RoseBlood

Oddities

The rest of the day whizzes past. Edith spends it in the library, typing and searching away on her laptop, making notes on a document; not an actual notebook, because apparently, that's just me. Elias had wandered off a while ago and can be seen through the library window, on his phone, outside in the woodlands. Emerson had glanced at his brother from indoors a few times between messaging Brunsley on his iPad, while I make myself busy by going through picture after picture of my parents' memos.

Nothing interesting, like I thought. They were people that kept their thoughts in their heads, or on a to-do list that they'd throw away the second they were done with it. The only useful photo was of the guest list, which I'd taken a picture of myself before I went to the Tyrels'. But that's on my laptop, which I don't have here at the moment, forgetting to ask Edith for it. It doesn't matter, though. I've got my head, I've got my casebook, I've got the facts. Now I've just got to piece them all together.

Emerson goes downstairs to bring food up to the library so we can eat while we work, and Edith impatiently flicks her hair away from her face as she stops typing for a moment, turning her attention to us.

"I might be onto something," she says, with wide, eager eyes. "I'm narrowing down poems, and if I'm right, it fits perfectly. A classic sonnet all about love."

Emerson nods in approval, looking over at the window as his brother wanders out of sight. "That's good, Edith. It's getting late into the afternoon, so if you need to take a break, take a break."

I glance at the clock in mild surprise. I've spent hours reading every word of my parents' files and journals, every business number and account written neatly down in black ballpoint. Names and names of various clients that had come and gone. Meetings and business gatherings and invitations and dates, all ticked off one by one. But that was it. No hidden journal, no weird note written slightly smaller than all the notes taken from meetings, nothing out of the ordinary. Bobby and Judith Cassia seemed to be a perfectly ordinary couple who were completely invested in their jobs. That's it. Except that's not it, at all.

I pause, the edges of the puzzle clicking together slowly in my head.

Why am I looking for anything odd? I just admitted it, saw it in black and white, and witnessed it every day of my life. My parents were normal working people. Whatever encounter Dad had with the RoseBlood Killer, he can't have remembered well, or let it get to him, maybe from years ago. It might have been something tiny, even, and the killer's delusional, twisted way of thinking blew it up into something massive.

I mean, it can't have been too small. Everyone's got to work with something. My father could be overly friendly, as I've come to realise, as he had been to the murderer. But it couldn't have been recent. I would have noticed, being their daughter, knowing them so well. Their deaths happened on my birthday, a specific day, for a specific, unknown reason. It's not about who my parents were. I'm not going to find anything more about them that I don't already know this way.

It's about who everyone else is. The unsuspicious suspects. Because one of them has to be the killer.

Elias makes an appearance outside the library doors just as I stare into nowhere at my epiphany, and Emerson puts his iPad down, getting up and turning his attention to him.

"How's it going?" Elias asks, and Edith shakes her head and shrugs distractedly, eyes fixed on her screen as she scrolls carefully through the page.

"Elias," Emerson goes over to him, "come with me for a minute."

My phone rings as they leave the room, and for a second, I wonder if it's Clarissa again, if she has to tell me now about whatever it is that's getting to her, or something worse. But it's Mia's contact that comes up on the screen, and I sigh lightly, getting up too.

"I'm gonna take this," I tell Edith, "it's a friend."

Edith looks up. "A friend? Okay."

"A friend," I confirm, before answering the call and leaving the library to stand in the wide stretch of corridor that branches off to the stairs and bedrooms.

"Hi, Mia."

"Holly! How are you doing? Sorry, it must get annoying, hearing that all the time."

"I'm alright," I respond with a half-smile, leaning against the wall. "Are you?"

"Oh, yeah. I heard that the funeral's tomorrow, at around eleven. We got an address from your house lady, Lizzie. It'll be great seeing you again."

"Well, I look forward to seeing you too, Mia. But be careful, okay?"

"Careful?" Her voice drops in interest. "What, do you think the killer will be there?"

"Probably," I answer casually. "And you're almost as good at noticing things as I am. So you can help, okay? Be my eyes and ears."

"Absolutely," Mia agrees. "I know it's hard to trust people, but you know you've always got me, okay? If you need to talk or need a favour, whatever."

"Thanks. Okay, I've got to go. See you tomorrow."

"Okay, then. Bye, Holls."

As I lower the phone, Emerson and Elias' voices can only just be heard, the door ajar. I raise my phone up to my ear again, just in case they come out of the room in a rush, and hold my breath as I catch what they're saying.

"...know it's difficult for you, Elias. I do. It's difficult for all of us. But if you want this case solved just as much as you did before, for them, then being properly involved in the investigation would be a help, wouldn't it?"

"I am involved," Elias' muffled, impatient voice says.

"Every Case Report between the Tyrel Trust and Detective Brunsley has been read by all of us, except you."

Case Reports. You should be getting these, too.

"Look, I'll try harder, alright?" Elias says, his voice raising a little in annoyance. "I don't like reliving all of this. It was hard enough then."

"I understand that."

"Yeah, Em, you do," Elias remarks, and I can't tell if he's being genuine, sarcastic, or a mix of the two. "And you don't."

Then the door's pushed open, and Elias stalks out, glancing at me fleetingly before going into his own bedroom and closing the door behind him. Emerson's next out, and I take my phone away from my ear as his dark eyes meet mine, then the phone.

"It's not Clarissa," I tell him. "Just a friend. Mia Williams. Off to study at Oxford soon."

"Oxford's a good school," Emerson nods. "I think we're about done for the day, so we'll eat, share whatever we found, and then I need a word. About the funeral."

"Right."

Emerson heads back to the library, and I follow after him, writing down all my thoughts in the casebook. Everything about how I have as much information on my parents as I can get right now, and if I want to know more, I've got to look into the others instead of them. The others were twenty guests who were invited to my birthday party, most of them clients and workmates of my parents, their backgrounds just as simple and average as Mum and Dad's.

And yet, my mum and dad are dead because of one of them.

Odd.