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“Steel Ridge police received an anonymous tip last night alerting them to the incident,” the reporter started. “At this time, police are suspecting foul play, but very little else is known about what happened or who might have done this. Sadly, this incident is the second suspected homicide in less than a month here in Steel Ridge. Residents are concerned, and we caught up with a few of them this morning.”
The camera cut away from the news anchor and the interview with one of the locals came up on the screen, but I couldn’t pay attention to that.
An unwelcome feeling settled over me. It was cold and lonely, and I felt a wave of nausea move through me.
I wasn’t going to be able to swallow it down.
I dropped the doughnut I’d just taken out of the box only moments early and took off running toward the bathroom. I bent over the toilet and heaved, grief spilling out of me.
Not Xavier.
Not Xavier.
When I’d sufficiently emptied the very few contents in my stomach, I stood in front of the mirror. My eyes roamed over my face, and I tried to come to grips with what I’d just learned.
Saul’s son was dead.
Murdered.
Tears leaked from my eyes and rolled down my cheeks. The news hadn’t even started to sink in when one name popped into my mind.
Whitney.
God, Whitney was probably a mess.
No matter that I felt like my emotions had clogged my throat and I wouldn’t be able to speak, I knew I needed to reach out to her. I wanted to check on her and see what I could do. Of course, I wondered if she’d have any additional insight into what happened to Xavier.
I took in a deep breath, buried the sadness I was feeling, and walked out into the room again. Someone needed me, and I had to step up to help.
I found my phone, scrolled to Whitney’s contact, and tapped on the screen. It rang three times before she answered, “Hanna?”
The agony in her voice was undeniable. “Whitney,” I rasped. “Whitney, I just found out.”
“He’s gone, Hanna,” she cried. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”
She was going to break. Of the two of them, Xavier had always been the stronger one. From what I could gather, he’d always looked out for Whitney. Xavier and I hadn’t ever gotten particularly close. I had a feeling he didn’t like it so much when I came in and disrupted the balance of the family he and Whitney had with Saul, but even if we hadn’t always gotten along, I still never would have wanted to see this happen to him.
“Where are you? Is somebody with you?” I questioned her.
“I’m home. Aiden is here with me,” she answered.
Aiden was her boyfriend. I’d met him once about two years ago when I first opened Short and Sweet. From what I could tell, he was a nice guy, and there was no question he made Whitney happy.
“Do you need anything? What can I do?” I pressed, wanting to help her in any way I could.
“Just hearing from you is enough, Hanna,” she assured me, her voice sounding so small and broken. “You’re all I have left of our family.”
I pressed my lips together and struggled not to break down completely. But what she was saying was the truth. Our little family—Saul, Xavier, Whitney, and me—had been cut in half, and we were all we had left.
Coming to that realization, I was ready to kick myself for allowing us to drift so far apart after we lost Saul. Then again, I guess that was to be expected. We’d had so many moments where the unspoken tension between Xavier and me was so palpable, that with Saul no longer around to ease it, it shouldn’t have been a surprise we didn’t manage to stick together when he was gone. Saul was the glue that kept us together, despite whatever negative feelings Xavier might have had toward me.
“Do you know what happened?” I asked her.
“No,” she answered. “I don’t know anything. The police haven’t told me much other than that they suspect foul play and that it’s an ongoing investigation.”
I shook my head in disbelief. It still didn’t seem real.
And I couldn’t even begin to imagine what Saul would have been feeling if he’d been here now. This would have been his worst nightmare, because Saul was a man who loved us dearly.
