CHAPTER TWELVE
Amanda Hartford’s feet throbbed with each step up the narrow staircase to her apartment, the cheap rubber soles of her uniform shoes offering little cushion against the hard surface.
Ten hours standing at register number four, fake-smiling at customers who once browsed her boutique, had left her ankles swollen and her lower back a knot of dull pain.
The fluorescent lighting of the discount store still burned behind her eyelids when she blinked, like afterimages of the life she’d lost.
Her key stuck in the lock as it always did, requiring a particular jiggle and upward thrust she’d perfected over the months since moving to this place. The apartment door swung open with a wheeze of hinges that needed oiling—another task she never found the energy to complete after her shifts.
Inside, the contrast with her former home was a daily slap in the face.
Where she once had hardwood floors and crown molding, now vinyl tiles curled at the corners and water stains mapped the ceiling.
Her furniture—the few pieces she’d salvaged after the bankruptcy—looked forlorn in the cramped space, like thoroughbreds corralled in a chicken coop.
Amanda kicked off her shoes and padded to the kitchen in her stockings.
The linoleum was cool against her aching feet.
She opened the refrigerator, its ancient motor humming a persistent complaint, and retrieved a half-empty bottle of white wine.
Not the crisp Sancerre she used to serve at her boutique’s special shopping events, but a screw-top Pinot Grigio that had been on sale, two for twelve dollars.
She poured generously into a water glass—her stemware had been among the first casualties of her downfall—and took a long swallow.
The wine was too sweet, almost cloying, but it dulled the edges of her day.
The faces of customers blurred in her mind: the woman who’d complained about a three-dollar price difference, the teenager who’d snickered when Amanda couldn’t immediately figure out how to process his return, the former client who’d pretended not to recognize her as she scanned the woman’s purchases of discount leggings and mass-produced costume jewelry.
Amanda carried her glass to the small desk in the corner of her living room and opened her laptop.
The machine was five years old, another relic from better days, and it groaned to life very slowly.
While waiting, she took another sip and glanced at the single framed photo on her desk—Hartford’s Closet on its opening day, Amanda standing proudly in front of the freshly painted storefront, wearing a crisp black dress that had cost more than she’d make in a week at her current job.
Her business had been her identity, her triumph. The physical manifestation of everything she’d worked for since escaping the shadow of her high school reputation as the awkward, trying-too-hard girl from the wrong side of the tracks.
The laptop finally loaded, and Amanda clicked directly to TownCircle.
No need to check email—nothing waited there but past-due notices and promotional offers she couldn’t afford to take advantage of.
TownCircle, at least, offered the bitter satisfaction of knowing she wasn’t alone in her misery, that Trentville contained plenty of malcontents and failures alongside its success stories.
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.
Worst of all, Heather had charmed everyone. The same women who had once loyally shopped at Hartford’s Closet now raved about Heather’s “fresh approach” and “community spirit.”
Heather hosted artisan markets and charity events. She joined the Chamber of Commerce and quickly rose to prominence. And when the Chamber announced its “Best Small Business” award—an honor Amanda had been working toward for years—they gave it to Heather.
The betrayal had been too much to bear. Amanda had filed her lawsuit convinced that justice would prevail, that others would see what she saw: a calculating woman who had systematically stolen her business model and her customers.
Instead, the lawsuit had backfired spectacularly.
The legal fees had drained her already struggling business, and the community had rallied around Heather, painting Amanda as a jealous competitor who couldn’t accept fair competition.
Amanda spat toothpaste into the sink and watched the white foam swirl down the drain, like her dreams, her reputation, her life in Trentville.
She shuffled to her bedroom, not bothering to turn on the light.
She slipped out of her uniform—a polyester nightmare in the discount store’s signature red and khaki—and into an oversized t-shirt that served as her nightgown.
She turned to the bed, which she hadn’t made that morning.
Just as she was about to pull back the covers, her phone chimed with a notification.
Another TownCircle alert.
She should ignore it, should give her mind the rest it desperately needed. But the same compulsion that drove her to check the site every day, to measure her declining status against the rising fortunes of others, now pushed her toward her phone.
The notification previewed part of a new comment on the thread about Derek: “Amanda Hartford needs professional help. Her bitterness has become concerning...”
Her hand shook as she placed the phone face down on her nightstand without opening the full message.
Tears burned behind her eyes, but she blinked them away.
She would not cry. Not over Derek Sullivan, not over TownCircle, not over Heather Banning or her lost boutique or her ruined life in this town that had never truly accepted her.
Amanda switched off the bedside lamp and lay down, staring at the ceiling.
Tomorrow, she would wake up and put on the same uniform and stand at the same register, scanning items she once would have considered beneath her dignity to sell.
She would smile at customers who knew her story and pitied or despised her for it.
And Heather Banning would continue to thrive, unaware or uncaring of the devastation she’d left in her wake.
The sounds came so suddenly that Amanda didn’t immediately register it as the apartment door opening—a soft click, the whisper of hinges. By the time her brain processed these signals as danger, it was too late.
A figure lunged from the darkness at the foot of her bed.
Amanda opened her mouth to scream, but a gloved hand clamped over her lips, stifling the sound before it could form.
She was yanked from the bed, her bare feet leaving the floor as she was spun and thrown face-down onto the carpet.
The impact knocked the remaining breath from her lungs.
A knee pressed into the small of her back, pinning her in place.
Amanda thrashed, her nails clawing at the carpet, finding no purchase.
Her mind raced with fragments of self-defense advice—go for the eyes, scream fire instead of help, kick between the legs—all useless now as she lay immobilized, her face pressed into the synthetic fibers.
Something thin and strong looped around her neck—a cord or wire that tightened with terrifying speed. Amanda’s hands flew to her throat, scrabbling desperately against the strangling ligature. The pressure increased, cutting off her air supply, sending bolts of panic through her body.
Black spots swarmed across her vision. Her lungs burned with the need for oxygen.
The room began to dim, sounds growing distant as consciousness started to slip away.
In her final moments of clarity, Amanda heard a whisper close to her ear, a breathless hiss that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once:
“Green is for envy.”
And then there was nothing at all.