Story of My Life (Story Lake #1)

8. Not a professional murderer

8

NOT A PROFESSIONAL MURDERER

CAMPBELL

You’re tellin’ me not only did she buy real estate, but she also gets to sit on the council for the next two years?” I repeated, running through the list of reasons why punching a seventeen-year-old kid who had the enthusiasm of a puppy was a bad idea.

We were standing in the side yard of Heart House, pinned in by sunflowers and chest-height weeds.

“Yep. I ran all this by Gage. Didn’t he tell you?” Darius asked.

“He did not.” At least I could get away with punching my brother.

“Listen, Cam. Campbell’s Soup. The Camenator. This is a good thing. This is a new tax-paying citizen who’s going to fill that last seat on the council and fix up the biggest eyesore on Endofthe. And guess who she’s going to ask to help her do that?” Darius pointed finger guns at me. “Bishop Brothers. Being the only game in town has its advantages.”

Darius had never met a half-empty glass or a cloud without a silver lining. His youthful optimism made me want to kick something.

“She hit Goose with her car and destroyed the sign on the way into town. She’s not gonna fit in,” I insisted.

“Firstly, Goose throws himself in the path of a car at least once a week. Secondly, that sign was in dire need of restoration. Thirdly, we don’t need her to fit in. We just need her to stay and pay taxes. And finally, this means we’ve finally got ourselves a town celebrity. Even Dominion doesn’t have that. It’s a win-win-win.”

“Celebrity?” If the kid told me he sold the biggest chunk of Story Lake historic real estate to some kind of admittedly attractive reality TV star, I was going to need a longer list of reasons not to punch him.

“Cam the man, she’s the Hazel Hart.”

There was something about that name that rang a bell. But before I could figure out what it was, the window behind us opened with a protesting screech.

Hazel poked her head out. She had cobwebs in her hair and a ridiculous, dreamy smile on her face.

Darius pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of Hazel. Then he turned the camera on the two of us and took a selfie. I scowled.

“Just documenting the big day,” he said smoothly.

“If that ends up on that stupid Neighborly app, I’m going to have words with you, and my fists will be doing the talking,” I warned.

Darius clung to my shoulder and chuckled like we were on a golf course somewhere, sharing punch lines. “Ah, you kill me, Cam. You gotta watch out for this guy’s sense of humor,” he told Hazel.

“Oh, yeah. I can tell. He’s a laugh a minute,” she said dryly. “What can you tell me about the previous owner?”

“They died here, didn’t they?” Zoey called. “They were gruesomely murdered and the crime was never solved. That’s what I’m smelling, isn’t it?”

“How about I come in there and fill in some gaps about your new home?” Darius offered. “Cam’ll come too since he’s the one you’ll want to hire to do any little fixes this incredible piece of history might need.”

“Is that so?” Hazel asked.

Darius gave her an exaggerated wink. “Only if you want the best in town.”

I hated every single thing that was happening.

Zoey popped her head out of the window next to Hazel. “Did he just growl again?” she asked.

Hazel’s smile was smug. “Yep.”

“Let’s get this over with,” I muttered.

“That’s the spirit,” Darius said, leading the way around to the front of the house.

My phone vibrated against my ass, and I yanked it out of my pocket. Messages from the Bishop Buttholes were rolling in at an alarming rate. While Bish Bros was for us three brothers and mostly dealt with work and beer, the Bishop Buttholes included our sister. It had been named in honor of an infamous family get-together that nearly murdered all of us by spreading a stomach bug or food poisoning. The jury was still out on that one. For two days, every single text was sent from the vicinity of a toilet.

Laura: What are you doing at Heart House, Cammy? Spying eyes want to know.

She’d included a GIF of some creeper with binoculars.

Instinctively, I turned toward the fence and spotted the twitch of a curtain in the next-door neighbor’s downstairs window. Felicity Snyder was a borderline agoraphobic—her words, not mine—video game designer who spent most of her free time eating cereal that turned milk unnatural colors, knitting, and keeping tabs on everything that happened around her brick duplex.

“Seriously, Felicity?” I called.

She swept back the curtain and pressed her nose to the window screen. “Did Darius really sell Heart House? What’s the new owner like? Is she the brunette with glasses or the curly-haired one? Or are they a couple? Are you going to fix up the house for them?”

“I’d advise you to stop before I decide not to deliver cereal to your door anymore,” I warned as my phone vibrated again.

“Sir, yes, sir,” Felicity said with a mock salute. “But seriously, do you think they’re cool, or do I need to start planning my campaign to get them to move out?”

“Go away,” I said, opening the new message.

Gage: According to my sources (Dad), Cam was spotted driving two strange women around town square in his truck.

Levi: Strange as in circus escapees?

Gage: Speaking of strange women, I met someone at Wawa today. Strange as in hot and mysterious and flirty.

Laura: All happily ever afters start at Wawa.

Levi: Aren’t you taking a break from finding Ms. Perfect after the last disaster?

Laura: Update! Felicity says Cam is at Heart House with the two circus escapees and our prodigy mayor!

“Seriously, Felicity?” I called over my shoulder as I marched for the front of the house.

Gage: I’m hearing reports that two women ran over Goose with an Escalade and then smashed into the town sign about half an hour ago. But I have it on good authority that Goose is still alive since he threw a fish head at Dad fifteen minutes ago.

Laura: Should we worry? Is Grumpy Brother in stranger danger? Do I need to call in the Bishop cavalry and by cavalry I mean Mom?

Levi: Most recent Cam sighting. Still alive.

He shared a grainy zoomed-in photo that showed me standing in the side yard of Heart House, scowling at my phone.

I turned around and extended my middle finger in the direction of Felicity’s house. “You need to get a real hobby, Snyder!”

“Why would I do that when you’re so entertaining?” she called back.

“Stop texting my family everything.”

“You, uh, done flipping the universe the bird, buddy?” Darius asked from the porch steps.

“Almost.” I waited another five seconds before a new message arrived. It was from Laura, and it was a picture of me giving Felicity the middle finger.

Laura: Proof of life.

Gage: Looks normal to me.

Levi: Tell Felicity we said hi.

I shoved my phone back into my pocket and followed Darius inside.

Memories, like ghosts, flickered to life the minute my boots hit the double-herringbone parquet floors. Dorothea and Isabella. The smells of fresh drywall and warm cookies. The echoes of raspy laughs. It was the same with every corner of Story Lake. Every block contained at least a dozen memories. Knocking on doors to sell crap for school fundraisers, late-night baseball games, doing yard work for spare cash with my brothers. The driveway where Levi had hit Gage in the head with a snow shovel. The nursery addition on the Landry place that we’d built together as our first official job.

Darius clapped his hands as Hazel and Zoey joined us in the arch-ceilinged foyer. “The previous owner was?—”

“Dorothea Wilkes,” Hazel filled in for him.

“I love a woman who does her homework,” the boy wonder said, patting his chest.

She seemed amused. “It’s kinda my job.”

“When Dorothea passed, she willed the property and her seat on the council to the town. You’ll get to serve out the remaining two years of her term. And the town will get to use the money from the sale for infrastructure updates.”

“How much work is involved with a seat on the town council?” Zoey cut in. “Hazel is going to have a very busy schedule.”

“It’s a full-time job,” I lied.

Darius coughed out another laugh. “Ah, there’s that Bishop humor again. It’s only an hour or two a week, max. Mostly emails. Then there’s a monthly meeting that’s open to the public.”

That was an outright lie. If someone had a problem, the monthly council meetings could go on for hours. And someone always had a problem, which they would want to discuss with you at length anytime they saw you around town. And considering the size of Story Lake, that was an almost daily occurrence.

“Now, on your right, we have the parlor with the original marble fireplace surround.” Darius directed everyone through the black walnut–cased opening into a room with a soaring tray ceiling and peeling rosebud wallpaper. Everything was covered in a thick coating of dust.

There were a few pieces of furniture clumped together in the middle of the room and hidden under dust covers. A pair of stained-glass windows decorated with hearts flanked the fireplace.

“Wow. You could set a body on fire in that hearth,” Hazel said reverently.

I shot her a look, and she winced. “Sorry. I’m a writer. Not a professional murderer.”

“Hazel writes best-selling rom-coms,” Darius explained to me.

Great. A romantic hell-bent on torturing every unattached guy she met into marriage was even worse in my book than a reality TV star.

“The flue doesn’t work, so you can’t use it for fires or dead bodies,” I said.

“I’m sure Bishop Brothers can fix that,” Darius insisted. “Or you could change it to gas so you don’t have to worry about logs and kindling.”

While Darius and Hazel discussed gas versus wood burning, I wandered the room and tried to will away the headache these people were giving me. The floors were scarred and in desperate need of a good sanding. But the waist-high walnut wainscoting and hand-carved crown molding still drew a reverent breath from me under their layer of dust and cobwebs.

Despite the fact that this job was never going to happen, I couldn’t help but appreciate the workmanship.

I flipped the switch for the chandelier, a massive crystal-and-gold-leaf explosion, but it didn’t light up. “Chandelier’s dead. Probably need a whole new electrical system,” I warned smugly. Another lie. We’d rewired the house ourselves a decade ago, and the only thing this fixture needed was new bulbs and someone on a ladder. But there was no way I was going to give Hazel Rom-Com Hart an inch when she’d be packing her suitcase in a month tops, leaving the town and my family business worse than when she’d arrived.

“Are you trying to rain on my parade, Cam?” Hazel asked from across the room.

She looked flushed and excited, like she’d just had the best sex of her life. The image that accompanied that thought was immediately banished from my brain. I was tired. I’d stayed up late poring over our latest profit-and-loss statement, willing the numbers to change in our favor. That was it. Tired and I hadn’t bothered getting naked with anyone in an embarrassingly long time. That’s why this particular woman was…annoying me.

“That’s Cam’s excited face,” Darius joked. “It’s also his hungry and happy face. He’s really economical with his facial expressions.”

“Very efficient,” Hazel said, raising a mocking eyebrow.

I stared her down coolly.

“Let me show you the sitting room across the hall,” Darius said, sensing an impending argument. “Then we’ll hit the library, dining room, and kitchen.”

The rooms were all in the same condition. Covered in dust and spiderwebs, but in reasonably good shape. The floors in the library would need to be replaced completely thanks to some rot near the bay window. I didn’t miss the dreamy look on Hazel’s face as she stood in front of the curved-glass alcove.

It was the look of love.

Which was enough that the brief tour of the outdated mint-green-and-tangerine kitchen didn’t manage to scare her off. It was a bad 1970s reno that had been poorly patched and bandaged over the decades.

The entire space needed to be taken down to the studs. But it could be updated while still respecting the history. Hell, it would probably turn out to be the best room in the entire house once we were done with it.

That was, if Hazel didn’t go hightailing it back to the city. Which she absolutely would.

“Well, it’s not like I know anything about cooking anyway,” she said, biting her lip and studying the uneven countertops on either side of the god-awful orange stove.

“Then you’re gonna starve because there are only two restaurants in town and they don’t deliver,” I said, feeling justified about pissing on her parade.

Hazel dropped her hands to her side. “Okay, you know what? If you don’t want the job, then why don’t you just?—”

“Uh, Haze. When did you go live on Facebook?” Zoey interrupted, staring at her phone.

“Last night. Why?”

“Drunk Hazel is my favorite,” Zoey read out loud as she scrolled. “She’s so real. I feel this in my soul.”

Hazel snatched the phone out of her friend’s hand. “Oh my God. Someone actually watched it!”

“ Some ?” Zoey wrestled the phone back. “Haze, there’s over five hundred.”

“What?” Hazel demanded, peering at the screen.

Zoey nodded and continued reading. “I need to know everything about this town. Are you setting a book there? What’s the percentage of available bachelors in the population?”

“Well, you’ve got one right here,” Darius said, hooking his thumb in my direction. “Am I right, big guy?”

“No,” I snapped.

Hazel brought her hands to her flushed cheeks. “I can’t believe it.”

She and Zoey looked at each other with elation and broke into what looked more like rapturous flailing than any kind of victory dance I’d ever seen.

“If you two are turning this into a fucking social media meeting, I’m leaving,” I announced over the jumping, hair bouncing, and high-pitched squealing.

Zoey broke away first and shot me the kind of glare a woman usually reserved for someone who had lied, cheated, and stolen her dog.

“Who’s ready to see upstairs?” Darius cut in, taking advantage of the temporary lull in squealing.

“Me!” Hazel said, starting for the staircase.

“I’ll be right behind you. I just have to answer this email,” Zoey called.

“Okay. But hurry up. Otherwise I’m taking the bedroom with the biggest closet,” Hazel said, jogging up the stairs with Darius following along like a puppy.

Zoey spun around and planted herself in front of me. She stuck a sharp fingernail in my sternum. “Now you listen to me, Campbell whatever the hell your last name is.”

I pointed at my shirt. “Bishop.”

“Shut up. This is the first time in two years that I’ve seen a spark of anything in that woman’s eyes. And if you manage to put it out by being a gigantic, grumpy man bear baby, I will destroy your life.”

I had at least a foot and one hundred pounds on the woman, but I got the feeling that she didn’t fight fair.

I pushed her hand away. “Look, lady. I’m not getting roped into whatever idiotic whim your friend has just to have her change her mind and bolt. This is a family business, and if she fucks with my family’s livelihood, I’ll be the one destroying things.”

Zoey’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah? Is your business drowning in projects, or is it as dead as the downtown?”

Fair point. Not that I’d admit it out loud. “You don’t know anything about our business or our town.”

“We sat in the middle of Main Street for five minutes while you argued with the only other human being outside. You’ve got lumber supplies in the back of your truck but still had enough time to ride to the rescue, drive us into town, and turn this walk-through into a whine-through. My mistake, you’re clearly swamped.”

“I can tell just by looking at your friend that she’s gonna get bored with the ‘idyllic small-town life’ and move on to something else. So I’m not getting up to my neck in supplies and scheduling just for her to pack up and leave in a week when she realizes she can’t hack it.”

“Oh my God, I have no idea what she saw in you. You’re such a dick.”

“I’m a dick protecting my family. And what the hell do you mean ‘what she saw in me?’ I’ve never seen the woman before you two destroyed public property.”

“Then get a damn deposit when you take the damn job, dumbass, ” she enunciated, ignoring my question.

To be fair, a nonrefundable deposit was standard operating procedure. And the way the work order was shaping up, it would be a nice fat hunk of cash for doing little to nothing. Cash that Bishop Brothers was in dire need of.

“Or, better yet, give her the name of some non-assholish contractor and get the hell out of here before you start making her doubt herself again.” With that, Zoey turned on her heel and stomped haughtily up the stairs.

“She’s gonna eat some poor idiot alive someday,” I muttered before slowly following her.