Two
Bryce was less than happy to be summoned to the bookstore at ten a.m.on the only day off she could afford to take that week. Why Thea couldn’t have just waited for their scheduled lunch later that day, she didn’t know, but she waved at Nina on her way to the bookstore’s stockroom and trampled down the basement’s loosely carpeted stairs with a huff. She was wearing her favorite boots: the black ones with the three-inch heels, and justknewshe’d break her neck going down here one of these days.
Thea waited at the bottom, tapping her foot impatiently. The desk where they recorded the podcast episodes was still scattered with equipment and papers, but there was no sign of Mikey here.
“You called?” Bryce asked expectantly as she reached the final step, resting against the bannister as she regained her breath.
“An hour ago,” said Thea stonily.
Bryce had barely been awake an hour ago when she’d gotten the call. She glared sourly to make the inconvenience known and mirrored Thea’s defensive stance. “Excuse me for not rushing to answer your every beck and call.”
“You’re excused.” Thea relaxed as though there hadn’t been an issue to begin with and then picked up a thick newspaper from the desk. “In the future, when I say it’s an emergency, it meansget over here now.”
With a roll of her eyes, Bryce scoffed. She’d witnessed plenty of Thea’semergenciesover the years: the time Thea had been stung by a wasp, for example, or the time she’d thought she’d seen Skeet Ulrich in the bookstore and it had turned out to be just Tommy, the guy who busked outside of the arcade seven days a week with a harmonica and acoustic guitar — otherwise known as the bane of Bryce’s existence, what with all the Fray songs he loved to make evenmorewhiny and pathetic. “Sure. It’s not like I have a life of my own.”
She didn’t, really. Other than work, taking care of her sister, and the podcast, Bryce spent any spare time she could find watchingFriendsreruns and browsing through Media City job listings she wasn’t qualified to apply for; it wasn’t a city at all but Stone Grange’s closest rundown lot of small TV studios. Still, spare time came rarely these days, and Theaknewthat.
But she didn’t seem to care, and when she finally handed the newspaper to Bryce, Bryce understood why.
‘Policeman Found Dead In Stone Grange Sewage System Three Days After Disappearance,’ the front page headline read in jarringly bold letters. Below it was a picture of a face she knew well:.Stone Grange’s only decent cop, Isaac Harmer. An old archive photo had been used; the beaming smile on Harmer’s face as he stood cradling some sort of award completely incongruous with the morbid black and white article. Bryce saw that friendly smile and remembered the time she’d gotten lost in Rosie’s Garden Centre, when her mother had taken home the five goldfish she’d bought on a whim from the aquatics department but had completely forgotten about her daughter. Officer Harmer had held Bryce’s hand until Connie finally returned for her an hour later. And then, when she’d been older and testing the boundaries of her alcohol tolerance with way too many shots of vodka, Harmer had found her puking on the side of the curb; he’d walked her home because she was too nauseous to get into his cop car. He hadn’t even reported her for underage drinking. He’d just… wanted to make sure she was okay.
When rumors of his disappearance had spread through town a couple of days ago, Bryce had thought nothing of it. Isaac Harmer was the most reliable man in town. You could always find him wandering around, guiding elderly ladies across the street or having civil conversations with the raucous teens leaving smashed beer bottles in the local parks. If he wasn’t around, it probably meant he was on vacation, she’d thought.
But Isaac hadn’t been on vacation. He was gone.
Bryce’s eyes stung and she couldn’t make any sense of the words on the page. She threw the newspaper down, feeling as hollowed out as she had been on that day as a lost six-year-old without a family.
When she hadn’t mattered to her mom, she’d mattered to Isaac Harmer. And Isaac was gone.
“I don’t understand.”
“Read it,” Thea insisted, pushing the newspaper into Bryce’s chest again.
Bryce thrust it away. She knew well enough what happened when bodies were dumped into sewers. They’d covered a similar cold case in the podcast just last week that had made even her grimace to talk about. No one had ever foundthatmurderer’s true identity.
“I don’t want to. Just… just tell me why I’m here.”
Thea lifted her brows and punched a pastel pink fingernail into the last sentence of the article, where one word showed clearly enough.Homicide. “It was amurder,Bryce. Isaac was murdered.”
Bryce noticed the way Thea’s eyes glittered at that, as if it was a good thing. As if they should be celebrating. It made nausea roil in Bryce’s gut. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t think.
“Bryce,” Thea whispered. “We have our very own Stone Grange murder. Do you have any idea what this will do for our podcast?”
“Ourpodcast?” The question was high-pitched with disbelief. “A man is dead,Thea. Agoodman, one I respected! And you’re thinking about thepodcast?”
“No.” Thea softened, inching closer to Bryce. “No, I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be insensitive. But this is what we do, right? This is everything thatPerfect Crimesis about.”
“It’s a little different when the dead guy is a man who pulled out a loose tooth for you when you were five.”
“I know.”
But Thea couldn’t have known. She couldn’t have known at all. Bryce was into murder and crime as much as any horror movie fanatic, butThea… she was beginning to wonder if Thea wastoointo it.
“Look, if you don’t want to talk about this anymore, we won’t —”
“I don’t,” Bryce said, and was ignored.
“ButIjust think it’s a little suspicious that this weird new family gets into town and then someone is found dead not that long after.”