WTF is actually going on in this town?
GREENHOUSES UP IN FLAMES LAST NIGHT, POLICE SUSPECT ARSON.
I clicked on the article quickly and scanned it, my heart pounding furiously with every word.There wasn’t much to the article, as the story was still developing. All they knew was that the fire department had been called, it was contained, and so far no injuries had been reported.
That was because there were no injuries to report, just a death.
Steeling myself, I texted back,
Omg! Does Emi know???
We’re not talking but I’ll text her.
Trying my best to keep my nerves in check, I turned my music on and Fleetwood Mac played loudly as I continued to make the frosting that would go inside the pumpkin roll. I’d made enough I could go around the neighborhood and pass them out to my neighbors like I had last year. They’d loved that.
Would they love me now?
Emi and Soleil’s last conversations with me were so hateful and full of distaste for my choice of career. If my so-called best friends said that, what was everyone else saying?
I spent the morning baking loaf after loaf, and I continued to try Kansas’s phone, but he didn’t answer.Once I’d run out of ingredients and the last loaf had been pulled from my oven, I turned everything off and went to the couch to rest.
I was awoken by a knock on the door sometime later. Groggily, I sat up and blinked away the sleep. I went to the door and opened it, revealing Therese, with her wide, expressive eyes showing a glint of excitement.
“Did you hear?”
“Hear what?”
She pushed through me and sniffed the air. “Ugh, I love coming to your house. It always smells so good.” She turned, and remembering her trail of thought, she perked up again. “Girl, the tea is spilling!”
I yawned. “I just woke up,” I confessed.
Therese looked at me and nodded. “I can tell. How about you feed me whatever you spent all day making and I’ll tell you about everything I found out today.”
Dragging myself to the kitchen, I pulled out one of the finished rolls from the fridge and began to cut and plate it for her.
“Oh score! I love it when you make these. I love fall.” She pulled the plate toward her and grabbed a fork from the drawer to dive into the dessert. “So, where do I even start?”
I shook my head. Beats me.
“So, first thing this morning, Micah went with his dad to the police station and confessed that Constantine wasn’t the one who gave everyone the mushrooms. He made up a story about some weird stranger and the police bought it. Constantine was released an hour later.”
Constantine was out of jail?
“When he gets out, some of the documentary crew are standing by the door, waiting. As soon as he steps outside, they start filming and acting like paparazzi. It’s nuts. Constantine tries to ignore it, but they follow him through the parking lot.”
I leaned forward on the island, enthralled by Therese’s story.
“And at that point, he loses it. He turns and yells at the police waiting by a car, telling them that it’s real convenient that the moment they come to town, people start getting murdered. How it tells a real good story. He asks how the cameras knew exactly where to be at any given moment, and then someone else says to them, ‘Hey, weren’t you at the fires this morning too?’ and then the whole place got crazy.”
“How do you know all of this?” I pushed my hair back.
“Oh, I was there. Me and Rem were waiting for Micah. We were gonna go pick up Emi and go to the movie set.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask if she’d seen Emi, but it felt too suspicious.
“Needless to say, we didn’t get to go today. They pulled those people in for questioning right then and there.”
“What about Constantine?” I asked.She shrugged and took another bite.
