Page 5 of Bad Intentions

I check the time again. 7:07.

They deliver the local newspaper around this time. I usually go through it at work. You’d be surprised how entertaining and insane life can be in the middle of nowhere. At least on paper. Drug busts. Town council squabbles. Neighboring town schools’ rivalry. City code violations. More criminal charges.

Today, though, I’m itching to find out if the hit-and-run from yesterday made the news. It’s a nasty itch, like a rash that doesn’t go away and only seems to spread the more you think about it. It makes me check the Victorian-style clock on the wall above the fridge every minute.

Grandma starts the stove, and the first ladleful of batter against the hot frying pan makes a loud searing noise, sending steam in the air.

The sound triggers the memory of the accident, making dread creep up my back.

“Gonna go get the newspaper,” I blurt and run through the living room out onto the front porch. It’s still raining, but I don’t care. The blue plastic pouch with the newspaper is already on the front porch. That’s pretty much all we use the front door for—newspaper and deliveries. I fetch the newspaper, get back inside, and right there, by the door, pull it from its protective sleeve.

I check the front page—nothing.

Second page—nothing.

I open the crime section—nothing.

I scan “Hello, Stranger,” the weird but entertaining section that prints messages, thoughts, and random complaints of the locals who can email or call the newspaper office for that very reason.

Still nothing.

It doesn’t help calm my nerves. Quite the opposite. If the accident is not in the paper, that means that either no one has reported the body yet or the news didn’t make it to today’s print run.

“What time do they print this?” I ask loudly as I walk back into the kitchen.

Grandma expertly flips the buttermilk pancakes in the pan. “Usually by two in the morning. Why?”

“Just wondering.”

“Anything exciting?”

“Same old.”

“Same old is good,” she murmurs. She knows it like no one else, after what she went through in this town.

I dump my coffee in the sink, rinse my cup, and pick up my purse.

“Leaving so early?”

“Gotta go to work,” I say.

“Now?”

It’s early for me, I agree. But I can’t sit around. Not today.

“Have some pancakes while they are warm,” Grandma offers.

“I’ll eat at the diner,” I say, putting on my boots.

“Josie.”

“Gotta go, Grams.”

She knows I don’t eat breakfast, and I’m not into pancakes, which are her favorite, and she offers them to me religiously every morning.

I don’t look up, don’t meet her eyes, because then she’ll see that I’m on edge. Petrified, to be honest. That’s because the dead body might still be out there, on the empty road along the fairgrounds.

And I just can’t stand it anymore.