HUES OF A MURDER

Chapter 3: Rueful blues

One day before...

The blue stone twinkled in the light. It was set in a silver pendant with an intricate filigree design of leaves and stars around it. The huge sapphire stone set in the centre was surrounded by small blue stones. Cyan Gorman stared the stone.

"Do you know why I always wear this pendant, sweetheart?" his mama had once asked a five-year-old Cyan to which he shook his head. 

"Because it reminds me of you, sweetheart. It reminds me of your eyes, my baby," she said and kissed his eyes. 

And young Cyan giggled. Which turned into a shriek of laughter when his mother began tickling him. And they laughed for a long time. And soon they lay breathless on the floor of his bedroom staring at the stars drawn on the ceiling. The memory brought a smile on Cyan's lips and tears on his eyes.

He missed his mama. He was very close to her. He had never heard the end of it from his father and his brothers. And he would never hear it again. He swallowed a lump in his throat. He clasped the pendant in his hand. The metal cooled his warm hand.

"Cyan," Jay, his elder brother, knocked at the door. Cyan quickly put the silver chain with the pendant around his neck and hid it under his tee. He lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling, "come in."

The door opened and Jay poked his head in. "You OK, buddy?"

"Yeah, I am fine," Cyan tried not to blink as he was afraid that he might spill a tear.

Jay sighed and entered the room. "You can't just stay in the bedroom whole day, Cy. Grandma said that during the past whole month, you ventured outta the house only twice or thrice. This won't do," Jay sat beside him.

"I help around the house," Cyan didn't dare to look at his brother.

Jay's eyes scrutinised him. Cyan was ten years younger than him. He was the baby of the family. And they had treated him like a baby. Jay didn't regret it. But now he wondered whether their parents, Skye and he had pampered Cyan too much.

Their parents' tragic demise had affected Cyan more than Skye and him. Cyan was closer to their mom. Her death had devastated him. He refused to leave his room for months. Even his girlfriend had dumped him.

The brothers had moved out of the house and got their own place after finishing college. Jay was divorced and his son was with his ex and her husband. Skye had a live-in boyfriend. Cyan had rented a small apartment next to Jay's. But they all spent their weekends with their parents. Life in the small seaside town of Blue Cove was heavenly.

On that fateful night, their parents were on their way from their anniversary date. A drunk driver hit their parents' car. Their father and the driver died on the spot. And their mother, at the hospital. Jay was the first one to reach the hospital. She asked only one thing from her eldest son. To look after Cyan. She gave him her pendant to give to Cyan, the one with a sapphire stone in the centre. They consoled their brother and kept an eye on him in the days that followed.

But Jay and Skye worked and they couldn't babysit Cyan. Jay took over Azure Sea Sports, the surf store, when their father had decided to retire. Cyan helped him at the store. Skye was a lifeguard. They were busy with their jobs. And Cyan was closing himself off slowly. When the brothers realized it, they took him to a therapist who suggested a change of scenario. So they brought him to Iris, their paternal grandmother.

Iris Gorman was a rotund little woman with silvery grey hair which found itself in a perpetual high bun. She always smelled like cupcakes. She was a patisserie and chocolatier and an avid reader. She had a pastry shop named The Bluebells. She happily accommodated Cyan in her home. But even her happy disposition was unable to penetrate the shield of grief surrounding Cyan. Cyan withdrew to himself refusing to help her out in The Bluebells and spent his time watching movies, mostly horror. The grandmother grew worried and called his brothers.