Page 17 of Nothing Ever Happens Here

“She said she didn’t want to get the bill from Willard’s if it was something Clay or someone could fix,” Millie says and I see the expression on Shelby’s face shift when she hears this. We aren’t supposed to know there are money troubles. I don’t know much, really. I wish I did—just that things are tight, so I think Heather was trying to help, bless her.

“Herb wanted an egg foo young anyway, so we were headed to the Super Jumbo on the way,” I say, patting Shelby’s back.

“If Willard’s can’t get it back up and running, we’ll call Helping Hands—that transport service—in case we need to bus everyone over to the Y for the night. God, I hope not,” Shelby says.

“Willard’s is heading there and will call back in thirty. Heather’s a basket case, but they’re all fine,” I say, placing my phone on the coffee table so we all hear the call when it comes. Then I take a sip of the warming martini that’s really just vodka and Baileys in a mug, but Millie can call it what she likes, it’s hitting the spot.

We’re all quiet for a few minutes and I look around Shelby’s house in the flickering light. A cozy, one-hundred-year-old farmhouse, creaky floors, drafty windows. It’s tidy but small, slightly dated with its wood paneling and kitchen wallpaper patterned with small fruit baskets, but it’s like every other house in this neck of the woods, and people seem to like the nostalgia of it; the cabin feel. There aren’t a lot of HGTV-style renos up here and I like it that way.Maybe it’s because it’s something to rely on—that it all stays the same here and feels like it’s suspended in time, dated as it may be. It’s a comfort.

“I didn’t hear about blackouts or any lines down,” Shelby says. She stands, goes to the counter and checks the gun box is locked for the third time and brings a few more candles over, which she sets on the coffee table to help light the room. It feels like we’re sitting around a campfire in the woods, and it’s not so far off from that. Herb didn’t get his egg foo young, so he’s chomping on a sleeve of butter crackers he found when he was “making himself at home” and Millie’s already downed a couple of shots of Baileys, which I wasn’t aware was meant to be consumed that way, so she’s smiling inappropriately considering the situation. The old fool is of no help whatsoever.

I, however, am not here to eat at Super Jumbo or get tipsy off expired Baileys. I am here on a fact-finding mission for my new podcast, even though I haven’t told anyone that. I looked it up on my laptop yesterday, and I have a plan. “Shelby, dear. While we’re waiting for Willard’s I wanted to say I saw the news, and I know you must be anxious about seeing that footage.”

Shelby seems to freeze at this, her eyes wide and slightly shocked. Nobody talks about what happened to her, like a silent pact we’ve all made, but it’s time. Something’s happening. Herb puts the packet of butter crackers down and Millie stops midsip and stares at me.

“Is it okay if I ask you a couple of questions?” I ask, taking out a notepad and pen.

“Now?” Herb says, more loudly than necessary.

“We can’t go anywhere at the moment, nobody has much to say, so I thought maybe we can talk about what the hell’sreallygoing on around here.”

“Flor, I’m not sure what you mean. The footage didn’t show anything useful,” Shelby says. “Nothing I didn’t already know—we all know a guy got in.It didn’t help anything seeing a blur on a camera. So…”

“Well,” I say. “It’s just that I know your car battery isn’t dead, because I was with you just a few weeks ago when I tagged along while you ran errands, and you got a bunch of those candy cane things filled with M&M’s because Jensen’s was out of the Santa Pez you wanted, and we stopped for peppermint mochas and an oil change. And they said your battery needed changing, so you got a new one.”

“Holy crap, Nancy Drew?” Millie adds, and I notice she’s starting to slur a bit.

“Oh” is all Shelby says. The wind outside howls and the windows rattle in their frames slightly. The house squeaks and sighs. Her face is pale and her eyes look lost.

“I know you think we’re all self-absorbed, but that’s mostly just Herb.”

“Hey,” Herb says half-heartedly, picking up his crackers and squirting a blob of Easy Cheese I hadn’t yet noticed he’d pilfered from the refrigerator.

“But you were white as a sheet when you came back inside, so if it wasn’t your battery, what was it? Also, I might add that I think someone murdered Otis Thorgard, and I think it’s related to you, dear.”

There is an audible scoff or maybe a stifled gasp from everyone. Then, complete silence.

“May I have some more of that Bailey-tini thing, Millie?” I ask, and she hands me the shaker with her mouth hanging open, which I find a little melodramatic.

“Jesus, Flor” is all Herb manages.

“Otis was sick in the hospital,” Shelby begins, but I interrupt.

“Yes, and you have every reason to have episodes of panic—you don’t need to explain that. And yes, Otis was sick in the hospital, but I have reason to believe there was foul play and I worry that whoever this—thispsychois,he’s back. To be fair, probably never left, but is targeting people again.”

“She’s lost the plot,” Millie says, shaking her head and pulling the sleeve of crackers across the table and plucking out a few.

“Foul play?” Herb echoes.

“It means she thinks he was murdered, Herb.”

“I know what it means, Millie!”

“Look,” I say and then I lay out the torn-up note Winny let me keep and tell them her story, how Otis was afraid and thought someone was out to hurt him, and the warning to Mack and Shelby. When I finish, the only sound is the heavy moan of the wind outside and the cracking fire. Shelby holds one of the scraps of paper to her chest—the one with her name written on it in Otis’s handwriting.

“What?” she says in a whisper to herself.

Suddenly my phone rings, buzzing across the coffee table, and we all jump. It’s Willard’s so I hand it to Shelby, who is holding her heart and catching her breath at the shock the sudden sound gave us all. She stands and walks to the kitchen to take the call.

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