AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Byron, baby, are you okay?” The mayor wrapped her son up in her arms, kissing his forehead. They had the same exact long brown hair, down to the shade.
“I’m fine, I’m okay.”
Sheriff Mosley looked to us, offering a piece of the missing puzzle. “He found the body. Him and Emma.”
Byron buried his head in a fold of his mom’s gray knit sweater as she explained further. “We were going to set up for the pumpkin-carving contest. The area behind the food trucks, there’s a stage and tables and a U-Haul full of pumpkins. We needed to add the tablecloths and set up each station. Byron was carrying a pumpkin when he set it on the floor for a second. He picked it up and felt something wet. When he looked, it was blood, coating the entire bottom of the pumpkin. A river of it was pooling downhill, from around the back of the carving stage.
“He shouted and dropped the pumpkin. I ran to him, and that’s when we saw the body. It was the Pegasus killer, and it had to have happened moments before we showed up.”
“How do you know?” Matthew asked.
“Because the man was still gurgling blood, sir.” Byron was the one who answered, face still buried in the safety of his mother’s chest.
Jesus. These poor people. An entire town being victimized by a sadistic serial killer. I was sure Emma Rosewell never imagined her tenure as mayor would involve her and her son stumbling upon the last moments of a brutally murdered man. No one can ever prepare for that, nor could they ever recover from that. Not completely. No, these two would be seeing red in every shadow they crossed. Hearing the wet and spine-twisting final breath of the man in every song, every show they watched. It’d diminish, but the memory would never be erased.
Fuck. Poor, poor people.
“Was there anything else about the scene that stuck out to you?” Matthew asked, directing the question to both mother and son. “Maybe someone else in the area who shouldn’t have been there? Or an item that wasn’t supposed to be there?”
Mayor Rosewell pursed her thin lips as she shuffled through thoughts so fresh they must have still been processing. “I can’t really think of much. No one was around but us and my assistant, Peggy Duval. She was working on getting the decorations onstage, so she didn’t see anything. When we found Mr. Reynold’s body, I told her to stay away. So she did, and she called the police.”
“Mr. Reynolds…” The name clicked into place once I said it out loud. “Lionel Reynolds, the owner of the Creek Star Theater?”
“That’s him.” The mayor shook her head. That made this all the more twisted, more cruel.
Emma and Lionel had dated, back when I lived in Blue Creek with my grandma. The news was the talk of the town for a handful of weeks. I was probably fourteen at the time and still remembered the drama it had stirred up. Emma had just announced her run for mayor and quickly had her life turned upside down by her opposition. The news normally wouldn’t have made a splash, if Emma hadn’t just been going through a messy divorce that had yet to be finalized. Lionel, at the time, was a transplant from a big city and the polar opposite of a buttoned-up and permanently stoic Emma Rosewell.
Their relationship didn’t work out, but they still remained very good, very public friends.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, knowing my words wouldn’t do anything to field off the persistent waves of shock crashing over both of them.
Matthew, always the harder-edged of us two, nodded as an echo of my statement before asking another question. “Did you know if Lionel was seeing anyone?”
I couldn’t blame Matthew for not knowing how that question could be a direct hit to the heart for Emma. He was a newcomer to this town. I’d spent nearly my entire life here, neighbors becoming family and family becoming everything.
“He was,” Emma answered, lips drawn even tighter than before. I could see now that she was fighting off a torrent of tears. Holding her son must have been the anchor she needed to clasp onto. I knew that wouldn’t be the case when she retreated behind a locked bathroom door, shower running to hide the sounds of her racking sobs.
“Is he here?” Matthew asked. He was going off the MO we had discussed in my office. So far, the Pegasus killer seemed to be targeting queer people in committed relationships. It was the only viable link we had between any of the victims.
“She isn’t,” Emma said. Matthew removed his sunglasses, his piercing eyes searching the mayor’s pained gaze. He’d always had an intensity to him, something that drew me directly into his arms, even back when we were just two dumb kids trying to make it through the academy without killing each other. The complete opposites in us clashed, made us fight in a way that never intended to inflict any harm but would still leave a sting or two. We’d argue and talk shit, and then we’d end up with our tongues down each other’s throats and our hips grinding.
