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Roses Of Hope

Word Hunt Challenge: Fortune, Comb, Claws

By Edward AndersonPublished 10 months ago 24 min read
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Roses Of Hope
Photo by Sujeeth Potla on Unsplash

Chapter 1

“I was expecting you, Lee,” Mr. Banks smiled at me as I walked into his convenience store. Along with soda and other things that people needed to pick up, he made the best sandwiches in Hope Cove. “Not only for the monthly donation but also because your mother was just in, complaining that you quit your job.”

My mother never forgave me for leaving the corporate law firm that paid me a fortune to work for Hope For Kids, a local non-profit that helped to make sure every child and adult that needed food got it. Her solution when I argued that I wanted to do something good was that I could have thrown money at it.

With a smile, “thank you for always donating, Mr. Banks. It’s really helpful. And I’m sorry my mother came in to bother you with her rants. One day, I hope she’ll come to see that I did what was right.”

“Pshaw,” he smiled at me. “When you’re old like me, you’ll understand that she has the best of intentions. Do you think my parents were happy when I opened this store? They thought I lost my mind.”

He handed me the bags of food that he was donating, and I wrote up a receipt for him to give to his accountant come tax time. Once that was done, I looked over at the sandwich display longingly at an Italian sub. “Can I get one of those, please?”

“One sub coming up,” Mr. Banks grabbed the sandwich and put it in a paper bag for me. “Do you need a soda?”

I nodded and ran to the fridge that housed the drinks. My eyes dropped to the shelves with iced tea, I should have grabbed that, but there was something about a Coke that made the sandwich taste even better, so I grabbed a bottle of that.

“Your mother is going out with Herb Robertson this evening,” Mr. Banks said. One thing about the store owner was he always had the best source of gossip in town. “They make quite the odd pair, but I hope it works out for them.”

“Me too,” I said. There was no mystery as to why my mother didn’t tell me about her date, she needed to make sure I wouldn’t judge her choice of companion. And maybe to remind me that there was no one taking me to dinner. “Her having a new love interest will mean that she’ll be off my back,” after a second of thinking about it, “and she’ll eat him alive.”

“Oh, child,” Mr. Banks laughed as I pushed open the door.

The warm summer breeze hit me as I walked outside. There was a park next to Lake Hope, so I decided that I would enjoy my lunch there. Just my luck, there was an open table. I set about getting everything organized.

When I sat down to eat, a voice called out to me. A voice that I had hoped to avoid for the next few hours: “Alicia, Alicia Rose. I know you are not avoiding your mother. And I certainly hope that you are not going to put that toxic swill in your body,” her eyes were fixed on my Coca-Cola bottle.

In an act of rebellion, I opened it and took a long drink from the bottle.

By Andrey Ilkevich on Unsplash

Chapter 2

“Mother, I heard you have a date this evening,” I smiled at her. Even though my words were designed to shock her, but it didn’t work. She specifically told Mr. Banks, knowing that the information would get back to me. “Where is Herb taking you?”

“To dinner,” she snapped at me. While she enjoyed running everyone else’s life, my mother hated when someone questioned her about what was happening in her world. She tapped her nails, which were like claws, together. “Maybe if you stayed out of the store and spent some time looking for a partner of your own, then you wouldn’t be so interested in my love life.”

“How do you know that I’m not seeing someone?” I needled her. If I was dating and hadn’t told her everything about the man who was taking me out, there would be nowhere I could hide from her wrath. Instead of backing down, I did the opposite: “You don’t know everything about my life. Some of us like to keep things quiet.”

My mother’s eyes narrowed, “Alicia, I swear to goodness if you are dating that no good ex of yours again…” her words trailed off. She referred to Nick Watson, the first love of my life. He was a former football hero of the town and currently a used car salesman. Yes, he was a stereotype in almost every sense of the word. Except he was still as handsome now as he was in high school. We had an on/off relationship. “He is not marriage material.”

“Who says I want to get married?” I asked. Her hand went to the pearl necklace that she always wore, I swear she bought it just so that she could literally clutch her pearls. “I make more than enough to support myself and love my life.”

“What about children? You’re not getting any younger, you know.”

“Neither are you, Mother,” her face turned a shade of red that was not found in nature. “And I could be a single mother, should I decide that children are part of my future.”

Her eyes bugged out of her head and the unnatural red turned even brighter. “No daughter of mine…”

I cut her off by taking a bite of my sandwich. There was an unwritten rule in our family that if someone was eating, the conversation could be tabled. After savoring the bite and the quiet, I offered my mother some by holding it up, “would you like some?”

“No,” she answered curtly. “I must be going, but this conversation isn’t over yet.”

“Yes, it is,” I said with my mouthful of sandwich. Before my mother could say anything else, I swallowed and took another drink of my soda. She threw her hands up in the air and walked away. “Bye, mom, love you.”

She waved her acknowledgment to me.

It wasn’t that my mother and I didn’t get along, we did, but we had different views on life. She thought she should be telling me what to do, and I thought that she should be playing Bridge at the senior center. Neither of us was getting what we wanted, and we both didn’t want to back down.

By The Nix Company on Unsplash

Chapter 3

“Did you have to drink the soda in front of her?” my best friend, Kiera, asked with a smile on her face. After the confrontation with my mother, I called her and asked if she wanted to order pizza and hang out at my house. “You’re going to be the death of her, you know.”

“Please, it would take a clove of garlic, a wooden stake, and a silver bullet for that.”

Kiera took a big bite of the slice in her hand, then with her mouthful, “you know that if something happened to her, you’d be worried sick.”

“Actually,” I said as I looked out of my front window again. When I came home from law school, I’d bought the house across from my mother’s home for various reasons. One of them being we were close enough to see each other every day, but had our own space when necessary. “She’s not home from her date yet. This isn’t like her.”

“It’s 8 pm,” Kiera pointed out. “Maybe they decided to get a nightcap. Or,” she raised her eyebrows in a way that I knew what she was suggesting but did not want to think about it. It was too bad that mind bleach wasn’t a real product that was made because I needed it at that moment.

“Everyone knows I was placed in the crib by the hands of an angel,” I shot back. “And the hardest thing my mother drinks is ginger ale, and only when she’s had a bad day. A terrible day.”

My cell rang from the table. Keira peered down at it and frowned, “Lee, why is the police station calling you?”

“Maybe they pulled together some donations for work,” I answered as I crossed the room and picked up my phone. The police would often ask officers to help kids and then give me a call to pick up their donations the next day. “Hello?”

“Alicia, thank god,” it was my mother, and she sounded like she was out of sorts. Something gnawed at the pit of my stomach. “Herb was killed. I found his body when I went to meet him for dinner.”

“And you need me to come down to the station and pick you up?” I asked. “Kiera is here, we can be there in about 10 minutes.”

There was a sigh on the other end, maybe even a sob. “It’s not that simple. They think I killed Herb. I need you to call Andrew for me and have him get down here as soon as he can.”

“Mother, I’m still a licensed attorney, I can come down there and represent you,” I reminded her. Though my specialty was in litigation and not criminal law, I figured that I could help with questioning and get her home. Then tomorrow we could talk to her real attorney. “We’ll be there in a jiff.” After I clicked end, I turned to my best friend. “My mother is a murder suspect.”

Keira laughed, nearly choking on her pizza. Then she looked back at me and her eyes grew wide, “I should have known you weren’t joking, you’re not that funny.”

“We can critique my humor later,” I said as I grabbed my car keys. “Right now, we need to get to the police station and save my mother.”

By Jonny Clow on Unsplash

Chapter 4

The plan was for Kiera to find out what she could about the case by asking around and eavesdropping, Not the best way to do things, but right now, the only thing on my mind was clearing my mother’s name. She might be many things, but being a killer was low on the list. It wasn’t impossible, but there was no way she would be sloppy enough to murder her date for the evening, it would mean she was definitely going to get caught.

Once we walked into the police station, the receptionist stopped. “Lee! I cannot believe that they are questioning your mother, I told them that there was no way that Candace Rose killed that man. No way at all,” she clucked.

“Thanks, Rita,” I smiled. It was hard to find something to be positive about given the circumstances, but I found that honey got you a lot further than vinegar in most cases. “Can you take me back to my mother?” Rita seemed to hesitate, “I’m representing my mother, at least for the night.”

She smiled and stood up. We walked to the interrogation room in silence. When we got there, she opened the door and informed them that I was there.

Kyle Reese came out and looked at me. “She hasn’t been charged with anything yet, you know.”

“But you’re questioning her, have you informed her of her rights?”

He sighed, “yes. That’s when she called you. We just want to pull as much information from her as possible. This town cannot have an unsolved murder on the books, it will attract the wrong kinds of people,” he lowered his voice to a whisper, “true crime podcasters,” then he shuddered.

Kyle and I went way back. We even dated during one of the off periods with Nick. Things had ended on a positive note, but there was no way to use those feelings to help my mother. He did everything by the book, and I would need to do the same.

“I won’t stop her from answering anything unless it might incriminate her,” I said. Then a thought occurred to me, “and I’ll be needing to see the transcript from the earlier portion of the questioning.”

He nodded and opened the door, using the other to indicate I should step inside. Once in, my mother ran over to me and embraced me. “It’s horrible, these people who call themselves our friends think that I am capable of murder.” She glanced at me, “couldn’t you run a comb through your hair?”

A smile threatened to creep up on my face and I forced it to go away, the joke was best saved for when I knew that my mother was out of legal danger. “They’re just doing what their jobs. And you did find the body after all,” I turned to Kyle and his partner Oliver, “gentleman, may I have a moment with my mother. I need to get up to speed.”

Oliver’s eyebrows furrowed, he was ready to say no, but Kyle stepped in. “We can get coffees for everyone,” he looked at me with a twinkle in his eyes, “if I recall you like cream and sugar in yours.”

“I do.”

The officers turned their back to leave, my mother yelled after them, “tea for me. I’ll be up all night if I have coffee at this late hour.”

Once they were gone, I turned to my mother. “Tell me everything and don’t leave anything out. We have about five minutes.”

“Well, Herb and I agreed to meet at the restaurant. I got there early and waited outside like a lady, he called and said he was going to be late because of a legal matter. He didn’t say what it was but that he would be around twenty minutes tardy, I was perplexed, why would he keep me waiting?” she paused, then continued, “At 6:20, I called him trying to find out where he was. He’d already kept me waiting, and there was no way I was going to allow him to do it for longer. Well, he didn’t answer. I was furious. Not wanting to suffer the indignity of being stood up by the likes of Herb Robertson, I decided to give him a piece of my mind. Well, he wasn’t at home, so I went to his office. That’s where I found him.”

“Did you tell the officers that?” I asked. The answer was obvious and would make my job getting her sprung for the night that much harder. She nodded her head and looked away. “It’s not great that you did, but I think I can make it work for us. The fact that you’ve been so forthright in your answers will tell them you have nothing to hide.”

“I don’t have anything to hide,” my mother insisted. “If I were going to kill someone, I know how to do it and get away with it.”

The door opened and Kyle walked through carrying the coffees, he tilted his head, “well that’s good to know.”

By Mia Harvey on Unsplash

Chapter 5

After another hour of questioning, Kyle looked at Oliver. “I think we can let Ms. Rose go, as long as she promises not to leave town.”

“She won’t,” I answered for my mother, shooting her a warning look. “And we will be at your disposal, should you need to talk to her again.”

Kyle nodded as we all stood up. He opened the door and let Oliver and my mother out, “can I speak to you in private?”

Once the door was closed again, “Candace is the only suspect in the case right now. She also has motive, opportunity, and means. The D.A. will want us to bring charges against her, but I can’t shake this feeling that there’s something we’re missing here. I don’t think your mother is the culprit, so if you dig something up, let me know.”

I tilted my head at him and smiled, “are you encouraging me to investigate?”

“Off the record, yes,” then impulsively he leaned in and brushed his lips against mine. When we pulled out of the kiss, “sorry about that, but every time I see you, I want to do that.”

The breath left my body. I looked into his aqua-green eyes, “Kyle, you know I always adored you. And I am single, but I think we should wait until my mother isn’t a murder suspect to move forward.”

“Hopefully soon,” he agreed.

We rejoined the group and walked through the hallway. Rita was deep in conversation with Keira when we came out. It seemed quite intense.

“Candace, I am so sorry that they pulled you back there,” the receptionist said with a small smile. “I know how hard this must be for you. To think that you’re a murder suspect, it’s unfathomable.”

“Nobody said I was a suspect,” my mother pointed out. She gave a cruel, cold smile and in a low voice said, “in fact, I was just telling them that I know who the killer is.”

“Wh–” Oliver started to ask before he caught the beginning of a look that said if he finished he would be dead look from my mother. She was famous for them. Nobody was spared against them. “Rita, did I miss any calls while we were speaking to Mrs. Rose.”

“Ms. Rose,” my mother corrected him in a voice that warned he was on thin ice.

“Whatever.”

“I’ll give you whatever,” she warned as I pulled her arm and got her out of the police station. “I am not a ragamuffin doll.”

“You cannot threaten police officers,” I warned her. Then filled her in on the rest, “Kyle thinks the D.A. is going to want charges filed sooner rather than later, so we need to find out who the real killer is, or you’ll be on trial for something you didn’t do.”

“You believe me?”

“You’re plenty of things, mother, but Herb’s killer isn’t one of them,” I turned to notice Rita watching us in the doorway. I waved to her.

By Mediamodifier on Unsplash

Chapter 6

“Herb was in some sort of legal trouble,” I told Kiera after we dropped my mother off and got her into bed. She took a sedative to help her sleep. “He told my mother that was why he was going to be late.”

“Do we know what kind of trouble he was in?” she asked, eating another slice of pizza, this time cold. “Maybe if we follow that route, we can find the real killer.”

“Way ahead of you,” I answered as I hit the keys on my laptop’s keyboard. My screen blinked and the city’s court records came up. After hitting a few more keys, Herb’s name came up. There was one pending case. But it was sealed by the judge. “Dammit. Dead end.”

“No cases?” she asked. Then peered over my shoulder, “can a judge do that? What about the Freedom of Information Act?”

I weighed my options and decided that it wouldn’t be worth it. “In this case, I don’t think it would get us very far. There’s nothing suggesting that it would be helpful for the public to know and if it would help the case, the police would already know.”

She stood up and went to grab us each another slice. “What’s the plan?”

“Tomorrow, I’m going to see Nick. The car dealership is close to Herb’s office, maybe he saw something that would be helpful. Maybe go see Lindsay at the paper, see if she has any hot tips.”

“What can I do to help?” Kiera asked, taking a bite of her slice. “You know I love Candace like my own mother.”

“Didn’t you have yours committed to a psych ward?” We both laughed. After we finished laughing, I asked, “did you find out anything at the station?”

Kiera shrugged her shoulders. “Nobody believes that your mom is guilty of the murder, but nobody has any viable suspects either. Herb wasn’t well liked in town, but he didn’t have any enemies either.”

It was a long-shot plan anyway, there was no way that rumors would start circulating before anyone really knew about the case. “You and Rita were in a deep conversation when we came out, what were you guys talking about?”

“She’s going through a divorce, her ex is being mean about everything,” Kiera said through bites of her food. “They’re fighting over every asset they have.”

“Wait, when did she get married?”

Kiera shrugged. “Mind if I stay the night, I am exhausted from playing Nancy Drew.”

By Gabby Orcutt on Unsplash

Chapter 7

“Well hello,” Nick flashed me his megawatt smile. It was hard for anyone not to notice how his khakis hugged his bottom half, and his shirts were always three sizes too small to show off his muscles. Though he didn’t have washboard abs anymore, his dad bod still enticed men and women to him. “It’s been forever since I got to see my favorite ex.”

“Hello yourself,” I said as I admired him. Thoughts crossed my mind that had nothing to do with the current situation with my mother and everything to do with throwing the paperwork on his desk off and having him ravage me right there. “I have a couple of questions for you.”

“Yes, I’m single and ready for whatever you want,” he grinned at me. Then the door opened again, Oliver walked in. “Two of my exes on the same day? What are the odds?”

"Hey Nick,” then the officer looked at me, “nice to see you again Lee. Do you have a minute? I need to ask you something.”

“Lee, do you mind if I talk to Olly for a second?” Nick’s eyes pleaded with me not to make a scene. Not that I would, despite him cheating on me with the cop, I actually found them to be a cute couple. But they were on/off like we were, maybe Nick was the issue. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

I nodded and went into his office. Looking out the window, I could see Herb’s lab and wondered if there was anything over there that might help. It was the scene of the crime, and police often overlooked something because they didn’t find it to be important.

A soft knock on the door interrupted my thoughts. I opened it and was surprised to see Oliver on the other side, “can I speak to you for a second?”

He pushed through the door and then closed it, “I know you’re looking into Herb’s murder. That’s not why I’m here, but I want to make sure you’re safe. Please call me if you need anything,” I looked at him surprised, then handed him my phone. He punched in his number and handed it back to me, “I know we haven’t been friends, and maybe you see me as a threat to getting back with Nick, but I respect you.”

“You love Nick too, I can’t take that away from you,” I smiled. “And maybe one day we can bond over our similar tastes in men.”

He grinned, “I’d like that.”

After he left, I turned to Nick, “what did he want?”

“Me,” he laughed at his own joke. “Seems like all my exes want me back. Maybe we could…”

My fist met his stomach. “Don’t even think it,” I warned him. “I came by to ask if you saw anything yesterday weird over at Herb’s lab, near dinnertime.”

“Two women went over, I couldn’t see the first one, but the second one was definitely your mother,” Nick said. “I know because she stopped by before heading over there to tell me to stay away from you.”

Leave it to my mother to place herself at the scene of a crime because she wanted to control my life. “Thanks.”

“Is something wrong?” He asked. Then it dawned on him, “they think Candace, did it? That’s crazy, she would have hired someone to kill Herb, not do it herself. Everyone knows that, or at least they should.”

“That’s what I’m thinking, too,” I admitted. Then I had an idea, “I’m going to go back to Mr. Banks. Maybe he’s heard something by now.”

After I left Nick’s dealership, I went over to the lab. Nothing seemed out of order, but there was a ring in the parking lot that seemed to have been ignored by everyone. I ran back to my car and picked it up with a cloth that cleaned my sunglasses. This would be enough to help the police, especially if there were still fingerprints on it.

I pulled out my phone and hit Oliver’s name, his phone rang a few times before clicking over to voicemail, “Hey, I know I just saw you, but I think we need to talk. Going to the convenience store and then up to the station, hope to see you or Kyle there.”

Once I clicked end, I patted my pocket to make sure that the ring was in there. Then looked up to see if someone was watching me. Despite the feeling, there didn’t seem to be anyone watching me.

Climbing into the car, I turned up the radio and blasted it as I drove to see Mr. Banks. Britney was letting her ex know that he was Toxic, and she wanted a sip from the devil’s cup. I knew that feeling all too well.

Pulling my car into the parking lot, I noticed that there were a few other people, this might be much more difficult to get him to gossip, but I was sure going to try. I looked at my phone and noticed that Oliver called me, but he didn’t answer.

I went in and saw that most people were in line already, this would give me a chance to speak to him after all. Once Mr. Banks sorted through the line, I went to the register. He smiled, “I get to see your lovely face two days in a row? What’s the occasion?”

“Do you know who Rita Swanson married?” I asked without pretext. He would answer anything as long as you were straightforward with him. “My mother was arrested last night for murder, and it came out that Rita was going through a divorce.”

“Why she was married to Herb Robertson,” he answered puzzled. “I thought everyone knew that.”

By Rahul Chakraborty on Unsplash

Chapter 8

After I walked out, I looked at my phone again. Once more, I missed a call from Oliver, so I hit the button to call him back. The phone rang in my ear, but I felt something poking in my back, the subtle click of the safety told me that it was a gun.

“I think it’s best if you and I had a little talk,” the voice belonged to Rita. I tucked my phone back into my pocket and took a deep breath, “you should have left Herb’s murder alone. There was no way Candace was going to jail for it, she’s innocent. But no, you had to go play like you’re Olivia Benson.”

“Rita, how are you? It was great seeing you at the police station last night, maybe we should try to catch up sometime when you haven’t framed my mother for murder.” Sometimes cracking jokes is the only way to stay alive.

“I should have known better than to talk to Kiera Carson. She never could keep a secret, but never mind that, how did you figure out that it was me?”

“Honestly, I didn’t,” the truth was supposed to set you free and at that moment, I wanted to be free. “All I wanted to do was place someone else at the scene of the crime, a much better suspect than my mother. Everything I found pointed to you.”

“And I heard your confession,” Oliver said, walking up. I shot him a look of gratitude. “We kept playing phone tag, and you said you were coming up here, so I figured I’d see you and grab a sub. Now I’m also arresting a murderer.”

He went through the process of arresting Rita and calling for backup. Mr. Banks came out and brought subs for the officer and me. When I tried to hand him some money, he waved me off.

Oliver asked me to come down to the station with him to answer a few questions and speak to the higher-ups about what happened. I agreed. Glad that my mother was no longer a murder suspect.

By Du Wei on Unsplash

Chapter 9

“To my daughter, Alicia,” my mother said, raising her glass of ginger ale high into the air. “She found the killer and a new boyfriend.”

“Cheers,” the group said in unison. She’d decided to throw a dinner party at the Meatball Bistro, Hope Cove’s only Italian restaurant. In this case, the group consisted of Kyle, Nick, Oliver, Kiera, and me.

“Technically, Kyle and I are not a couple,” I reminded her. Ever since she learned that she wasn’t going to jail, she’d tried to marry me off. When Kiera told her that Kyle asked me to dinner, she was off to the races planning our wedding. “We haven’t even decided where our first date will be.”

“Darling, are you as dense as the fabric you’re wearing. Kyle is the one you’re meant to be with,” she eyed Nick. “I approve of him.”

“Believe it or not, but that means very little to me,” I laughed as she choked on her soda. “All that matters is that I like him.”

Keira, sensing that things were about to go sideways fast, piped in, “I don’t know what to tell you Ms. Rose, ever since Lee started drinking Coca-Cola, her manners have gone by the wayside.”

“Don’t I know it,” my mother grinned at my best friend.

Mr. Banks walked in and joined our group. I couldn’t help but notice the sparks between him and my mother. Maybe I should push them together? As they say, if you can’t beat them, pair them up with the town’s biggest gossip.

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About the Creator

Edward Anderson

Edward has written hundreds of acclaimed true crime articles and has won numerous awards for his short stories.

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