Page 6 of Juniper Bean Resorts to Murder

“She’s a lovely young lady with a lovely woodsy name and excellent manners, so you need to be nice to her,” Caroline says, her voice severe.

A lovely woodsy name?What’s that supposed to mean? Maple? Oak? Flowering dogwood?

Am I going to be living with a woman named Dogwood?

“She’s meeting you at Grind and Brew,” Caroline goes on.

“And how am I supposed to know which person is her?” I say. “Is she carrying a book with a flower? Will she be the one in the red scarf?”

“Nope,” Caroline says, once again sounding way too cheerful. “According to our conversation in the forum, she’ll be the one with the yellow car and the pink hair.”

Heaven help me.

“You should have just let me buy the contract,” I say as the ache in my temples intensifies.

“Oh, really?” she says. “So you’re going to pay her full-priced rent on top of your measly discounted rate, plus gas, plus electric, plus internet? Plus HOA,plustrash—”

“I’m going through a tunnel,” I say dully. “Gonna lose you here in a second.”

“Oh, shut up. There are no tunnels in Autumn Grove—”

I hang up.

I would never admit it, but Caroline is right. She owns the house I live in, and though she does make me pay rent, it’s steeply discounted. So she feeds her husband and children with the rent she charges the second tenant, whoever that happens to be. For the last six months it was a guy named Lorenzo, who I barely saw because he worked nights and slept during the day. But Lorenzo moved out a month ago when he got engaged, and the second bedroom has been empty since. I can’t afford to more than double my monthly payment, and Caroline can’t afford to give me more of a discount. So another tenant is really the best option.

Sometimes it makes me wonder what I’m doing with my life, though.

I’m thirty-five, living in a house my sister owns, suffering through a string of roommates and working at a job that drives me crazy at least half the time. That job, ironically, is the whole reason I’m renting from my sister; my pay is so dismal I can’t afford a down payment on a house yet.

Maybe if there weren’t such a teacher shortage here, they wouldn’t have made me teach along with my job as a guidance counselor—but there is, and they did. So now I teach three hours of college prep literature every day to a bunch of kids who couldn’t care less, listening to them hate on the books I love. Stories have always been sacred to me, and the classics most of all. I’d rather just stick to my job as a counselor. Helping these kids figure things out is what I signed up for; high school is such a vulnerable time.

Of course, more often than not what I end up doing is telling them what extracurriculars will help them get into college, but still. At least I’m doingsomething.

I pull into Grind and Brew with exactly one minute to spare, next to a crookedly parked yellow Volkswagen that looks like it will fall apart if I stare at it for too long. I’m going to assume that’s the car that belongs to my new roommate. The universe seems to be heading in an unfortunate direction today; it would just make sense that this clunker is going to be my garage companion for the foreseeable future.

I just stand there for a second after I get out of my car, staring at the Volkswagen. There are a few layers of duct tape surrounding the handle of the passenger door, and several cracks have spidered their way across the windshield. I shake my head and start walking, though I give the front tire a little nudge with my foot as I pass by, just to see what happens.

The bumper falls off.

“Crap.” I jump at the sound of plastic hitting pavement, unreasonably startled considering I was the one who made it happen.

Right? Was that my fault?

I round the car, frowning down at the front bumper and trying to ignore the brisk wind that has me regretting my lack of jacket. As of now I am officially late, but I can’t just leave things like this. Especially since this car might belong to my new roommate. Stupid name aside—who names their kid after a tree?—it will benefit all parties involved to maintain a positive relationship. So I kneel down, picking up the bumper and examining it. I’m not an automotive expert, but it’s hard to imagine this hunk of plastic staying on this car without some serious help. I guess if I can fit it in place—

“Did you break my car?”

I freeze in place at the sound of a woman’s voice coming from behind me. My current position couldn’t look more suspicious.

“I think I might have,” I say, not moving. My head is pounding now, but I make myself go on. “I nudged your tire with my foot and the whole bumper just—” But I break off when the woman behind me starts to laugh.

“I’m just kidding,” she says, her voice full of amusement. “It falls off all the time. I have some super glue in my trunk.” Then she laughs again.

A strange feeling washes over me at that sound, almost like déjà vu. Her laugh is warm. Husky.

And somehow…familiar.

I let the bumper fall out of my hands and back to the ground. I couldn’t describe the feeling that comes over me then even if I tried—a surreal sense of anticipation, an almost dreamlike inevitability that sends chills up and down my spine.

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