The forum was unusually active for a weeknight, with three times the typical number of posts and comments.Amanda scrolled through the main feed until she saw the story that had apparently set the town abuzz.
BREAKING: Derek Sullivan found murdered near old textile mill district.
The headline, posted by Brenda Drummond herself, had accumulated over a hundred comments since morning.Amanda clicked to expand the thread, a flicker of something—not quite sympathy, not quite satisfaction—stirring in her chest.
Derek Sullivan.The town drunk.The man who’d once cat-called her outside the Centaur’s Den, then laughed when she’d told him to go to hell.The man who, last year, had thrown up in the alley beside Hartford’s Closet after a day-long bender, just hours before an important visit from a potential investor who might have saved her business.
And now he was dead.Murdered.
Amanda scrolled through the comments, her attention sharpening as details emerged.Derek had been strangled, apparently.His body found wrapped in red yarn.Someone mentioned seeing Sheriff Graves and her deputy at the scene.
Sheriff Graves.Jenna Graves.Another success story that made Amanda’s teeth ache.The girl who’d overcome a tragic past—her twin sister’s disappearance—to become the town’s respected protector.And now, miraculously, her sister had returned.It wasn’t fair.People like Jenna Graves seemed to lose things only to have them restored, while people like Amanda lost everything permanently.
She refreshed the page.Three new comments had appeared, including one from a user calling themselves “TruthTeller”:
“Derek Sullivan was no saint, but nobody deserves to die like that.Wrapped in red yarn like some sick art project?What kind of monster is loose in our town?”
Amanda hovered over her keyboard.She shouldn’t engage.Her friend Cathy had told her repeatedly that TownCircle only made her mood worse.But the wine and the exhaustion and the accumulated resentment of another day at the discount store compelled her forward.
She began typing: “Funny how everyone’s suddenly concerned about Derek Sullivan.Where was all this community caring when he was alive?Half of you crossed the street to avoid him.At least death finally got him some attention.”
She hesitated over the enter key.The words were harsh, even by her standards.But the thought of Derek—miserable, pathetic Derek—becoming the object of the town’s collective sympathy while she remained invisible in her daily humiliation proved too much.She hit enter.
The response was immediate.Within minutes, replies piled up beneath her comment:
“Have some respect for the dead, Amanda.”
“This is a MURDER investigation, not a popularity contest.”
“Typical Amanda Hartford bitterness.Some things never change.”
That last one, from a user named “HeathersBFF,” stung particularly.She knew exactly who that was—Melanie Porter, Heather Banning’s self-appointed cheerleader and one of the first to abandon Amanda’s store when Heather opened her own shop.
Amanda’s cheeks burned.She gulped the remainder of her wine and poured another glass, sloshing a few drops onto her keyboard.The liquid beaded on the plastic, and she wiped it away with her sleeve, leaving a smear.
She typed in response.“Some of us have to live with being treated like we’re already dead.When I’m gone, will you all pretend to care about me too?Or will you just whisper about how I got what I deserved?”
She hit enter before she could reconsider, then immediately regretted it.The words were too raw, too revealing.She’d exposed a vulnerability she normally kept hidden beneath layers of sharp remarks and defensive posturing.
The responses flooded in, faster than before:
“Are you actually comparing yourself to a murder victim?Wow.”
“Maybe if you hadn’t driven your business into the ground by suing a fellow business owner, people would have more sympathy.”
Amanda slammed her laptop closed, unable to bear more.Her chest felt tight, her throat constricting around a sob she refused to release.They didn’t know.None of them knew what it was like to watch everything you’d built crumble while another woman—a newcomer, an outsider—flourished using your ideas, your suppliers, your vision.
She carried her wine glass to the bathroom and flicked on the harsh overhead light.The woman who stared back from the mirror looked older than her early forties—deep lines around her mouth, dark circles like bruises beneath her eyes.Her hair, once professionally colored and styled every six weeks, now showed an inch of gray roots above the fading blonde.
“When did you get so old?”she whispered to her reflection, which offered no comfort in return.
Amanda turned on the tap and splashed cold water on her face.She’d exhausted her tears months ago, somewhere between the final foreclosure notice and the humiliating job interview at the discount store.
As she brushed her teeth, Amanda’s mind drifted back to the glory days of Hartford’s Closet.For five years, her boutique had been a modest success—not enough to make her wealthy, but enough to grant her the status she’d craved since childhood.Women from Trentville’s better neighborhoods had sought her advice on what to wear to dinner parties and charity functions.She’d been invited to join committees, to attend events that would have been closed to her in her youth.
And then Heather Banning had arrived.
Banning’s Finds had opened just two blocks away from Hartford’s Closet.At first, Amanda hadn’t worried—Heather’s shop focused on home décor and artisanal items, not clothing.But slowly, insidiously, Heather had expanded her inventory.First it was accessories—handcrafted jewelry and scarves that competed directly with Amanda’s offerings.Then came a small selection of “locally designed” clothing that mirrored the aesthetic Amanda had cultivated for years.
