THE BIGFOOT MURDERS
"I absolutely loved this book! It is the perfect (and unexpected) combination of Bigfoot & romance. I’ve been a fan of all of Megan Gaudino's books and this one does not disappoint!" ~ 5 STAR AMAZON REVIEW
Megan Gaudino Copyright © 2019
Chapter One
I leaned against the painted, cinderblock wall like if I wasn’t standing there to hold it up, the whole place would collapse. That could’ve been partially true. Chunks of crumbled cement littered the floor like piles of sand.
My nerves had gotten the best of me, making my movements jittery. I joined Brooke on the narrow bench and tried to keep my knees from bouncing up and down. She didn’t look nervous, braiding and then unbraiding her hair while we waited for the news that would shape the rest of our lives.
Internships were limited to begin with, and the candidate who landed it ended up in a similar, if not the exact same position ninety percent of the time. Being in the other ten percent, the failed percent, wasn’t an option for me. I wanted better.
Pappy Law deserved better.
Detective Drew Witherall had been in his office for way too long. The decision should’ve been easy for him. I was the obvious choice. I was the one who spent all my free time at the station. I was the one who read true crime novels faster than they could be written. I was the one who had a legacy to fulfill. And, I didn’t want to throw my name around, but I was the only Holly who applied.
When I felt like I couldn’t wait a second longer, the door creaked open and Detective Witherall stepped out.
“Fiona.” He scratched at his neatly trimmed beard. “You can come in now.”
I glanced at Brooke before I stood up, to check her reaction and see the defeat in her eyes. As I crossed the hall, Detective Witherall held the door open, forcing me to squeeze past him in the cramped space.
“Have a seat.” He gestured to the folding chair across from his desk and let the door close.
I sat on my hands to keep them from shaking as I imagined how I’d celebrate. My application sat on his desk, poking out from under Brooke’s. Why was hers on top?
“Fiona.” He dropped into his chair, stirring up dust motes in the light from the window behind him. “You and Brooke are both strong candidates, and I know you’d work your ass off for this, but...” He trailed off, shifting in his seat like he was waiting for me to finish for him. When I didn’t, he added, “I had to go with Brooke. I don’t know what to say.”
I sat there staring at him, his face resembling a Ken doll’s when my eyes filled with tears. Speaking wasn’t an option. I’d cry if I spoke, and Drew seeing me cry would only make his decision not to choose me more valid. My arms and legs stuck to the chair as if they were filled with lead. If I could’ve just stood up, nodded, and walked out, I could’ve at least saved face. But I didn’t do that.
“You could start by saying what I did wrong.” When a tear squeezed out, I wiped it away with the back of my hand. Drew was polite enough to ignore it.
“Nothing. You know how much I enjoy you spending time down here with me and the guys, and you’ve been a big help, but I have to be serious about my interns. Hell, no one was more serious about them than Law. I had to go with my gut, who I thought would be the best, and that was Brooke.”
“Brooke is supposed to be setting curlers at the Chatter Box, not down here solving crimes with you. What will the MacIvers think when their only daughter tells them she wants to be a cop?”
Drew’s lip turned up in one corner. “They’ll think the same thing your grandfather thought when your dad wanted to become a teacher. Can you blame her for wanting to get into something more exciting?”
“Yes,” I snapped.
“Well, then maybe you can work at the salon.” His eyes narrowed.
My fingers reached for the golf pencil tied around my neck with a leather strap. I always wore it and kept a notepad in my pocket, in case I needed to write down clues for a case, because Pappy Law used to do that. Because I was the better choice for the internship. Brooke didn’t even take notes in class.
“So this is what the death of a dream feels like.” I pushed up from the chair. Drew stood too, planting his hands on his belt. “It really, really sucks. You know I’m the better choice.”
“I do know, Fiona. And I know how bad you want to be a detective. That’s why I’m doing this. Your pap thought you hung the moon, which is nice and all for you, but it didn’t make you hungry. Use this disappointment to push you to work harder. I wouldn’t have solved those murders if I wasn’t pushed so hard when I was younger, and I’m doing the same for you.”
My hunger clawed at my stomach with iron talons and kept me up at night. My hunger murmured a rumble of resentment at my father for not following in the Holly family footsteps of joining the force. My hunger led me to promise Pappy Law, on his deathbed, that I would follow in his footsteps.
Drew knew nothing of hunger, and it wasn’t worth explaining it to him.
I gnawed on the inside of my cheek, fought my eye roll, and nodded.
“Thanks.”
I stood, but the whole office tilted left and my lungs struggled to inflate like punctured balloons. I blinked. Hard. The tears had to stay inside but everything inside was on fire.
When I opened the door to leave, Drew said, “I hope to still see you around, Fiona.”
Brooke looked up as soon as I stepped in the hall, a small smile on her lips, surely hearing what he just said. Drew wouldn’t see me around. I wasn’t going to file his papers and play his secretary while Brooke got to do all the fun stuff. I ignored him.
“Congratulations,” I told Brooke.
Pappy Law’s picture hung by the doors. I swore he wore a little frown that wasn’t there before. I swore I’d do whatever I could to change that.
The sun slowly warmed everything all afternoon, gearing up for the approaching summer, but the heat hardly touched me. Everything was different, like it was happening to someone else. I wasn’t going to be the Ridgeview Prep student with the internship at the station. Everything I wanted, everything I worked for, everything I was meant to be had been ripped from me and sat in Brooke’s neatly manicured hands.
Degan waited at the end of the sidewalk. He stood in a patch of shade cast by an oak tree with a huge smile on his face and bouquet of wildflowers clutched in his hand. He remembered. Even without me telling him.
“So?” His long, dark hair got caught up in the wind and covered half his face. He brushed it back, revealing the full charm of his umber eyes.
“Brooke got it.” That was easier to say than I didn’t get it.
“Are you doing the old fake-out trick?” He laughed and held out the yellow and orange flowers. I took them from him, the gesture meaning as much to me as if they were diamonds.
“No.”
Degan’s smile finally faded as he realized I was telling the truth. “I’m sorry, Fi.”
I shrugged like it didn’t matter, like I didn’t care. Like my future hadn’t just turned to ash. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. You worked really hard for this. You deserve this. I don’t understand why it’s not you.”
“Yeah, well, me either.” I glanced back at the station. The loss of my dream made the building seem so far away, or maybe that was just because my goal was far away. My fingers grew restless as my heart beat with hallow purpose.
I promised Pappy Law. I promised myself.
“We should go talk to him.” Degan side-stepped me to head back toward the station. “Brooke didn’t even want it. She only applied because she wanted to piss off her mom. She said she was going to work at the salon. She said she wants to work at the salon. She said this sounded the easiest.”
My blood finally reached the boiling point, my tears turning to steam that fueled my anger.
“Degan.” I grabbed his arm and gave it a gentle tug. “You can’t go in there and demand Detective Witherall change his mind.”
He stopped walking but studied the station like he was going to try anyway. “But he made the wrong choice. You’re a better detective than he is already.”
“Thanks for saying that, but you can’t go in there.”
“Yeah.” He nodded and brought his gaze back to me. “I guess not.
It’s not fair though. You’re a Holly. It’d be like someone telling me I couldn’t work on my own family’s farm.”
An unexpected jealousy pulled at my thoughts. Degan’s family had kept his farm for longer than anyone had record of and no one could stop him tending to it.
“No. It’s not fair. And yeah, it would be.” I brought the flowers to my nose and inhaled the sweet scent. Degan Bone gave me flowers. I’d dreamed of this day since we met in kindergarten. I had fallen in love with him for already knowing how to write the whole alphabet.
Flowers can mean many different things when they are given, but flowers from Degan only meant one thing. We’d been almost-together for so long I worried it’d become our permanent state, like fake flowers. Always there, always beautiful, but not alive. Not quite right.
“Want to come back to the farm with me? We can help my mom make the cornbread you love so much. I’ve been wanting to learn how anyway.”
Keeping in the tradition of things in my life being unfair... “I can’t. I have to go to headquarters and report for duty.”
“That sucks.” He ran his hand through his hair, pulling it out of his face again. “But I did think of a new sabotage last night.”
“Yeah?” The idea of a new way to mess with my mom’s precious reality TV show got a real smile out of me. “What is it?”
****
I was a timeshare condo of a person. Every other Wednesday, and weekends, I spent time with my mom. Not because she wanted to, or even because I wanted to, but because the court said to.It was only possible to get to HQ by hiking, four-wheeler, or SUV. It was tucked in the middle of Wandering Woods, down a path that was always only one or two days away from being completely overgrown. I stopped my Jeep on the cement pad near the ever-changing fleet of SUVs.
All the electronic activity from inside HQ made the outside buzz like a hive. They truly didn’t understand how to hunt. If they really wanted to catch Bigfoot, or anything, HQ would’ve blended in with the woods like a tree.
Cables thick like snakes wore marks in the door and acted like a makeshift security system for strangers who didn’t know their reach. I shouldered the door open and hoped to see Jasper or Amber waiting for me. Not Mom or Pearl. Jasper and Amber were easiest to distract while I did something to set back production a day or two. I’d hide a camera, unplug the GPS to keep it from charging, anything to annoy Mom.
No one waited inside the tiny living room. The threadbare couch sat empty and the concrete floor made my feet cold through my boots. Everything about the cabin made my veins fill with ice water. It was minimalistic in a way that wasn’t stylish, just lazy.
I set off to find Gems. If no one was around, I could pull major, uninterrupted sabotage.
What started out as a two-room hunting cabin turned into a sprawling fortress of bizarrely connected rooms. The cluttered, fast-food- container-filled kitchen opened into a long hall that every important room sprouted from. Mom’s voice sounded from the bathroom to the right. With the door open just a crack, I caught a glimpse of her frizzy, brown hair before I moved down the hall and out of sight.
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you.” The words came out annoyed.
“Lawrence... Lawrence ... you’re not even letting me speak.”
Dad. They were fighting again. I knew that because they usually only spoke when they had to fight about something. I froze in place so I wouldn’t make a sound and listened.
“Because I am busy and forcing quality time on me isn’t helping our relationship.” When she paused, I had to hold my breath. What she meant was she was too busy for me. “I have a show to do, and I know youdon’t understand the amount of work that takes, but I need to get the deal for a third season. I’m not saying she can’t come over, but she has to call and I have to okay it. I don’t need this shit right now.”
She didn’t want to see me the few, measly days we were scheduled to be together because the show was more important. Just the potential for a third season was more important. Stupid, nonexistent Bigfoot was more important. Tears welled in my eyes but I’d already cried today, and I wasn’t about to do it again. If my own mom didn’t want to spend time with me, how could I have expected Detective Witherall to? My fingers clenched into fists as my devastated heart stitched itself back together with threads of rage.
I walked on silent feet farther down the hall, tuning out Mom’s excuses for the solutions Dad was undoubtedly offering her. My goal was to get in the editing room and destroy something, take out some of the pain on something that meant more to her than I did. Amber and Pearl sat behind the control panel, both wearing monstrous headsets, their fingers flicking over computer mice. I didn’t even notice them at first, with how quiet they were. They looked like silent DJs. I did a sweep of the room to see where Jasper was hiding, but I couldn’t find him.
With that plan out, I headed toward the garage. Degan’s idea about the tires sounded good. New tires were expensive, and Mom should have to pay for something.
When I got to the door at the end of the hall, Jasper’s handheld camera resting on the desk called to me like a siren song. Crouching down so I could be at eye level with the camera, I flipped it on its side and checked the memory card slot. The thin, blue rectangle barely poked out of its spot. It was risky, because Jasper was still unaccounted for, but I clicked the camera on, rewound for a few seconds, and hit play.
The footage showed The Gems, my mom’s group, stomping through the woods. Mom and Dad couldn’t fight forever, but I could still hear her in the bathroom, her voice rising a few notches in irritation. My fingers fumbled as I hurried to find the delete button, knocking the camera on its side again.
When I found it, I only paused for a fraction of a second, my adrenaline pumping, to think about what I was going to do. Was I really willing to be so destructive?
Yes.
Just the slightest pressure from my fingertip caused the camera to beep with a sad bloop sound, and just like that, the footage was gone.
“Fiona?” Jasper’s deep voice sounded from my right. I hadn’t even heard the door to the garage open.
“I—I—uh...” I trailed off. His large stature never felt more imposing.
“What happened?” He wiped his grease-covered hands on his jeans and kept the acquisition out of his voice. When he picked the camera up to check the footage, he asked, “Did it somehow get deleted?”
“Because I am busy and forcing quality time on me isn’t helping our relationship.” When she paused, I had to hold my breath. What she meant was she was too busy for me. “I have a show to do, and I know youdon’t understand the amount of work that takes, but I need to get the deal for a third season. I’m not saying she can’t come over, but she has to call and I have to okay it. I don’t need this shit right now.”
She didn’t want to see me the few, measly days we were scheduled to be together because the show was more important. Just the potential for a third season was more important. Stupid, nonexistent Bigfoot was more important. Tears welled in my eyes but I’d already cried today, and I wasn’t about to do it again. If my own mom didn’t want to spend time with me, how could I have expected Detective Witherall to? My fingers clenched into fists as my devastated heart stitched itself back together with threads of rage.
I walked on silent feet farther down the hall, tuning out Mom’s excuses for the solutions Dad was undoubtedly offering her. My goal was to get in the editing room and destroy something, take out some of the pain on something that meant more to her than I did. Amber and Pearl sat behind the control panel, both wearing monstrous headsets, their fingers flicking over computer mice. I didn’t even notice them at first, with how quiet they were. They looked like silent DJs. I did a sweep of the room to see where Jasper was hiding, but I couldn’t find him.
With that plan out, I headed toward the garage. Degan’s idea about the tires sounded good. New tires were expensive, and Mom should have to pay for something.
When I got to the door at the end of the hall, Jasper’s handheld camera resting on the desk called to me like a siren song. Crouching down so I could be at eye level with the camera, I flipped it on its side and checked the memory card slot. The thin, blue rectangle barely poked out of its spot. It was risky, because Jasper was still unaccounted for, but I clicked the camera on, rewound for a few seconds, and hit play.
The footage showed The Gems, my mom’s group, stomping through the woods. Mom and Dad couldn’t fight forever, but I could still hear her in the bathroom, her voice rising a few notches in irritation. My fingers fumbled as I hurried to find the delete button, knocking the camera on its side again.
When I found it, I only paused for a fraction of a second, my adrenaline pumping, to think about what I was going to do. Was I really willing to be so destructive?
Yes.
Just the slightest pressure from my fingertip caused the camera to beep with a sad bloop sound, and just like that, the footage was gone.
“Fiona?” Jasper’s deep voice sounded from my right. I hadn’t even heard the door to the garage open.
“I—I—uh...” I trailed off. His large stature never felt more imposing.
“What happened?” He wiped his grease-covered hands on his jeans and kept the acquisition out of his voice. When he picked the camera up to check the footage, he asked, “Did it somehow get deleted?”
Good old Jasper, with his heart as pure as his head was bald, still giving me the benefit of the doubt.
“I’m not sure.”
“When did you get here?” Mom. She stood next to Jasper with her jeans hung low on her hips because they were at least two sizes too big. Putting on the show and looking for Bigfoot were all that mattered to her. More than food. More than me.
“I can’t find the footage we shot yesterday,” Jasper interrupted.
“What?” She snatched the camera from his hands. “That was good stuff and now it’s gone?” She hit the buttons like she knew what she was doing, but Mom was never behind the camera, only in front. The screen remained blank, lifeless. “Dammit, Jasper. What happened to it?”
He glanced at me, then back to Mom. “I’m not sure. I must’ve messed it up.”
“Seriously? You messed it up? We can’t just mess things up.” Her voice rose with every word.
Jasper tried to take the camera from her, but Mom shrugged him off, turning her shoulder to keep it away from him. “I’m really sorry, Ruby. We can go out again today or I’ll edit old stuff together. It’ll be fine,” Jasper said, desperate to placate my mom.
Mom set the camera back down on the desk while my chest hammered like the Tell-Tale Heart was in there.
“This is unacceptable. I can’t believe you’d be so careless. We don’t need this kind of setback right now, and you’re really pissing me off with your lax attitude.”
There was no better wake-up call for my actions than seeing how they immediately impacted someone else. Mom deserved the sabotage. Jasper did not. And worse yet, he was getting blamed for what I did and taking it like a champ.
“Mom.”
She ignored me, probably forgetting I was there the moment show drama came up. She stepped closer to Jasper like she could intimidate him. He had almost two feet on her.
“I’m too busy for this. You need to fix it. Get it back. I’m not filming again because you can’t keep your camera under control.”
“Mom.” The guilt clawed at my throat, choking me.
“Ruby, come on.” Jasper laughed like she wasn’t in his face with crazy, angry eyes. “It’s no big deal.”
“Incompetence is a big deal. And if you think it’s so funny, you can be replaced.”
No. No. No. I couldn’t let that happen when Jasper was only trying to protect me.
“Mom.”
“Fiona, what?” She turned to me, throwing her hands up as she did. “I’m busy here.”
“I deleted the video.”
“Fiona, what?” She turned to me, throwing her hands up as she did. “I’m busy here.”
“I deleted the video.”
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