Page 8 of Overkill

“Can I come in?” She confirmed anyway, because she was law enforcement and they had to.

She removed her large-brimmed hat and held it to her stomach. One side of her lips tilted up, but she didn’t truly smile. Polite. Cordial. Not like a woman about to violently body slam me into the ground and put my hands in cuffs.

“Of course,” I whispered. “Would you like some tea? Coffee?”

It was important to offer hot beverages on rainy days like this.

“Either one,” she said with that flat smile, meant to be friendly, but one that didn’t reach her eyes. The smile of bad news about to be delivered.

Sheriff Whitlaw shook her jacket off her shoulders and put it on the bench outside, where water dripped from it. She wiped her boots on the mat and even flapped her hat a bit to get rid of the rain that had collected on the brim.

“I’ve got some green tea,” I said, relieved. I didn’t really keep coffee. I didn’t want to get Miriam and Marcus on a caffeine kick, so I usually stuck to tea. In my head, it was healthier. Though maybe not. I didn’t know.

“That’d be great. Thanks, Mel.”

Sheriff Whitlaw put her hat on her lap as she sat at my mother’s breakfast table, watching me. I tried to steady my hand as I pulled two mismatched mugs from the yellow cupboard.

“I’m sure you know why I’m here.”

I almost tipped my good mugs, but thankfully, I saved them at the last minute. These were the mugs we kept for company. My grandmother’s fine porcelain-white china with intricate blue paintings of flowers and birds. Me and the kids? We drank from chipped novelty mugs collected over lifetimes of vacations. Company—especially company with authority and standing in Mourningkill—always got the good china along with the little porcelain plates that went with them.

I placed a green tea bag into each cup and poured the water. I needed to do this. I needed repetitive actions to ground myself.

My heart pounded, and my hands shook; the panic was held back by the slightest, flimsiest sugar glass that was the barest touch from crashing into a thousand, blade-like shards.

“I don’t.” I do. “Did I do something? Did one of the kids?” She knew I meant my brother and sister.

Marcus was nine years younger than me, and Miriam was two years younger than him. I wished I could say I had always been part mom and part sister to them, but I wasn’t. I didn’t help change diapers or pick them up when they fell and skinned their knees. Mama was always there to do that. She was so busy with them, it was my stepfather who stepped into the vacancy created by her lack of attention.

It was hard to like them after that. I loved them, yes.

But liking them was harder…so, so much harder.

Looking into their blue eyes, the eyes they’d inherited from him, made life feel like dancing on a blade.

I forced a smile that likely wasn’t convincing, because she looked at me with pity.

She should pity me. She’d once been one of my idols. A female sheriff in a conservative county like Mourningkill? Unheard of. Her existence had given me hope. I thought I could make something of myself despite my circumstances.

I was wrong, of course. But the years of hope I had were nice.

I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t, so I put her cup in front of her, wishing she’d just get on with it as my hands wrapped around a fucking “World’s Best Daughter” mug—one he had given me—as I waited for the axe to fall.

“Melody…” She leaned forward, mirroring my posture. I appreciated her attempt to be sympathetic. “There was a body found at the outlet of Mourningkill Lake.”

My heart beat hard in my ears.

I swallowed and nodded. I had expected for this for over a year now. The cops. The sirens. The handcuffs.

“DNA confirms it’s the body of Luke Gray.”

Tell me something I don’t know.

I was so fucking terrified, I nearly laughed at the ridiculousness. It bubbled in my throat, almost escaping like a snort.

I couldn’t read her. Not at all. She had one of those faces that didn’t give anything away. Willow-leaf shaped eyes, a flat profile, sharp cheekbones, and a large mouth that never frowned or smiled—only ever serious.

I took in a shuddering, unsteady breath. My vision narrowed. My eyes watered.