“Well, don’t do it again,” I warned, mentally thinking to myself that I was absolutely going to make sure my cat had zero ways to get out of the house without permission in the future. The kitty door she had installed and only ever used to get into the house when we came back from work was so getting taken out.
“Sure, whatever. Now where’s my dinner, I’m hungry.”
I rolled my eyes as I went to the cupboard and grabbed a tin of food.
“Well now that that emergency’s over, what did you guys find out at the farm?” I asked Sophie and Charlotte, who had settled themselves down on the couch. I put out Bee’s food, did the same for Sprinkles, then grabbed a bag of white cheddar popcorn and put it in between us as I joined the others on the couch.
“Honestly, I didn’t really find out a lot,” Charlotte said, sounding disappointed. “I saw Corey. He did a bunch of work, he was pretty rushed today. Apparently he spent the day at another farm, he was talking to Touch of Frost and told him that his son was doing really well. It was obvious he loves the horses. And then he went and saw Ellie. He kissed her, and told her that they could be together now. She told him that she wanted to wait a little while before they made their relationship public, to keep people from thinking he could have killed Caroline so they could be together. He said fine, but insinuated that they could keep meeting secretly. He also said he didn’t want to wait that long, that he had waited long enough to be able to be with her. So really, nothing we didn’t know.”
“I saw Susan, she looked strained. It seemed like every time there was the tiniest little sound she jumped about three feet. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she thought she was going to be murdered any second as well,” Sophie added. “I didn’t see her do anything incriminating though, I left just as she went up the stairs to do something to get back here in time.”
“Well I can tell you what she did do,” I added, and with that, I told Sophie and Charlotte about the letter I’d found, threatening Caroline.
“Wow,” Sophie whispered. “So that pretty much seals it. He had means, motive and opportunity. More than anyone else, at any rate.”
“But what can we do about it?” Charlotte asked. “I don’t trust that moron of a policeman to get there on his own.”
“We need to go over to see him and tell him we know,” I finally answered. “What I don’t understand is why do it when literally everyone knows about their relationship. I mean, Philippe and Tony were talking about it, too.”
“Sometimes love makes people do crazy things,” Sophie replied.
“I guess the girl who got arrested on a date for having sex at the top of the water tower would know,” I replied, and Sophie stuck her tongue out at me.
“That was a long time ago.”
Before I had a chance to retort, however, I got a text. I checked my phone and saw it was from Jason.
How about we try again for tomorrow night? He asked.
Sure, I replied. I knew if I didn’t agree soon, I was definitely going to get cold feet about the whole date thing. I still wasn’t sure it was a good idea.
“Ok. So we’re sure that Corey killed Caroline Gibson. Now, we have to go convince him to turn himself in.”
“What if he’s dangerous?” Charlotte asked, looking worried.
“There are three of us to one of him,” Sophie replied. “Besides, I’ll bring a knife.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s illegal,” Charlotte replied.
“Would you rather be a dead law-abiding citizen, or a living lawbreaker?” Sophie asked, and for a moment I wasn’t actually sure what Charlotte was going to reply.
“Fine,” she finally said. “When do you guys want to go?”
“Definitely tonight,” I replied. “It’s still going to be light for a few hours, and since he works with horses Corey will be up super early tomorrow, and I have no intention of getting up at 4 on my day off.”
“Do you know where he lives?” Sophie asked, and I shook my head.
“Well that’s easily taken care of, I’ll be back in a minute,” Charlotte replied. She grabbed her phone and went into her room, and came back less than five minutes later.
“He lives in Wawnee, I have the address here,” she said when she came back out, waving a piece of paper in her hand.
“How on earth did you find that out so fast?” I asked, impressed.
“This is Willow Bay. You call the right people, you can get any information you want.”
That was true, I had to say. “Ok, let’s get going,” I encouraged, grabbing a jacket off the back of a chair and my phone. I got another text from Jason.
The pub, tomorrow at 7?
Sounds good, I replied as the three of us ran out the door. I briefly considered texting Jason where we were going just in case anything did happen to us, then figured I was overreacting. Nothing was going to happen, we were just going to talk to Corey and convince him to turn himself in. Or at least, get him to admit what he’d done.
As Sophie drove to his address I installed an app to record conversations on my phone. If at the very least we could get him to admit to us that he’d killed Caroline Gibson, the police could use that as evidence.
About fifteen minutes later – Sophie wasn’t a big fan of obeying things like speed limits – we pulled up in front of Corey’s home. It was a small, slightly run-down bungalow, a pretty decent bachelor pad. I had to admit, as the three of us started towards the front door, my heart began to pound in my chest. We were about to confront a murderer!
I had a feeling, given how slowly we were walking towards his door, that I wasn’t the only one who was suddenly riddled with doubts about what we were doing. Maybe we should just leave and call the police? Maybe we should wait for them to find the note and then let them come to this same conclusion?
Before I had a chance to back out, however, Sophie took a step forward and knocked confidently on the door.
As soon as her knuckle hit the wood, however, the door creaked open. The three of us looked at each other.
“What should we do?” Sophie hissed.
“Obviously we should go inside and make sure everything’s ok,” I said. “What if he’s hurt, or his place has been robbed, or something?”
“What if the robbers are still in there though?” Charlotte hissed.
“Does it look like anyone’s in there to you?” I asked, motioning at the still darkness inside.
“You never know! Why don’t we just leave and call the police?”
“Oh you’re such a baby,” Sophie said, pushing the door open and going in. “There. Now you can stay out here and call the cops, or you can come in too.”
I stepped over the doorway after Sophie and followed her in. I heard Charlotte sigh and follow in after me.
This was hands down the creepiest place I’d ever been to. It wasn’t that there was anything weird about it; actually it looked exactly how you’d expect the home of a single man in his early 30s to look. But it was just so dark and still. Something about it gave me the creeps.
Sophie quickly took out her phone and turned on the flashlight app. A blaze of light suddenly illuminated the room, which showed itself to be just an entry leading to a hallway up the end that went to the kitchen, and a living room to the right. We poked our heads into the living room and saw it was empty, other than a giant flat screen TV, an Xbox One and a handful of games to go with it.
The three of us made our way down the hallway, silently, huddled together. This place was Creepy with a capital ‘C’. As soon as we reached the kitchen, Sophie let out a small gasp. I looked past her and saw Corey lying on the ground, completely still.
Before I had a chance to do anything, Charlotte’s training as a doctor kicked in. She pushed her way past the two of us and immediately made her way to his body, while I grabbed my phone and dialled 9-1-1 for the second time in three days. While I was on the phone with the operator, Charlotte shook her head, her fingers on Corey’s neck, checking for a pulse. He was dead.