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Cora blinked. “Really?”
Mrs. Lochhead was already moving towards the microwave. She snatched an old-fashioned newspaper off the appliance, marched back, and deposited the item in front of Cora.
Cora frowned, studying the newspaper.
The headline read:Mayor Castillo’s wife murdered.
She scanned the paragraphs.
Apparently, the mayor’s bride had been away on a business trip. She had returned three weeks before, but on her way back from the airport, someone had ambushed her car.
She had died at the scene.
Cora shifted. “Just because the mayor’s wife was killed,” Cora said slowly, “doesn’t mean your daughter was.”
Henry looked ready to explode again, but once more his wife cut in. She said quickly, “I don’t think you understand, dear. Janice was close to the mayor’s wife. The two of them went to college together. The mayor married young. Very young,” she said, with a knowing tilt of her eyebrows.
Cora frowned. “So, your daughter was an advisor to the mayor?”
“Exactly. And it was because she was friends with his wife. His wife was killed three weeks ago. Janice was killed last week. At least...we think she was. We don’t know. We’re holding onto hope,” the woman’s voice cracked, but she pressed on, “that she will return.”
Cora frowned. “I see. And where was your daughter staying?”
“She had her own place in the Keys. She had a boat and would often go out. The boat was found. But she wasn’t.”
Cora scowled. “So, you think someone killed her while she was out driving her boat?”
Both the parents flinched. Cora wished she could think of a better way to phrase it. But how could phrasing decrease the pain of a lost daughter? Better just to treat it like a band-aid and rip it off quick.
“The police keep saying it’s a missing persons case,” said Henry. “None of the newspapers are touching it. The mayor’s wife dies three weeks ago. His advisor dies last week. They’re hiding something. Mark my words, this is corruption, and it goes deep.”
Cora didn’t protest. She just listened. She said, “Is there anything else you can tell me about Janice?”
But as she said it, she realized Mr. Lochhead was distracted. He was peering, past her, into the expensive living room she had spotted earlier. His eyes were on a television screen placed above the couch. Open to the news channel.
Instead of angry, though, he looked shocked.
Mrs. Lochhead followed her husband’s gaze and gave a little gasp.
Cora turned as well. She peered up at the television. And then she stared.
A news anchor was narrating from a teleprompter. The television was silent, but the breaking news was displayed in a ribbon of text across the bottom of the screen.
Mayor’s daughter drowned in family pool...
“Holy shit,” Cora said.
Neither of the Lochheads corrected her. She thought of how her own mother might react to such course language.
But Cora stared at the television. And then she pulled out her phone, hastily typing in the breaking news bulletin as a search.
She pulled up the top article. An online news site. It wasn’t local, but national. The news had spread across the country.
Mayor’s wife killed three weeks ago, daughter killed today...
Cora felt a flicker of something strange. It would have been inconsiderate to call it excitement. And yet that was what it felt the most like. A sort of yearning, anticipation for what was ahead.
This sudden rush of adrenaline, of certainty that she had found something worth pursuing, was what had been keeping her from pills and from drinking.
