Henry’s cell pulled him out of his writing, and he cursed. It was a phone call, and he’d only let a few specific numbers ring through, so he had to answer. He hit save and checked the caller ID to see how pissed he should be, took a deep breath, and swiped to answer as though he couldn’t think of anything better at this very moment than a chat. “Hello?”
“Dougie!” she greeted him with a trill. “We’ve just hit best-case scenario!”
“Uh.” He’d gone over a lot of best-case scenarios lately, with a lot of different people. Francine was only one of them.
“Been writing, huh?” she chuckled, which was grating, because yes, he’d been writing, and it was going well, but now he’d never get back to that without a couple hours to decompress and recover. “Check the news, hun.”
They’d had one Zoom and a couple emails and she’d already moved to calling him hun. “Hang on.” He switched to speakerphone, set it down, and Googled about the only thing he had to Google: Ferguson Sy and it popped in the rest. Oh. That best-case scenario. “They’re dead.”
“All of them!” Francine crowed, victorious, presumably from some high-rise in New York City. “They can’t contest any private conversations you may have had, and our lawsuits just dropped significantly!”
Like they weren’t real people who were now dead. Sure, he’d never met Mary, and he hadn’t really liked Percy, but … Emily. Someone who’d made out with him, however briefly, was dead.
“Does it say how she died?” he asked, scrolling and trying to skim, but there was a disconnect between his brain and his eyes just now. “Kimberlee?”
Francine laughed again, because this was all good news to her. “Not yet. I’m sure we’ll find out.” Then her voice dropped like other people were listening on her end. “Is she the really juicy one? Do you have some good stuff about her?”
Well, for certain definitions of good, yes. But Henry swallowed and stopped himself from clearing his throat. “She’s the one I know the best.”
Knew. Past tense. Headline-making past tense.
This chuckle sounded knowing. “All right, Dougie. I can hear you want to get back to work. Keep it up. You wouldn’t believe the traffic we’ve already gotten.”
“Okay, yeah.” He wondered how she’d respond if he called her Francie instead of, you know, her actual name. “You should have more by tomorrow.” Not that they’d rush this one to publication. They’d already pissed on the fencepost and established themselves as the site of insider information for the Loon Lake story, and now, without the three people truly at the center of it, there was no direct competition.
She laughed—again, seriously—and bid him “Toodle-oo,” for God’s sake. Chuckles and Dougie and toodle-oo because three people were dead.
He went back to Google and took his time choosing which news article to click, forcing himself to then actually read it, each and every line. There was a video, and he bet the video was probably everywhere the news was, but he didn’t click on it. What he wanted to know was what everyone else in the world wanted to know: why Emily? Henry hadn’t been told what happened to any of the others from Loon Lake, but none of them were reported dead. Even Jonathan should’ve had some sort of something, because Henry had seen Percy in the shotgun seat and Jonathan in the driver’s seat with his own eyes. Kidnapping, surely, unless someone wanted to argue that Jonathan was actually in on it.
Now there was an idea. He scribbled it down, mostly just to have someone else check, but they could drop it in if Francine thought it would help the clicks. Others were already speculating why the couple had chosen Loon Lake in the first place, so why not add to the questions with his own twist?
Henry paused and considered for a moment whether it could be true, then dismissed it. Jonathan was all about privacy and NDAs, but he struck Henry as being too upright and somehow rural to be part of a bank robbery. Not that farmers and such couldn’t rob banks, but he couldn’t make it work.
The article didn’t have any answers, so Henry pushed back from his desk, twisted to crack his back, and decided he might as well take a shower and figure out something to eat. Let the other publications carry the story for now, because they’d just increase interest. He’d have this piece to Francine soon enough, and his next task was outlining the book, which was daunting and intriguing and, because the other three were dead, just that much easier now. It was too bad Emily was dead, but it wasn’t like the world lost much, honestly. An alcoholic mistress, really, and those were practically a dime a dozen. Someone with the ability to turn her death into a memorable story, however, and keep her in the public consciousness long after her passing … well. Honestly, she was lucky Henry had been there.
Cold Comfort: Monday, July 15, 2024 – Agatha (2), coming September 7
Rebecca Frost 
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