It had snowed throughout the entire night and the house literally resembled an ice box. Walking downstairs, she swore she saw ice gleaming off of the utensils that she had left to dry off near the sink, and the dishrag was as stiff as a rock. Woops. Well, at least she could say that she’d technically gone fullCanadian and survived winter in an igloo. And all those Torontonians thought they were fancy. Hah. Wanting a shower, but not wanting to burn her skin off from the sub-zero temperature that the water was probably at, she got dressed and packed her purse so she could get started on her day. As for what had happened in the bed just an hour ago (she’d stayed under the covers before the chill of the room began to seep through the blankets and sink into her skin), she’d adamantly decided that she wouldn’t think on it.
What a smug, self-serving bastard. The permanent blush that had settled over her cheeks was only working to aggravate her further, but the thought that he was walking around, all satisfied because he’d left her hanging – something she hadn’t really tried to hide – was mortifying. Sure, maybe she shouldn’t have teased him last night for not having lasted long and calling him an old geezer this morning had pushed him too far but still. She needed to figure out a way to turn the tables. He was always in charge, and calling the shots. Before he got all cocky, she needed to find a way to bring him down a peg or two. In a way that she’d enjoy, but drive him crazy. He needed a taste of his own medicine.
A plan had already begun to form in her head, but she wasn’t really sure if she had the courage or confidence and wanted to sit on it before acting it through. This game, or whatever it was they were doing, was like walking on a trapeze. One misstep and the consequences of falling were fatal. As she let the idea ferment, she got about getting ready. There was something about being faced with your own mortality that made you exceptionally productive. She wanted to check her email, work on her art, and get the pipes in the house working again. The pale white lighthouse peeked at her from beyond her kitchen window and she glimpsed at it briefly, feeling a strong urge to close the blinds and not look at the gloomy, empty edifice that made her feel all sorts of alone and atavistic inside. Knowing that she was praying to the blind, she resigned herself to searching the lighthouse later on in the day, since she’d be silly not to search the lighthouse for the papers her dad had left behind somewhere.
She buried the bubble of hysteria that had been clawing up all morning before it bubbled up to the surface again, just as it almost had yesterday. And she was sure the feeling of panic would come again tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that too. She just needed to take it day by day, and remind herself that what was important was that she was still functioning and going through the motions of surviving. Forget running, what mattered was that she was still standing.
She’d almost missed it on the way out and had she not gone to smooth out the quilts covering the couch, she would have. Hunter had left behind a note, weighed down by a key.
- It’s the fucking North Pole in here. Don’t lose my key. I’ll be working some overtime today, so I’ll be late. Please have the gas working so I can cook a decent meal up here. In case something happens, call me immediately. My number is -
She fished out her cell phone and saved his number, scoffing that it took a murder, a week and so of manual labour, and forced coexistence for the two of them to get them to exchange phone numbers. She smiled faintly, picking up the heavy piece of metal and pocketing it.
She would never, ever, in a million years, admit this out loud but sometimes his crassness made her laugh. The thought of him being tied down by someone was something she couldn’t really fathom. In fact, she couldn’t really even wrap her head around the idea of Hunter being anyone’s ‘boyfriend’ – simply because Hunter wasn’t a boy, in any sense of the word. He was alpha-male to the core, and he wasn’t a guy she could imagine would ever leave roses at some girl’s doorstep or write a rhyming poem about his devotion. Rather, he’d probably chop down a tree to declare his unending love or something along those lines. If she had to use Frankenstein as an analogy, he was more like the gruff beast than he was the tormented doctor.
She made a mental note to fish for information regarding his past relationships, simply so that she had some ammunition against him, and then began to layer up to brace the windy snowstorm that was going down outside.
She would probably tidy up his living room or something, but aside from that, she had no intention of doing her maid-duties today. Showering, stealing his Wi-Fi, eating warm food, and trying to contact her friends was her priority. She wasn’t being morbid but in the chance that this psycho killer came out on top, she wanted Sarah and Jessie to know that she wanted her ashes scattered someplace far away from this place. The grounds of Disneyworld would be nice, but that probably went against some safety and hygiene law somewhere. That was up to them to find out. After Disneyworld, she would choose Matt Damon’s bed. Despite the obvious illegalities, what better place to spend the rest of your very dead life?
Just as she was about to leave her house, a loud knocking made her pause and her senses immediately frazzled.
She calmed just as quickly as she realized that there was no way that the murderer would literally come knocking by to introduce himself. God, she was jumpy.
She opened the door slowly, keeping the chain attached, and breathed a sigh of relief as she saw
Detective Jackson. She closed the door again, unchained the door, and swung it open. “Good morning.” “Morning, Emma,” he smiled and then looked curiously at her attire. She was wearing three layers, and two scarves. “Going hiking?”
“Oh, no,” she looked down at herself and wondered what to say. “I uh… need to head into down and I don’t have a car so…”
He gave her a wrinkly, yet terse, smile, “Why don’t you let me drive you? The snow’s falling pretty hard.”
“Uh...” fuck, she hated small talk. “Nope. It’s okay.”
He only smiled at her awkward rejection, “don’t worry, I won’t talk your ears off. I just have a few questions, and we can do it on the way so I don’t waste your time.”
Emma tried not to let her discomfort show but she nodded, knowing that the man was probably trained in persuasion and interrogating and she didn’t really have an option to say no. Resigning herself to her fate, she locked the door and followed him to his police car. Snow crunched under her shoes, and she made her trillionth mental note for the day – she needed to find a shovel so she could clear out this driveway.
When she squeezed into his car, he had some old school fifties music radio channel playing, and he turned it up to drown out the sound of the whistling wind as he reversed and drove out of the driveway and down the street. He subtly waved to a nondescript car parked nearby, and she realized that it must’ve been the detail.
He didn’t actually say anything for a while, and since she was so bad at starting conversation,
she didn’t bother saying anything either.
Finally, he turned down the radio and eased the car heaters down a notch. “So, where am I driving you to?”
“Sheriff Stone’s house,” she said without thinking, and after seeing the immediate look of
suspicion on his face, she added. “I help him out with his house chores.”
Crap. She scrambled. The look of unfiltered confusion only deepened, and he raised an eyebrow.
She needed to do damage control.
“He’s sick, so I volunteered.” Why was she even covering for him? The whole town was gossiping about it, and the easy thing to do here would’ve been simply to tell him the truth. That the Sheriff was a jerk, and was making her pay for that.
“Hm,” was all he said as he turned the corner. Eventually, he added. “So let me get this straight, you help Sheriff Stone with house chores because he’s sick?”
“Yeah, back issues.”
“He seemed fine at work.”
“He has triggers, it’s… he’s,” she looked out of the window, desperate to find inspiration, “it’s uh…” something, anything. The harbor came into view. “The boats. He was in an accident when he was young so whenever he sees or hears the sounds of ships, or boats, he can’t… walk.”
“Can’t walk at all?”
“Nope,” she said with absolute confidence and certainty, “he just keels over. Stops talking.” “Oh, boy,” his eyebrows were furrowed, and he actually looked concerned. “I can’t say that I know him well, but he’s hid it well. Poor guy.”
“The whole town helps him out, since he’s such a good sheriff. So whenever it’s the day to pick up groceries from the harbor shipment, I always give him a helping hand.”
“Well, that’s very nice of you Emma,” after a perturbed silence, he quietly asked, “what
happened in his childhood? Is it like a post-traumatic stress disorder thing?”
“Yeah,” she swallowed, looking ahead and not at Jackson so she’d focus, “when he was a kid, his mom… apparently… got run over by a boat…” she bit her lip. Well, that had come out like word vomit.
Who could blame her? She had murder on her mind. “Sad stuff.” The words were robotic and strained.
“Well, makes sense why he spends so much time in the office then.”
She nodded fervently, already dreading the day and moment when Hunter would find out that she had decided to diagnose him with a memory-triggered chronic back pain that debilitated him from doing shit-all since the memories of a boat running over his mom at the harbor were too depressing to deal with. Shit. Was his mom alive? Gosh, she hope she wasn’t alive because then this would be morbid. Not that she wanted his mom to be dead, either. Ah, shit.
“You and Hunter are close, eh?”
The question caught her off guard, especially since she’d begun to obsess over whether Hunter’s mom was alive or not, and she began shaking her head before she even responded. “Not at all actually.”
“He cares about you enough to keep tabs on you all the time.”
“He’s doing his job.”
“It’s my job now.”
“Is this a formal question you’re asking me or...?”
“You do realize that everyone in this town is a suspect, and I need to start off with all those that are close to you first.”
Emma almost laughed, “Well, that’s a short list and Hunter didn’t do it.”
“You’re very trusting of him.”
Why was this man always putting words in her mouth? “It’s not that I’m trusting of him,” she drawled, but then realized that she was. She’d be flat out deceiving nobody if she said that she didn’t trust him. She wasn’t anywhere near calling him a friend, but she did trust him. More than she trusted anybody else in this godforsaken town, at least. “Actually, yeah, I do trust him and I know he doesn’t want me dead.”
“For the sake of this investigation alone, I want you to tell me honestly the nature of your relationship with him.” He said it without hesitation, and without inflection. As if a relationship was a matter of fact and not a matter of uncertainty.
“We have no relationship.”
“He spent the night at your house.”
She knew it’d been a bad idea. “So, what? You’re jumping to the conclusion we’re sleeping with each other?”
“I may be old, but I’m not naïve and just because Hunter is the town sheriff doesn’t mean he’s the celibate town priest.”
Far from it. “Detective, I’ll say this once, Hunter and I aren’t sleeping with each other and you’re wasting your time investigating your own team. He didn’t do it.”
Jackson didn’t comment, which made her nervous and uneasy. But she refused to show it, so she kept a straight face and didn’t say anything else that would give her away. Hunter’s house wasn’t a far drive and he pulled up to the front, parking so that he could pull out a notebook and run down a few other things with her.
After jotting down her weekly routine – and she kept her workdays at Hunter’s house relatively vague – she told him that she had a job on the weekends at the pub, spent time in the library when she could and otherwise, focused on art projects at home. After that, he said he was done and she gave a tight smile as she left the car and stomped through the snow up to Hunter’s front-porch.
She could feel Jackson staring at her back the entire way, making her feel paranoid even though she had no reason to be. After a trepid nod goodbye, she unlocked Hunter’s door and made her way in. x.x
One hot shower, a few calls to the local utilities companies, and a warm breakfast later, Emma made her way around Hunter’s house and went through the motions of their agreement. Beds were made, dishes were put away, and the floor was vacuumed.
Even though his room was off limits, she went through it anyway, and poked her nose where she knew he’d be annoyed she did. She looked through his wardrobe; a lot of black, grey, and white, but there was a surprisingly ugly knitted sweater with an obnoxiously large snowman on it. His laptop was password protected and the drawers were locked, which made a lot of it boring, but she found his stash of books and decided to borrow Slaughterhouse V since she hadn’t read it and had been meaning to quite a while.
Just before eleven, she sat down and connected to his Wi-Fi on her phone, and went straight to her email. She briefly looked at a few emails Sarah had sent of photos from her recent backpacking adventure, before drafting a new email.
She was as honest as she could be, and whilst omitting everything about Hunter, finally admitted that she was having a hard time, needed a pep talk, and that there was someone out there who wanted her dead. She kept that point succinct and at the very end, to prevent Sarah from freaking out too hard.
When it was eleven, she dressed up again like an oompa loompa, and made her way outside again so that she could be there in time for Hunter’s grocery shipment. When she got there, she was surprised to see the harbor so busy considering that, according to her standards, it was still snowing pretty hard. She remembered how back in San Francisco, the moment it rained, cars stopped on the streets and highways jammed. Yet, in front of her, people were milling about the ships, unloading and docking cargo while kids ran around, throwing fluffy snowballs at each other. She sat on a bench near where the food ferry (as she called it) pulled in and watched as people traversed through the many bakeries and cafes that littered the place. People were taking walks, she saw a couple jogging, and it was actually quite loud and crowded. She usually hated winter, but seeing such a vibrant group of people relish in it was somewhat refreshing.
She saw the ferry come in from a distance and stood up in preparation. Glad that she’d gone through the process fairly undetected, when someone literally jumped on her from behind, she couldn’t help but yell.
Ernie’s voice followed, “Molly! Get off of her!” “NO,” was the girlish response.
Emma calmed down, despite having had a heart attack, and reached back to grab Molly’s legs. Her little head popped up beside her face and she gave Emma a big smile.
“HI!”
“Hey kiddo, how are you doing?”
“I was good but my brother didn’t flush the potty.”
“Oh no,” she laughed nervously, and then smiled even more nervously as Ernie came into view. “Sorry about that,” he laughed as he grabbed Molly off of Emma’s back, swinging her around and making the kid laugh. He looked up at Emma with a warm grin, “hope she didn’t startle you.” “Not at all,” the scream had just been for dramatic purposes, obviously. “How are you?” “Good, you?” was that a knowing I know what you did twinkle in his eye or a yikes someone wants to kill you glimmer in his eye?
She decided to play it safe either way, “could be worse.”
“We still owe you a dinner.”
He needed to let that go. “One day.”
“Hey girl,” Kat’s voice was recognizable anywhere. The blonde, blue eyed beauty sauntered into view. She somehow still managed to look fashionable despite it being -10 degrees, and snowing. “Hello Mr. Stone.”
That hello was way too sexual. Ernie, if he noticed, didn’t show it. “Hey Kat, how’s school going?”
Emma actually walked on in amazement as Kat continued to flirt.
“You know, the same. Young boys really aren’t my thing.”
Molly poked her head out from Ernie’s arms, “I’m not a little girl.”
Emma found herself giggling, “You’re not?”
“No, I’m a big sister.”
Kat, accepting when it was time to give up, turned to Emma, “surprised to see you up and about.”
“Yeah, well…” she trailed off as she Clayton came into view. “No point in staying at home all day.”
“Hey, Emma!”
“Clayton!” Almost everyone turned to say hello to him, and a few moments were spent on fawning over his broken leg and crutch. She didn’t miss the way his gaze lingered on her, and she blushed, not used to such an ardent display of unabashed affection.
The townsfolk were beginning to crowd around, everyone coming in to get their groceries, and Emma found herself smack in the middle of Ernie, Clayton, Kat, and a few of Clayton’s friends who had all come down to help him out. Social anxiety at its finest, she simply forced a smile and nodded here and there to the conversation, most of it flying over her head anyway. Something about college hockey games, rivalling teams, and random province-wide gossip. Somebody mentioned an ice glacier at some point.
“It gets better,” Ernie said, his voice quiet and observant, clearly having noticed how out of place Emma was feeling. “Give it some time, and you’ll be able to badmouth Newcastle as well as the rest of them.”
How were Ernie and Hunter so different from each other?! “Thanks,” she said, not wanting to explain that she didn’t plan on staying here long anyway.
“My brother isn’t giving you too hard a time?”
It was the first time Ernie and Emma had been together since the library incident, where he’d caught her printing off Hunter’s work bio, and she assumed he’d been waiting to ask that for a while.
She found herself being honest, “yeah, he is actually.”
Ernie laughed, “I hope you’re giving it back to him just as bad then.”
Emma grinned, “trying.”
“Good.”
Once the ferry docked, the next forty-five minutes were spent in name-call and she ignored the obvious stares when she picked up Hunter’s package. She glanced at the list and saw that he’d doubled the amount of food he’d ordered from last week, and wondered absentmindedly if it had been because of her.
She said an awkward goodbye to Ernie and was heading out when Kat caught up to her, Clayton not too far behind.
“Hey, where you going?” she was balancing her own groceries in her hand, her blue eyes glittering against the white snowfall.
“Just going to drop these off,” Emma responded and laughed at the gleam in Kat’s eyes. This girl had it in bad for the Sheriff.
“God, that’s so sexy you can just walk in and out of the Sheriff’s house.”
“There’s nothing sexy about it,” she said as Clayton came up behind Kat. “Glad to see you out and about, Clayton.”
“I mean, if you’re out and about with someone wanting to murder you, I thought it was safe to go out with a broken leg…” he trailed off at the look on Emma’s face, “wow, that was insensitive. Sorry.”
“That’s fine.”
“Why don’t you spend the day with us? We were just going to knock back a few beers at the pub after the town hall meeting.”
“I have so much to do…” she paused, “town hall meeting?”
“Yeah, it’s usually a bore but Hughie leads the meetings and he’s a hunk and a half,” Kat shifted the basket, “not that you’re lacking in good looking visuals.”
Kat’s comment went over her head, Emma’s interest already having been piqued by her own train of thought. A town hall meeting, where they would probably talk about developments, projects, and plans for the town. Sounded exactly like a place where someone who wanted her dad’s land would be. “Actually, why don’t I meet you guys there, after I drop these off?”
“I’ll save you a seat,” Clayton was way too eager, but she let it slide. She was already focused on figuring out how to fit this into her day, and shuffle everything else she had planned back a few hours or so.
“Yeah, could you actually Clayton?”
After exchanging the address and time to meet up, Emma said goodbye for the second time that day, wondering if she was playing with dangerous waters here. She wanted to see who attended these meetings, so she could get a good idea of the people truly and heavily invested in the town planning and maintenance. Yet, she already knew, without a doubt, that her presence wouldn’t be welcome there. And she was sure Hunter wouldn’t be impressed, since if it was up to him, she was sure he’d think the safest place for her to be would be in a prison cell under his watch and supervision twenty four hours a day.
Not even realizing that Hunter, being the town sheriff, was also most likely going to be there, she hurried back to his place to drop of his shipment so she could make it in time for the meeting.