Page 11 of Statler

He accepted no rebuttal.

Night hunting?

Eliza hadn’t even known that was a thing.

When she’d looked it up, she found that most hunting in Maine ended thirty minutes after sunset; the exception being if one were after coyotes or foxes in season.

Seriously? Holden wanted to hunt coyotes and foxes?

Eliza had questioned him on it, but without explanation, he’d snapped at her to be patient; that all would eventually be revealed.

It hadn’t.

On his fifth hunting weekend, it was all over.

Holden never returned.

At least not alive.

There’d been an accident.

The wrong place at the wrong time, his coworkers had said.

He’d been shot and killed by a fellow hunter.

* * *

A year had passed since that fateful night, and Eliza still missed her husband, even though, in the end, he’d become someone she felt she didn’t know any more. But being a grieving widow was in no way an act.

She mourned for the Holden she once knew.

Which didn’t mean her father had cut her a break.

He’d begun demanding, soon after, that she remarry before she became too old to attract another man.

This time, however, Eliza refused to be intimidated, at least underneath the placid face she showed him.

She had some money behind her. Holden had left her with not only the tidy sum they’d saved together, but she’d also begun receiving his military pension after his death. It wasn’t a huge amount, but it was enough, she knew, to help her start her life over, somewhere far away from Liminal.

And Eliza was determined.

But determination didn’t mean being rash or reckless. She was still amassing information on her father and the factory. She’d eventually have to trust someone with what she’d found, then pull off getting out of town without her father knowing.

At this juncture, she truly feared he’d do anything he could to stop her.

Including…

Yes.

This is where things got…murky.

Eliza had her fears, after a lot of thought, that Holden’s death hadn’t been accidental. There’d been no coroner’s report, no autopsy, no official inquiries. That was because her father owned the town, and made the rules. Rules which were followed implicitly by everyone who lived here, including having Holden buried without so much as an obituary.

The bastard.

Holden’s parents had been told that he’d taken off; tired of his life and his wife, and that he’d most likely show up on their doorstep someday.

Bullshit.