I woke slowly on Sunday morning after a sleep so deep I wasn’t sure I’d moved at all. My body ached in that delightful way it does after a good rest, and I stretched hard as I headed into the kitchen. My good mood immediately dropped when I saw my friends’ faces. Mart was actually pale, which never happened given her love of a sunny day.
She gestured toward a bar stool and then spun the newspaper to face me. The headline read, “Local Bookshop Becomes Locus for Killing Spree.” I gasped and then started to cry.
“It’s not such a bad article, honey,” Walter said as he came behind me to massage my shoulders. “Just a really atrocious headline.”
“And it’s just the Courier. Everyone here already knows about the murders.” Mart’s voice was breathless with desperate reassurance.
I wiped my eyes w
