Cold Blood by Marnie Vinge

Author:Marnie Vinge [Vinge, Marnie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

Back at the hotel I grab my laptop before we head out. Parker picks a bar across the street that has a quiet atmosphere. The doors look like they were ripped right out of an old saloon. They swing on their hinges as we enter. The place is dark. A jukebox sits in the corner and a couple of men are playing pool across from the bar. Ghost tucks himself neatly under the table.

Parker grabs us each a beer and we head for a booth where I crack open my laptop, accessing all of my research notes from the time when I was interviewing Nathan Kelly on a daily to weekly basis.

He takes a sip of his beer and I do the same.

“Where would you like for me to start?” I ask.

“Start at the beginning. You’ve got a personal connection to Kelly, right?” Parker says.

“My best friend’s mom was his first known victim,” I confirm.

Parker nods, having already read this in the book. I guess he just wanted to hear it from me.

“You went camping that night with your friend and her mom,” Parker continues for me. “Her mom went to the bathroom at the campsite and she never came back. I can’t imagine what that must have been like for your friend, or you for that matter.”

“Horrible,” I say. “To make a long story short. Jordan was never okay again.”

I find myself going quiet after the mention of Jordan. I haven’t talked to her in years. I wanted to interview her for the book, but she turned me down.

“I understand why you want to write it, but I just can’t,” she’d said.

“People tell you to get over it when someone dies after awhile,” I say. “After it’s no longer fresh, they expect you to get back to who you were before the loss. I think what happened to her mother was next level. It wasn’t just death. It was murder in its coldest sense. For the pleasure of someone else. How do you get past that if you’re the one that’s left behind?” I ask, making eye contact with Parker.

“You don’t,” Parker says simply. “Of all the people I’ve worked with, I don’t think any of them are the person they were before something like that happened. I don’t think you ever get over it.”

“I don’t either. And Jordan definitely didn’t. She dropped out of school in tenth grade. She was skipping school and hanging out with some of the kids that were known to do harder drugs than just weed. She got it together in the last few years, but mostly because she had a kid,” I say. “But there’s no light in her eyes anymore,” I add, and then grow quiet.

“When something like that happens, it’s the starkest reminder that the things that keep us safe in society are rules and laws that we’ve collectively agreed upon, for the most part. For most of us, that’s enough to keep us in line. A sense of right and wrong and societal pressure.

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