Page 21 of Overkill

But she always did that. The first time I met her, her truck was busted and she’d climbed up the McClanahan driveway, looking for a bit of help. She had her two brothers and sisters to feed, and I knew what that was like. I’d been in charge of my younger siblings once, too. Parentified is that the psychologists call it nowadays.

She didn’t want my truck keys. She didn’t want the cash I shoved into her hands. She didn’t want the jacket I put over her shoulders, even when she stood shivering in the snow.

But she took them, anyway—after a while. Because everyone deserved help sometimes.

“No. You really, really don’t.” Take my help!

I need to be useful to you. I need to matter to you…

I took her silence as consent and fought the urge to kiss her on the forehead as I turned to leave. She hadn’t said no to my driving her tomorrow, so I assumed we would go as planned. Best not to give her time to come to her senses.

Sure, stalking Melody was part of the job I’d been assigned. But that didn’t feel like work. Watching her had kind of turned into a hobby.

But this? This was a job, and it was fucking weird. I found myself with my ass parked on a distressed brown leather Chesterfield couch with a dainty china tea set on the coffee table while Braun and I awkwardly waited for our interview to begin.

Valerie Gray stood in the kitchen that we could see from our sitting area. Her phone was in the middle of a ring light beside her laptop, and her personal assistant sat nearby with another slim computer in front of her.

“Thank y’all for all the hearts, and I see you there, Lionel, sending me a lion. Rawr!” Valerie said, making a pawing action with her hand before smoothing the front of her blue gingham, lace-frilled apron.

What in the 50s housewife was this?

Her southern accent was off. Light and pleasant, but it hit me as less genuine than a penguin in a white fur coat at a polar bear exhibit.

I looked at Braun, who looked back at me. Neither of us touched the tea set.

“Well, thank y’all so much for your thoughts and prayers.” She put a hand over her heart. “You know it always means so much to me, how y’all keep showing up for me in my time of need. I am so heaven blessed to have people like you in my life. I don’t know how I’d get through such turmoil if it wasn’t for you.”

She put her fingers to her lips and blew the camera a kiss.

“Oh!” She squealed. “Thank you Lilah, for that galaxy. You are a heaven-sent sweetheart.”

She finger waved, bouncing and jostling the big blue bow that held back the top half of her chestnut hair.

“What happened?” She squinted, reading something on her computer. “Oh, Trevor, it was just tragic. My brother-in-law was found in Mourningkill Lake. So tragic. He’d been gone a whole year. Can you imagine?”

What the fuck was happening?

“We’ve been worried sick, and it’s just…We’re relieved to have a resolution to it all, but it’s just so tragic. Our family is just so heartbroken.”

Was she…talking about Luke Gray’s body on the internet?

She wiped at a nonexistent tear while looking askance, her other hand on her chest as if to control the palpitations of her beating heart.

“I just don’t know how we’re going to get through this, ya know?”

No, I do not fucking know. What the shit is happening?

Braun and I looked at each other again, this time with mouths open as we watched the fucking train wreck.

“Oh, thank y’all so much.” She blew another kiss at the camera. “Oh, thank you for the likes, Jeffrey. Oh, and Rodney, thank you so much for your kind words. They mean so much to me.”

She continued reading, blowing kisses, and responding to comments as they appeared on her computer screen while we just sat there watching as she monetized tragedy.

I couldn’t put into words why I hated this. But I did.

She wasn’t exactly doing anything wrong; it wasn’t an open case, but they had wanted it to be an open case.

“Anyway, y’all,” she said, plucking her phone off the little clip stand. “I’ve gotta go and talk to these lovely gentlemen.”