Julie laughed. “We have plenty of rooms. Our busy season is starting to pick up, but we don’t have nearly as many reservations as we probably should. Once the spring festival is over, that’s when we expect to get a rush of tourists in town.”
“Spring festival? What’s that all about?”
“It actually starts this weekend. We have all kinds of vendors who set up tables, like my mom who owns the local bakery. Of course we have live music, food, games for the kids. It’s just a really great time for the town to get together and welcome in spring.”
“That sounds really fun.”
“Oh, it is! I hope that you get some time to join us. I’d love to introduce you to some of my friends. I mean, I know you’re only here on business, but we like to welcome our guests.”
“I will definitely try to be there. By the way, don’t you have a book to read tonight?”
Julie rolled her eyes. “I’ve been procrastinating on that. It’s not that I don’t want to read it, although it wasn’t super interesting to me the first time around.”
“Didn’t you say you only read part of the first page?”
Julie giggled. “I just get very distracted when I’m reading books. Maybe I should try the audiobook?”
“I don’t know. For me, there’s just something about the process of reading. I don’t do so well with audiobooks.”
“I guess I should get on it so I don’t fall asleep like I did last night. Is there anything else that you need from me before I head upstairs?”
“No, thank you. I think I’m going to sit out on the porch for a while, maybe make a couple of phone calls. Then I’m going to be heading to bed myself. I’ve got an early morning meeting tomorrow.”
“Yeah, same here. In fact, it’s this author that’s coming tomorrow for a book signing. I better try to read this thing so I know what I’m talking about,” she said with a chuckle.
Colleen leaned against her fluffy pillows and stared at her computer screen. Maybe she did have an actual addiction. She just couldn’t stop watching true crime documentaries. It seemed like the streaming services had one after another, and each one seemed more interesting and suspenseful than the last.
“You need to go to bed,” Tucker said, his voice booming through the speaker on her phone and startling her.
“Geez, tell me when you’re going to say something because you scared the crap out of me!”
They often did this at night where Tucker was at his apartment and she was at the cottage with her Aunt Janine, but they stayed in touch on their phones because they couldn’t stand to be apart. Hours would pass while they each watched TV or did household chores, sometimes not saying anything for long stretches of time.
Colleen couldn’t wait for the day when they got married and could live in the same house all the time. Of course, they could do that now, but she just wanted some time on her own before settling down with a man again. The whole thing with her former fiancé, Peter, had made her long for a little bit of independence before she started her own family.
And the truth was, she had plenty of time. She was only in her twenties, so it wasn’t like her biological clock was ticking very loudly yet. Of course, when she saw her sister getting to be a mother, she did feel herself longing for that sometimes. But definitely not enough to rush into getting married and starting a family so soon.
She and Tucker had some big business goals before then. The Christmas selling season would be coming again in a few months, and it was going to be a challenge but a possible financial windfall for both of them.
They had also talked about traveling together and seeing different parts of the world before they finally settled down. She was thankful that she had time and didn’t have to worry about being in a hurry for any reason.
“What are you doing?” Tucker asked. She could hear him washing his dishes in the background.
“There’s a new documentary I wanted to see. It’s about this serial rapist.”
“Wow, that sounds like something that is so soothing right before bedtime.”
“You’re a wimp,” she said, laughing.
“I truly don’t know how you watch that stuff right before you go to sleep. It would give me nightmares.”
“Sometimes it does. I still can’t help myself. It’s just so interesting.”
“Well, I don’t want to keep you from your new documentary, so I’m going to hang up and go take a nice hot shower. I’ll see you in the morning?”
“See you then. Sweet dreams,” she said before hanging up.
She snuggled back into her pillows again, pulled the cover up around her neck and pressed play. As the documentary started, she learned facts about the case.
Apparently there was this man who was raping women in this small town. They couldn’t catch him no matter what they did, but he was finally shot and killed by an officer during a standoff.
As she watched about all the different cases, she was so thankful that she didn’t live alone. At least having her Aunt Janine there meant that she wasn’t as worried being at home alone at night. A lot of these girls had been attacked in their apartments where they lived alone.
As the story went on, she started to learn more about the standoff. About how he had taken a hostage and was trying to blackmail the police. It went on for hours and hours until finally one of the officers snuck into the building and was able to shoot him before he could hurt his hostage.
And that’s when Colleen found herself staring at the screen, holding her breath. The officer that shot him was a woman, but that wasn’t the part that was so shocking. She knew who that officer was, and she couldn’t believe what her eyes were seeing.
She tossed
