Page 22 of Deadly Sins: Gluttony
Camille tapped a finger on the table, thinking.“It’s been a long time since I thought about Vince.”
“Did you know him?”
“Everyone knew him.He was the captain of the football team.”
“He was also on the swim team, wasn’t he?”
“I think so.I can’t remember.”
“Don’t you think it’s strange that a man who once competed as a swimmer ended up drowning in the lake?”
She shrugged.“He was drunk.”
“What do you remember about his death?”
“The oddest part was learning he’d been at the lake with Maisy that day.I hadn’t expected that.”
“Why?”
“I’d always seen her as a shy outcast—the complete opposite of Vince.The strange part was that she’d been friends with Gideon.Knowing Vince had bullied him, why would she spend time with Vince at all?It couldn’t have been romantic.Everyone knew he was with Claire Wiggins.They’d dated all throughout high school.”
“I’m assuming his death was ruled an accident?”
“Yeah, I guess so.I remember reading about it in the paper.Maisy told the police she hadn’t seen him drown.Vince had jumped off the boat to swim while she stayed behind to sunbathe.After a while, when he didn’t come back, she started to worry.She looked around but couldn’t spot him—then his body drifted by, facedown.I think he was already gone.”
“Did Gideon ever say how he felt about Vince’s death?”
“He seemed ambivalent, showed no emotion one way or the other.”
“And Maisy, is she still around?”
“That’s the weird thing.Right after Vince’s funeral, she packed up and left town.I never saw her again.”
14
After spending a few hours combing through old news clippings and public records, the outline of Maisy Goodwin’s life began to take shape.She hadn’t lingered in Hollow Pines after graduation.Instead, she’d packed her bags for Northern California, enrolled in college, and trained to become a nurse.
She became a nurse four years later, working at Rosewood General Hospital.While there, she built a reputation for compassion and steadiness under pressure—qualities that stood out in sharp contrast to the shy outcast who once spent an afternoon drifting on a boat with Vince Slater.
Then the tone of the obituary shifted, telling the rest of her story.
At some point in the last year, she developed a fatal illness.
Cancer.
As I read on, there were no flowery tributes, just the facts: Maisy left behind a husband, a daughter, and a son.I scanned the names once, then again, letting them sink in.Something tugged at me, a familiarity I couldn’t place right away.I went back to the obituary, reading the names again.
And then it hit me—Hazel.
Maisy’s daughter was Hazel Goodwin—the same Hazel who had been working at Sweet Hearth Bakery the night Gideon Belmont was murdered.
For a moment, I just sat there, staring at the screen, replaying what might have happened that night in my head: Hazel behind the counter, watching Gideon but avoiding eye contact.
When we spoke outside the wake, I believed I was speaking to a girl who was struggling over the loss of Camille’s brother.
But with this new piece of information, the picture shifted, premeditation entering my mind.
If Hazel was Maisy’s daughter, then Gideon’s death wasn’t just a random murder in Hollow Pines.It was part of a web stretching back decades—through Vince Slater, through Maisy, and now through Hazel herself.
