Read Online 08 - December Dread by Jess Lourey - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jess Lourey
Tags: Fiction, Mystery, serial killer, Holidays, Minnesota, soft-boiled, online dating, candy cane, december, jess lourey, lourey, Battle Lake, Mira James, murder-by-month
Ads: Link
the woman we hired two months ago to sell our ads? She looks like Angelina Jolie.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. Mystery solved. “I’ll be sure to tell Ron the secret, though I don’t know if it’ll do us any good.”
He led me out and told me his door was open if I had any more questions when I was in town. I thanked him and crunched down the sidewalk, deep in thought. The stores on the street were exactly the same as I remembered—small mom and pop gift shops, a Jack and Jill grocer, a Ben Franklin five and dime. I’d almost reached my car when I spotted something that turned my blood to sludge: a woman who looked like my mom, her jacket pulled tight around her ears, walking into an alleyway a block up, toward the rough part of town.
Twelve
Okay, so Paynesville doesn’t really have a rough part of town. It’s composed mostly of family-owned businesses, a car dealership or two, some churches, and row upon row of walk-out ramblers and ranch-style houses sprinkled amongst the colonials. There is, however, a section on the edge of the small downtown area that is mostly rentals, and the serial killer scare had me seeing ghosts. “Mom!” She didn’t hear me, so I jogged toward the alley she’d disappeared into. My boots crunched on the salt littering the sidewalk. “Mom?”
I peered down the alleyway that ran between the old creamery and the turn-of-the-century Paynesville hospital, both of which had been converted into apartments in the ’60s. The alley led to a webbed series of stairs attached to the three-story brick building on each side. The stairs led up to apartment doors. Just a glance was all it took to ignite the memory. A summer night smelling of blooming peonies and fireworks. Me, Patsy, and another girl here on a dare. Instructions to walk to the farthest set of stairs, go up to the third floor, and knock on the blue door. A Ziploc bag of Minnesota ditchweed exchanged for a hot ten-dollar bill. I remembered getting more headache than high, but we did a lot of laughing that night nonetheless. I half-smiled at the memory. Where had I been storing all these positive recollections?
I pulled myself back into the moment, counting eight separate balconies and doors, four on each side of the alleyway. Mom could have gone into any one of them. Was it possible the town dealer was still living here? Unlikely, and even if he was, he’d be the last person my mom would visit. Right? I replayed the image of her in my head. Had she looked scared, or in a hurry? That’s when I realized I hadn’t been able to make out her face, and come to think of it, the black down jacket she’d been wearing was a generic design that everybody seemed to sport nowadays. I’d assumed it was my mom because of her height and build and something essentially mom-like about her, but maybe it hadn’t been her after all.
Still uneasy but lacking an alternative, I returned to my car. The decision that followed—to drive west—wasn’t a conscious one, but I found my Toyota pointing that direction and soon, I passed the green sign trimmed in white letting me know that I was entering River Grove, population 767. The town’s streetlight poles were swathed in plastic green garlands and topped with Santa heads that I’m sure lit up at night. The layout was similar to Paynesville’s, with two main streets that intersected at the downtown area. The town consisted of churches, grocery stores, and assorted offices surrounded by neat houses. A sprinkling of people walked the streets, but they all appeared to be in a hurry. Everyone’s head was down.
I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, so I crisscrossed the streets. Not one snowman existed in a single yard, even though today’s sticky snow conditions would be perfect. Three large globes of snow scattered in front of a blue rambler near the town park suggested that any existing snowpeople had been destroyed after the murder. Many front yard fir trees were still trimmed with lights,
I couldn’t help but laugh. Mystery solved. “I’ll be sure to tell Ron the secret, though I don’t know if it’ll do us any good.”
He led me out and told me his door was open if I had any more questions when I was in town. I thanked him and crunched down the sidewalk, deep in thought. The stores on the street were exactly the same as I remembered—small mom and pop gift shops, a Jack and Jill grocer, a Ben Franklin five and dime. I’d almost reached my car when I spotted something that turned my blood to sludge: a woman who looked like my mom, her jacket pulled tight around her ears, walking into an alleyway a block up, toward the rough part of town.
Twelve
Okay, so Paynesville doesn’t really have a rough part of town. It’s composed mostly of family-owned businesses, a car dealership or two, some churches, and row upon row of walk-out ramblers and ranch-style houses sprinkled amongst the colonials. There is, however, a section on the edge of the small downtown area that is mostly rentals, and the serial killer scare had me seeing ghosts. “Mom!” She didn’t hear me, so I jogged toward the alley she’d disappeared into. My boots crunched on the salt littering the sidewalk. “Mom?”
I peered down the alleyway that ran between the old creamery and the turn-of-the-century Paynesville hospital, both of which had been converted into apartments in the ’60s. The alley led to a webbed series of stairs attached to the three-story brick building on each side. The stairs led up to apartment doors. Just a glance was all it took to ignite the memory. A summer night smelling of blooming peonies and fireworks. Me, Patsy, and another girl here on a dare. Instructions to walk to the farthest set of stairs, go up to the third floor, and knock on the blue door. A Ziploc bag of Minnesota ditchweed exchanged for a hot ten-dollar bill. I remembered getting more headache than high, but we did a lot of laughing that night nonetheless. I half-smiled at the memory. Where had I been storing all these positive recollections?
I pulled myself back into the moment, counting eight separate balconies and doors, four on each side of the alleyway. Mom could have gone into any one of them. Was it possible the town dealer was still living here? Unlikely, and even if he was, he’d be the last person my mom would visit. Right? I replayed the image of her in my head. Had she looked scared, or in a hurry? That’s when I realized I hadn’t been able to make out her face, and come to think of it, the black down jacket she’d been wearing was a generic design that everybody seemed to sport nowadays. I’d assumed it was my mom because of her height and build and something essentially mom-like about her, but maybe it hadn’t been her after all.
Still uneasy but lacking an alternative, I returned to my car. The decision that followed—to drive west—wasn’t a conscious one, but I found my Toyota pointing that direction and soon, I passed the green sign trimmed in white letting me know that I was entering River Grove, population 767. The town’s streetlight poles were swathed in plastic green garlands and topped with Santa heads that I’m sure lit up at night. The layout was similar to Paynesville’s, with two main streets that intersected at the downtown area. The town consisted of churches, grocery stores, and assorted offices surrounded by neat houses. A sprinkling of people walked the streets, but they all appeared to be in a hurry. Everyone’s head was down.
I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, so I crisscrossed the streets. Not one snowman existed in a single yard, even though today’s sticky snow conditions would be perfect. Three large globes of snow scattered in front of a blue rambler near the town park suggested that any existing snowpeople had been destroyed after the murder. Many front yard fir trees were still trimmed with lights,
Similar Books
