn’t blame her entirely. She couldn’t imagine having a friend who was essentially your personal stalker and man-snatcher.
“I know, but I was just getting tired of it.” She shook her head and looked forlornly out the window with a slightly pained smile. “Don’t worry, I’m going to tell her what I did. We always fight, but we always make up too. We’ve been friends too long, you know?” Monica finished off her coffee and leaned back in her seat. “Got any more questions for me before I go, Miss Detective?”
“Just two,” Felicity replied, going over the new information she’d gotten from the conversation. She’d covered just about everything, but something was still hanging in the air.
“Okay, shoot.”
“You didn’t happen to go to your insurance agency the day of the murder, did you?”
Monica raised a brow. “You mean the building where Charles was murdered? No, I didn’t. But look at you, Felicity, you really are a little detective. Is that why you messaged me? How did you even find out I used Bobby’s insurance agency? I’m kind of impressed.”
“You don’t have access to the building, do you?” Felicity asked.
“Nope.” She shrugged, “To tell the truth, we did most of our business over the phone or at the café,” she said, gesturing around them. “I didn’t even see his office.”
“Oh, well, so when did you start using Bobby’s insurance agency?” Felicity asked.
“Well, I just recently contacted them. I was thinking about buying a house, but then I changed my mind. So I really don’t use them at all; I was probably just listed in their computer because I asked for a quote.”
“Okay, just one more question for you,” Felicity said. “How did you and Brandon meet?”
“Oh, um,” Monica stuttered. She looked out the window, suddenly unable to make eye contact.
“He lives in Florida, right? Did you meet him there or online?”
“Um…online,” Monica repeated.
“Are you sure?” Felicity asked. “You seem a little flustered.”
“I don’t remember, really,” Monica said. “It’s been a while.”
“But you two have been dating, right? Is it serious?”
“I’d say so,” Monica said. “I met him a year ago at a, uh, a bar. Oh yeah, that’s right. A bar up in Atlanta. He was in town for something. I don’t remember what.”
“What bar?”
“Does it matter?”
“Not really,” Felicity said as Monica stood.
“I should probably talk to Jesse. I think I really hit a nerve with her today,” Monica said. “Good luck on your little investigation. I hope you can help Bobby out. He’s a good guy.” And with that, Monica scurried out the door.
Felicity had a rather unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach. Monica had been cool as a cucumber until she’d mentioned Brandon. She considered the puzzle as she had it configured and wondered if perhaps she was paying attention to the wrong pieces. Something was amiss, and now more than ever Felicity’s senses were flaring up. She watched Monica flit across the town square in an incredible hurry. The feeling in Felicity’s gut only got worse.
Chapter 10
“We should have cleaned up before we left the shop earlier today,” Jefferson groaned as Felicity handed him yet another box up the ladder in their back storage room. He had been helping Felicity re-organize supplies for the past hour and a half. It had been an incredibly hectic day with the two of them working two parties mere hours apart. They had had to close the shop that morning since they were both going to be driving around all day, and they had left the place in an absolute mess. “I really think we could just finish cleaning up tomorrow,” he added.
“Not going to happen,” Felicity said, handing another box up to him. “Tomorrow is Saturday, and there are a lot of film tours happening tomorrow. We will get walk-ins first thing in the morning when we open shop, and I want this place looking sharp. That’s the last box.”
Jefferson climbed down from the ladder and folded it up, returning it to its proper place in the corner. The two of them headed out front to the poorly lit store. They were working using just the back lights so as not to give any Senoia stragglers false hope of finding a store still open so late at night. Felicity got out the duster while Jefferson went to work on sweeping up glitter, flower petals, and anything else that had been left behind during the rush out the door they had experienced that morning. “Everything ran pretty smoothly today,” Jefferson said and smiled her way.
“It did,” Felicity said, returning the duster back to its hiding spot under the counter and getting right to work on straightening sample books, fluffing pillows, and rummaging through the store’s mail. “You did a great job at damage control at that Quinceañera. Where did you learn that little stain remover trick?”
“Dishwashing soap and peroxide? I think my mom must have taught me that one. I’m just glad I put that first aid kit in the van when we first started, otherwise I would have been running out to the store to get peroxide half an hour before the party was supposed to start. How did she even manage to get a big red stain on her Quinceañera dress?”
“Her aunt was three wine glasses in before the thing even started and ran right into her,” Felicity explained, and Jefferson snorted slightly. “That could have turned out bad if you hadn’t thought quickly. Good job.”
“My pleasure,” he said with a wink as he finished up with the broom and dustpan. “All right, it’s eleven o’clock. We are literally the last people on Main Street with the exception of drunk pub patrons. I’m beat.”
“Me too,” Felicity said with a yawn.
“You’re parked across the street too, right?” he asked, and she nodded.
They locked up and headed out the door into the dimly lit street. With the exception of the select few restaurants, all the shops and buildings were closed up for the night. They walked up the sidewalk, deciding to cross the street at the next intersection to avoid walking in front of the bar patrons for the entirety of their brief walk to their cars. “I don’t suppose you saw the paper today with all the craziness, did you?” Jefferson asked.
Felicity slumped her shoulders. “Unfortunately, I did.”
Bobby’s mug shot had been published on the front page of the Newnan Times Herald. In such a small town as Senoia, reputations could get ruined easily. Convincing the public he wasn’t a criminal would be just as difficult as convincing a judge now that it was going to be gossiped about all over town and across the entire county. “I just don’t get how the police could make such a jump so quick. You said yourself it was all circumstantial evidence, right? And even Jack agreed with you on that, but he made the arrest anyway.”
Felicity nodded. She wasn’t happy with the way Jack was handling this at all. She knew the police needed to make an arrest and appear to be in control, but Bobby was a bad scapegoat and too good of a guy to just be used the way they were using him.
“I’m glad you and I are on the same page here,” Felicity said, reaching out to Jefferson as they reached the top of the small hill where the intersection was. There were no cars coming or goin
g, so they began their descent down the small slope that would take them along the side of the building where a number of pub patrons were currently staggering out into the streets. Two motorcycles were parked by the sidewalk. The two of them instinctively wandered into the empty street to avoid the oncoming crowd as well as the parked motorcycles.
“I just wish I had a better lead,” Felicity said. “Right now, I just have a bunch of hunches, and I don’t think hunches are going to get Bobby—”
A sudden screeching noise was heard from behind. Felicity glanced over her shoulder and spotted a set of headlights hurtling in their direction down the small slope. She froze, but Jefferson didn’t. “Move!” he shrieked, diving head first toward her. He shoved her with the full momentum of his body and the force of his push sent her tumbling into the two motorcycles. One of the bikes fell on her as she tumbled to the ground; she glanced up in time to see the vehicle clipping Jefferson, sending him flying up over the roof of the car and then skidding and tumbling into the road. Felicity shrieked in horror as one of the slightly less tipsy patrons pulled the motorcycle off her just as the car crashed into the side of the building across the street. A shadowy figure exited the car and immediately bolted, continuing down the slope and disappearing after cutting through the back parking lot.
“Someone call for an ambulance!” Felicity shouted at the small crowd as she hurried over to Jefferson, who was lying flat on his back. He groaned weakly, but his body was still. His eyes were flickering open and closed as his brain tried to process what had just happened.
One of the women in the crowd whipped out a cell phone to call 911 while some of the men went and stood out in the street in the event any cars tried to make their way down the road where Jefferson was laid out. Jefferson moaned when she reached him, but for the most part he seemed okay. “Help me sit up,” he said.
“I think you should stay how you are,” she argued. But he moved his head slowly, and Felicity realized he was trying to tell her no.
