Come Join The Murder Read online

  About the author

  Holly Rae Garcia writes horror, sci-fi, and thriller stories. Her short stories and poetry have been published by Trembling With Fear, Siren’s Call, Bookends Review, Australian Writers’ Centre, Rue Scribe, and the Haunted and Isolation anthologies. Holly lives on the Texas Coast with her family and three large dogs. When she isn’t writing, Holly works full-time as a corporate photographer.

  Come Join The Murder

  by Holly Rae Garcia

  Close To The Bone

  An imprint of Gritfiction Ltd

  Copyright © 2020 by Holly Rae Garcia

  First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Close To The Bone

  All rights reserved. No part of the book may be produced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may use brief quotations in a book review.

  Close To The Bone

  an imprint of Gritfiction Ltd

  Rugby

  Warwickshire

  CV21

  www.close2thebone.co.uk

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Proofread by Carly Rheilan

  Interior Design by Craig Douglas

  Cover by Holly Rae Garcia

  Dedicated to Ryan, Kennedy and Ethan.

  Acknowledgments

  Ryan, I couldn’t have written this book without you. You push, encourage, and love me harder than anyone. Until we’re seventy, anyway.

  Kennedy, you never laughed at my ideas, even when some were laughable. My sweet and beautiful daughter, you are my favorite child. Don’t tell your brother.

  Ethan, you almost drowned in a muddy bayou when you were a toddler, giving me the idea for the most gut-wrenching loss I could think of for a mother to endure. My smart-ass and handsome son, you are my favorite child. Don’t tell your sister.

  Linda Mikel Hartsfield, your critiques and comments on draft four were invaluable. Thank you for instilling a love of reading, and a love of the macabre, from an early age. If anyone has issues regarding the morbidity within, see Linda.

  Heather Lander, thank you for being my beta reader, accountability partner, and friend. Your critiques were spot-on and your humor helped me enjoy the process more than I would have otherwise. You are the Alpha Beta.

  Haley Hwang, thank you for editing my query letter and remembering my story when talking with a publisher. A few weeks and a handful of emails later, they were reading my book. You are a rock star.

  Craig Douglas and the rest of the staff at Close To The Bone, thank you for taking a chance on me, and for your patience with my seemingly unending questions. I know I can be a pain in the ass.

  Members of ‘Write Around the Block’, writing can be a lonely venture but having you guys to bounce ideas off of, commiserate the pains, and celebrate the wins with, has made all the difference.

  To all of my friends and family who understood why I didn’t go do the things or see the people because I wanted to stay home and write: Thank you.

  January 2020

  Come Join The Murder

  1

  James scrubbed the soggy cotton mess until his fingertips became prunes, and he wondered if the blood would ever come out. Before it was covered in someone else’s blood, it had been his favorite T-shirt. He swiped it last summer from the Salvation Army down on Avenue J. The store’s teenage employees were too busy jerking off to notice he was a little thicker leaving the dressing room than when he had gone into it. With the shirt hidden away beneath his hoodie, it seemed like a perfect plan until the time came to leave the air-conditioned store. Stepping out onto the sidewalk, the thick August heat had taken his breath away. Texas summers were never a picnic, but that year it was scorching, with hardly any rain. Nothing but the near one-hundred percent humidity. By the time James got to his van three blocks away, sweat had drenched his face and his chest was tight. He would have to think of a new tactic next time. A hoodie in the summer was not his brightest idea. But the shirt was a classic, a genuine Eagles Hotel California 1977 Tour T-shirt, and worth it even if he did almost have a heat stroke. It was the only thing he stole that summer that he didn’t try to sell.

  He yanked the shirt out of the sink and pulled the plug, allowing the pink water to circle the drain. No matter how many times he scrubbed and rinsed, there was always more blood to wash out. He couldn’t believe a measly thirty-two dollars ruined his favorite T-shirt. That’s all the man had on him, thirty-two dollars. James ran more hot water onto the shirt and glanced behind him. Tommy was no help, judging from the trail his feet wore on the cheap linoleum tile in their small kitchen. Shuffling back and forth in his stained tennis shoes and baggy jeans, he looked downright pathetic. A heavy sigh in James’ direction punctuated every other footstep. The only thing wearing out faster than the floor was James’ nerves. All Tommy had to do was watch his back, but he had screwed that up in true Tommy fashion.

  James flung the ruined shirt into the trash bin and jerked a chair away from the wooden table that sat in the middle of the kitchen. He dropped into the chair and wiped his hands on his worn jeans before reaching into his shirt pocket for a smoke. When the small orange flame from the lighter licked the end of the cigarette, he noticed a maroon streak running the length of the white paper. Of course there was blood on the cigarette. Blood seemed to cover every fucking thing. He hadn’t realized how much a man could bleed until that night. He lit the stained cigarette and snapped the lighter shut with a flick of his wrist. The metallic smell from the lighter mingled with the rusty odor of blood in the room.

  “Dammit Tommy, sit down, you’re giving me a headache.”

  Tommy stopped in his tracks. “But James, you killed him! You didn’t say we were going to kill anyone, you just said we were gonna get some money. You didn’t have to kill him. He didn’t even know our real names.”

  “Well, we did and now it’s done. Sit the hell down and shut up for a minute.” He took another drag off the cigarette. “I need to think.”

  Tommy’s arms flailed out in front of him and his voice cracked like a pre-pubescent teenager’s. “What? We?? You were the one who killed him! I wanted to leave!”

  James pulled the cigarette from his lips and watched the ashes fall into his lap as he exhaled a cloud of smoke. His mouth drew into a thin line and he pointed the cigarette at Tommy. “This shit is your fault. If you’d watched him closer, you’d of seen him trying to get away. If I’m in it, you’re in it. Now sit the fuck down and shut up.”

  Tommy sighed as he fell into the chair furthest from James. He grabbed his inhaler from the table and sucked on it until he no longer looked like he was going to have a heart attack, then he leaned forward with his head in his hands and waited for James to tell him what they were going to do about the ‘it’ he had become a part of.

  Thirty-two dollars wasn’t enough to keep James’ mama from losing her home. What a cluster fuck his month had turned out to be. How much bad luck could one guy have? Not that he cared about being fired (his boss was a prick), or about his bitch leaving (he could finally get some peace and quiet), but he couldn’t even help his mama. Since his dad died, James had promised her he would take care of her, and he usually did. When he had a job, anyway. He needed money, and he needed it yesterday.

  James glared at the man’s wallet on the table, now empty. Tattered, brown, and curved to fit around his fat soccer dad ass, it looked like something you got on sale down at Baywood’s Food Market. Special Today! Old crusty bread, bruised apples, expired meat, and cheap imitation leather wallets. Its cont
ents lay scattered around the table like the useless things they were. A library card? Who went to the library anymore? Shiny, probably never used, gym membership cards. Drug store discount clubs. Family pictures mixed in with credit cards, receipts, AAA membership card, and other crap no one cared about. The credit cards tempted him, but that was the shortest route to a trip downtown. James was smarter than that. He only kept the cash. Well, the cash and the pictures he liked. Some of the photos were definitely going into his spank bank. Fat ass soccer dad had a smoking hot wife. James always did have a thing for a brunette with a pretty face, big green eyes, and a mouth that could show a guy a good time. He probably did that bitch a favor anyway, offing her old man. She was too hot for a guy like that. The kid in the picture looked exactly like the dad, couldn’t deny that one. The wife could always have more kids: better-looking ones with a husband who used his gym membership.

  He supposed it was too bad about the brat, but what was he gonna do? Bills don’t pay themselves, and while his dad was a mean drunk who liked to talk with his fists, he did always say, “It’s easier to take it than make it.” Not that he said that anymore, but he used to.

  “Well?” Tommy lifted his head from his hands and glared at James.

  “God, Tommy, calm down. It’s fine.” James threw the photos back on the pile and crushed his cigarette out on the top one. The family picture with all three of them smiling like idiots. The soccer dad’s face melted a little more with each twist of the butt and ashes fluttered down to the dry-cleaning ticket underneath.

  “We handled it, didn’t we?”

  When he didn’t hear a reply, James looked up to see Tommy frozen in place. There was white all around his little shit brown eyes as he stared at something over James’ shoulder. Beads of sweat glistened off his forehead and the color drained from his already pale Irish face. James turned around to see what the hell he was staring at. The TV. The crappy little TV he found on the side of the road last week. He almost left it there, the screen was cracked all to shit, but he thought he could fix it and make a few bucks. Then that bitch took his flat screen when she moved out. He knew he should have stayed home to make sure she didn’t pull any shit, but she was getting on his nerves and he had taken off. He and Tommy were in luck and shocked to find the cracked piece of shit actually worked. Sometimes it was hard to see around the deep grooves in the screen, but they could mostly tell what was going on. And at that moment, there was a lot going on.

  The same little boy whose picture sat half covered in ashes on their kitchen table looked out at them from around the crack. Then another image filled the screen.

  “Daaamn, it’s fat ass soccer dad! Look at that, Tommy. We’re famous!”

  Tommy’s mouth moved but only a whimper escaped. He stared at the TV like an idiot mute, scratching a mosquito bite on his arm and not stopping even when his fingertips were wet with blood. James shrugged as he reached for the remote control to turn it up.

  “... and his son, Oliver Crow, were last heard from Friday afternoon when they were heading home from a day at the beach. If anyone has information on the whereabouts of the missing...”

  Crow. Oliver and Jon Crow. Well, they sure as shit weren’t missing. James and Tommy knew exactly where they were.

  The kid was floating around the inside of his Dad’s Chevy, snug at the sandy bottom of the Canal. He wasn’t as sure about the dad’s location. Depending on the currents, well he could be damn near anywhere.

  2

  Rebecca pulled the knot on her blue bathrobe tight and shuffled into the kitchen, shielding her eyes against the harsh sunlight coming through the large windows above the breakfast table.

  Oliver sat cross-legged on the marble-topped island at the center of the spacious kitchen, still wearing his pajamas. He moved his sandy blond curls out of his pale blue eyes with one hand and counted eggs nestled in their cardboard beds with the other. “... nine... ten... three-teen... four-teen...” He didn’t break from counting as she ruffled his hair and walked past.

  Jon was at the stove, pouring pancake mix from a plastic bowl onto the hot griddle. His white T-shirt clung to his belly, accentuating the weight he had gained over the last few years. His own hair was an exact match to Oliver’s, sandy blond and curly. They even shared the same cowlick at the back, exaggerated even more that morning since they hadn’t taken the time to brush it before breakfast. He didn’t look up as Rebecca came into the kitchen, instead focused on the batter as it hit the buttery surface and spread out into perfect circles, sizzling.

  “All right, Chef Ollie, help me watch for the bubbles.”

  “Okay Chef dad!” Oliver scooted to the other side of the island and sat up on his knees. Very serious about his cooking, he focused on the small tan circles in the pan.

  Rebecca tuned them out as she navigated around the spilled flour on the floor and towards the coffee pot that Jon hadn’t bothered to start. She frowned, already knowing Jon and Oliver would leave for their beach trip without cleaning any of it up, and she would have to do it all as usual. Jon was the fun one while she was relegated to hall monitor and janitor. She grabbed the coffee from the cabinet and wondered for what seemed like the twentieth time that week, if she had two kids instead of one.

  Soon the kitchen filled with the earthy aroma of fresh coffee as hot water dripped through the grounds and plinked into the pot below. Rebecca settled onto one of the bar stools, tucked a leg underneath her, and checked social media on her cell phone while Jon and Oliver buttered the pancakes before stacking them onto plates.

  She glanced up from her phone and grunted, “Jon, honey, do we need that much butter?” She always tried to throw in a ‘honey’ or ‘babe’ when she had suggestions for him. Otherwise he accused her of being controlling or patronizing. Which she was, but it was better to at least appear to be considerate.

  With his eyes still on the plates, Jon answered her. “Of course, honey, it tastes way better this way.” He smiled at Oliver. “Right Chef Ollie?”

  “Right Chef dad!” Oliver grinned as he dug another spoonful of butter from the tub.

  Rebecca rolled her eyes and returned to her phone.

  After eating his weight in butter-soaked pancakes and scrambled eggs, Oliver ran off to his room screaming ecstatically, “I’m gonna get my bay-bay-suit on!” His sticky hands left syrup on every door and light switch between the kitchen and his room. Rebecca grumbled as she followed behind him with a wet dishrag, wiping everything down.

  It was after eleven before she could finally shoo them out of the front door. Loaded down with the typical beach accessories, they juggled cheap plastic buckets filled with Oliver-sized shovels and jars with magnifying glass lids to observe whatever was slow enough for him to catch. Tucked under Jon’s arm were the last year’s faded beach towels. A bag overflowed with two kinds of sunscreen, mosquito spray, glasses, hats, and extra shirts while even more toys hung from his shoulder. Rebecca helped Oliver roll a white cooler to Jon’s car, letting him think he was doing most of the work. Stuffed inside the cooler were an assortment of drinks, sandwiches, and chips. Jon always made more than they needed, and of course she would be the one left to unpack it all once they returned.

  If she had known it was going to be the last time she would ever see her husband and her son, she would have lingered longer and hugged them tighter. She would have jumped in the car with them. She would have stopped them from going. But she didn’t know, so she only waved as they pulled out of the driveway and turned back towards the house before seeing Oliver’s return wave from the backseat window.

  Not that she normally would have gone with them, but her excuse that day was work. The truth was, she relished her alone time more than she cared to admit to anyone. Since Oliver was born, those moments were harder to come by and she grabbed any opportunity she could to have the house to herself. She shut the front door behind her and stood there for a moment with her eyes closed.

  Silence. Blessed silence all around her.
r />   Smiling, she was halfway down the hallway to her office when she remembered the mess in the kitchen. Of course, she could try to ignore it and make – ask – Jon to do it when he returned. But by then, the food remnants would have solidified and the whole thing would be even harder to clean up. Not to mention the fact that she wouldn’t be able to concentrate on any work knowing Tropical Storms Jon and Oliver had blown through her kitchen. She turned around with a sigh. Her ‘work from home’ day wouldn’t get to start as early as she had hoped.

  Rebecca’s office was small, the smallest room in the house, but it was hers. Oliver wasn’t allowed to play in there, and Jon never cared about what she did. She had painted the walls a dark gray-blue color and dressed up the used desk and filing cabinet as best she could. On the walls was a collection of art ranging from Basquiat to de Blaas, all hand-picked by her and custom framed for various birthday or Christmas presents. Her favorite, de Blaas’ On the Beach hung in a spot of honor on the wall just to the right of her monitor. In it, a young woman was pinning her hair back, standing barefoot on the beach with a basket at her feet. It wasn’t a particularly striking location, or subject... but something about the solitude spoke to her.

  Hours later, she was chicken-pecking the keyboard with her right hand and holding her coffee mug with her left, when Jon called to tell her they were on their way back home. She saved her progress and shuffled her papers into her monogrammed briefcase. It had been a gift from Jon’s mother, Claire, when she graduated from U of H. The years had started to show on it but, thus far, Jon hadn’t picked up on her hints to buy her a new one for Christmas, or Mother’s Day, or her birthday. This coming August, when she turned thirty-six, she would buy the damn thing herself. She deserved it. In her short time at Waterford & Little, she had moved up faster than anyone else, and was the second youngest person ever to make manager. The first was the boss’s cousin, so he didn’t really count. Her chest swelled with pride, thinking back over her journey there. There were days she doubted if she and Jon would make it, there were even more days she was sure she wasn’t the kind of mother Oliver needed, but there was never a day she doubted herself at work. There, she triumphed. There, she had no doubts about her performance or her future. There, she was a rock star.