As soon as Eve walked into her apartment, Harvey was on her, twining between her legs and begging to be picked up. He meowed, long and loud. Eve’s shoulders crept up closer to her ears as tension settled on her skin. It was like she’d walked in on someone getting the worst news of their life, which was a bit of a downer on an already shitty day. Shockingly, dead bodies weren’t all that fun to find.
“Can you chill?” she asked the room. Harvey meowed again, and a cool rush of air washed over her. “Not what I meant.” She leaned down to let Harvey climb over her shoulder, and he purred in her ear. She hugged him tight to her chest. “This town fucking sucks, babe.”
Eve stepped over to her desk. If she was translating, she couldn’t think about bodies in lakes, or ghosts, or what that specific body in the lake meant. If there really, truly was a ghost in her apartment, and if that ghost was Chelsea Horton, what exactly was Eve supposed to do about it?
She worked for a while, drinking her leftover coffee and grabbing an energy drink when that didn’t relieve the tiredness weighing her down. And every so often, she looked over her shoulder expecting to see someone. She kept thinking about dark lakes and the things that could hide under the water. Like dead bodies.
How was she supposed to get any work done when there was a murder victim’s ghost floating around, making her sad and anxious? Eve stood abruptly and left the apartment, grabbing her phone and wallet as she went. It might have been a hot July day, and the air might have been so full of humidity that walking felt like swimming, but at least it wasn’t full of the tragic emotions of a life ended too soon, or whatever.
Outside wasn’t much better, though. A storm cloud sat sulking over Blackwood, only instead of rain, this cloud was heavy with the knowledge of whose body had just been found. The people out and about moved in hurried, muted bursts. No one wanted to break the silence before the storm.
More coffee was going to be required if Eve was going to deal with this. Even if “dealing with this” meant ignoring it. At the very least, it couldn’t make things worse. Pulling up the map on her phone, Eve found the nearest cafe and started walking. Blackwood had high hopes of being a tourist town, so city planners had designed the downtown area to be walk-and-bike friendly, with a bunch of supposed-to-be-charming buildings and local history placards. Too bad the only people who wanted to visit were weirdo occult fanatics.
The Blackwater Coffee House stood next to an imposing stone building with a sign out front that said “St. Jude’s Catholic Church.” Eve stepped inside the air-conditioned cafe and shivered slightly as she adjusted to the temperature. The Blackwater was modern and minimalist, with a dozen light, wood tables spread throughout the room and a tiny succulent on each. A handful of people sat and drank out of rustic-looking ceramic mugs. One weirdo, attractive in a bland, white bread way—like the male lead in a direct-to-TV romance movie—watched everyone else while he sat at a table, not drinking his coffee.
“Welcome to the Blackwater Coffee House,” the barista said. She kept looking away from Eve, her gaze sliding away and snapping back again. Eve looked over her shoulder and accidentally met the eyes of the weird guy. “What can I get you?”
“A medium roast coffee. Large, please,” Eve said. “And can you leave room for cream?”
The barista nodded and smiled, all while looking at the weirdo. “I’ll get that right now for you.” She turned and grabbed a huge mug. As Eve watched her pour, someone came up next to her. She turned her head just enough to side-eye whoever it was.
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Weirdo stood uncomfortably close. “You're the one who found Chelsea’s body, aren’t you?” he asked. He smelled strongly of way too much cologne. “I saw you there with the police.” The barista turned at the sound of his voice.
“You did? That’s awful,” she said. The mug overflowed and spilled onto the counter before she noticed it. “I’m so sorry, Kyle. I know you were holding out hope.”
Weirdo-Kyle sighed and nodded. “Do you think you could give—uh, what’s your name?”
Eve weighed the consequences of not answering and then begrudgingly said, “Eve. But don’t—”
“Eve this coffee on the house?” he continued, talking over her. Eve narrowed her eyes and curled her fingers around the edges of her wallet. “I’d like to thank her for helping the police with the investigation.” He simpered—Eve hadn’t ever seen someone actually simper before, but this guy actually simpered—at the barista, who nodded quickly, and then at Eve, who shook her head.
“No,” she said.
“I insist,” Kyle insisted. The barista wouldn’t take Eve’s money, even when she held it out to her. Eve clenched her jaw and let it go. It was free coffee. Whatever. She took the mug, full to the brim, to the end of the counter to load it up with cream and sugar. Kyle hung back with the barista for a second before tagging along. “I’m Kyle,” he said.
“Okay.” Eve didn’t look at him, but she could see him blink a few times in confusion out of the corner of her eye. When she’d fit as much as she could into her mug, she carefully carried it over to a table on the opposite side of the cafe from Kyle’s. He followed her anyway.
“It must be terrible to move to a new town and get pulled into a murder investigation,” he tried again. Eve didn’t answer. She pulled out her phone and opened a cat-collecting app. “What did you tell the police?”
This time she looked up at him incredulously. He gave her a sad look, his dark brown hair remaining perfectly sculpted even as he hung his head. “I wish I could have been more helpful. Maybe I could have kept Chelsea from getting killed.” Eve rolled her eyes. So this was Kyle, the boyfriend, then. Lovely.
“I found her on the beach,” she said. “Not much else to say.”
“Did they tell you how she’d died?” Pulling out the padded chair across from her, Kyle sat down and leaned forward. “Were there any wounds?”
Eve stared at him. The hell kind of question was that? “I didn’t say you could sit down. And shouldn’t you be asking the police about that?”
Kyle ignored the first part. “But were there, like, any bite marks on her?” he asked.
Eve frowned. “That’s a weird question.”
He tilted his head and looked at her strangely before smiling. “Is it?”
“Yeah.” Eve tasted her coffee and grimaced. Not nearly enough sugar. Kyle squinted and then, oddly, reset himself. He sat back, blinked a few times, and leaned forward again.
“I have a theory about how she died,” he said. Looking exaggeratedly from side to side, he raised his eyebrows and lowered his voice. “Someone in Blackwood is a werewolf, and I think they killed Chelsea,” he stage whispered.
Eve couldn’t help it. She laughed before she could process the statement.
“Ooookay, dude,” she said. “That’s for sure the most logical explanation.”
“Think about it,” he said, glancing around again, though he wasn’t pretending to be quiet this time. “She was covered in bite marks, and she went missing on the full moon.”
“I didn’t say there were bite marks,” Eve said, narrowing her eyes even more.
Kyle faltered. “I think you did, though.”
“No. I didn’t.”
He hesitated, and then let it go. “Can I get your phone number? So we can keep each other up to date on the investigation?” Oh, that was great, the delusional rando was using his girlfriend’s death as an opening to hit on her.
Eve clicked her tongue. “I don’t have a phone.” She tapped at the screen of her phone to take a picture of the rare cat that had visited her virtual garden. Kyle frowned and stared at her, but didn’t say anything until she looked up at him, intending to tell him to fuck off now.
“Are you sure?” he asked. She would’ve assumed it was sarcasm, but he sounded sincere. She raised an eyebrow.
“Can you go away? I’d like to drink my coffee in silence now,” she said. “Alone.” For some reason, he paled at that, and a look of confusion crossed his face as he stood and walked away. Eve basked in the long-awaited quiet, drank her under-sweetened coffee, and wondered what the fuck was wrong with the people of Blackwood.