“Moving to get away from a dangerous situation isn’t stupid.”
“Maybe not. But dragging someone else into my mess was.” Her teeth dig into her lower lip. “When I moved in, I told Marissa about Jason. I didn’t think he’d find me there, but I warned her, just in case. I said he hadn’t made any threats, but I was worried he might.”
After another long pause, Hazel says, “He showed up there. At her apartment. I stayed late at work that day, so I wasn’t back yet. She—” Her voice wobbles. “Marissa was so sweet. She always saw the best in people. I’m sure he gave her some sob story about how sorry he was. How he wanted to fix things. And… she let him in.”
Hazel looks at me with tortured eyes. Guilt is etched into her features. “He killed her. I got home to find him inside the apartment with her… her body. Not Marissa anymore. Her dead body.”
“Hazel.”
The rest of her words spill out in a quivering rush. “He blamed her for keeping us apart. He said herealized it wasn’t my fault we broke up. It was Marissa’s. He said he fixed it so we could be together again. He wanted to blame her death on a burglary. And I was going to move in with him, since I couldn’t stay at a crime scene. He… he had it all figured out.”
“Shit.”
“He was going to make me go with him. But… I stalled. I pretended to go along with his idea. Long enough to trigger the emergency alert on my watch and wait for the police to arrive.”
“So they got him?”
“They did.” Tears well up in her eyes. “He lunged at one of the officers with a knife. The knife that still had Marissa’s blood on it. So they shot him. I… watched him die right in front of me.”
Fuck.
FUCK.
No wonder Hazel doesn’t date.
No wonder she keeps to herself.
Now I know where those shadows in her eyes come from.
“That’s why I moved,” she explains. “I couldn’t stay in Boston anymore. I couldn’t stay at my job, not with everyone knowing it was my fault Marissa died.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” I reply quickly.
“Wasn’t it? If I hadn’t moved in with Marissa, she’d still be alive. I don’t see how that isn’t my fault.”
“It’s not. It’s that psycho Jason’s fault. Not yours.”
Tears slowly leak down her cheeks. “I liked my life in Boston. Before. I had a nice apartment. Friends. A job I loved.” She pauses. “I worked for an alternative school. I was one of the outdoor educators there.” A sad smile touches her lips. “I got my degree in environmental science. Did you know that? I really loved it. Taking the kids on adventures, teaching them about conservation… but I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t.”
I loop my arm around Hazel’s shoulders and hug her to my side. “I’m so sorry.”
“I liked the name. Bliss. And when I looked at the pictures of the town, the pictures of Blissful Brews, it just felt like the right place to go. I’d waited tables in college, so I thought I’d be okay doing it again. I found a rental that would let me move in right away. I wasn’t expecting much. I just wanted a quiet place to try to forget.”
But it’s not that easy, is it?
“I didn’t, obviously,” she continues, answering my unspoken question. “I couldn’t. But I thought it was over, at least. That Jason couldn’t hurt anyone else.”
“But you think?—”
“I don’t know.” Hazel lets out a shaky sigh. “Jason’s dead. So it can’t be him. His mother was his only close relative, but she was devastated by what he did. She sent letters apologizing to me, to Marissa’s parents… So I don’t know why she’d want to hurt me. But I can’t think of anyone in town, either.”
My thoughts immediately jump to Marissa’s parents. Could they blame Hazel for their daughter’s death, just as Hazel does? Or could Jason’s mother be the one? Perhaps wracked with grief, needing a place to place blame…
Three years is a long time to wait for vengeance. But it’s not impossible.
“I didn’t want to tell people about it,” Hazel says. “I wanted a fresh start here. But if what happened in Boston has anything to do with what’s going on now…”
I give her shoulders a little squeeze. “You’re right to tell me about it. Those are things we can look into.”
