Chapter Two: Death in a Small Town:

May 28th, 2011.

It was supposed to be a slow morning. A twenty-eight-year nurse walked up to apartment 218. She knocked on the door.

“Mr. Garrison,” the nurse said. “I’m here to check on you. Mr. Garrison. Mr. Garrison!” She knocked on the door again. No response on the other side. The nurse sighed and unlocked the door. The small apartment was dark.

“Mr. Garrison?” she asked. “Are you up yet? Mr. Garrison? Mr. Garrison?” She made her way to the kitchen. A figure sat at the small round table in the middle of the room.

“Huh?” the nurse asked. “Mr. Garrison?” She reached over and flipped on the light switch. When the kitchen lit up, the nurse covered her mouth and gasped. The seventy-year-old sat in the car with his throat cut. His eyes were wide open. His pajama top was soaked in blood. The nurse pulled out her phone and dialed 911.

Police swarmed the apartment complex. Officers questioned the neighbors and nurse.

“And you found him like this?” one of them asked the nurse.

“Yes,” she said.

“Where were you last night?”

“Home. I work the morning shifts.”

“When was the last time you saw Mr. Garrison?”

“Noon, when my shift ended.”

“How did Mr. Garrison seem to you yesterday? Was he worried about anything? Scared? Anything like that?”

The nurse shook her head. “No. He seemed okay.”

“Okay?”

“Well, he did say that he was hurting but other than that he was fine.”

The officer wrote down all of the information on his notepad. “Does anyone else have a key to this apartment?”

“No. It’s just Mr. Garrison, the higher-ups, and myself,” the nurse said.

“Does he have any next of kin?” the officer asked. The nurse took a moment to think.

“Well, yes…” she said. “But…”

“But?”

The nurse clenched her teeth. “They don’t get along too well.” She nodded with unease. “Yeah…” The officer closed up his notepad.

“Thank you for your time,” he said. The nurse nodded and walked out of the apartment. The police officer walked over the detectives and CSI’s near the body.

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I was woken up by the sound of my phone ringing. I grumbled to myself as I reached around for it on the nightstand.

“Hello?” I mumbled at last.

“Celeste!” a woman wailed on the other line. A puzzled look came over my half-asleep face.

“Mom?” I asked. “Mom, why are you calling me so early? What time is it?”

“Seven,” my mom said. “You should be up now anyway.”

“Why are you calling me?” I asked.

“Mr. Garrison was murdered,” she said. My eyes widened.

“What?!” I asked. Then she asked me the one thing that I vowed myself that I would never do.

“We need you to come back for the funeral,” she said. I felt myself sinking into the mattress.

“Why?” was all I could ask. She gave a bullshit explanation but it all sounded miles away. No… No… No! Before I knew, I had agreed to come back. Come back to the hell that I ran away from ten years ago. I would have to see them again. I would have to see her again.