CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The first hints of dawn painted the eastern sky as Cathy Gifford laced up her walking shoes, the familiar ritual as comforting as it was necessary.
Beyond her kitchen window, Trentville remained mostly dark.
At forty-two, her body demanded these early morning walks—thirty minutes of brisk movement before the day’s responsibilities descended, heavy with the weight of routine.
Cathy moved quietly through the house, careful not to disturb Mike and the kids.
Her husband’s soft snores filtered down the hallway, the sound as familiar as her own heartbeat after eighteen years of marriage.
The children—Taylor and Jason—would sleep for another hour before the morning rush of cereal bowls and forgotten homework and last-minute signatures on permission slips.
These stolen moments of solitude were precious, the only time that truly belonged to her alone.
Outside, the September air carried the first whisper of autumn crispness, not yet cold but bracingly fresh against her skin.
Cathy inhaled deeply, savoring the scent of dew-dampened grass and the faint aroma of someone’s early morning coffee.
Her neighborhood slept around her—neat rows of modest homes with well-kept lawns and practical vehicles in the driveways.
The epitome of middle-class stability. The life she had always wanted and worked steadily to achieve.
She set off down Elm Street at a brisk pace, her muscles warming quickly.
Three blocks east, then two north, and she would reach the apartment complex where Amanda now lived.
Not the charming Victorian near downtown that Amanda had once owned, but a tired collection of two-story buildings with concrete staircases.
A place where people landed when dreams had collapsed and better options had vanished.
Cathy and Amanda had been friends since high school—a connection that had surprised everyone, including themselves.
Amanda had been ambitious, always reaching for something more, determined to erase her working-class origins.
Cathy had been content with simpler goals: a steady job, a loving family, a home without luxury but free from want.
Amanda had been an outsider, and Cathy had been popular.
They had been unlikely friends then and were perhaps even more unlikely now, with the chasm between their life trajectories having widened in unexpected directions.
Yet here she was, faithfully walking to Amanda’s apartment every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning, determined to drag her friend out of bed and into the sunlight.
The power walks had been Cathy’s idea—a way to give Amanda structure, exercise, and most importantly, human connection after the devastating loss of her boutique.
The day Hartford’s Closet had closed for good, Cathy had stood with Amanda as the “Going Out of Business” sign went up, feeling her friend’s body trembling with the effort not to break down in public.
The boutique had been more than Amanda’s livelihood; it had been her identity, her redemption from the insecure girl she’d once been.
To lose it—especially to lose it while Heather Banning’s shop continued to thrive just two blocks away—seemed to have broken something essential in Amanda.
The lawsuit had been a mistake. Cathy had tried to tell her so, had urged her to find another way to channel her resentment.
But Amanda, fueled by a sense of betrayal that bordered on obsession, had refused to listen.
The legal fees had drained what remained of her savings, and the public nature of the case had alienated many former customers.
By the end, Amanda had been left with nothing except a mountain of debt and a reputation as a bitter, jealous woman who couldn’t accept fair competition.
Cathy turned onto Maple Drive, her thoughts shifting to the news that had dominated yesterday’s conversations throughout town.
Derek Sullivan, found murdered in the old textile mill district.
Wrapped in red yarn, according to the details that had spread like wildfire.
The image made her shudder despite the warming exercise.
Unlike many in Trentville, Cathy had always felt sorry for Derek.
She remembered him from school—a few years ahead of her, athletic and cocky, with a quick smile that had charmed teachers into overlooking his troublemaking.
She had watched his slow decline over the years, alcohol gradually erasing the promising young man he might have become.
When he came to the dental office where she worked as office manager, she was always kind to him, ignoring the lingering scent of whiskey on his breath and the tremor in his hands as he filled out insurance forms.
“Such a waste,” people would say, meaning his life.
But Cathy had always thought the real waste was the town’s indifference, the way people crossed the street to avoid his stumbling figure, the way they talked about him as if he were already gone.
Now he was, and suddenly everyone had opinions, theories, expressions of shock that didn’t ring entirely true.
The news of Derek’s murder should have been more surprising, she supposed. But violence had been circling Trentville for months now.
Jenna Graves was another familiar face from school days, though they had never been close. The quiet, serious twin who had lost her sister and then, miraculously, found her again after twenty years. The town buzzed with that story too, a rare piece of good news amid the growing unease.
The street began to slope upward as she approached the part of town where newer developments gave way to older, less well maintained properties.
The apartment complex looked especially dreary in the early morning light, its beige walls dingy with years of neglect.
Two cars with mismatched paint jobs sat in the parking lot, and a bicycle with a missing wheel had been chained to a rusted railing for as long as Cathy had been coming here.
She navigated around a soggy pizza box someone had left on the stairs and made her way to the second floor.
Amanda’s door was distinguished from its neighbors only by the small silk wreath she had hung there—a salvaged remnant from her boutique days that looked painfully out of place against the scarred wood.
Cathy knocked firmly, already anticipating the lack of response. Amanda was not a morning person under the best of circumstances, and lately, her night owl tendencies had grown more pronounced, her sleep schedule as chaotic as her emotions.
“Amanda?” Cathy called, knocking again. “Rise and shine! The sidewalk awaits!”
She pressed her ear to the door, listening for the telltale sounds of movement—shuffling feet, running water, the reluctant groan that usually preceded Amanda’s eventual appearance. Nothing. Just the distant sound of traffic beginning to stir on the main road.
“I know you’re in there,” Cathy called again, infusing her voice with a cheerfulness she didn’t entirely feel.
Lately, Amanda had been slipping deeper into depression, her TownCircle posts growing increasingly bitter.
Yesterday’s comments about Derek Sullivan had been particularly harsh.
Cathy had texted her immediately afterward, concerned, but had received no reply.
“Come on, Amanda. Don’t make me use the key. ”
The key had been given to her three months ago, after a particularly bad night when Amanda had drunk too much wine and sent Cathy a series of disturbing texts about feeling like she’d “reached the end.”
Cathy had driven over immediately, finding Amanda in tears amid shattered glass from a broken mirror. The next morning, Amanda had pressed the spare key into Cathy’s hand, a gesture that acknowledged both her vulnerability and her trust.
Cathy had used it only twice before—once when Amanda had been running late for work and hadn’t answered her phone, and once when she’d been genuinely worried about her friend’s mental state after a particularly vicious comment from Melanie Porter on TownCircle.
Both times, Amanda had been annoyed but ultimately grateful for the intervention.
“Last warning,” Cathy called through the door. “I’m counting to three, and then I’m coming in. One... two... three...”
She inserted the key into the lock, the metal sliding smoothly into place. The door swung open with a soft creak, revealing a dim interior lit only by what little daylight filtered through closed blinds. The small living room appeared empty.
“Amanda?” Cathy called again, stepping fully into the apartment and closing the door behind her. “Sorry to barge in, but you’re not getting out of our walk today. Doctor’s orders.” She wasn’t a doctor, of course, but the joke was a familiar one between them.
The stillness of the apartment struck her then, an unnatural quiet that raised the fine hairs on her arms. No water running in the bathroom, no coffee brewing in the kitchen, not even the sound of any activity in the bedroom. Just... silence.
“Amanda?” Her voice had lost its cheerful edge, uncertainty creeping in. “Are you okay?”
Cathy moved further into the apartment, her eyes adjusting to the dimness. The kitchen to her right was empty, the counters bare except for an uncorked wine bottle and a single glass with dried residue at the bottom. The bedroom door stood partially open, revealing rumpled sheets but no occupant.
Then she noticed something on the floor just beyond the bed—a shape that didn’t belong, a dark form against the worn carpet. Cathy stepped closer, peering through the shadows, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.
“Amanda?” she whispered.
No answer. Cathy fumbled for the light switch on the wall. Light flooded the room, harsh and unforgiving, illuminating the scene that had been mercifully obscured by shadow.
Amanda lay on her back on the floor, arms extended outward as if in supplication. Her eyes were open, fixed on the ceiling with the glassy stare of the dead. But it was what surrounded her body that made Cathy’s breath catch, that sent her stumbling backward until she collided with the wall.
Green yarn—vibrant, emerald green—wound around Amanda’s neck, extending down to encircle her torso, her wrists, even her ankles in elaborate patterns.
Cathy’s hand flew to her mouth, stifling the scream that threatened to tear from her throat. Then her legs moved without conscious thought, carrying her forward in jerky steps. Could Amanda really be dead?
She knelt beside her fallen friend, the carpet rough against her knees.
Amanda’s wrist was cool to the touch. No flutter of pulse, no whisper of breath from parted lips that had already taken on a bluish tinge.
In spite of the deep scar on Amanda’s neck, Cathy pressed two fingers against the carotid artery.
She found no flutter of life, only the terrible stillness of a body abandoned by its owner.
And now she could see exactly how the body was wrapped.
The yarn crisscrossed her body like a macabre art project, each intersection held with perfect, symmetrical knots.
Against the pallor of Amanda’s skin and the darkness of her nightshirt, the green seemed impossibly bright, almost luminous in its intensity.
Her friend—difficult, complicated, wounded Amanda—reduced to this horror. The woman who had survived social humiliation, financial ruin, and the loss of her identity, now motionless on the floor of the apartment she had hated.
Distantly, as if from miles away, Cathy became aware of her own breathing, too fast and shallow. Of the phone she needed to reach for, the numbers she needed to dial. But for a long moment, she could only sit there, paralyzed by the sight of Amanda and the green yarn.
Then her mind registered the awful connection—Derek had been wrapped in red, Amanda in green. Not an isolated incident. Not a random act of violence. A pattern, a killer moving through Trentville with colored yarn and some terrible purpose.
She finally forced herself to move, to reach for her phone, to dial the three numbers that would summon somebody.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
Cathy opened her mouth, but the words wouldn’t come. How could she possibly describe what lay before her?
“Ma’am? Are you there?”
“Yes,” she managed finally, her voice thin and distant to her own ears. “I need to report a death.” With a gasp, she added, “A murder.”