I still had no idea why she would live out in the middle of nowhere in a dump. The only thing out of place here was her. All night long she had only done one odd thing and I might have missed it if her son hadn’t pointed it out. And on top of that, Violet really didn’t seem crazy to me.

I had taken every opportunity I had to look around. As far as I could tell, there wasn't anything suspicious in the entire house. Just wrenches and screwdrivers of various sizes. There wasn’t anything suspicious in it at all. I zipped the backpack closed and then wiped my hands off on the front of my jeans. And I certainly hadn’t expected to love it so much. I knew she was sick, but I still expected the whole night to be flirtatious. One with the same hair color and eye color as his beautiful mother. I thought Violet had been bluffing when she said she didn’t live alone. After spending a whole night with her though? I wasn’t sure what I wanted anymore. I wanted to solve the case and keep my job or get a promotion if I was lucky. Before tonight, I had wanted her to be guilty. She’d be lucky if it lasted through the winter.īut what if they were in a backpack for a different reason? It would be easier to tramp through the woods with the weight distributed between two shoulders instead of one. Her furnace looked like it had been patched by someone who knew nothing about them. What did it really matter? Tool cases were easy enough to carry around.

But the whole time I had been fixing the furnace, I had tried to ignore the fact that her tools were in a backpack. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was looking for. Before I zipped it closed, I rummaged through the assortment. I wiped my hands off on the front of my jeans and then placed the wrench back into Violet’s backpack full of random tools.

Lucky Girl by Violet Ivy