Saturday. 1:51 PM

“Hold it,” Murray said, interrupting my explanation of events. “You summoned a demon, made a deal, and she told you a counsellor did it?”

“That’s bullshit,” Davis growled. “Total bullshit.”

“She’s a demon,” I pointed out. “She promised me literal truth, that doesn’t mean she couldn’t mislead me. ‘Counsellor’ is a label with more meanings than just…” I gestured with my hand at the two of them. “You. It could be someone who works as a kid’s camp counsellor, or a paralegal, or whatever.”

It was a thin deception. I just needed enough plausible deniability that they wouldn’t cut off my story then and there. I wanted to keep talking, and if they thought I was fingering them for the murder directly, story time would probably end right there.

“So, what are you suggesting? That some kid who works at a camp was hired as a hitman to kill her?”

“No, but… Well, I think I was going about this all wrong,” I said. I’d worked this lie over a few times in my head, trying to make it sound realistic. “I’d assumed the murder was intentional. I definitely thought that for most of the night, but… what if it was just a home invasion? A person breaks in, looking for cash, and accidentally kills her? It would line up with what the demon said, and other than being a coincidence, it makes a lot of sense.”

I trailed off, letting them get the idea.

Davis still had a death glare fixed on me, but Murray was interested. She sat forward, resting her chin on a hand.

“What about the call that morning?” she asked. “The ‘hex’ you keep claiming was put on her phone?”

“I didn’t go through her bathroom cabinets. Maybe she was schizophrenic, and just forgot to take her meds that morning.”

Murray sat back, nodding as she thought about it. “It’s possible.”

“It’s a fairy tale,” Davis countered. “It’d be a massive coincidence.”

They were, at least, listening. That was progress. Getting them to think about suspects besides myself was a step in the right direction, even if I had to fudge things a bit to get her on board.

Maybe I could talk my way out of this, after all. And, if not, I could buy myself enough time to get by.

...

Friday. 6:28 PM

“A counsellor?” Ben asked, his eyebrows raised. “So, the people chasing you—”

“Yeah.” I slumped in my chair, suddenly feeling very tired in a way that the coffee couldn’t help. “Same people. It might be one of them from the bridge, for all I know.”

“So, if you turn yourself in…”

“They kill me, and say I was struggling,” I said. Putting my fears aside, I started taking deep breaths. You’re okay. Just keep working the problem. Don’t get derailed. “Or they just fake evidence to make it look like I killed Andrea, and use the fact I’ve been running to back up the story. I wouldn’t just lose my paper, I’d get locked up for life.”

Ben sat back, running his hands through his hair. “Then you have to find out who it was, and turn them in,” he said. “Clear your name by solving the crime, like we’ve been trying to do anyways.”

“Turn them in to whom? The counsellors? They’ll say I was lying, or delusional, or they’d just ignore me.” I remembered a couple details, and the gravity of my situation sank in even deeper. “Someone at the council is pulling strings to keep this secret. They’ve got connections. Deep connections.”

“Crap… Maybe your friend at the council can help?”

“Kennedy?” I thought back to our last conversation, where they’d sold me up the river ‘for my own good’. “I’m not thrilled about that plan, to put it mildly.”

“Then what do we do?”

I shrugged. You’re fine. Just keep moving. You’re not out of ideas yet. “Keep digging. Figure it out as we go along. And if it’s a counsellor who’s causing all the trouble, then at least I’ve got a lead on who to talk to. Can I see your cell?”

“Yeah.” He patted his pockets, came out with the device, and passed it over. “Who’re you calling?”

I took out my own phone, checking the call history to get the right number. “His name’s Manolis.”

“Okay,” Ben nodded. “But who is he?”

“The first person to tell me a counsellor might be in town. He can tell me what the counsellor looks like, that’ll clear things up.” I punched in the number, holding it up to my ear.

In the crowded shop, I had to turn up the volume to hear well as the phone dialed. “Manolis. Who’s speaking?”

“It’s Levi,” I said, “Calling from a friend’s phone. I had a question about our conversation earlier today.”

He chuckled into the receiver. “Paper boy! I didn’t know you’d go that above and beyond for me, but damn, I appreciate it. What’s your question?”

I frowned into the receiver. “Above and beyond?”

“Getting the counsellors to check Maggie out for ripping me off? I guess she tried to attack ‘em or something, which is about typical for her type, and—”

“I’m not calling about that.” I tapped a finger on my temple, recollecting my thoughts. “I didn’t call the counsellors to her place. That was unrelated.”

“Sure.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know you are,” he said, in a tone that implied we were sharing some sort of in joke. “It’s alright, Levi. What’s your question?”

I took a deep breath. “You said you saw a counsellor in town. Where was that?”

“Did I?” he asked, and I heard the receiver bump something as he moved his grip on the phone.

“I…” I closed my eyes, recalling the question. “You said… ‘It’s too small for counsellors, even if one of them is in town.’ How’d you know one was in town?”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Oh, yeah! I didn’t see ‘em myself, I just heard that from a friend.” I could hear a scratchy noise as he thought. Probably running his fingers through the beard I imagined he had. “Eh… can’t remember where, just heard that someone saw one. You could probably ask around, I’m sure someone’ll remember better than me.”

“Alright. Thanks anyways.”

“Thanks to you too, Levi.”

Hanging up, I checked the time before passing the phone back. It was already getting late. Sunset was only an hour away, and I was chasing rumors. I tapped my fingers to the side of my head, scowling, thinking about what I knew.

There was nobody else to call. All my leads had given dead ends. I’d sold a stake in my company and gotten nothing I could use. I’d scraped the bottom of the barrel so much that I’d hit dirt, and I was still at a loss.

I was in serious trouble.

I had no leads, I had no motive, I had no time. I didn’t even have evidence for the few clues I’d managed to gather. I’d gotten a woman killed, and now I was going to go down for her murder if I didn’t die myself.

Shit.

Too many people were talking.

Shit.

I couldn’t hear my own thoughts, except the ones that were reminding me just how screwed I was.

Stupid.

Someone nearby was laughing, having a good night.

You shouldn’t have even tried this.

Someone else sounded upset.

They were right. It was ridiculous to think you could make it.

The milk frother behind the counter was hissing, louder than it should have been.

What were you—

Something touched my hand. Ben. I blinked, looking up at him.

“Hey.”

“I’m fine,” I said, automatically.

The side of my head was sore. I hadn’t been tapping, I’d been thumping, leaving the spot tender.

“We’ll figure this out,” Ben promised, squeezing my hand tightly. He was looking at me, but not looking me in the eye, avoiding any the extra stressors. “Focus on me.”

I shook my head, breathing deeply, squeezing back just as hard. “I’m fine.”

A few people were looking my way, casting furtive glances over at our table. I guess they knew it was impolite to stare.

“I’m fine,” I said again. “I… I can’t stop. There’s no time. I have to keep going. I’m fine.”

He still didn’t disagree. “Okay, well. I’m going to get the truck, and we can figure out where to go from there. We need the truck, so it won’t waste any time if you stay here while I get it. Do you think you can cool off a bit?”

I pressed my lips into a line, inhaled through my nostrils, and nodded a few times. He was right, I could take a moment and it wouldn’t cost us anything. Reaching down, I fished my helmet off my backpack, unclipping the carabiner and picking it up. “Just give me a minute.”

“Back in two shakes.” Pushing up from the table, he took his coffee, navigating through the crowd to get to the door.

Pulling the helmet over my head, I fumbled for my phone, connecting the Bluetooth and putting on white noise.

Quiet.

Or, not exactly quiet, but it wasn’t a wash of chaotic sound. I couldn’t see much in my periphery, and with the visor down, it was still, dim and safe.

It helped, but it didn’t solve my problems. Just because panicking wasn’t helpful, didn’t mean that I didn’t have a good reason to panic.

Reaching for my bag again, I took out my laptop, settling it onto the table in front of me. Increasing screen brightness so I could see it through my helmet, I opened my editing software. While it loaded, I took out my notepad, flipping through it.

“It’s just a story.” I spoke out loud so I could hear my own voice. “Follow the story. Put it together.”

I started writing it out, beginning with what I knew.

Between the hours of twelve forty-five PM and two PM, Andrea had been killed. Probably in the earlier part of that range. She’d been afraid, and she’d called for help, and to keep her from getting that help the call had been scrambled.

My fingers hovered over the keyboard. That didn’t feel right.

A vague cry for help wouldn’t warrant a communications hex. ‘I’m worried someone might want to hurt me’ wasn’t specific enough to endanger her killer.

I thought about Andrea’s office. The papers that had been ripped away. The missing laptop.

So, a correction to my assumption: She’d been killed because she knew something, and she was going to tell me about it.

That gave me a potential motive. The counsellor had a secret, and they were willing to kill Andrea to keep her from going to the press with it.

It was something.

I kept pushing. The killer had left the body, then returned a little later and found me. They probably came back to clean up the crime scene. That begged the question, though, why did they leave in the first place?

I wasn’t a forensic expert, but I took out my phone, tabbing through the pictures I’d taken, trying to reconstruct how the struggle had gone down.

The door hadn’t been broken, it’d been opened nonviolently. Her body wasn’t by the door, though. If she’d opened it and been attacked immediately, why would she be so far away from the entrance?

Then, they’d killed her, taken her computer, her notes, and cleared out, but they’d missed her phone.

Putting it together, I started to type. My goal was not to be factually correct. I was telling a story, making it happen in a way that made sense to me. Once I had that, I could start looking for puzzle pieces to fill in the gaps.

Andrea paces up and down her living room, afraid. She’s always been the friend who got called, the one people lean on, and now that she needs someone, she doesn’t know what to do. Her cry for help was ignored, forgotten, brushed aside. Holding her phone, she tries to think of a number, a lifeline, a way to escape the net she’s fallen into.

Then, someone arrives. The counsellor, in their white robes, symbolizing law and order and righteousness. They unlock the door with magic, and they come in without warning. Andrea only has time to scream for help before they attack.

The counsellor kills her, and tries to do it quietly, but her scream comes too soon.

Alone with the body, the counsellor starts to worry. A neighbor might have heard, might have called the cops, and if they stick around too long, they could get into trouble. They’re in a hurry. They think to take her laptop, her notes, but there’s no time to look for her phone.

The counsellor clears out, changes into something less conspicuous, returns when they think the coast is clear. It’s only when they see the shattered window that they realize someone else got there first.

I skimmed through the summary, getting my bearings. It had a lot of assumptions in it, a lot of editorializing, and some outright fiction. I couldn’t rely on it to be factual, not in the slightest, but it felt right.

And, it reminded me of one advantage I had—I’d taken Andrea’s phone, before they could. If I could get the screen working, it might give me answers.

And, finally… the council itself. Someone at the council had to be covering for the killer. That meant, whatever I found, I’d need to find some other way to get the truth out. I couldn’t rely on the council taking my side, even if I had irrefutable evidence.

I had a pretty clear next step, then. Get the phone screen fixed. That really should have been my first step, but in my defense, I had been pretty distracted. “Computer,” I said, getting the attention of my virtual assistant. “Is there a phone repair store nearby?”

A pause, and then the slightly tinny voice responded, “Screen Savers Cell Phone Repair is open until seven thirty. Would you like directions?”

“Yes.”

I checked the clock on my phone, to see if there’d be enough time to get there before they closed. Twenty minutes had gone by as I’d put all this together.

That was… wrong. The truck was not parked in a spot twenty minutes away. Ben should have been back by now.

Closing my laptop, I packed it up, removed my helmet, and looked around. The coffee shop was still bustling.

I couldn’t call him, not unless I put the SIM card back in my phone.

Walking out onto the street, I looked around. Cars were still on the road, driving at a slow, jerky pace on account of all the pedestrian traffic.

Uncertain what to do, I stood there. I didn’t want to leave and go looking for him, since he could pull around and then I’d be the one who was gone. But if I stayed put, and he’d just left without me, I’d be standing there until the sun went down.

And, without him, I was going to need a ride.