"I thought you'd own a lot more." Andy looked at the boxes she helped Denise haul inside. A stream of sweat trickled down the side of her forehead.
"I never owned a lot of things. Most of the stuff from my old house was my mom and sister's stuff. I kept a few things and gave away most of it. The rest was put in the trash."
"You're not..." Andy hesitated.
"What?" Denise raised an eyebrow.
"You're not packing all of this down internally, right? All the grief and emotions about your family. You seem like you're trying to forget about it."
"I'm not trying to bury it, I'm trying to survive. One day, my life was completely fine. The next, the only two family members I have are gone. They were murdered in my own house. Wouldn't you try to run away from it too?"
Andy shrugged, "I guess I haven't thought about it. I don't want you to bury all of it internally. You have to work through all these complicated emotions and try to mo-"
"Why do you care so much?" Denise snapped. "You've been missing for years and suddenly you pop up out of the blue. Why are you back in Michigan? You ignored all my texts and phone calls for months. Why the change of heart on your part?"
"You're doing it," Andy pointed out.
"Doing what?" Denise crossed her arms.
"You're taking out your anger on other people. You're hiding away from the world! You will sit in this secluded cabin and rot if I leave you alone. We were friends for years, I know how you work."
"People change," Denise spoke through clenched teeth.
"Some people might, but you don't." Andy stepped in front of Denise to face her. "You still like McDonald's breakfast sandwiches. You always liked to wear your hair in a messy bun. You've had that specific pair of Timberland boots for five years, am I correct?"
"Yeah," Denise's shoulders slumped in defeat.
"Not to mention, you've always wanted to live in the middle of the woods and here you are. You were exactly like this when your dad died. Angry, locked away, and ready to explode at any moment. Who was the one that helped you get through that?"
"You," Denise mumbled.
"Exactly!" Andy nodded triumphantly. "Now as for me, I do owe you an apology. I'm sorry I ignored you for so long. It wasn't on purpose! I dropped my phone in the toilet. I never saved your number and I didn't have your address."
She wrapped Denise in a tight hug. "What I did was wrong and I'm genuinely sorry. I tried to get off work to see you and my idiotic boss wouldn't let me. I was at that office more than I was at my apartment."
Denise tried to blink back her tears. Instead, the large salty drops came rolling down her face. She wiggled out of Andy's grip to hug her back.
"I'm sorry I snapped at you and got pissed. I don't know how to describe it. I'm mad at myself for not being home. I'm mad at my neighbor for not hearing anything. I feel so lost. I'm walking around completely alone on Earth right now." Denise sniffled and pulled out of Andy's grip.
"Don't you dare blame yourself for this," Andy started. "We're going to figure out who killed your family. That's what we're going to do next."
"And how do you plan on doing that?" Denise questioned her friend.
"Are you kidding me? I'm calling the police department and complaining. I want answers! Your family deserves better and I'm curious. I'd be pissed if I was stabbed to death and the person who did it never went to jail."
Denise sunk onto her couch. She let her body flop against the back of it. "They'll probably tell you the same thing they told me. They don't have any new information."
Andy scoffed, "they don't know me." She shook her head, "I'll annoy them until they find new evidence. There has to be something they can do. I'll be back in a few minutes."
Denise watched Andy walk out the front door. The screen door slammed shut. She could hear her friend's shoes thudding on the porch.
A sigh left her lips, she stared at the boxes on the floor. The handwriting on the boxes was half legible. She was on autopilot when she wrote what contents were laid inside. She was trying to get through life one day at a time.
Bits of Andy's voice could be heard from outside.
"What do you mean it's an inactive case?"
There was quiet mumbling that Denise couldn't hear.
"Do better than that!"
More conversation that couldn't be made out.
"Do I have to drive up there to make myself clear?"
Threatening the police was a bold move on Andy's part. She hadn't been a fan of them since her cousin was given a year in juvenile detention for pulling the school fire alarm. The problem? The cousin's girlfriend pulled the alarm and blamed it on him.
She admitted it after his sentence. She never got in trouble for it. Andy had been and was still pissed about the situation.
Denise forced herself off the couch. Within seconds, she was on the back porch. A second Marlboro Light within twenty-four hours. She let her worries drift away with the smoke.
Andy was never going to get what she wanted from the cops. They didn't care about her family. Maybe they would have if she picked a different career path; things would be different.
Brimington was a small conservative town in the middle of Michigan. Most people, including her mom, attended church every Sunday. Denise had always been considered the odd one in her family.
She stopped attending church at sixteen. Her mom accepted it without any questions. Her exact words were "God will still be there any time you need him."
It was so easy for Susan to have faith. The lines between fact and fiction had always been blurred for Denise.
After questioning God, that's when she began writing. After writing a few stories in class, her English teacher persuaded her to join creative writing. The hunger and passion she had for writing continued to grow.
After a few years of writing and editing the same singular story for multiple years, she submitted a manuscript to a publisher. She gave up after a month with no response. They called back on month three and demanded more.
That's exactly what she gave them. She was published at twenty-three. By age twenty-nine, she had four different horror novels out. Her writing career had taken off.
Her mom had been estatic about her first book. She told almost everyone she knew when it happened. She even bought her friends copies of books and made Denise sign them.
It was like stepping into a hazy dream for Denise. For the first few months, people asked questions, they shook her hand, and congratulated her. A handful of people asked for her autograph.
By the second novel release, the short-lived hype around town was dead. It was more than dead, it was buried underneath the town of Brimington. People seemed to go out of their way to avoid her.
There was one opinion she overheard from church while attending an Easter service. It stayed with her for months and haunted her subconsciously.
"Why would she write something like that? It's dark and twisted. It makes the town look bad for raising her in our community. We're not like that here. Thinking about it makes me sick."
She knew it was about her because after it was spoken, the lady who said it turned around and glared at her.
The first novel was about a family vacation gone wrong. It ended with the whole family dying. The second book was about a married couple. The wife cheated and the husband wanted revenge. He achieved it after planning for months, but it went wrong. He had to cover up her murder.
It bothered Denise so much that her sister picked up on it. When she spoke about it, her younger sister's exact words were "for fuck's sake, tell them to mind their own fucking business."
It was something the two joked about all the time. It's what partly inspired her to continue writing. Jennifer had opened up about how much she admired her older sister. Denise loved being able to be a role model for her.
"I didn't know you still smoked." Andy's voice caught her off-guard once again.
"It's a temporary thing. I only started when they were murdered. It's the only thing that seems to dull the pain besides half a bottle of vodka."
"It's a fourth of the bottle, you're a lightweight." Andy's voice contained no trace of humor. "You should stop your smoking habit before it stops you."
Denise shrugged and dropped the end of the cigarette on the ground. Andy wasted no time digging the heel of her Converse into it.
"Did you find anything out?" Denise asked.
"They want to meet us at the station at seven."
"Huh?" Denise's jaw dropped open.
"I told them we'd be there and they better have answers. The officer told me to leave my attitude behind."
Denise bit down on her lip to stop a grin from spreading across her face. Andy turned back around and started into the house. "Let's go, we have a lot to do before then."
Denise bent down and picked up the crushed cigarette. She'd have to find her ashtray to bring outside. Within a few weeks, she'd be digging her cigarette buds out of the snow. Michigan always had snow during the winter.
If they were lucky, they'd have snow a few weeks before winter. Grey skies, light snow, and below-freezing air; the perfect writing weather.
"Are you coming?" Andy called from over her shoulder.
"Oh, believe me, I'm coming." Denise stepped up behind her old friend.
Hauling everything out of boxes was going to be real fun. Denise could hardly wait for the back pain. "You start with that box and I start with this one?"
"You bet," Andy ripped open the top of a folded box.
Denise glanced at the time on her phone before the pair began. It was a little after nine-thirty. They had the rest of the morning and all afternoon to waste before going to the police station.
That was a lot of time for anxiety to brew in Denise and that's exactly what was starting to happen. She took a deep breath before she crouched down over a box.
The fun was about to begin.