that far since I was in high school and forced to take physical education classes. “What’s going on?”
Colleen’s gaze lowers to my shoes before she meets my eyes again. “I was going for a walk when she approached me.” She motions to Melissa Mendes, who seems to be feverishly taking notes on a pad of paper crammed in her palm. “This is Rachael Martin. She lives next door to us, right over there.”
“Nice to meet you, Rachael.” Melissa shakes my hand limply before diving back to her notes. In person, she’s not nearly as smiley as on TV. Or maybe it’s the corpse that’s putting a damper on her normally bubbly mood. “How far do you usually go?”
“Excuse me?”
She points to my shoes with her pen. “When you run. How far?”
“Oh.” I flip my hair over my shoulder. And realize I’d forgotten to tie it back. Rookie mistake. “About a mile. Just enough to get my blood pumping.”
Sounds like something a runner would say, doesn’t it?
“Do you run along the Bluff Trail?” Melissa just won’t let this go.
How do I answer? If I say I usually run through the grove, it’ll put me running through the area where a body was just found. The next question would inevitably be, “When was the last time you ran through?” One untruth would lead to another.
“No, I’m a street runner,” I say quickly, drawing my ankle up behind me in a stretch. “The grove gives me the creeps.”
Not totally a lie. Once the sun dips below the horizon, the grove is shrouded in shadows. The trail gets treacherous, and even if you’ve walked it a million times before, it’s easy to get lost. You’ll find your way out—it’s not that large—but you might have to stumble or climb over a couple fallen branches to get there.
I lose my balance, topple a bit, and catch myself on Colleen’s shoulder. “Do they know anything yet?” I ask her.
“They’re in the early stages of the investigation,” the reporter answers for her. “So the police will keep everything on lockdown until identification is established.”
“And then what?”
“They’ll notify next of kin before they make any public announcements.”
“It’s terrible,” Colleen says, her hands on her stomach. “Just terrible. I can’t believe it. Right across the street. And you said this place is quiet.”
I can’t help but laugh. “It is—or, it was.”
For the next fifteen minutes or so, Melissa asks a ton of questions about where we’re from, how long we’ve lived here, and how busy the grove might be on any given day. They’re harmless, getting-to-know-you questions, and I can’t help but wonder when she’s going to pull out the camera.
She never does.
Maybe there’s another crew out here who’ll want to record my interview. As my gaze tracks around the grassy area in front of the grove, two men in white coats catch my eye. One is over six feet tall, lean, with glasses and slicked-back hair. The other is shorter and stockier, with reddish hair cut short, military-style. Both duck beneath the stretch of yellow tape and talk for a moment.
“Who are they?” I ask, pointing.
Melissa and Colleen both turn.
“Detectives,” Melissa says bluntly, watching them step into the shadows. “There’ll be more where those came from. I need to run, but it was really great talking with you two.”
“That was disappointing,” I say, thinking aloud, as Melissa hurries back to her van.
Colleen is watching the grove. “What was?”
“Nothing.” But I’d been hoping for some kind of excitement. It would’ve been fun to record myself on television and show it back to Travis. We could’ve drunk wine and laughed at how foolish I looked in my workout gear. “Are you headed back home?”
“I probably should,” Colleen says, finally turning toward me. “We still on for dinner tonight?”