Page 32 of Wicked Games

“Nothing. She didn’t notice anything was wrong until I started screaming.”

“And the police when they got there? Did they question her?”

“I don’t know. After the van drove away, I went into shock.”

“That’s okay, Marcy. Maybe a cop talked to her, but I doubt it would have turned into anything anyway. The park’s a public place and there was a lot going on that day. There was no reason why she sat next to you.”

“I agree, Mr. Lockwood. I tried to be friendly while we were out in public. You said you wanted Theo to have a normal life and experience the same things other kids did, and talking to strangers at a park isn’t, well,” she stammers, knowing how that sounds, “talking to strangers is just something that happens.”

“I know. It’s unrealistic to think you could go through a day without talking to someone you didn’t know. I really appreciate this. I know it was difficult to dredge all that up again.”

“I wish I could be of more help. I wish it never happened,” she says, choking on her sobs. “I have to go. Take care, Mr. Lockwood.”

My phone beeps.

I’m sorry I put her through that again, and for nothing. The cops interviewed as many people at the park as they could, and no one is going to remember a woman who was drinking coffee and wearing a camel-hair coat. She could have looked like any number of women there that day, watching their children play or standing at the side of the rink watching their kids bash into each other.

I throw my cell on the coffee table. It’s too soon to bother Avery. She only left a few hours ago and she’s not sitting on the dock writing. I have to leave her alone and let her work or catch up with friends, or whatever it is she does when she’s by herself. Cry. I might be helping her move past Darren and their divorce, but she’s still mourning her sister, and now that I know she was murdered over a purse and some jewelry, it sounds even worse. Things like that happen in Ashfield, stories you read in the paper about people you don’t know, but when it happens to someone you love, you can never get past it.

I grab my tablet, pour another cup of coffee, and go out to the patio. It’s a nice day, maybe a little warm, but it’s pleasant in the shade. I lie on a lounger, and as I’m settling in, Winnie trots up the stairs. She looks at me expectantly, and I pat my stomach. She hops up between my legs, rests her head on my belly, and falls asleep.

Two hours later I open my eyes. Avery’s sitting next to me, writing in her notebook, and Winnie’s still sleeping on my stomach. Suddenly, this is all I want, but I had no idea Fate would do her best to keep me from having it.

CHAPTER TEN

Avery

Ihave a bad feeling, but I can’t put my finger on why. Seth’s story twists in a sick fog in my brain, Theo lying dead on the sidewalk, his blood turning the snow red. Brooke leaving him soon after that. I’m sure if it hadn’t been for Violet, he wouldn’t be here right now. She made him shower and eat. Kept him from drinking himself to death. Brooke moved out and Violet moved in. I’d bet my next book’s advance on it. Knowing that, Brooke would have felt justified in her jealousy, and it would have been even easier for her to jump into Rowan’s bed. I can see how it played out, and in the shower, I wonder where Hattie fit into all that.

I dress in shorts and a tank top, the temperatures finally warming up, and I dump some Greek yogurt and blueberries into a bowl. Breakfast wasn’t that long ago, but the eggs I made at Seth’s didn’t fill me up. I start a pot of coffee and scroll on my phone while I eat my yogurt and wait for it to drip.

Social media’s strange, isn’t it? So many people willing to film themselves and put it online. I could cause a stir, taking selfies of Seth and me and putting them on my social media accounts, bragging I’m sleeping with Seth Lockwood, billionaire. That’s a different kind of attention than what Rowan and Brooke get walking downtown minding their own business, but it all amounts to the same thing. People gawking at you when they shouldn’t be, whether you invited them to or not. Hattie made a lot of money off people wanting to know gossip and secrets, and I do, as well, only, it’s my own secrets I write about and people pay to read my pain. Darren never said anything, knowing that a writer’s heart is always up for public consumption. What would he think now, if I wrote about him leaving me for someone else? Would he be ashamed, maybe even take responsibility, or would he turn it on me and say I had no right dumping our broken marriage into my laptop?

What would I write about if I was happy?

I freeze, my spoon halfway to my mouth.

What would I write about if I was happy?

I finish my yogurt and pour a cup of coffee.

At the kitchen table, I open Hattie’s blog. Not the backend, but what the public sees. What was she writing about around the time she interviewed Brooke?

In January, I was walking on eggshells, waiting for Darren to say he was leaving. He was spending more time on campus, but I thought he was grading papers. Long short stories, novellas, and novels . . . it all took Darren time to read and even more time to write critique the students could use and carry with them. I had no idea he was sleeping with Bailey, though eventually I’ll come around to asking myself if I hadn’t suspected because up until then I had still trusted him or because I hadn’t wanted to think he was capable of that. No, the eggshells were because of me, and it makes me sad, really, that if I could have given him a baby he wouldn’t have left.

Where was I going with that? Oh, so I was preoccupied, waiting for him to leave, and I wasn’t paying attention to what Hattie was doing.

I scroll through the blog posts. I’m not subscribed to the content readers have to pay for, and I don’t know what people are getting now if they try to sign up. Chances are good Bill closed Hattie’s business account, and if someone tried to subscribe, their payment would bounce. The next time we talk, I’ll have to ask him what he wants to do, or rather, what the cops are letting him do.

She posted a lot of blog pieces in January and February, right up until she died. Ashfield’s mayor was having an affair, but I don’t think that came as a surprise to anyone. The cops shut down a dance club downtown because they were selling drugs. That’s not surprising either. That the cops did anything about it might be, but Ashfield has over half a million people. There are drugs all over the place. A CEO selling stock using insider information. A public defender trading sex for services.

I don’t know how Hattie found out most of this junk. Who in the hell was she talking to?

She posted twice a week, sometimes more if she had a huge story she didn’t want to sit on, but no mention of Theo’s kidnapping or death. Why wouldn’t she write about something that was sure to get her hundreds of thousands of hits? Or even more? I don’t understand. Hattie wasn’t callous—she wouldn’t have sensationalized the piece—but she didn’t write anything at all, nothing to even say her prayers were with them. Friends with Brooke, she would have had every frightening detail.

Lost in thought, I get up and pour more coffee into my mug. I sip and sit back down again. Theo’s kidnapping was the biggest news story in Minnesota, at least in the past five years. Hattie should have been eating this up, but the day he was kidnapped, the two days while the Lockwoods waited for word, and then after Theo’s death, there’s nothing.

I log into the backend of her site and look through her drafts. There’s Brooke’s interview, a piece on the rising number of sex offenders who are moving to Ashfield. An article about the Dusk Reapers, a huge gang in the city, and how they’ve adjusted to having Titus Jenkins in prison and who’s in charge now. That must have been a nerve-wracking piece considering she’s been on their shit-list for years and it was probably smart she decided not to do anything with it. She wrote about a popular restaurant chain laundering money for a small-time crime family.