At this time of year, when the sun camped out in the sky and gentle rains spilled from the clouds, it was easy for World of Blooms, Champaign’s largest nursery, to live up to its name. The candied scents of honeysuckle and lavender reached Hunter before she and Jax had even made it to the entrance. She inhaled and let the summertime smells pull her from the nearly empty parking lot, through the nursery’s sliding double doors, past the array of pots and seed packs, garden sculptures and indoor plants to the information booth set up outside the main building’s back entrance. The QS INTO AS hut looked like it belonged on the beach, complete with thatched straw roof, colorful orchid-shaped lights tacked up around the bar, and sun-streaked blond attendant.
Jax ran his hand through his earth brown hair, turning his textured fringe into a messy pompadour before he smoothed down the front of his T-shirt and flicked a speck of lint from his shorts.
Was he … primping?
Hunter trailed her best friend as he glided up to the hut and rang the small bell that sat in the middle of the bar.
The attendant’s soft curls bounced around her shoulders as she turned to face them. “Heya, what can I help you find?” Her voice was starshine, bright and clear and enchanting.
Hunter’s mouth went dry and she wished she, too, had combed her hand through her hair, turned it into anything other than the plain ponytail that hung down her back like the densely packed flowers of a cattail.
Jax leaned against the bar and glanced over his shoulder at Hunter. “What’d you say the name of that stuff is?”
Hunter’s tongue was a ball bearing pressing against her teeth. There was no point in crushing on anyone back home in Goodeville. The one time she had, Chelsea Parham had run around school screaming that Hunter was trying to turn her into a lesbian. Since that backward day in middle school, Hunter had decided that no Goodeville girl would ever be attractive.
They’re all warty toads, she’d said as her mother cupped her face and pressed their foreheads together.
There’s a whole world outside of Goodeville, Abigail had whispered before she’d kissed the tip of Hunter’s nose.
“It’s an insecticide.” Hunter cleared her throat and joined Jax in front of the hut. “For tree worms.”
The attendant’s eyes, robin’s eggs pressed into her soft, round face, shimmered when she met Hunter’s gaze. “Let me get you a map. When the trees start to bloom, it can turn into a bit of a maze.” She brushed a curl from her cheek and pulled a map from beneath the bar. “We’re here,” she said as she took a red marker from the cup next to the bell and drew a star over the info desk. “And you want to go all the way back here.” She drew a line from the hut, through the bonsai tent and the section of full sun flowering plants to the back section of the property where she marked the CONTROL THOSE PESTS! hut with another star. “And this is where I usually work.” She circled the EDIBLE ORGANICS section twice and looked up at Hunter. The corners of her pink lips quirked as she spoke. “If you make it back in, ask for Grace.”
Hunter’s legs were bags of pudding as she collected the map and wobbled away from the information booth.
Gravel crunched as Jax followed his best friend. “That’s Hunter. She’s amazing,” he called back to the hut. “And she’ll definitely be back!”
Hunter’s cheeks sizzled and her palms were slick with sweat. There was a whole world outside of Goodeville and Hunter hadn’t had to go far to find it.
“Dude.” Jax bumped Hunter’s shoulder. “Why are you running away? Go back and talk to her. She’s clearly interested.”
Hunter paused to unfold the map she’d scrunched up in her hand. Red marker stamped the scabbed-over slivers she’d accidentally dug into her palm the night before. “I don’t even know what I would say. It’s not like I ever get to practice any of that stuff.”
“I’ll be your wingman,” he said as he dodged a pollen-coated bee. “I already have my pitch down: ‘This is Hunter Goode. The best, smartest, kindest, most talented girl you’ve ever met.’” His forehead wrinkled and he scratched his chin. “There’s more, but I’ll proceed on a case-by-case basis.”
Hunter folded the map and crammed it into her front pocket. “What’s wrong with you? I’m not a prized pig, Jax. You can’t dress me up and sell me to the highest bidder.” The gravel walkway smoothed into round river rocks as they entered the bonsai tent and wove around tables covered with miniature trees and shrubs.
“H!” Jax stood in the entrance of the tent, hands shoved into his pockets. “A lot’s going on. I get that and I’m here for you. But I’m not an ass.” The slim lines of worry sprouting from the sharp corners of his eyes vanished when his brows lifted. “I don’t think you’re a piece of meat I can toss out to lady-lovin’ hyenas. I just want to help.”
Hunter picked at the edge of her thumbnail. “I’m not ready. For flirting or a girlfriend or making out or sex. I just—” Her eyes burned, and each blink sent tears down her cheeks. She’d never admitted any of that before. Never felt the reality of it until now. It had been easier to think that she was the victim of circumstance. That, if she lived in Chicago or New York or LA, she’d have a serious girlfriend or maybe even a revolving door of torrid love affairs. Goodeville kept Hunter protected. Kept her from seeing her truth.
Jax wrapped his arms around her. He blocked out the light and the saccharine scents of flowers and the pulsing buzz of nearby bees. “Take your time.” His breath tickled her ear. “I love you, Hunter Goode. When you’re ready, some badass gal will be, too.”
She pressed her face against his shoulder. Her best friend always smelled like clean sheets and peppermint. “I liked your line about lady-lovin’ hyenas.”
Jax’s chest shook with a laugh. “Really painted a good picture, didn’t it?”
Hunter pressed away from him and wiped her face with the back of her hand.
“Hey, H, you got any mucus removal spells up your sleeve?” Jax pulled his shirt away from his shoulder and pointed at the slimy wet spot she’d left behind.
Hunter’s eyebrow rose as she smiled. “Someday, when I’m a famous witch, that snot shirt will be worth a lot of money.”
Jax followed Hunter out of the tent and back into the sunny spring afternoon. “So, we’re eventually posting your witchy-ness for all to see?” He jutted his chin toward a bench of bright pink flowers. “You’ll be able to tell the photogs that your entourage started next to a cockscomb.”
“You just wanted to say cock, didn’t you?”
His shoulders hunched and he hid his laugh behind his hand. “I did, but only because I don’t remember the name of what we’re actually looking for.”
Hunter pulled her phone out of her back pocket and brought up the article she’d read to Jax in the car on the way over and scrolled until she saw the name in bold. “Bacillus thur-ing-ein-sis.” She broke down the last word the same way she did each time they discussed abiogenesis in her biology class. Something about the sis really tripped her up.
Jax’s chuckle was interrupted by a snort as he ran his fingertips along the starlike blooms of a row of daffodils. “I’m positive you’re still not saying it right.”
“Well, at least I don’t snort when I laugh.”
Jax wrapped his arm around Hunter’s shoulders and pulled her into him. “You love my laugh snorts,” he teased and rubbed his knuckles against the top of her head.
Hunter couldn’t help but laugh as she pushed and twisted in an attempt to wriggle free. “You’re like the brother I never wanted.” She grunted and reached around to Jax’s right side.
“Not the Claw! Not the Claw!” He erupted into a cacophony of snorts and giggles as Hunter snapped her fingers open and shut along his ribs.
Jax released her, wrapped his arms around his middle, and stumbled backward into a table of budding hydrangeas.
“Works every time.” Hunter smoothed her hand over the mess of puffy bumps Jax had inflicted on her hair and sighed. “Remember when I was the one who would hold you down and give you noogies?” She pulled her tie from her disheveled ponytail and shook out her hair. “Oh, that was the life…”
Jax lifted the bottom of his shirt and wiped his eyes. Dark hair ran in a furry track down the middle of his flat stomach and disappeared behind the waistband of his shorts. Gone was the little boy who used to stand between the swings at recess, arms stretched as wide as they could go, hands gripping the metal chains in order to save her one, or the little boy who used to climb onto a kitchen chair to help her get her ponytail just right. Her best friend had turned into a man and she hadn’t even noticed.
“That was back when I sounded like Mickey Mouse and Mercy said that I’d be shorter than Kevin Hart.” Jax shoved his hands into his pockets and joined Hunter back on the path that wound through the sun-drenched plants to the small hut labeled CONTROL THOSE PESTS! “You should leave your hair down more often.” He nodded toward the lengths of inky black that brushed Hunter’s shoulder blades. “It’s really pretty.”
She gathered her hair and positioned it back into her signature ponytail. “I was just wondering what a straight guy thought about my hair choices. Tell me, should I also smile more?”
“Ah, yes, you read my mind.” Jax tapped his temple and nodded dramatically. “And while you’re at it, you should go back to the kitchen and make me a sammich, extra mayo, no crusts.”
It felt good to laugh again. To be away from her house and the ghost of her mother. It felt good to be twin-less, free from her sister and the weight of Mercy’s broken pieces that Hunter kept picking up but couldn’t quite fit back together.
“Holy hell!” Jax grabbed Hunter’s shoulders and ducked behind her. “It’s Barbara Ritter!” he said and peered up over her shoulder before hunkering down again.
“Mrs. Ritter, your neighbor?” Hunter cocked her head at the two women who were too busy looking at plants to notice the spectacle that was currently Jax Ashley. She chewed on the tip of her pinky nail and took in the suburbanites in their nearly matching tennis outfits, one pastel yellow with sensible white tennis shoes, the other a much louder neon yellow with bright, sparkling gold shoes. Barbara was the giant, glittery highlighter, which made sense since, although her oldest child wouldn’t be in high school for at least another five years, she demanded to chaperone all school dances while using a bullhorn to mortify horny teens. Maybe Barbara had given the school’s principal her secret to the perfect ponytail. If Mrs. Ritter gave Hunter the recipe for a long, shiny ponytail that curled at the end like an upside-down question mark, Hunter would let her do pretty much anything.
“Yes!” Jax hissed like a stuck balloon and crawled between two large pots of flowering shrubs before he disappeared under a table covered in ivy.
Hunter bent over and parted palm-sized leaves and scarlet blooms that waterfalled like spilled cranberry juice over the lip of the pot to look down at Jax. “Why are you hiding?” She looked back at Mrs. Ritter and her friend who, aside from the neon-ness of one and the spray tanned–ness of them both, were two completely normal women.
Jax pressed his finger against his lips and frantically waved for her to join him. With a groan, Hunter obliged. Ivy stems brushed against her back and her palms smashed fresh earth as she crawled under the table and squatted next to him. “This is ridiculous,” she whispered and wiped the dirt from her hands. “Why are we hiding?”
Jax blew out a puff of air, leaned forward and drew the curtain of ivy closed, and settled back against the ground. “I kind of saw her…” He moved his hands in front of him like he was juggling invisible balls. “Chest?” He winced and shook his head. “Her boobs, okay. I saw Mrs. Ritter’s boobs.”
Hunter clapped her hand over her mouth and nearly toppled onto her butt.
Again, Jax pressed his finger to his lips. “My dad made me fix that rotted spot in the fence. I had a few boards down and she just, you know…”
Hunter’s jaw flopped open. “What? Took off her shirt and said, ‘Here Jax, please gaze upon my heaving bosoms’?”
“No!” Another hiss. “She was tanning, topless, and I saw her and didn’t exactly look away.”
Hunter dropped her head into her hands. “Jesus, Jax!”
“I know!” he said as he ran his hands down his cheeks. “I’ve apologized and said I’d mow her yard this summer for free. She declined, so I decided that my best course of action is to avoid her until I move away for college.”
Hunter shook her head. Her ponytail slipped off her neck and hung limply in front of her shoulder. “That’s in two years.”
“Exactly why we’re hiding.”
Barbara Ritter’s sparkly tennis shoes threw white spots across Hunter’s vision as she and her friend approached the table. Jax’s eyes widened and he pressed his finger against his lips so hard that the pink flesh around his nail whitened.
Plain white Keds stood directly in front of Hunter. A ring of dirt encircled the sole like chocolate meringue. “Oh, Barbara, what about these? The…” There was a short pause and a ruffling of leaves before the woman continued. “Bleeding amaranthus. It says they get pretty big. If you plant them right along your fence line, they should block out your neighbors.”
Jax’s face lit up like a stoplight.
Barbara’s sparkles inched closer to the large pots just on the other side of the ivy shield. “But the name, Susan. Bleeding amaranthus. I couldn’t bear to have anything planted on my property with the word bleeding in the name. Not after what I overheard this morning.”
The Keds spun to face the garish sparkles. “I knew there was something you weren’t telling me. You may have re-upped your Botox, but I can still see it written all over your face. Spill!”
The gold-sparkled toes wiggled like two puppy butts. “Deputy Carter was pulled up outside of the Coffee Spot this morning. Windows down, practically yelling into his phone about Dominic Parrott.”
Hunter’s breath caught in her throat.
Susan sighed and her Keds relaxed and parted slightly. “I’ve always felt so sorry for Dominic.” Another sigh. “That depressing job and practically raising his daughter alone while his wife is off on all of those business trips doing God knows what. Although I did see him at the IGA just a few days ago. He’s leaving soon for some funeral services convention.” She paused. “I suspect that’s code for getting the H-E double hockey sticks away from my terrible wife.” Susan sucked in a breath and her heels lifted and settled back against the gravel. “Maybe I should bring him a plate of my hot sticky buns.”
“Well, don’t get too excited.” Barbara’s right foot angled outward as she settled into her story. “You know I don’t like to speak ill of the dead. Or, in this case, the family of the dead, but—”
Susan took a step back. “Dominic Parrott is dead?”
Jax squeezed Hunter’s arm. She wanted to cover her ears with both hands and dig into the ground like a mole, but it wouldn’t have helped. Death had stitched itself to Hunter’s back and rode her like wings.
“Hush now, Susan.” Barbara slid closer to her friend. “It’s not common knowledge, just a fact I overheard the deputy discussing. Along with another…”
The dramatic pause made Hunter’s stomach lurch.
The sparkle-encrusted shoes wriggled as Barbara continued, “Dominic Parrott was murdered in his own car. Right outside the sheriff’s department. If you’re not safe there, I just don’t know where you can be.”
Susan sucked in another breath and the toes of her shoes pressed together. “It’s like in one of those CSI shows.”
The golden sparkles halted their dance and resumed their stroll along the gravel path. “Well, I wouldn’t know about that. I try to stay away from graphic television dramas…” Barbara’s voice faded and her shoes blurred into two bright blotches as she and Susan turned and made their way back to the main building.
Hunter pressed her hands into the ground. But the killings were about her, about Mercy, about the gates, weren’t they? She lifted her hands and stared down at the starlike imprints in the dirt. The sheriff’s department was nowhere near any of the trees. What did that mean? What did any of it mean? She crawled out from under the table and stood. She needed answers.