Scratching at her flushed neck, Bryce inclined her head as though weighing up her options. Her fingernails left harsh red lines across her skin. “I don’t know, Thea.”
“Aren’t you the least bit intrigued? The scrapyard thing is so similar to Herbert Humphrey’s case. Maybe he has a copycat killer. Maybeourkiller worked at the scrapyard just like Herbert and we’ll be the one to find him out.”
“Them,” Bryce corrected with a sniff of disapproval. “Women can kill. I think about killingyoualmost every day.”
“Ha,” Thea deadpanned. And then, with the roundest, most pleading eyes she could manage, she clasped her hands together. “Please?”
Bryce’s shoulders slumped, and Thea knew she’d won.
“Fine,” she said. “But if we get pulled into any more neighborly barbecues, I’m out. I didn’t even get a burger out of it last time.”
Thea couldn’t help but smile. “Deal.”
* * *
It was an agonizingly slow day at the bookstore. Thea might as well have not opened at all, but her mother wouldn’t have been too impressed. Fothergill Books had opened at nine and shut at six without fail every day since before Thea was born. Even the day her father had died, Nina had asked her sister, Thea’s Aunt Alice, to take care of things while she was called into the station to identify the body. The same went for his funeral. Thea knew better than to break that streak now, even if they had yet to bring in so much as a penny.
Rain was battering the windows outside, which perhaps had something to do with their lack of customers. It felt appropriately gloomy after the news Thea had discovered earlier that morning about George Hegarty. There was something about his death that she couldn’t shake from her mind, a weight that hadn’t let up since she’d opened the article on her phone this morning. She couldn’t identify what it was: maybe the fact she’d known him well enough to copy his homework from him once, or the way he’d been found in a scrapyard less than a week after their podcast about Herbert Humphrey, who’d dumped his victims’ bodies in much the same way.
Either way, she couldn’t let it go, so she made the most of the quiet moments alone to skim through more articles and scroll through George’s social media. The mourners had already flooded in on his Facebook page, a few of whom Thea recognized as old classmates and their parents. It reminded her of how everyone had done the same when her dad had died: people she’d never spoken to before and people she knew he’d hated when he was alive. It made her shudder.
The door swinging open broke her concentration from all of it. She lifted her gaze to find her mother struggling with two bags of groceries, fair hair matted to her face, and her purse sliding from her shoulder to her elbow.
“Mom.” Thea sighed, jumping up to grab one of the bags. She left it on the counter for now, but not before glancing through its contents with disapproval. There was enough salad and fruit in here to feed a flock of rabbits. “I told you you don’t need to do my shopping.”
Nina tutted as she placed the other bag down and wrung out her hair. The rain dripped from her coat and onto the cherry wood floorboards, mascara printed onto her brow bone. “I snooped through your fridge this morning. Microwave meals and leftover pizza is not a balanced diet, Thea.”
“The pizza had spinach on it. That’s healthy. And I don’t need you looking after me. I’m an adult, remember?”
Her mother only cast her an unconvinced look. “I’ll believe that when you start acting like one. Have we had many sales this morning?”
“None.” Thea slouched and resumed her scrolling.
After shaking off her coat, Nina peered over her shoulder. Curtis women did not know the meaning of privacy, and Thea had long since accepted the fact. She still resisted the urge to hide her phone now, though.
“That poor boy.” Nina squeezed Thea’s shoulder. “Did you know him well?”
“In passing.”
She hooked her damp coat onto the pegs by the door and then tucked her shirt back into her skirt as though that would make up for her sopping wet appearance. “It’s awful. I can’t imagine what his parents must be going through. I just can’t believe this is happening again.”
Thea frowned, locking her phone and placing it on the counter so that she could give her mother her full attention. “When you say ‘again’, do you mean because of Officer Harmer? Or does ‘again’ mean this has happened before?”
Nina worried at her lip, regret flickering across her features. Thea knew that look well. It was the look of a mother who’d said something she hadn’t intended to, likeI ate your last chocolate donutoryour rabbit didn’treallygo on a permanent vacation to Hawaii in fourth grade.“We should get these in your fridge upstairs before they go bad.”
“Mom.”
She huffed, scraping back her hair so Thea could glimpse every wrinkle in her rain-streaked foundation. Nina was a young fifty, in that she barely looked a day past forty and took plenty of pride in her appearance to make it stay that way. It was times like these, though, that Thea remembered her mother’s age, and remembered just how well she knew her. It helped that she and Thea were one and the same, in both appearance and personality. Every mannerism and character trait Thea possessed had been learned from the dainty woman in front of her.
It was because of this that Thea recognized the wave of fear for what it was, when it passed over Nina’s features.
“Hasit?” she asked again.
Nina bowed her head and nodded. “Once. You were only a few months old, and the town kept it very hush-hush.”
Thea’s heart began to pound; with dread or excitement, she didn’t know. How hadn’t she known about this? How hadn’t she come across it when she was doing research for the podcast? “Why?”
“Because of the awful state the victims were found in.” Nina shifted on her feet, and Thea knew there was more. “And… because the killer was one of our own. Stone Grange’s chief of police at the time.”