Page 6 of Bone’s Choice

I had bills. They were considerably smaller now that rent wasn’t one of them, but they still existed.

Once I got through the worst of the boxes, I’d head into Marshfield and start looking.

A restaurant.

A bar.

A diner.

I wasn’t picky.

I’d spent most of my adult life waitressing or bartending. I was good at it. I could carry four plates at once, remember twelve drink orders without writing them down, smile through a fifty-cent tip, and tell a drunk man to get his hand off my ass without dropping the tray balanced on my other palm.

Marketable skills.

I was going to be fine.

I took a deep breath. “Okay, Hazel.” Standing around staring at boxes wasn’t going to unpack them. I pointed at the nearest one. “You.” It didn’t move. “Good talk.”

I grabbed the box cutter from the windowsill and attacked the tape.

LIVING ROOM.

Finally. Something useful.

I pulled the flaps apart and immediately found a pair of boots. I frowned. “Why are you in here?”

I pulled them out and tossed them toward the stairs.

Next came two picture frames, a candle, three books, an extension cord, and the throw blanket that had lived on the back of my old couch.

Apparently, my labeling system had fallen apart well before the SHIT I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH box.

I set the frames on the mantel. One was a picture of my mom and me. I was probably nineteen in it, and we’d been laughing at something when whoever had taken the picture snapped it. Neither of us was looking at the camera. I ran my thumb across the edge of the frame. “Well, Mom,” I murmured, “I’m living in your sister’s house.”

That was weird to say out loud.

I wondered what she’d think. I’d wondered that a lot since the lawyer called.

Why hadn’t they spoken? What had happened? And why had Diane left the house to me?

Maybe somewhere in the boxes of things left in the house, I would find some answers. There were a few photo albums. Some papers. A small wooden box I’d found in the back of a closet. Nothing I’d looked through yet.

I set the picture down and grabbed the candle. “You’re easier.”

The candle went on the mantel beside the frame.

I had just started digging through the box again when someone knocked on the front door.

I froze. Nobody knew me. Literally, I’d been in Wisconsin less than forty-eight hours.

The lawyer wasn’t coming. I hadn’t ordered anything.

Another knock sounded.

I looked toward the door. “Well, this is how horror movies start.” I put the extension cord down and walked across the living room.

There was a storm door outside the regular door, which at least gave me something between myself and whoever was standing there.