Page 2 of Little Bitter Truths
The figure didn’t rush or hesitate.
It stepped forward.
Wren’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.She scrambled off the couch, her bare feet sliding against the hardwood as she attempted to back away.
“Please,” she said.“I don’t know who you are or why you’re here, but I want you to leave.”
The words hung in the air, fragile and useless.
The figure raised an arm, aiming a gun at Wren’s head.
For a moment time slowed, stretching thin as Wren’s life flashed before her.She thought of her sister and of Cooper and the life she thought she had ahead of her.A life she wasn’t sure she’d live to see now.
As a gunshot rang through the air, Coco lunged forward with a sharp bark.Wren collapsed to the floor, the room tilting as her consciousness began to fade.In the background, the television screen flickered, still muted, the images sliding in and out of focus.Coco’s bark turned frantic as she stood at Wren’s side.
The figure approached, smacking Coco to the side before leaning down, lifting Wren up to look at her.Wren squinted, desperate to identify the person standing before her, but the room, along with everything else, was fading.
A moment later, the attacker stood.Footsteps retreated, quick and rushed, fading into the night the same way they had come in.From somewhere in the house, Wren heard a window creak as if being opened or closed, then all was silent.
As Wren’s breathing went shallow, Coco began to whine, returning to Wren and nudging her shoulder.Wren’s eyes stared past her, unseeing, fixed on nothing at all.In her final moment, her phone buzzed with a message—a message she would never read.
2
Iwas sitting at my office desk when a woman walked in.She looked like she belonged on the cover of a magazine for women who never spilled coffee, never perspired, and never missed a deadline.The woman was tall and slim, albeit frail, like she either didn’t eat much or hadn’t eaten in days.Her long blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she was dressed in a pair of crisp, white slacks, a pale pink satin tank top, and tan open-toed heels.
The woman glanced around the office, and when her eyes met mine, I smiled, saying, “Hi there.Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Georgiana Germaine.”
“You found her.”
For a moment, she didn’t react.
She just blinked at me like she was unsure about what to say next.
I gestured toward the chair opposite me.“Why don’t you take a seat?”
She nodded and stepped inside my office, closing the door behind her, even though we were the only two people there.
“My name is Mia Bennett,” she said.“I need your help.”
I knew the name well.It had been on the lips of every local in town.Her tragic story had been on television stations across the state for weeks.In the small town of Cambria, it was the kind of story that made everyone think twice about leaving their doors unlocked.
I’d gathered some information from the news, and even more from Detective Whitlock when he’d called me a couple of nights after they started processing the crime scene.Since then, we’d spoken a few times, but I was sure there were still a lot of details I hadn’t been told.
What I did know was that a month earlier Mia had returned home from a business trip and found her sister, Wren, murdered in her living room.Mia’s dog was found lying over Wren, as if trying to protect her, even though Wren had been dead for some time.The motive behind Wren’s murder remained unclear, and as far as I knew, the police had no suspects and had made no arrests.
“I was sorry to hear about your sister,” I said.“You were twins, weren’t you?”
She nodded.
“How’s the investigation going?”I asked.
She crossed one leg over the other.“Slower than I’d like.It’s the reason I’m here.One of my neighbors said you worked on her friend’s homicide case a while back.She said you have a reputation for solving every case you take.”
Indeed.
“How long have you lived in Cambria?”I asked.
