Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
W hen the white-haired, wiry, pale-skinned man sat down to eat breakfast at the dirty kitchen table, he noticed the folded local newspaper in the middle. The date was over a week old. Its headline stood out, along with an enlarged photo below it.
Local Matriarch Dies
Her. He snatched the newspaper up even as his hands shook. The picture—Maggie, his muse for all his work. Dark hair, inviting eyes. Both green as new growth, begging him to impress her.
This couldn’t be real. Some sort of sick joke.
He set it down, glanced around to see if anyone was watching. The kitchen was empty. Both doors down the hall were still closed.
Of course, they’d want him to think his muse was dead. No one appreciated his work, or understood the beauty she brought—the soundtrack.
He’d seen her last week, watched her shadow flicker across the closed curtains of her bedroom as she moved about.
He read the rest of the page.
Magnolia Everson-Brooks, seventy-two, of Evers Hollow, NC, passed away on September…
The newspaper trembled in his hands, dampening as he continued to read.
This couldn’t be. It had to be a lie.
He stood.
Did they think they could keep him away from her?
Everything he’d done was for her.
Before he ripped it down the middle, he read the last lines of the supposed obituary.
Evers Hollow Cemetery