Fan Of Hope

Chapter 1

“Oh great,” Sally Chase moaned as she saw Kiera walk through the door of the theater. “Of course, this one horse town would assign a fan to be my assistant.” She snarked at the approaching woman, “I don’t sign autographs.”

“I don’t want one,” Keira Hamilton shot back. Sally made a name for herself as an actress and singer. Her latest project brought her back to Hope Cove and was supposed to give her a chance to give back to the community that supported her meteoric rise. “I didn’t like you when we were in high school, and I sure as hell don’t like you now.”

Sally looked appalled but brushed it off, “well, you don’t have to like me to fetch my coffee. Three creamers, two sugars, zero arsenic.”

“The fact that you have to ask people not to poison you, says everything, doesn’t it?” 

“Are you going to get my coffee?” the tone in her voice suggested that the only right answer was yes. 

“No,” Kiera answered. She pulled papers out of her purse and handed them to the celebrity. “I came to drop these off for you. It’s the script and a copy of your contract for the theater. I happen to be the manager, I was opposed to hiring you, but the board overruled me.” She turned on her heel and marched out the door. She let out a scream that could be heard across the town. 

Once the other woman was out of the building, Sally shook her head. “I hope that she remembers my order, she didn’t seem to be so bright.” The clicking of heels against the floor made her turn around, her mouth dropped open when she saw the new visitor. “Molly? Molly Holmes. Well, how are you, darling? I haven’t heard from you since…”

“Since you slept with my boyfriend and stole a script from my backpack?” Molly asked. “Even someone as dumb as you has to realize that when you did all of that, our friendship was over.” 

“You cannot be serious, we always said that no boy was going to come between us. Our friendship is stronger than that,” Sally shook her head, putting on the performance of a lifetime. “And it’s not like you were going to marry Ryan.”

“Scott,” Molly corrected her. “And I might have. Just like, I might have gotten the part that you stole from me and I would have a much better life now.”

A laugh escaped from Sally’s mouth, “Oh honey, no. I was better in bed and better on the stage.” 

“Maybe that’s true,” Molly conceded, pulling out a gun. “But I’ve always been a better shot.” She pulled the trigger three times. All three bullets hit Sally, who slumped to the ground. “Even in death, you overacted.” 

Chapter 2

“You’re late,” I admonished my friend, though I shot her a smile that said it was ok. “How was the meeting with Sally?

Kiera shot her a look as she slid into the booth. “Talking to a brick wall would be less stressful. And it would be a much better listener than Sally Chase,” she took a drink of the water in front of her. “And smarter. That woman wouldn’t know the difference between iPhone and Android.”

“So not much has changed?” I asked. It wasn’t a total surprise that our former classmate hadn’t picked up any wisdom on her path to fame, it was gilded by her good looks and ability to overlook comments on her body. Some people might judge me, but I liked reading the gossip blogs. “Mother would love to have her as a daughter.” 

“Don’t be silly, Candace loves you. Well, she likes you,” Kiera took another drink of her water. She looked around for a waiter, but ours was busy helping another table. “It wouldn’t hurt you to be nicer to her. Mr. Banks dumped her after two dates, and you still go into his store every day.”

“He has great subs,” I defended myself. “Plus, he didn’t dump her. He justsaid that he wasn’t willing to marry her after two dates.” The waiter made his way over to us, after we placed our orders; salad for her and cheeseburger with a Coke for me, we sat quiet for a few minutes. “And if I stopped supporting every person that she thinks wronged her, I would never leave my house again.”

“Candace isn’t that bad. I mean, you did defend her when she was arrested for murder,” we both shuddered at the memory. My mother’s date was killed, and she found the body since he was late picking her up, something that did not sit well with her. “And she threw a dinner in your honor.” 

“No, she threw a dinner in her honor. I just happened to be the one who solved the murder,” I corrected my friend. “And she wanted to make a point that she likes Kyle.” Saying his name brought a smile to my face, Kyle Reese, my boo. We weren’t official, but we might as well be since neither of us were seeing anyone else, and we spent a lot of time together. 

As if thinking about him manifested my guy, Kyle walked into the diner. He saw us and made a beeline over to the table. Instead of bending down to kiss me, he looked at Kiera, “I need you to come down to the station with me.” 

“Why?” she asked, confused. “Is it a crime to talk–” I shot her a look to make her stop talking. There was a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Lee?” 

“She’ll come down to the station, but I’m coming with her as her representation,” I said. Kyle gave me an annoyed look but shrugged his shoulders. “We’ll meet you down there, officer.” 

He shook his head, “no. I have to arrest Kiera Carson.”

“For what?” we asked in unison. 

“The murder of Sally Chase.” 

Chapter 3

“You cannot possibly think that Kiera killed Sally,” I shook my head. We’d made it down to the station. Kyle and I were in the interrogation room, while a patrol officer was booking Kiera. “It doesn’t make any sense.” 

“Take your friend hat off and put on the lawyer hat,” Kyle advised. I bit back a retort because the tone in his voice was less than pleasant, in fact, it made me really not like him. “Her fingerprints are on the gun, she was placed at the scene of the crime, and it’s well known that she hated the victim.”

“I’m sorry, I had no idea disliking someone meant you were capable of murder,” I shot. “If something happens to my mother or you, I guess I’ll be the prime suspect.” 

“You don’t like me,” the whimper in his voice made my heart ache. I’d hit too close to the belt. If only there were a way for me to parachute out of this conversation, sadly there wasn’t. Words can’t be unsaid and feelings can’t be magically fixed. “Well, Ms. Rose, your client doesn’t have a lot of hope here. Unless you know something that we don’t.”

“Babe…”

“Don’t call me that,” Kyle growled. “In fact, I think it’s best if we suspend our personal relationship.”

“Until Kiera’s name is cleared?” I asked. His face remained unmoved, but a sadness crept into his eyes. “Kyle, we just need to be on a break until after the real killer is caught, right?” 

“No, Ms. Rose, I think we need to not be a couple any longer,” he said. “It should be easy for you, since you don’t like me.” 

Before I could say anything, Kiera was brought into the room with us. She took the seat next to mine. “Are you ok?”

“I’m fine,” it was code for no, but she was in a much worse position. Everything could be hashed out once there wasn’t a murder charge hanging over her head. “Are you alright?” 

“I’m fine,” she countered, a small smile on her face. “I don’t have anything to hide. They can ask me anything.”

Kyle cleared his throat, “can we get on with this?” The annoyance in his voice rubbed me the wrong way. “Especially since you want to have her arraigned and out on bail, I presume.” 

After sucking in a breath, I shot back, “I don’t think that you’re able to be impartial in this case given our recent history. It might be best if you had a qualified detective take over the questioning of my client.” Kiera shot me a look and I shook my head in her direction. “Unless you want me to have the entire thing tossed on a technicality.”

He pushed back his chair, face redder than a fire engine, “fine. Have it your way, counselor.”

After he left the room, Kiera turned to me, “what’s going on with you guys? This is not what I was expecting.” 

“We broke up,” I told her, then corrected my wording. “He broke up with me. I slipped and told him that I didn’t like him, which obviously isn’t true. There was just so much going on, and I was worried about you.” 

“We can fix this,” she assured me. “The two of you belong together.”

I shook my head. “Maybe not. If it was so easy for him to end things, then maybe that’s the sign that I don’t need to be with him. I don’t want to deal with another situation like…” 

Before I could finish my thought, Oliver Harris walked in. Under normal circumstances, this would be a welcome turn, but the man was not known for going lightly with any suspects, if he thought they had the right one, he would do everything in his power to keep the suspect behind bars. “Ladies, shall we begin?” 

“Ms. Carson is happy to answer any questions you have for her.” 

“Tell me about the argument you had with Sally Chase this morning,” he said. 

Kiera shifted in her seat, “as manager of the theater, I had to take over the contract for her to be in the play.” 

“Shouldn’t they have already been signed?” 

“They were, but her agent requested that Sally be given a hard copy,” Kiera answered. She took a deep breath, “I went to give them to her, she mistook me for her assistant and started barking out her coffee order…”

Oliver looked at the notes, brows furrowed. “You didn’t say anything about her sleeping with a high school boyfriend?” 

“No!” Kiera replied. “In high school, I didn’t date. My concentration was on my grades.”

“I can attest to that,” I piped in. During those years, my mother often said how much she wished I was more like my best friend. “Almost anyone we went to school with can confirm it.” 

He nodded, “did you threaten her at all?”

“No. She gave me her coffee order, part of it was no arsenic, and I laughed about it. My comment was something like you shouldn’t need to say that.” 

The door opened, and another officer came in. She handed a file to Oliver, then whispered something in his ear. Once she left, he looked at us, “this is an interesting development,” he pushed the papers towards us. “Sally Chase’s boyfriend is in town and somebody overheard them arguing. And he had a similar gun to the one that was used to kill her.”

Reasonable doubt. It would be enough to get an acquittal, but not enough to clear Kiera’s name within the community. The new evidence also gave me a new lead. Maybe that would help me figure out who killed Sally. 

Chapter 4

Oliver took Kiera back to a holding cell. It broke my heart to see my best friend being accused of something that I knew she didn’t do. I knew that since the initial investigation pointed straight at her, that they couldn’t release her, but I wished they could.

As I walked through the station, Kyle grabbed my arm. “Don’t go interfering in the investigation. If you do, I will see to it that you’re arrested,” he growled.

“As Kiera’s defense attorney, I have every right to investigate,” I snapped back. “Maybe if you’d actually done your job before jumping to a conclusion, we wouldn’t need to do this.” 

“I mean, I will arrest you.”

“Keep threatening me, officer,” every word dripped with the venom I was feeling towards the man who less than an hour earlier had been my boyfriend. “And I will sue you and the Hope Cove Police department.” 

With that, I spun on my heel and got as far away from him as fast as I could. Once behind the wheel, I began driving. Without realizing it, I ended up at the convenience store owned by my mother’s ex-fling, Mr. Banks. 

A soda would clear my head, I decided. Plus, if there was anything in the case that the police didn’t know yet, he would know. There was a man leaning against a motorcycle when I pulled into the parking lot. He wasn’t someone I recognized, but he was crying. 

Against my instincts to talk to him, I went into the store. To my surprise, Molly Holmes was at the register talking to Mr. Banks. She eyed me and gave a little wave. I went to the drink cooler and eyed the shelf with water suspiciously. Everyone knew that you were supposed to stay hydrated, but it wasn’t like Hope Cove was known for being super hot and Coca-Cola tasted better. It was a fact. 

Molly ambushed me on the way to the register. “Alicia, darling, I am so sorry that Kiera was arrested for Sally’s murder,” word travels fast in a small town. Especially when the local shopkeep hears everything before it happens. “I know she wouldn’t hurt a fly. But with you defending her, I have no doubt that she’ll be cleared.” 

“Thank you,” I offered a weak smile. “We have our work cut out for us, but I do believe that we’ll find the real killer.” 

She returned my smile, then gave a quick hug, and headed out the door with a terse, “ta.” 

I placed the Coke on the counter and Mr. Banks grinned at me. After taking a deep breath, “I’m sorry about how things went with my mom.” 

“A man does not date Candace Rose and not expect some drama,” he smiled at me. “Speaking of drama, Molly just told me that she and Scott broke up. Apparently, he found out that she cheated on him.” It was like high school all over again, except back then he cheated on her with Sally. “It’s a mess. I don’t think those two belong together.” 

“Me either,” I answered, pulling a couple of dollars from my pocket and handing the money to him. “I have to speak to Scott…”

Mr. Banks waved his goodbye. 

When I stepped outside, Molly was arguing with the man on the motorcycle. Something told me to record everything I heard. She yelled, “We had sex and you ended my marriage. The least you could do is confess to a murder you didn’t commit.” 

Everything became crystal clear, Molly Holmes killed Sally. 

Chapter 5

I jumped into my car, hoping that neither of them saw me. Putting it into gear, I thought of the closest place for me to pull over and send the new evidence to the police. The way Kyle acted flashed into my mind, he would try to arrest me, even though I was nothing more than an innocent bystander who happened to catch the confession. That left me with sending the recording to Oliver, it put him in a bad position but I’d make it up to him. 

Looking in the rearview mirror, the coast looked clear. I pulled the car over, pulled up my chat with the officer and sent the recording. Then to add some context, I explained that Kyle couldn’t know who it came from lest he arrest me. 

After I pulled back onto the road, I started to breathe easier. Kiera would be cleared any minute now and everything would go back to normal. Almost everything. My relationship was still over, there was no coming back from the cold way he acted. 

Without thinking, I drove to my house. My mother lived across the street and was outside watering her flowers. I braced myself for the onslaught of complaints that she was going to levy against me. And then her exasperation when I told her that Kyle and I broke up. She would love that tidbit. 

“Well, it must be nice to work for nothing,” my mother sneered. “You get to make your own hours and have no responsibilities in the world.” 

“Mother, I am a lawyer for a non-profit,” I countered. “I don’t work for free, I help other people. A novel concept in your world, I know. But I love my job.” 

“You love it so much that you aren’t working,” she said. “At least when you worked at the big law firm, you stayed at work. Now you come home all willy-nilly. What if I were entertaining a gentleman caller?” 

“This has been fun, mother, but I don’t have the bandwidth to deal with you right now.” 

“Speaking of, you used to have the best Wi-Fi in the neighborhood, but now that you’re poor, we can’t even stream Netflix without interruption.” 

“Get your own internet!” I shouted back as I opened the door to my house. 

But her next words stopped me cold, “maybe you’d be less cranky if you didn’t go through boyfriends like they were a box of donuts.”

“Who told you?” I asked, turning on my heel to face her direction. “And when will you butt out of my life?” 

Before she answered, my phone pinged. Oliver wrote back: This isn’t the smoking gun, you hoped it would be. But does give us something else to go on. Kyle is furious, on his way to talk to you.

Crap. Just when I thought this day couldn’t get worse. 

Chapter 6

Without saying goodbye to my mother, I jumped back into my car and took off. I had no idea where I was going, but I knew that I needed to avoid Kyle and to find something to back up the audio of Molly confessing to Sally’s murder. 

I pulled into the theater’s parking lot. It was unusual to see it this empty but made sense given that someone had been killed within the walls. Kyle would be furious with me for going in, but there was no police tape sectioning it off and an argument could be made that there was nothing keeping me from going in. 

Plus, I had legitimate business with the theater. The board often donated tickets to see performances, and Kiera would set up backstage one on ones for some of the kids that my work helped. 

My phone pinged, it was a text from Oliver. Another murder. This time the body was found behind the store, Mr. Banks is freaking out. A motorcycle was found down the road. We believe it was Sally’s boyfriend, Eric Roberts.

Another murder? In Hope Cove? This was the third one in as many months. 

Something was happening to the little town, but there was no time to think about that now. The only thing that I could think about right now was clearing Kiera’s name and making sure the right person was arrested and imprisoned for the crimes. 

With a new determination, I opened the door to the building and walked in. There were lights on, but nobody was around. After sucking in a deep breath, I called out: “Hello? Is anybody here?” 

Footsteps echoed throughout the building. Bracing myself, I walked towards the sound. No one ever said that I was the smartest person around. A logical person would have booked it out of there, but I was heading into danger. 

“I should have known,” Molly said, walking into the light, holding a gun at her side. She shook her head, “you were never any good at minding your own business.” 

Thinking fast, I answered: “I was just here to pick up some donations for the kids. You know, work is never done and all that.” 

Molly tilted her head, “Alicia Rose, I am a psychopath, not an idiot. Sell that lie to someone who is bound to believe you and isn’t brandishing a gun.”

There were two ways I was getting out of this, I had to get the gun out of her hand and run for it, or I’d be brought out in a body bag. The latter was not what I wanted, but the former seemed almost impossible at this stage. 

But with no other viable choice, I lifted my foot towards the barrel of the gun. When they connected, it flew out of her hand. I took the opportunity to take off and run. Pumping my legs as fast as they’d go, which wasn’t very fast. 

My job was helping people, not winning gold medals at the Olympics.

I got to the door. But so did Molly. She shoved the gun into my back, “open the door and go to your car. If you make any sudden movements, I will shoot you.” 

We got to my car, I got into the driver’s seat and she took the passenger. “Where to?” I asked. 

“The river,” she answered. A pit grew in my stomach, this wasn’t because she wanted to enjoy the view. I was going to die. 

Chapter 7

“Molly, you don’t want to kill me,” I told her. Though the gun to my back, as we walked along the river, suggested otherwise. “At one time, we were friends.” 

“We were,” she acknowledged. “Then you went off to your fancy law school and had the life that I always dreamed of, not the lawyer part but the out of this place, the life that I deserved to have until Sally slept with Scott and destroyed everything.” 

“But you married Scott,” I pointed out. “He’s the love of your life. Somehow you guys worked everything out.” 

“Nothing was worked out,” Molly said. “We got married because I was pregnant and Sally rejected him. We don’t even like one another. Some days I contemplate why I ever forgave him when I could have been free and clear of the tool.” 

“Divorce is always an option,” my goal was to keep her talking, while I tried to figure out how to walk away with my life intact. “If you were so unhappy, why not just break up and move on with your life, this can’t be what you imagined your life turning into.” 

“You mean becoming a serial killer by the age of 40?” Molly asked with a chuckle. “No little girl dreams of being a serial killer, but sometimes it just happens. Like, I heard Sally was in town and I had to confront her about sleeping with my boyfriend, but more importantly, stealing that play script from my bag. She could have had Scott, but I wanted that role, I knew that it would be a breakthrough for me. For any actress who played  it. And I was right. Sally got to live the life I always wanted, the one that I deserved. And what did I get? Stuck in this podunk town with a husband who would unzip his pants for whomever wants to see what he’s packing.” 

“Not that you’re bitter.” 

“Of course I’m bitter,” Molly snapped. “I killed Sally because she wasn’t sorry about what she did. She didn’t care about it at all. She laughed when I told her that I was mad about what she did,” then added with a pout, “I never even got to tell her about sleeping with her boyfriend.”

“Your second victim.” 

“If I wanted someone to recount my life, I would hire a ghostwriter,” Molly shot. “Not someone who couldn’t hack it in a corporate job, so she came back to her hometown and gets broken up with by a local detective.” 

Mr. Banks really needed to stop gossiping to other people. Not to me. I needed to hear all the dirt. But he didn’t need to spread my business around town. “Whatever happened between Kyle and I is not because I couldn’t hack it, it’s because we have two very different temperaments.” 

“Tell yourself what you want, what do I care?” Molly asked as she shoved the gun deeper into my back. “You’re going to be dead soon enough, and all my secrets are going to die with you.” 

I closed my eyes and realized my deepest regret was never sending that fan mail to Channing Tatum, letting him know that I was available for whatever he wanted to do with his Magic Mike.

“Police, freeze,” the voice belonged to Kyle, and I’d never been happier to hear it in all of my life. 

Chapter 8

Kiera was so happy about being cleared of the murder charges that she decided to host a dinner at the local Italian bistro, Meatballs. It was the same place my mother had thrown her celebration dinner. 

“Thank you,” Kiera said when I walked into the restaurant. She pulled me into a hug, “I don’t know that I would have ever been cleared if you hadn’t looked into what really happened.” She paused then looked at me, “I know that you and Kyle are on the outs, but I invited him tonight. I want you guys to work things out.” 

“We’re done,” I said. “There’s no way that we’re getting back together, he was too nasty, and I don’t want to deal with him choosing to be mean just because he can.” 

“You’re right,” Kyle said as he walked over to our group. “I was mean, but maybe you need to look at what you said and did as well,” he noted the look on Kiera’s face. “She told me that she didn’t like me.” 

“I was worried about my best friend being arrested for murder, and you were acting like a jerk.” 

“I was doing my job and trying to keep you safe,” he shot back. “And you’re welcome for saving your life earlier.” 

“Sorry, I didn’t realize that you needed gratitude for doing your job,” I fired off. Even though I was furious with him, Kyle still made my breath catch in my throat. “And you’re welcome for finding the real killer. Though, I know how much you love to arrest and have the wrong person charged with the crime.” 

“We would have found out that Molly was the killer,” he insisted. “There are certain protocols that we have to…”

He didn’t finish his sentence because my mother walked up. “Are the two of you back together yet? This whole ‘will they or won’t they’ thing doesn’t work for me. Either get together or I will find a man worthy of my daughter.” 

“Mother, I don’t need a man to be happy.” 

“I know, I’ve seen your nightstand,” she answered. Then turned to me, “but you have a good one here, and there’s no reason for you to be a spinster.” 

“Help me,” I mouthed to Kiera. She shrugged her shoulders. “You’re going to get it.” 

“Ms. Rose, Mr. Banks will be coming shortly,” Kiera said sweetly. “I bet the two of you have a lot to catch up on. Like why, you guys broke up and why you spread gossip that he was into freaky stuff in the bedroom.” 

Sometimes I forget that my best friend had a masochist side to her. Seeing the look on my mother’s face was priceless. 

Kyle tapped my shoulder, “I think we need to talk. Maybe we should go out to dinner and work out our differences?” 

“No,” I answered. “Kyle, you’re great. But I can’t deal with you becoming a jerk every time I say something that you don’t like. I am sorry for saying I don’t like you, but your reaction was over the top and unnecessary.” 

“So, it’s really over between us?” 

“There’s always a chance,” I answered. That’s the thing about Hope Cove, one never knew what was going to happen next.