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Denbrook had always been an incredibly quiet town.
Everyone in town knew each other, and sometimes that was nice. People cared for one another like family or close friends, even if they lived across town. There had never been a moment when you felt nervous to walk down the street, despite the incredibly small police department. At no point had you ever worried that there was someone behind you, or that you wouldn’t be cared for if you forgot your wallet at home when you were going to the shops to grab a coffee in the morning.
People cared for each other like their own because they had been doing so for a long time. Generations of families that had grown up together, caring for their best friend’s kid when they needed to. People who grew up being babysat by the kindly older woman across town. Some people left to pursue bigger things in a city, but many people chose to stay home because they had never felt anything as warm or comfortable as what they found in Denbrook.
While you loved your family and the people who you had considered to be family within the town, you dreamed of something more. You were in your early twenties now, you wanted to go to uni and get out of the town that you had been in your entire life. Everything had a rural charm to it. The pretty houses, the fact that the police department (which was one guy) had commissioned the neon sign shop next door to make a sign for the police station.
It was quaint, and it had its own lore and history that could be defined in three tables behind a shop. Everyone knew everything about it and each other, and while that had its positives, it had its negatives, too.
When people came to understand that you were staying home and working odd jobs, babysitting, and at the shops once in a while when they needed help (which wasn’t often) because your parents couldn’t afford to send you to the uni you wanted to go to, people found out about it. Not just one or two people who your parents worked with, but just bout everyone in town. People offered to fundraise, but you wanted to do it on your own.
That was a few years ago now, though. The odd jobs had been infrequent and difficult to come by. But George, one of the shepherds in town, offered something more steady. He was one of two shepherds in town, and you weren’t overly fond of the other one. He seemed nice enough at face value, but you knew that he was close with the local butcher. You could only imagine that he was using his sheep to kill and sell them for profit. Something about that didn’t sit right with you, but George seemed to be a genuinely kind man, and he let you know that he had come into some money that allowed him to help you out if you helped him out on the farm.
So, you spent just about every day with the sheep.
You helped clean them, you helped shear them, and you even helped read to them once in a while. Sometimes you spent the night in the trailer because it was too rainy to walk in the woods so late, and you didn’t want to bother your parents to come walk you home. Some nights you stayed just because the work wasn’t done and you needed to be back in the early morning.
George became like family to you. And now, according to your calculations, you should be able to start at uni with a small surplus of money next fall if you keep at it on the farm. Your parents offered to cover the rest once you got most of the money, but you liked helping on the farm. Not enough to stay in Denbrook permanently, but enough to want to finish out what you started. After all, George was helping you out of the kindness of his heart; who would you be to up and leave just because you had the opportunity to?
As it would turn out, the decision may have been made for you.
There was nothing outwardly strange when you woke up the morning after it happened. You walked to the shops like you normally did before you were supposed to begin working on the farm around noon. George never gave you set hours; he just let you know what needed to be done around his property and around what time it would need to be done. You had worked with him long enough to know how much time you needed and around what time you would need to be there based on how long you personally took to get things done.
Beth had run into you while you were grabbing a coffee, and you went over to her shop to look over the Denbrook Cultural Fair. It was the same thing every year. The same few tables that defined all of the small things that the town had to offer in terms of ‘pop culture’. It was nothing special. You had been to the city, and you knew what a real fair was like, just as you knew what real offerings were. But it was unique to Denbrook. It showed you the heart that the quaint town had to offer.
While you sipped your coffee, you were discussing the work that you were planning on doing with Beth. Mainly, you were telling her that you were halfway convinced that the sheep had minds of their own. Surely, every species had a mind and could think. It was just that, sometimes, it felt like they understood the things that you or George were saying in a way that you would figure only humans could. It was strange. But you didn’t have much time to continue that line of thinking when someone else entered the conversation.
The coffee in your hands had been got when you grabbed it, but now it was at an average temperature since you had been nursing it for a bit. Good thing, too, since you nearly squeezed it right in your face. Had Beth not caught you and stopped it before it happened, you would have probably had to have gone home and changed into something different.
He was new. He had to be. Guys like him weren’t in Denbrook.
He was well-dressed and tall. He had glasses on the upper bridge of his nose and pretty blue eyes that you were a bit distracted by. His lips were plump and full, and he certainly looked like he worked out at least a little bit. But that physique was toned down by his well-tailored outfit. No. He absolutely wasn’t from Denbrook; no one like him could be. But you wanted to be wherever he was from, that was for certain.
“Hi, I’m sheep.”
“What?”
“Coffee.”
“Excuse me?”
Beth corrected you, explaining that those were the things that you had been talking about, sheep, and that you were holding coffee, so you must have gotten confused. That, or you probably needed another cup. She told him your real name, urging you to hold out your hand for a shake instead of stumbling over your words like you’d never met a human being before and forgot what names were.
Still, she sighed when you found it best to hold out the hand that was still holding the coffee. She’d been about to take it out of your hand before the man reached forward and took your free hand from beside your hip for a shake.
“Elliot Matthews.”
His accent was smooth like butter; it fell from his plush lips in a way that made your stomach tingle. He absolutely was not from here; there was no way. He had a camera with him, a notepad, and a pen. Was he a reporter of some kind?
“And your name?” He offered Beth, letting go of your hand to offer it to her.
“Beth. How can I help you?”
“I’m a reporter, and I was hoping to write an article on the Denbrook Cultural Fair. I was told that you would know where that is.”
“Ah, yes, right here.”
She motioned to the tables beside the three of you. But you could see, from an outsider’s perspective, how this looked. To the people of Denbrook, something this small being labelled as a cultural fair was normal. But to someone who had never been here before, it must look a bit odd. You could see it in the way that his expression dropped when he looked at the table.
Standing off to the side, you watched as he clearly upset Beth and Officer Derry, who you hadn’t really noticed had joined the conversation. You were more distracted by the tall man whom you had never met before. He was from out of town, he was here to… you forgot. You were so painfully distracted by his face that you forgot why he was here in the first place. Now he was leaving, and maybe you should just let him go. After all, everyone else wants him to go, and you needed to get to work.
Yet…
“You know, Beth was right, I do need another coffee.” Finally, you found your tongue, and you were chasing after him. Er… speed-walking. That sounds better.
“Hm?”
“I need another coffee. You didn’t like the fair, but maybe I can tell you something interesting about the town over coffee? I mean, quaint little town with a population that all know each other and doesn’t know much other than the town isn’t newsworthy but it may be interesting for a column. In the same way that a fair in a small town might be, anyway.”
He seemed to think about it for a moment. Perhaps that’s where you should have found the first red flag that something was off about him. He seemed to be calculating something in his brain for far longer than anyone else realistically would be. Maybe he didn’t like you, or maybe he was just thinking good and hard about the article that he was writing. When he finally offered you a smile, you decided that it was the latter.
“Sure, coffee sounds nice.”
Coffee ended up running long. You spent almost three hours talking with him before you realized that you definitely needed to be getting to work. It ended up not being too forward to ask for his number afterwards, given that he knew that you were planning on leaving Denbrook in the coming year. You had every intention of going into the very city that he lived in for uni, so there was no harm in connecting when you were both in the same place, was there?
Or, maybe you just really liked him. Maybe you liked spending hours talking to him, and you were certain that you would see him again when you were in the city.
So you were a little more giddy when you were working. You didn’t know it, but the sheep could tell that there was something different about you. You were always happy to be there, but you seemed happier than usual. You talked to them about him, but George wasn’t listening because you figured that they couldn’t understand, and once you did, Lily picked up pretty quickly that you had met a boy that you liked when you were out that morning. That said boy was the reason you were a bit later than you normally would be that day.
When you left that night, you did so under the guise of giving George his privacy. He said that he had someone coming over, but he didn’t share who it was. You left after storytime, knowing that you would be back again in the morning because there was always more work to be done. You left believing that tomorrow morning would be just like every other morning.
You couldn’t have been more wrong.
The news was first broken to you by your parents. They were gentle, supportive in telling you that someone who you considered to be like family had passed. They claimed that the police believed that it had been a natural death, but something seemed off about it to you. You knew George, you knew that he wouldn’t just die. He was healthy; he seemed perhaps a bit healthier than you did sometimes. He wasn’t the type to just up and die for no reason without any warning signs.
Your parents had let you know that they’d cover the rest of your tuition since the farm had fallen through, which you did appreciate, but it didn’t make things any less confusing. You were sad, sure. Grieving the loss of someone who had stuck his neck out for you. But most of all, something felt off about this. You knew that he had told you that he was expecting to see someone the night before, so you knew that there had been someone at the farm that night.
Caleb had been there earlier in the day, but you figured that was all handled. He was probably going to return today, sure, but he wasn’t supposed to be there that night. Even if he was, it wouldn’t have been something personal. You knew about George’s business with Caleb; you had been there when he was there earlier in the day and when the two of them were arguing. So, you also knew that it had to be someone whom you didn’t know. Or, someone whom he didn’t want you to know the identity of quite yet.
The moment you realized this, you moved to turn this information over to Officer Derry, but you were more than a little surprised when you noticed that Elliot was there.
“I thought you were going home last night.”
Oh! Hi, I was but… I got into a bit of an accident.” He motioned sheepishly to the car outside, the damage that had been done to it still pretty visible. It looked like he had driven head-on into a tree or something like that, but he seemed to be okay.
Still, you felt the need to check. “Oh, gosh, are you alright?” You asked, moving closer to inspect his face for any cuts or bruises. You noticed the little smile on his face when your fingertips lingered on his cheeks, prodding to see if there was any pain when you pushed down on the skin. “There could be internal bruising. Do you feel bruised when I poke you like this?”
“I certainly do not. I’m alright, no internal bruising besides the massive smack to my ego.”
His hands were big and warm when they enveloped your wrists, but he didn’t immediately pull your hands from his face. You watched him, a bit entranced for a moment, before Officer Derry cleared his throat beside you and reminded you that you weren’t alone.
“Sorry, I actually had a tip.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, George told me that he was meeting up with someone last night. I thought it was a bit odd because Caleb had been there earlier in the day for some business, but he wasn’t supposed to come back or anything. George had been planning to meet up with someone, and there was someone with him last night, and now he’s dead. I just figured that was probably pertinent.”
“See?” Elliot motioned towards him like he had known something all along. “A man doesn’t just take out two glasses; someone was there last night.”
“Fine, maybe there was another person, but that doesn’t mean there was a murder.”
Both of you raised your eyebrows incredulously, to which Officer Derry seemed to want to brush you off for a moment. But before you knew it, you were outside again. Everyone was gathered because just about everyone seemed to have reached the same conclusion. There was no way that George had just up and died. Everyone knew everyone in this town. Everyone knew whether or not someone was close to dying, too. And George wasn’t close to dying.
Elliot seemed invested, but it mainly seemed to be because he wanted to make a story out of it. Maybe that should have put you off, but it made sense. He came here for a story, and he was getting a story. A murder in a small town was one of great intrigue, and with every passing moment, it became clearer and clearer that something strange was going on here.
You were interested in the case; you cared about it. But you would be lying if you said that you were interested in Elliot, too.
When the meeting was happening, you were sitting beside him. When he got kicked out, you only stayed because you had been named in a small part of the will. George knew exactly how much you needed to afford the uni that you wanted to go to, and he knew that you weren’t factoring in food or clothes or another year of school. So he wanted you to have what you needed down to the last coin. It wasn’t nearly as much as he gave his own daughter, but it was everything but the last couple of thousand that you’d been saving up to. That fact alone was a clear indication that he intended upon changing it once he made sure this money went to you before you left. It was included just in case something like this happened.
Something unpredictable. Something tragic.
Everyone was released around the same time, but you found yourself in the Presidential Suite talking to Elliot. He was interesting and attractive, and after a few hours of talking with him, he offered to bring you to dinner. There was a little restaurant in town that you could go to, and he was willing to pay for it since he was sure that it was cheaper than anything that he was buying in London anyway, since you were in a smaller town with a smaller cost of living.
You agreed, happily. But he made sure to clarify that he meant this as a date. After all, your parents had agreed to pay what you needed, and George had given you the rest. You could move now, if you wanted, and after a personal tragedy, maybe it would be good for you. Or, maybe he just needed someone to trust him.
That was what it was, right?
That was what he reasoned it was to himself.
You trusted him; you were clearly smitten with him. With all that money, he could keep the name Elliot, and nobody would ever suspect that it was him who killed George for the money. No one would ever suspect that he was pretending to be someone he wasn’t to fly under the radar until he got the money. But you were going along with him, you liked him, you seemed to trust him. He just needed that trust to continue into the investigation.
And that was all it should have been. That was all that he wanted it to be. Sure, he could bring you with him-but-geez, why was he even thinking that far in advance? He didn’t need to. He could go anywhere. He could go to the States; he could not pretend to be a Londoner for the rest of his life. He could do anything with the money that he was going to get from this and never think of you again, so why was he genuinely considering you? It didn’t make any sense.
That was why he told himself that the dinner would be short.
He would take you out, make himself feel better about using you, and make you trust him some more, and then everything would be fine. Right?
Wrong. On all counts.
The dinner was not short. You sat with him until the restaurant closed and then walked throughout the town. You were pointing out little spots that you went to when you were growing up, the park that you grew up playing on, the swingset that you got your first kiss behind, the rock that you tripped over and hit your nose on when you were growing up.
Elliot shouldn’t have liked it. He shouldn’t have liked you at all. You were supposed to be a means to an end, but that didn’t explain why he kissed you before he let go of you to go into your house. It didn’t explain why you kissed him back, or why he said yes when you admitted that you were a bit sad and didn’t want to be alone for the night. It made no sense; he shouldn’t have done any of it, but he stayed in your room all night anyway. And he talked to you, and he got to know you, and he snuck out of the window in the morning.
Maybe you were originally supposed to be a means to an end. Maybe you were supposed to give him some credibility in town because you knew everyone and agreed with him. Maybe you still could be. But at the very least, he knew that taking you with him once he got his money was a part of his plan. He just needed to make sure that you never, ever found out why he was so wealthy.