Death by Bread

1

Safi Gray drove her rusty pickup truck she salvaged from a friend's backyard years ago and fixed it up as a way to decompress from the job. The endless rows of corn and other tall growing vegetables ran on for miles in the farmer's fields. Old green and red rusty tractors plowed the empty plots. Her German shepherd affectionately named Buck had his big head stuck out of the window basking in the wind as the truck hit 90.

No music played in the cab, even if she wanted it to the radio had been static for miles, so to fill the quiet void, but mostly to drown out the sound of some broken part that needed to be fixed 3rd degree by James Patterson played over the speakers, Safi loved reading, especially murder mysteries, you'd think after working up to 16 hour days on the job she'd hate those type of books but it was quite the opposite. It got her mind working, gears turned and she was able to look at some things differently, she knew real crime scenes were vastly different than the ones in books, having been to some herself. The job isn't all pictures and cheating spouses, sometimes you have to call in a body but sometimes those things work.

She came across the women's murder club series 2 days ago and she immediately borrowed seven of the audiobooks from her library. Bucky barked at the black spotted cows that grazed in their open land. Buck's never seen a cow, at least Safi didn't think he had. He was a rescue, a little puppy chained to an old dog house that belonged to a man who was murdered, his son hired her to look into some guy that the police refused to do, turned out a dirty cop killed his dad and the others covered it up, while tried too, Safi found evidence of illegal child content on his home computer, he got thrown away from that but not the murder charge, the young kid was glad he was at least behind bars.

Safi never liked the countryside, hell it was her backyard for nineteen years until she packed her bags and left for the city miles away. She never wanted to be a cop but she ended up at the academy after a friend forced her to fill out an application. Her friend was tired of her couch surfing and sometimes she ended up on some random person's couch after a party.

It had been years since she had been home, not because she didn't like it but because of her father, the old man was a hard ass ex-marine, he was a drill Sergeant more than a father. But he died years ago, and much to her mother's dismay Safi didn't attend the funeral, she had a good reason of course, she was balls deep in a mafia hideout and if she moved she died, she still didn't know why she took that job but that Mafia Don paid her good money, good hush money.

If her mother found out she somehow got pulled into the mafia business she'd get an ass whooping, and her mother wouldn't hurt a fly, she was the softest person Safi's ever met. How she ended up with her father she never knew. Opposites attract how true that was.

Gravel crunched under the worn summer tires and the poor driver side wheel bearing screeched as she pulled in. She didn't have the means to fix it here so she'd have to give the old rust bucket a call. Her uncle's mechanic shop is just up the road.

The first thing the fluffy German shepherd did was sniff around, probably smelling whatever rodents were calling the boarded-in porch home.

Her mother. A sweet woman who looked no older than forty walked out in her cute little apron and red-painted lips, it didn't matter what time she got up or how late they were, her day didn't start until she had Revlon certainly red across her pouty lips

If it wasn't for the full head of waist-length gray hair that was always in a braid you'd think that woman was forty not in her early sixties "My sweet girl" Mama pulled her into a hug and Safi melted right into her. she hasn't had a hug from her in years. Bucky barked and nuzzled his way between them. He was jealous.

Mama pat Buck's head as Safi went to the truck to get her bags. She was taking a vacation. The only good thing about being self-employed is that she doesn't have to have a boss approve time off. "How have you been hun?" Safi smiled as Mama spoke in that baby voice everyone talked to dogs "Never thought I'd see you back here" Dean, her older brother stood on the worn down porch, the roof leaked on the left hand side, and shingles needed to be replaced, it needed a few boards replaced too, the rungs on the side looked like they would fall off a minute and the white paint was a dirty gray and flaking off. Usually, Dad would have kept up with the outside but since his death, it's just been left to decay on its own time uninterrupted, she thought she could trust Dean to take care of it but clearly, he hasn't inherited Dad's handy side.

"Takes a lot to get me back in this place" Dean took her suitcase as she walked to the steps, buck was behind her the moment she started moving, he was a loyal dog. And a protective one at that.

"What's the occasion? Even the old man's death couldn't drag you back home" Dean's blue eyes bore into her golden brown ones, she always loved his eyes, always been envious of them they had green flecks in them and were an icy blue woman swoon over, but right now his usually soft eyes were hard. He was disappointed in her that she missed their Dads funeral "Work kept me away"

"I know you didn't like the man but he was your father" Dean mumbled low enough so Mom didn't hear and Safi followed behind him into their childhood house, the place smelt like mamas perfume, home-cooked food, and the faint scent of her favorite lemon cleaner, the one thing mama was proud of was her home, she always kept it in a state of tidy you were afraid to sit on the chesterfield and wrinkle the cushion.

"Your rooms like you left it dear" Mama kissed Safi's cheek and Buck followed Mama into the updated but still old-fashioned-looking kitchen, where he sat patiently for Mama to get him a bowl of tap water.

Dean walked up the carpeted stairs carrying Safi's suitcase he was in his cop uniform, a few years back they took out the sheriff system and lumped them in with the next town cops "How is she" Safi asked as she followed him into her childhood bedroom "she's holding it together, probably better now your home" she hummed and looked at the things still on the walls, the AC DC and Sleep Token posters faded by the sun, her books overflowed the bookshelves, old kung fu manuals, and military drills lined the bottom shelves, dad was raising little soldiers, not children. one of the reasons she didn't like the man.

they didn't have a childhood, their evenings and weekends were spent in the basement with boxing lessons, at the dojo, or in the backyard learning how to shoot every gun in dad's home arsenal, there was no time for high school parties or shopping trips at the mall or even boyfriends, the old man made sure of that.

"She's been worried about you" Dean sat on the bed that was still covered in the rose comforter she had as a teen, you could smell the scent boosters from here, mom stripped my bed and washed the sheets when she found out Safi was coming home "she's a mother, it's her job to worry" Dean chuckled "yeah that's true" a silence fell over them, the last time they were in this room together Safi was packing, mom was downstairs crying and Dean was trying to convince her to stay, dad was out on the porch drinking a beer.

"You moved back?" Dean hummed "Someone had to watch over her while you were off on your own" She sat on the butterfly chair and looked at him "That's not fair, you had your thing and I wanted to do mine"

"You ran away" Buck came into the room and sat at my feet, the night she left Safi and Daniel, their dad had gotten into a fight, and for the first time in her life, that man hit her with the intent to hurt her. A back had right across the cheek. His pinky ring had cut her cheek and left a scar that still stuck out on her tanned freckled cheek. "So what if I did" Her golden brown eyes bore into his, challenging him. Safi wasn't scared of him anymore. Those years away made her build up tough skin to that stuff, Dean had inherited their father's intimidating aura, something that used to make her scared and here she was challenging him. Dean sighed and left her room. Buck made himself at home and curled up on the bed, patting in a circle and using his paws to ruffle up the cleaned blankets. Safi put her things away. she didn't know how long she was staying, I had to decide if she was going to shut her business down for good or to go back to the city and carry on by herself.