Murder Mystery | Herophine story

Chapter Eighteen

Josephine

Monday, October 15th 4:10pm

Kathrine pulls into the driveway seconds after Hero's mom turns around. I stand rigid, my hands clenched at my sides and my heart pounding, staring at the woman I thought was dead. 

"Josephine?" Kat lowers her window and sticks her head out of the car. "You ready? Mom and Robin are already there. Dad's trying to get off work, but he's got a board meeting. I had to do some manoeuvring about why you weren't answering your phone. You're sick to your stomach, okay?"  

"That's accurate," I mutter. Hero's back is to me. His mother is talking, staring at him with ravenous eyes, but I can't hear anything she's saying. 

"Huh?" Kat follows my gaze. "Who's that?" 

"I'll tell you in the car," I say, tearing my eyes away from Hero. "Let's go."

I climb into the passenger seat of our Volvo, where the heat is blasting because Kat's always cold. She backs out of the driveway in her careful, just-got-my-license way, talking the whole time. Mom's doing the whole Mom thing, where she's pretending not to be freaked out but she totally is," she says, and I'm half listening. "I guess the police aren't giving much information. We don't know if anyone else is going to be there. Is Hero coming, do you know?" 

I snap back to attention. "No." For once I'm glad Kat likes to maintain broiler-over temperatures while driving, because it's keeping the cold inching up my spine at bay. "He's not coming."

Kathrine approaches a stop sign and brakes jerkily, glancing over at me. "What's the matter?" 

I close my eyes and lean against the headrest . "That was Hero's mother." 

"What was?" 

"The woman at the door just now. At Hero's house. It was his mother." 

"But . . ." Kat trails off, and I can tell by the sound of the blinker that she's about to make a turn and needs to concentrate. When the car straightens again she continues, "But she's dead." 

"Apparently not." 

"I don't- but that's-" Kat splutters for a few seconds. I keep my eyes closed. "So . . . what's the deal? Did he not know she was alive? Or did he lie about it?"

"We didn't exactly have time to discuss it," I say.

But that's the million dollar question. I remember hearing three years ago through the grapevine that Hero's mother had died in a car accident. We lost my mom's brother the same way, and I felt a lot of empathy for Hero, but I'd never asked about it back then. I did over the past few weeks, though. Hero didn't like to talk about it. All he said was he hadn't heard anything about his mother since she flaked on taking him back to London, until he got news she'd died. He never mentioned a funeral. Or much of anything, really. 

"Well." Kathrine's voice is encouraging. "Maybe it's some kind of miracle. Like it was all a horrible misunderstanding and everybody thought she was dead but really she . . . had amnesia. Or was in a coma." 

"Right," I snort. "And maybe Hero had an evil twin who's behind it all. Because we're living in a telenovela." I think about Hero's face before he walked away from me. He didn't seem shocked. Or happy. He looked . . . stoic. He reminded me of my father every time Kat had a relapse. As though an illness he'd been dreading had come back, and he was going to have to deal with it now. 

"We're here," Kat says, pulling to a careful stop. I open my eyes. 

"You're in the handicapped space," I tell her.