Chapter 3 - THE LITTLE GIRL WHO SAW TOO MUCH
I told Noah it was a Halloween prop.
That was my first truly stupid decision.
Not the petrifying. Not hiding the robber. The Halloween prop.
In March.
Noah looked at the stone thumb, then at me, then at the calendar hanging beside the refrigerator like he was politely checking whether I had lost my mind.
“Okay,” he said.
Just that.
He put the thumb on the table.
“I’m going to bed.”
“Okay.”
He walked past me.
I wanted him to yell. Yelling would have given me something to push against.
Instead, he brushed his teeth. Flossed. Set his alarm. Lay on his side of the bed without touching me.
I stayed in the bathroom until sunrise.
At 7:12, June Bell told three people at Blackwater Elementary that the cashier at Ridgeway Mart had “sun eyes.”
By 8:05, her teacher had called her father.
By 9:30, someone posted it on the town Facebook group.
By noon, it had become a joke.
GOLD-EYED GAS STATION WITCH SAVES LOCAL KID.
Someone added a snake emoji.
I stared at the post from the locked stockroom while my manager, Carl, complained outside the door about police tape and insurance forms.
The robber’s name was Eli Trent.
Twenty-seven. Two assault charges. One burglary conviction. A sister in Spokane who had reported him missing by morning.
His body was no longer behind the store.
That should have made me feel better.
It didn’t.
Because I hadn’t moved it.
I had left Eli’s statue inside the loading bay when the silver-haired man appeared at the front door. I killed the OPEN sign, ran June out through the rear exit, and took her home through the alley.
When I came back twenty minutes later, the loading bay was empty.
No statue.
No dolly.
No stone flakes except a crescent-shaped chip near the drain.
Someone had taken him.
The man with the phone.
At 2:40 p.m., Sheriff Lena Ortiz walked into Ridgeway Mart.
She was forty-something, compact, tired-looking, and had the kind of face that made lying feel embarrassing.
“Mara Hale?”
“Yes.”
“Can we talk?”
Carl said, “Back office,” too quickly and vanished.
Ortiz sat across from me under a poster about lottery fraud.
“June says you saved her life.”
“I got her out.”
“She says Eli Trent pointed a gun at her.”
“He did.”
“And then?”
“He ran.”
Ortiz did not write that down.
I knew I was in trouble.
“She also said your glasses broke.”
“They did.”
“She said your eye was gold.”
“Colored contacts.”
“Do you wear colored contacts under prescription glasses?”
I swallowed.
“Sometimes.”
“Why?”
“I like disappointing optometrists.”
The joke came out wrong.
Ortiz blinked.
I wanted to crawl under the desk.
Then she smiled despite herself.
“Look, Mrs. Hale. I don’t care what color your eyes are. I care that a man fired a gun in this store and disappeared.”
“I don’t know where he went.”
That part was technically true.
Ortiz studied me for a long moment.
Then she placed a clear evidence bag on the desk.
Inside was a crescent-shaped chip of gray material.
My stomach dropped.
“We found this by the loading dock,” she said. “Any idea what it is?”
“No.”
Another lie.
Ortiz stood.
“Lab will tell us.”
She reached the door, then paused.
“Oh. One more thing.”
I hated those words immediately.
“A man came by this morning asking about you. Said he was an antiquities consultant.”
My mouth went dry.
“What man?”
“Adrian Voss.”
I had never heard the name.
But Sheriff Ortiz’s next sentence made my hands go cold.
“He knew your mother.”
---
The chapters are on the left side of your screen.
If you enjoyed the story, bookmark my site: https://metro.treeiq.biz
May you like
New stories are posted daily, so check back for updates.
