Factory Girls: Culver Creek Series, #2

By Alissa Grosso

Dead Women, Shady Employers, Dark Conspiracies. Chaz is struggling to make it as a freelance journalist while her boyfriend toils away as the assistant to a washed up comic book creator. He isn't happy when Chaz goes undercover as a factory employee in the small town of Culver Creek to investigate the deaths of four former workers. Now a fifth woman has been killed, and thanks to his boss Parker knows her.

 

But Detective Sage Dorian can't find anyone in Culver Creek who knows the murdered woman. As he investigates the crime he finds disturbing connections to his own sister's murder.

 

Parker fears his life is turning into a comic book as his girlfriend's search for the truth puts her life in jeopardy. Will Sage track down the murderer before they can strike again? Find out in the second book in the Culver Creek Series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Glitter Pigeon Press
• Release date: Feb 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393901228

Alissa Grosso

A former children's librarian and newspaper editor, Alissa Grosso is the author of the young adult novels Popular and Ferocity Summer. She is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and currently works as a sales consultant for a book distributor. Grosso grew up in New Jersey, where she graduated from Lenape Valley Regional High School, and earned a bachelor's degree in English from Rutgers University. She now lives in the Philadelphia area.

Book preview

1

Sage Dorian blinked the sleep out of his eyes. He had spent half the night on coyote duty thanks to the pack of wild animals busy wreaking havoc in the small town of Culver Creek.

The county animal control officer only worked days, which was no help when it came to nocturnal animals. So Culver Creek’s police force had been taking turns on the nightly coyote patrols. It sucked, but even so, it was better than the vandalism cases and occasional break-ins Sage spent most of his time dealing with as the only detective on the force. Perhaps it was time to move on, go somewhere his talents could be put to better use.

He had been hoping to spend his morning off searching through the state agency employment board. He had also been hoping to get more than three hours of sleep, but his buzzing phone had other ideas. Sage took the call, his voice still scratchy and groggy with sleep. A few seconds later, sleep was only a distant memory, as Sage, now wide awake, rushed around his apartment to get himself dressed and more or less presentable.

The red-and-blue police cruiser flashers cut through the dim morning light. Sage followed them to the scene of the accident. The car was pulled off the road at an angle, one rear tire hanging over a ditch. The passenger side door hung open. The driver side window was shattered and streaked with blood.

Rod was the first officer on the scene. He stood a few feet away from the disabled vehicle and gave Sage a polite nod as he approached. The medical examiner hadn’t arrived yet.

Sage noted the chill in Rod’s greeting. Rod had never been especially fond of Sage. And now everyone at the station held him personally responsible for Steve Arlo’s dismissal.

Got a call from a bread delivery van driver about a possible car accident, Rod said. When I took a look inside, I figured you should come take a look.

The door? Sage asked.

Was like that, Rod said.

Sage stepped over to the passenger side and peered in. He caught a glimpse of a silver wolf-shaped pendant resting on a blood-spattered pink T-shirt on the woman slumped behind the wheel of the car. As his eyes traveled upward to the victim’s face, he had a moment to register the fact that what he was looking at was no car accident before the world was yanked out from beneath his feet.

It was a scene he had pictured in his head a hundred times, a thousand times. Everything was pretty much the way he had seen it in his mind—the car pulled off the road, the passenger door mysteriously flung open. Melodie’s body was found outside the car, a few feet from where she had parked it, but now he was looking at her slumped body in the driver’s seat. It couldn’t be true. He knew it couldn’t be true.

A ringing noise filled his head. It felt like his whole body was vibrating with the ringing. His breathing had grown quick and shallow, and though the morning was cool, he felt impossibly hot. It was a dream. That was the only explanation. It had to be a dream. He rested a hand on the hood of the car to steady himself, even as he was mindful about disturbing a crime scene, but it couldn’t be a real crime scene because this was all a dream. He blinked in an attempt to force himself to wake up.

Sage? The voice seemed to be coming from a million miles away. Sage kept blinking, but the dream car refused to vanish. Sage! Get it together, man.

Then a hand roughly grasped his arm and gave him an urgent shake. It returned him to reality. He took in the unmistakably real world around him: the dew-soaked grass, Rod with a look of concern on his face, the battered old car with the mismatched fender panel, and inside it the woman with the bullet hole in her head. The woman was very clearly not Melodie. He could see this now. It explained why her body was inside the car and not on the ground outside. The woman was also very clearly a homicide victim, and that coupled with the other eerie similarities—the early morning hour, the car pulled off the road, even the flung-open passenger door—made him feel dizzy.

What if—it was a long shot, but he couldn’t stop his mind from going there—what if what he was looking at was the work of a serial killer? What if whoever had killed this woman was the same person who murdered his sister Melodie? They were in the wrong town, of course, more than forty miles from Pleasant Oaks, but so what? Maybe fate had brought him this case so that he could do what no one had managed to do so far, bring his sister’s killer to justice. How many times had he begged his dead sister to send him some sort of sign? Maybe she finally had.

Hey, you okay, man? Rod asked.

Sage remembered his colleague standing beside him and nodded absently. The concern in Rod’s voice surprised him.

It hits you like a ton of bricks, doesn’t it? Rod asked.

Unlike Rod, Sage had worked a city beat before coming out here to the sticks, and he had seen his share of homicides, but he didn’t know how to explain that it wasn’t so much that there was a woman sitting there with a bullet in her head, but that the woman in one crazy moment had reminded him so much of his dead sister.

The ugly, cold callousness of his thoughts hit him like that ton of bricks Rod had mentioned. Because once he had realized this woman wasn’t Melodie, he was relieved, and that was all kinds of wrong. This woman, whoever she was, had up until a short while ago been a living, breathing person with hopes and dreams and aspirations. Somewhere out there were family and friends who were going to be devastated when they found out the news. Nothing in their lives would ever be the same again, and for that reason Sage had to find the sick monster who had so casually destroyed so many lives.

What’s her name? Sage asked.

I don’t know. Rod looked surprised by the question.

Sage repeated it with more urgency. What’s her name?

Then Sage snapped on a glove and opened the car’s glove compartment. He riffled through the jumbled contents, then slid out something promising, a plastic ID card. Sage held the driver’s license up in the slowly brightening morning light. Sidney West, twenty-four years old.

Rod squinted at the card.

Can I see that? he asked. Sage handed it to him. After examining it, Rod handed it back. It’s fake.

What? Sage said.

The hologram’s all wrong, Rod said. I’ve done my share of traffic stops. I saw it right away.

Sage looked from the driver’s license to the dead woman in the car. Did she share one more similarity with Melodie? Was she just a kid, too?

He vowed to find whoever did this to her. He wouldn’t let her down like he had let Melodie down.

2

So what was it again? the editor asked. He looked down at his phone’s screen instead of at her as he spoke. Theo Wright, editor of Zzhy, the slick, long form journalism magazine with the unpronounceable name that was presently The Hot Thing, wore a T-shirt and sandals. Chaz felt overdressed in her skirt and heels.

Murder, Chaz said.

Hmm? Theo asked, still transfixed by his phone.

She realized this was it. This was the time to make her pitch. It caught her off guard. This wasn’t quite the way she had pictured it going.

Murder, she repeated. Four young women die under mysterious circumstances.

Didn’t it have something to do with some factory? Theo asked, glancing up from his phone for a second before the display reclaimed his attention.

Yes, the Everluster Paint Factory, Chaz said. That’s where they all worked.

Belatedly she remembered the proposal she had printed up. She retrieved the manila folder from her bag and handed Theo his own stapled copy, while keeping one for herself, the one where the color toner had run out at the end so that the last few pages were decidedly muted. She had spent hours putting together the proposal and creating stylish infographics to accompany all the pertinent details. It had been a more confident version of herself who had stapled the pages together last night and tucked them into this folder.

She tried her best to channel that energy. It didn’t matter that this meeting hadn’t started off the way she expected it to. She tried to forget about the disastrous morning—the signaling problem that had delayed the subway train, the two wrong turns she had made on her walk from the subway station, the blister now forming on her left heel. She tried to tell herself that none of that mattered now.

Theo finally abandoned his phone and began to thumb through her proposal. He paused on a page, examining the headshot photo that had appeared beside Georgina’s obituary.

Georgina Payne, Theo read.

Georgina Payne. Chaz recalled the first time she had seen the woman’s face, had read that name, on a wrinkled black-and-white newspaper page on her living room floor. Their living room, she reminded herself. The departure of Chaz’s roommate had seemed like a sure sign that it was time for she and Parker to take the next step in their relationship: cohabitation.

Two months ago, he had arrived with two duffel bags’ worth of clothes and fourteen liquor boxes’ worth of books and collectibles—an astounding number of collectibles for her tiny Brooklyn apartment. The newspaper had been protecting some ceramic wolf sculpture thing that was more fragile than the assortment of Funko Pops and action figures that lurked in his boxes of collectibles.

Chaz picked it up to toss it in with the recycling, when Georgina’s smiling face caught her attention, and she stopped to read through the page of obituaries. Georgina had been just twenty-six at the time of her death. The obituary was short. She worked at the Everluster Paint Factory, and her death was unexpected. The page was from something called the Culver Creek Courier.

Where did you get this? Chaz asked, waving the newspaper page at her boyfriend. He looked up from where he was busy trying to wedge his treasures onto an already crowded bookshelf.

The newspaper? Parker asked. I raided Hal’s recycling bin. He’s the only person I know who still reads newspapers.

Hal was Parker’s boss, but what would the New York City-based comic creator be doing reading something called the Culver Creek Courier? Maybe it was where he was from originally, and for the first time Chaz felt an unexpected kinship with Hal Williamson. Maybe, like her, he was a small-town Pennsylvania kid who came out to the big city to make it in the world.

When Chaz awoke in the middle of the night after a sleeping Parker kicked her shin and stole all the covers, she wandered out to the kitchen in search of a snack and instead found the now neatly folded newspaper page where she had left it on the kitchen counter.

It was Google that led Chaz to the news story about Georgina’s death. She was found at the base of a cliff in Gray Eddy State Park. Coyotes found her before the authorities did. Police ruled her death an accident.

The grisly story piqued Chaz’s interest. She tried a series of search strings in the hopes of uncovering something else. Everluster+Factory+Died was the one that did the trick. That was how she had assembled the dossier Theo Wright now held in his hands.

Fate had sent Georgina Payne to her. She was meant to write this story. How else to explain meeting Theo at a party she’d never intended to go to? Everything had come together too perfectly for it to be mere chance. This conviction fed her confidence, and suddenly she remembered the pitch she had rehearsed the day before.

The words flowed, and her voice was assured and strong as she explained to Theo who these women were.

Georgina Payne was an avid hiker. Anna Martinez was going to school at night to get her nursing degree. Tamara Brewster was engaged and planning her wedding. Isla Samms had an online Etsy store selling embroidered handbags. Each one of them was a vibrant young woman with hopes and aspirations, and each of them saw their lives end tragically and suddenly under suspicious circumstances. The only connection between these four women? They all worked at the Everluster Paint Factory in Culver Creek, Pennsylvania.

Theo frowned as he studied her proposal.

The police in Culver Creek must really have their heads up their asses, Theo said. They don’t even have a suspect?

Well, technically none of the women lived in Culver Creek, Chaz explained. They worked there, but they were killed at home or elsewhere. Georgina died in a state park where she often went hiking.

Theo flipped back through the pages of the proposal until he was looking at the one with Georgina’s photo on it.

It says here her death was ruled accidental, he said.

Yes, Chaz said, her confidence abandoning her again, but it was suspicious. She was an experienced hiker, and she knew the park’s trails well, as she hiked there often. It doesn’t make sense that she would have fallen off that cliff.

But the other deaths were ruled to be homicides? Theo asked.

There were a lot of suspicious facts about each of the deaths. Chaz looked down at her own copy of the proposal, searching for the magic string of text there that would convince him of what she already knew.

So none of them were actually found to have been murdered? Theo asked.

When you examine the sum total of the facts, Chaz said. That they were all women in their twenties—

It says here that Isla was thirty-two, Theo said.

Twenties to early thirties. Chaz flipped to the page where Isla’s face was. The woman with Asian features certainly looked younger than her thirty-two years. Chaz was about to bring this up, but Theo cut her off.

Hang on a second, Theo said. There’s more than three years between when the first one died and the last one did. I kind of got the impression they all died one right after another.

Three years isn’t really that long, Chaz said. Three years ago, she had been lucky enough to have a full-time salaried gig at a magazine and no credit card debt. It seemed like a lifetime ago. They all worked at the paint factory, she added, a note of desperation in her voice.

Yeah, but that’s the thing with these small towns, Theo said. I mean, there aren’t a whole lot of jobs out there, so everyone’s worked at the same places. Probably half the people who live in this Clover Creek have worked at the paint factory.

Was this city-slicker hipster now explaining small towns to her? Chaz fought back the outburst that wanted to come out.

Four young women who all worked at the same place, all dead under mysterious circumstances, Chaz reiterated. I think what we’re looking at is the work of a serial killer.

Look, they didn’t even die in the same way, Theo said. Isn’t that the thing with serial killers? The murders have to fit a pattern.

Maybe the pattern is he made it look like they weren’t murdered.

Yeah, maybe, Theo said, but he sounded far from convinced. He closed the folder and set his interlaced hands on top of it. Look, it’s possible your theories are right, but I think I’m going to have to pass on this.

But— Chaz said, stopping when Theo held up a hand to silence her protest.

Look, a story like this, it’s too much speculation, Theo said. We’d be opening ourselves up to all kinds of litigation. And don’t forget, these are real people who have died. Real families who are grieving. Who are we to start sticking our noses into their business and spouting off wild theories?

But she hadn’t for a second forgotten these were real women. It was why she needed to tell their story.

Chaz favored her right, non-blistered foot as she hurried down the sidewalk and back in the direction of the subway station. How had she screwed that up so completely?

Of course, a part of her wasn’t surprised. She didn’t know what the hell she was doing. She had faked being a real live journalist for so long that she almost convinced herself she was some sort of professional, but the luck that had been keeping her afloat all these years had finally run out.

She couldn’t hack it as a freelancer. That was clear. Subsisting on her semi-regular gig writing for a trade magazine wasn’t an option, since it wasn’t enough to cover her monthly expenses. At least Parker could cover her share of the rent if she was short, but it wasn’t exactly like Parker was bringing in the big bucks working as Hal Williamson’s errand boy. Still, it was more bucks than she was bringing in.

She continued to apply to every job posting she saw and flooded magazine submission email addresses with her queries, but some days it felt like half the people in this city were unemployed journalists. She had been counting on this story. The paycheck probably wouldn’t have been more than enough to get her through a month, but it was the sort of thing that could open up doors. Instead, another door had closed. It was time to swallow her pride and get a waitressing job.

Defeated, she limped down the sidewalk toward a destiny she wanted no part of.

Hey!

The shout was followed by a hand seizing hold of her forearm, and she knew that her horrible day had just taken a turn for the worse.

Three years living in this city and one of the things she had always feared was happening. She was getting mugged. Of course it had to be today.

I don’t have any cash! Chaz shouted as she tried to remember the lessons she learned in that self-defense class she had taken. She spun around, her left arm raised as if to strike, her leg poised to kick.

The man released her arm and took a startled step backward, his hands raised innocently in the air. He was a big bear of a guy with an auburn-colored beard obscuring half of his face, and a plaid shirt stretched over a bulging belly. He didn’t look like a mugger, but what did muggers look like exactly?

I didn’t mean to scare you, he said. I just wanted to talk to you.

I’ve got a boyfriend, she said. She let her arm down.

No, I heard you back there. He waved in the direction she had come from. At Zzhy. That story you were pitching. I was in the other room. The walls are thin.

You work there? she said.

No, I was there for an interview. They’re doing a story on me. On my podcast, actually. Did you want to grab a coffee?

I think you’re onto something with this, Russ said as he flipped through her printed-out proposal. I want to do this story.

The diner they sat in was still mostly empty. The lunch rush had not yet begun. The waitress appeared with their coffees.

You have a magazine? Chaz was still confused about what exactly Russ did. They had been here long enough to order and long enough for him to tell her all about the interview he had just given and share a vaguely amusing anecdote about his cat.

Oh, it’s a podcast, Russ said, but there’s a website, and I haven’t ruled out the possibility of doing something in print, too. Murderuss.

Murderous? she repeated as she stirred cream into her coffee.

Right, he said. Get it? It’s murder but with Russ at the end, so Murderuss. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it. It’s the second most listened to true crime podcast in the Northeast.

He shimmied around in his seat as he fished something out of the pocket in his too-tight skinny jeans and slid a slightly warped business card across the table to her. It read: MURDERUSS in big black letters and the second most listened to true crime podcast in the Northeast beneath that. At the bottom was Russ’s email address and the website he had mentioned.

Podcast, she said. So it would be an interview?

"Well, actually it’s more like journalism. What you would