AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Cutting into the cake, I know I shouldn’t have a slice for breakfast, but I’m going to do it, anyway. Even if it tacks ten pounds onto my ass. This time last year we were having a sister’s day. We went all out and got our hair and nails done. She bragged about all the hot men she was seeing. I laughed it off because that was always her way. Despite having steady boyfriends, she was always playing the field and had three guys on standby. Monogamy was never in her nature. It’s why I didn’t take much stock when she mentioned the MC. I passed it off as more men on her never-ending list of conquests.
Her death has left me with one too many coulda, shoulda, wouldas. Had I been a better sister and asked more questions, demanded to see her when my calls went ignored–—maybe, just maybe, she’d still be here.
I was dealing with my own issues. I wasn’t there as much as I should have been. There’s this nagging voice in the back of my mind that whispers daily that she was murdered. I can’t shake this feeling. Chill bumps fan up and down my arms. The sound of sirens growing closer breaks me out of my sad stupor.
Those sirens are nearly right outside my front door. I peer out the peephole as a fist bangs on the door across the breezeway from mine. I hope Ms. Mildred, my neighbor, is okay. A familiar sensation, one I know all too well, washes over me. Helplessness. That’s what I am as the paramedics bring her pale, lifeless body out on a gurney. Her cat, Whiskers, a flurry of black, orange, and gold fur darts out the door, rushing between their feet to make his escape.
If anything happens to her, Ms. Mildred would be devastated. I throw open my door once the breezeway is empty, and she is being loaded into the back of the ambulance. Things aren’t looking good for her. There’s not much I can do for her, but I can tend to the cat at least.
As the EMT closes the back doors of the ambulance, I stop him. “Is she going to be okay?”
The guy shoots me a sympathetic smile and shakes his head as he climbs into the driver’s seat. It isn’t lost on me that he doesn’t flick the sirens on as they exit the parking lot.
Shit.
I find Whiskers crouched behind the hedges. “Come here, you chunky girl.” I scoop the fat tortie into my arms and she lets out her signature raspy meow. “That’s a sweet kitty.” Scratching behind her ears, I take her into my apartment and give her a can of food left over for when a stray shows up. Though this isn’t the first time I’ve taken care of her cat. Ms. Mildred spent a week in the hospital with Covid last winter. I kept the cat as a courtesy. She doesn’t have any children. Was never married. As far as I know, she has no family, except Whiskers.
I have a key to her apartment, but going in uninvited seems like an invasion of privacy. Though I could let the cat back in and just go in and out to feed him twice a day until my neighbor is out of the hospital. I swallow, remembering the grim expression of the emergency worker as he drove off. We’ve looked out for each other. Two single women living on our own. After my ex left, she was there to keep me company. When Shiloh passed away, she made me three casseroles and cake.
She’s a sweet old lady. The thought of losing her too hits me square in the gut. I didn’t realize how attached I’ve become. Guess I’ve found comfort in knowing she was across the hall. It’s like I wasn’t alone. That there was someone watching over me. I could hear her shuffling to the door with her walker many times when I’d get in later than normal. Like she was waiting up to make sure I got in okay.
Swiping a tear from my cheek, I stop the negative thoughts of Ms. Mildred in the past tense. She’s going to be fine. Digging around in my junk drawer, I find the spare key to her place and take Whiskers home to await her return.
The unit is a mirror of my own. One bedroom, one bath, open living room and kitchen, along with a small back patio. I can’t help but grin at her bookshelves. The woman is addicted to romance novels. Especially historical bodice rippers. She belongs to one of those book of the month clubs. We all have our things. Mine happens to be makeup and true crime. Specifically cold cases.
Cases like that of my sister that never got enough attention or slipped between the cracks. Or simply were covered up. Shiloh’s death is why I started pushing my podcast and my true crime club to grow as much as it has in the past six months. We meet monthly. I started alone. At the first meeting, no one showed. Now there’s eight of us. Seven if Ms. Mildred doesn’t make it. She was the first to join my club. It was out of pity, but I didn’t care. She kept me going when I wanted to give up.
She was the first to hire me for my cleaning business and recommended me to friends at the senior center or anywhere she went, really. Her general practitioner hired me to clean his office and was impressed with the job, so his wife hired me to do their home and then their friends got word of me and now I have a steady income and set my own hours giving me enough free time to pursue my hobbies. Like trying to bring attention to unsolved murders.
I should swing by the hospital to check on her. Going into them gives me the willies. Some people never leave once they’ve checked in. Like my father. He went in with chest pain and collapsed in the waiting room. Leaving my mother a widow. When our father passed away, our mother gave up on life here. She didn’t even show up for his funeral. A broken heart is what killed her. At least that is what Shiloh speculated. In my opinion, she drank herself to death.
None of that matters. It’s the past and Shiloh isn’t here. I grab my keys and drive to CAMC to check on my best friend, who happens to be an eighty-five-year-old woman.
“Are you family?”
“Her granddaughter.” The lie rolls off my tongue as easy as breathing.
The nurse working intake at the emergency room meets my gaze. “Then I’m sorry to inform you that your grandmother didn’t make it.”
“There must be some mistake.” I argue, though deep down I know she’s telling me the truth. I saw her with my own eyes. Pale. Lifeless.
An image of my sister being pulled from the bathtub flashes in my mind. Blue lips. Wide-eyed stare. Blood crusted around her nostrils.
I shudder at the thought of the photos from the scene of her death.
“Is there someone I can call for you?”
I shake my head. “No. I’m her only family.” My chest constricts. I slide into a nearby chair as the room tilts. The morning I got the call about Shiloh returns to my thoughts, fresh as ever. As though it just happened. Memories of the doctor telling my mother that they couldn’t revive my father plays out like a movie. Then my mother being found dead in her bed when I was away at college. And now Ms. Mildred.
Capping a palm to my mouth, I let out a sob. My shoulders shake as tears streak down my cheeks, ruining my makeup, but that’s not important.
Once again, I’m on my own.
I’m cursed.
Doomed to forever be on my own.
Chapter Four
