Catch up on the previous chapters here
It wasn’t enough. It couldn’t be. It was too close for coincidence, sure, but too much of it was pure fantasy. O’Connell could easily argue that he found the reports in back issues of the newspapers and his imagination strung them together, or even show that he lived in Kalamazoo at the time and read the stories as they happened. Or saw them on the news—all of them made the news. They weren’t the only violent deaths in Kalamazoo, but they weren’t a secret.
Kent tried to reason that this was exactly why O’Connell needed to be questioned: out of all the possible murders and suspicious occurrences, he picked the five that spiraled in on Nell. What were the odds that, given the papers or the personal memories, he’d pick those five? A bus driver, a young man sponging off his girlfriend while he tried to make bank off a lawsuit, and three college seniors?
The three college girls, yes, okay. Everyone put them together. And, because of the size of the college, so many people had known all of them and been affected by their deaths: Kelsey’s murder, Ashleigh’s accident, and of course Heidi’s murder. Nell wasn’t the only connection. Nobody was more than a couple degrees from anyone else at K.
Art texted, offering to cover Nell’s Friday morning shift. She thanked him, but refused, telling him that she could use something else to focus on just now. Something other than the fact that this was the supposedly beautiful literary love story Brandon was rhapsodizing about. It just gave Nell the creeps. Rosie was supposed to be too perfect, but really she was too passive, and Cal? He seemed to be trying to play both sides so he didn’t get his feelings hurt by being friendzoned, but he also never went ahead and declared he wanted to be anything but Rosie’s friend.
And she couldn’t figure out who he was. How was that possible? Someone who managed to get so many things right about the apartment building, the parking situation, her relationships … and yet was still so wrong … and she couldn’t place him. The thing was, guys just didn’t come over to the apartment. When they met for group projects, they’d gone to the library on campus, during the day. When Heidi invited friends over, they were mostly women, too.
In fact, Heidi was the reason Kelsey came over. Kelsey and Ashleigh. Nell didn’t keep Kelsey around because she was a friend from high school; she renewed an old acquaintance because Heidi and Kelsey were in the same math class senior year, something gross and advanced and way out of Nell’s league. They studied together, and fine, maybe Kelsey was loud, but so was Heidi. So was Ashleigh, when she joined them and tutored, but it was happy noise. Friends having fun together, despite the math.
God, it was just so normal. College seniors, doing college senior things. They weren’t even the only ones making noise in the building, so … why them? Why come after Nell like that by killing everyone who got close to her?
Everyone but Kent.
Nell tried to stop her thoughts from circling around these same things yet again as she got up, forced herself through her usual morning routine—including breakfast today—and went to work. She unlocked the door and made sure it shut behind her, waved to Colton, and frowned because the light in the office was on and Art poked his head out. “Catching up on paperwork,” he told her with a nod before ducking back inside.
So. That was a lie. Art had never been behind on paperwork in his life, but she could ignore it if it made him feel better thinking that she felt better. Art was here to make sure she wasn’t alone in the café, just in case. Or maybe the lie was for Colton, she mused as she started the coffee and scanned the walls. So he wouldn’t worry his boss was checking up on him, or making sure he wasn’t alone with Nell.
That made her pause, because what did she know about Colton? Except no, she was being silly. He’d started working for Art before Nell did. Before Heidi was murdered, even, so it wasn’t like the baker was playing some sort of long game and magically knew his prey—if that’s what Rosie was to C. J. O’Connell—would also show up and seek employment at this very spot.
Imagine going through the rigmarole of writing a novel, finding an agent, going through edits, and all the rest of it really was Colton and all he had to do was look more closely behind the register on his way out the door one morning. Okay that thought wasn’t quite as amusing as Nell anticipated it would be. She shivered and did up a couple more buttons on her cardigan.
Tomorrow they’d talk to Adam. Kent was sure he’d take it seriously and investigate it with all the passion and fervor of an FBI agent on a television show. Nell wasn’t sure how much to hope for and didn’t even want to think they’d find out who C. J. O’Connell really was. If it was a pseudonym, then publishers and stuff had to protect authors’ privacy, right? And it really didn’t seem like enough for the FBI to get a warrant or something for his true identity. If O’Connell was his real last name, and they found out the rest of it, then maybe some agents would knock on his door with some questions about what he’d been up to in late 2018 and the first half of 2019, but …
But. That was easily Nell’s least favorite coordinating conjunction.
“You’re distracted today,” Mary announced cheerily as she slid three plastic chips across the counter: Roast Beef, Sausage and Egg, and Large Coffee. “Anything good playing in your thoughts right now?”
Nell tried not to snort as she got out the proper wrapped sandwiches and cup. “No. It’s pretty dark in there today.” The sausage and egg bagels were always served hot, so she didn’t ask about that one.
“Darkest just before dawn?” Mary suggested, eyeing the coffee urns as though they weren’t the standard flavors.
“I’m pretty sure meteorologists have debunked that one. First light happens before sunrise.”
“But isn’t first light technically dawn?” the next customer wanted to know. “So it’s darkest before first light.”
Nell only knew this woman by sight, but she shrugged as she took her punch card and passed over the cup for her free drink. “I’m pretty sure it’s darkest hours before first light. So you’d be sitting there, thinking maybe it’s getting lighter, for quite a long time before dawn.”
“Pshaw,” Mary said comfortably. “The whole point is optimism, not meteorology.”
The woman laughed. “My husband does the weather on Channel 5. Everything’s meteorology if you try hard enough.”
Mary rolled her eyes at that, but either the weatherman’s wife didn’t see or took it with good humor, since she just waved and called “Have a good day!” as she left.
Nell thought Mary might add something else as she positioned her breakfast, lunch, and drink to her satisfaction, but instead she seemed to retreat back into herself as she turned to shuffle toward the door. That was fine—Nell knew she wasn’t the only person with problems—but she sighed, anyway, because it was true: it was pretty dark inside her head today, and she could really do with a good spring cleaning and some light fixtures.
Part of it was how she wasn’t actually any more alert than she usually was. Nell’s eyes darted to the door every time it opened and quickly assessed the person coming in: known, unknown, and yes, threat level. By this point most people were known, even if just from the bus or the library or elsewhere in town, and strangers were generally identifiable as a little lost and clearly out of their depth. Which, yes, fine, could all be an act, but the most smooth confidence she saw came when Gary met his Tinder dates here in an attempt to convince them he was harmless—which he was, at least mostly; Nell couldn’t say she vouched for his STD status—before they went back to some room or another and got up to what Gary really wanted.
It was just that, usually, Nell wasn’t aware of being the kind of person who constantly assigned strangers threat levels and made minor modifications in her behavior because of it. All of that normally happened somewhere behind her conscious thoughts, and she didn’t usually feel this exhausted.
Art’s shoes clomped on the floor, and today she had the presence of mind to think that he did that on purpose. That he could’ve moved silently, but instead he didn’t want to sneak up on her. “You haven’t been this bad in a while,” he said softly.
Nell took a slow breath and deliberately turned away from the front door to look at him.
“I’d say my dad was abusive,” he continued in that same tone, “but I don’t like calling him that. So let’s just go with ‘the sperm provider.’”
She blinked. Art never talked about his parents. She’d formed her own ideas about his past, of course, but …
“I had to watch my mom go through it. Well.” Art leaned on the doorway, hands shoved deep in his pants pockets, and let his eyes drift away. “I guess I went through enough of it myself, but she’s the one he actually touched. He beat her. Put her in the hospital a couple times. I thought he’d put her in a casket first—nine years old, and I was sure the guy everyone called my daddy was going to kill my mom—but she packed us up, and we left. Still, for years after …” Slowly he brought his gaze back to hers. “I’d watch her do the same things you do.”
Nell swallowed, not sure if she wanted him to list them or not.
Art tilted his head. “When your back’s to the door, your eye’s on the mirror. Some people come in—mostly men, but not all—and you’re ready to fight or flee. If you think they’re coming after someone else, like Mary, or one of the others …” He shrugged. “It’ll be fight, because it’s not yourself you’re defending.”
She tried to quash the urge to cross her arms and hunch her shoulders, but it was a strong one. “Do you always see people so clearly?”
He shrugged. “You recognize your own. Don’t you.” And his raised eyebrow meant You recognized me.
Nell tilted her head, but the bell over the door jingled so her eyes went to the convex mirror before she turned around, smile in place, to see what she could do for these customers.
from Since You Went Away by C. J. O’Connell (Penguin, 2024)
Rosie’s the kind of person who always returns the shopping cart. Not just to the corral in the parking lot—to the store. Some people who always put it in the corral will take it into the store when it’s raining, but Rosie just does it every time. It’s something she factors into the trip: not just getting groceries, but the extra steps back inside.
When she highlights something for class, which she does conscientiously, she starts with the last words of whatever she wants to highlight, then goes back to the beginning and picks up the rest. If she starts at the beginning, then she just keeps going, because it’s all interesting to her. She has to do it backward so she knows when to stop, and half the time her lips form the words as she highlights them, because they’re just that important.
Rosie likes a schedule. When she wakes up in the morning, she likes to know how her time’s all blocked out for the day. If she has to shift things around, either dig her car out of the snow or because someone cancels on her, she doesn’t like it. She tries not to show it, because Rosie’s number one rule is never show your annoyance at someone who’s still in your life, but it’s there, if you look for it. Most people don’t look. And, when it’s snow, there’s not really anyone to get mad at, so that frustration is just … there, without direction, but at least that’s one she can work out by shoveling.
She doesn’t sit properly on a chair with both feet on the floor. Even if she’s in a hard plastic chair that means she can’t curl up like usual, she’s got her ankles crossed and one foot off the floor. She can’t be bothered to be tethered like the rest of us. Her head’s just that much further in the clouds, and it belongs there. The kinds of things she thinks and says and writes … they’re grounded just enough, by a single foot, and it’s perfect. She’s a dreamer with a plan.
Rosie listens so you feel heard, which explains Kayleigh, but it also makes it strange that she doesn’t have a boyfriend. Maybe all the guys she’s met just want one-night stands or friends with benefits instead of a real relationship, or maybe none of them listen back. That one seems most likely. Rosie’s spent so much of her life giving—her time, her thoughts, her emotional labor—that she doesn’t need another leach. Especially one who feels like he has all the rights to her. At least she’s aware enough of her giving tendencies to cut that one off before it starts.
Everywhere she goes, Rosie likes to arrive early. It’s a sign of respect: if you’re giving her your time, she wants you to know how much she appreciates it. That’s why the bus was such an issue earlier this year. The bus, and number 17, taking her spot: no respect. Rosie doesn’t necessarily go for “If I want it done right, I have to do it myself,” but it irks her when things are out of her control and make it look like she’s the one being rude. Rosie’s simply never rude.
I wonder how much it would take her for make that choice.
Rebecca Frost 
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