The Inquirer Read online

  Copyright © Jaclyn Dawn 2019

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication—reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise) or stored in a retrieval system—without the prior consent of the publisher is an infringement of copyright law. In the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying of the material, a licence must be obtained from Access Copyright before proceeding.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Title: The inquirer / Jaclyn Dawn.

  Names: Dawn, Jaclyn, 1984- author.

  Series: Nunatak first fiction series ; no. 51.

  Description: Series statement: Nunatak first fiction series ; 51

  Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190072210 |

  Canadiana (ebook) 20190072253 |

  ISBN 9781988732671 (softcover) |

  ISBN 9781988732688 (EPUB) |

  ISBN 9781988732695 (Kindle) |

  Classification: LCC PS8607.A95985 I57 2019 | DDC C813/.6—dc23

  Editor for the Press: Leslie Vermeer

  Cover and interior design: Kate Hargreaves

  Back cover photo by Ethan Haddox via Unsplash

  Author photo: Michelle Wurban, One Shot Photography

  NeWest Press acknowledges the Canada Council for the Arts, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the Edmonton Arts Council for support of our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

  NeWest Press wishes to acknowledge that the land on which we operate is Treaty 6 territory and a traditional meeting ground and home for many Indigenous Peoples, including Cree, Saulteaux, Niitsitapi (Blackfoot), Métis, and Nakota Sioux.

  NeWest Press

  #201, 8540-109 Street

  Edmonton, Alberta T6G 1E6

  www.newestpress.com

  No bison were harmed in the making of this book.

  PRINTED AND BOUND IN CANADA

  1 2 3 4 5 21 20 19

  For every woman who has hidden behind a smile

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  PROLOGUE

  KINGSLEY GROCERY WAS OF A DYING BREED IN ALBERTA, found only in small towns. An old building with mismatched shelving, faded linoleum, and chipped paint. It was too warm in the summer and too cold in the winter, which was hell on the perishables. It might be better described as a convenience store than a grocery store. The new Minimart off the highway next to the truck stop was better: newer, bigger, cheaper.

  And yet everyone shopped at Kingsley Grocery at least a couple times a month. Most made excuses. They said they stopped for the convenience. Kingsley Grocery was, after all, sandwiched between the bank and the hardware store in the heart of town. They stopped for the home-baked goods. The owner’s wife, Mrs. Wong, sold her rock-hard cookies and dry squares at the counter. They stopped for the quick checkout, although the three tills at the Minimart could hardly be described as busy. They also said they wanted to support small business owners in the community, even if that meant paying five dollars more for a carton of eggs, a gallon of milk, and a loaf of bread, all of which would spoil a week sooner than the same purchases made at the Minimart. Few admitted the real reason everyone chose Kingsley Grocery.

  The newspaper rack stood at the end of the counter. On the bottom shelf was the Edmonton Journal, the middle the Edmonton Sun, and the top the Kingsley Inquirer. Alongside the papers was a locked box the size of a dinner roast with ‘Kingsley Inquirer: Advertisment, Submision & Payment’ misspelt on the side. Even Mr. Wong claimed not to know who was behind the Inquirer, but Kingsley Grocery was the only store that sold it.

  The Inquirer was the real reason people shopped at Kingsley Grocery.

  CHAPTER 1

  MY NAME IS AMIAH JANE WILLIAMS. AMIAH TO MY FRIENDS in Vancouver, Miss Williams at work, AJ to my redneck cousins, and just plain Miah in Kingsley. That’s where I was headed at the start of this story. Hardly newsworthy, you would think.

  Kingsley, Alberta, population 1431. Home of the Knights, my high school insignia and my parents’ before. The large green road sign in the ditch read Kingsley 27 km, Edmonton 176 km. I was almost home. Two years had passed since I ran away to Vancouver, yet Kingsley was somehow still home.

  Beautiful British Columbia, as that province’s licence plates boasted, and the Rocky Mountains were behind me. Ahead was the largely ironed province of Saskatchewan with fields and sky as far as the eye could see. I was back in central Alberta with hills, curves, trees, and a beauty all its own. In early summer, the fields were as thin as Dad’s hair, but time would turn them gold, purple, and the brightest yellow imaginable. Wheat, alfalfa, and canola. The countryside was dotted with pumpjacks, great iron horses lifting and bowing their heads, slow and steady, pulling oil from the ground. I passed a service rig, which would be replaced by a pumpjack one day, too.

  My driver-side window was rolled down. Sunglasses shielded my eyes from loose strands of shoulder-length, salon-highlighted hair whipping in the wind and me from my eyes in the rear-view mirror. The radio was cranked. Whenever an announcer interrupted the music, I changed the station. Whenever a thought made me anxious, I turned up the volume. The old speakers rattled in protest. I sang along, making up or humming over the words I didn’t know. Country, rock, pop … it didn’t matter. I simply refused to think about where I was going or what could be dredged up by going there.

  Our first real vacation since we went to Disneyland when I was ten was supposed to be two weeks in a rented chateau walking distance from the Radium Hot Springs, courtesy of Mom and Dad. Instead, Dad had broken his leg. I had expected my parents to make an excuse to cancel the trip, but I couldn’t say Dad would go as far as faking surgery. So I had purged my apartment of anything that would rot, reminded my closest friend Nathan to pick up my mail, and drove over twelve hundred kilometres in my rusty ’99 Jeep to spend my vacation in Kingsley. My only stops had been for fuel and the most uncomfortable five-hour sleep of my life. Driving was cheaper than flying, though, and I had time, not money.

  I had an indefinite amount of time, actually. Nobody except Nathan knew I had recently been fired from my waitressing job at Café des Amis, a pretentious bistro in downtown Vancouver. The first plate I had dropped in weeks landed in the lap of a high-maintenance blonde wearing a baby-blue spring dress. Unfortunately, she had ordered a red wine vinaigrette and also happened to be the owner’s niece.

  I told myself that after two years of general studi
es at the University of British Columbia I needed a job in my field anyway. The problem was I was having trouble committing to a major. Before leaving for Kingsley, I had sent out a dozen resumes. For office admin positions that paid well. To be a florist, an event planner, or a grade school tutor, jobs with which I had little or no experience but all sounded fun. And at some restaurants for safe measure. Apparently I needed certification to work for the Happy Camper Preschool. My cell phone remained silent in the cup holder.

  The farm—everyone called their farm “the farm”—wasn’t far from town. Half an hour by bicycle, five minutes by car. With Kingsley in sight, I turned off the highway onto the gravel, catching my red notebook before it slid off the passenger seat.

  Dust billowed into the Jeep. “Shit.”

  I cranked up my window. The town was probably buzzing with complaints about drought. Farmers liked to complain no matter how good the crop or beef prices. Not my dad, though. “Griping’s no rain dance,” he would say. Ray Williams always had a better way to spend his time with fences to mend and animals to tend. He liked to be busy. No wonder Mom was stressed. Dad was couchridden and there was no hockey on TV.

  I switched off the radio as I turned into the long driveway lined with a split rail fence and Swedish aspens. All led to my childhood home, a movie-worthy red ranch house with a wraparound porch. Duke and Earl greeted me first, running and barking playfully alongside my Jeep as I crept closer to the house. Then I spotted Mom sitting on the porch steps as if waiting for me.

  Mom and I were about the same height with the same build and the same oval faces that crinkled when we smiled. There was something Mom had that I didn’t, though, something that drew people to her while I remained invisible. My heartstrings tugged at the sight of her. At twenty-five years old, I needed her more than ever, though I never would have admitted it.

  “Hey, stranger!” Mom said. “We weren’t expecting you until late.”

  The last we had seen each other was Christmas. I hadn’t gone home for Easter break. I had used homework as an excuse, but actually spent the break with some guy named Winston. Purple skinny jeans, two eyebrow rings, barely-lasted-a-month Winston. My parents hadn’t come to visit me either. They had been busy with the tail end of calving and the start of seeding. My parents were as likely to visit Vancouver as Winston was Kingsley. I hadn’t mentioned the farm would survive a few days without them, and Mom hadn’t mentioned she suspected I didn’t want to come home.

  “How’s Dad?”

  “He finally fell asleep. The painkillers make him drowsy and a little loopy.” Mom whirled her finger around her ear. We laughed, our faces crinkling.

  “Let him sleep. I’ll still be here when he wakes up.”

  “Okay. We’ll have coffee. Are you hungry? I can make you something to eat.”

  “I’m okay, Mom. I’m here to help you.”

  CHAPTER 2

  THE RANCH HOUSE HADN’T CHANGED MUCH SINCE I WAS A KID. Inside there was a fresh coat of paint in a slightly different shade of neutral, and the odd knickknack had been added to the homey clutter. I followed Mom to the kitchen. The fridge was a collage of photos, greeting cards, drawings from other people’s grandkids, and postcards of Palm Springs from semi-retired friends who actually took vacations. I sat at the oak kitchen table while Mom busied herself making coffee.

  The bold red masthead of the Kingsley Inquirer stuck out among the bills, flyers, and knitting. I glanced at Mom’s back and then carefully pulled the newspaper free. The Inquirer looked typical of Hollywood, not small-town Alberta. Sensationalized snapshots and headlines in a variety of sizes covered the front page. The main headline read Trula Discovers Roland’s Online Dating Account!

  The large bold letters were printed across a grainy candid shot of Trula, my former babysitter. Her expression implied that the camera had caught the moment of the scandalous discovery. She wasn’t perfectly manicured and posed like in the photo on Mom’s fridge, the photo with smiling husband Roland and their two blond kids.

  “That’s the tabloid I told you about,” Mom said. “It’s just a no-good rag that stirs up trouble.”

  “It’s not that bad,” I said. I laughed. Mom didn’t. “Well, why do you pick it up, then?”

  “I buy it. A toonie in Kingsley! I’d bet the farm that old Jack Whitby didn’t expect this drivel when he retired the Gazette, which, by the way, was free like a community newsletter should be.”

  ‘$2.00’ was printed in the bottom right-hand corner below the Friday release date on the front page.

  “Why buy it, then?” I corrected myself.

  “Because.”

  “Because” was Mom’s cop-out response. I decided she was simply as nosy as everyone else who bought the Inquirer. I looked at the cover again. On the right were close-ups of three women in tight shirts with their faces blurred beyond recognition. The headline read Real or Fake? Yummy Mummy Surgeries Revealed.

  Who wouldn’t be curious who in town had paid for breast implants? I thought if these women didn’t want the attention, they wouldn’t have gotten implants. Mom set a cup of coffee in front of me and sat down with a sigh.

  “Thanks,” I said, pushing the paper aside.

  “Page six.”

  Apparently, we weren’t done. I pulled the paper back and turned to page six.

  WONG IS WRONG!

  Paying customer of Kingsley Grocery Ray Williams will undergo life-threatening surgery after a catastrophic fall that may lead to an ugly lawsuit.

  ‘He would have the right mind to sue,’ a close family friend tells the Inquirer.

  On Wednesday, June 3rd, Ray careened down the front steps at Kingsley Grocery while carrying a case of bottled water and a bag of apples. His wife Judith was frantic at the scene. So much so, the paramedics took her in the ambulance too!

  Ray tried to catch himself, but there was no railing. A local building inspector confirms that store owner Juan Wong, who called the ambulance and gathered the runaway apples, is violating codes and endangering the public.

  Suffering a compound fracture to his right leg, Ray could be confined to a wheelchair for up to eight weeks! Sources reveal the ambulance bill alone was $720 and prescription bills are mounting!

  Our insider added: ‘On the verge of retirement, the Williamses will need all the help they can get.’

  “No one said anything about suing,” Mom said once I was finished reading the article. “We’ve been too busy to even think about such things. And I acted perfectly fine considering my husband was moaning like a heifer calving, lying on the sidewalk with his leg bent in unnatural ways.”

  I had to stop myself from laughing. The way she put it would have been perfect for the Inquirer.

  “So, who is going to help with the fields?” I asked.

  “Travis has an extra hand,” she said, waving off the subject. Travis was the neighbouring cattle farmer, the son of the former neighbouring cattle farmer. “He’s coming over to talk to your dad this afternoon.”

  On my third trip to my Jeep, I heard the rumble of exhaust and saw a cloud of dust chasing a pickup truck toward the house. Travis, I assumed. I lifted the hatchback and reached for my big suitcase, forgetting how heavy it was. Using the same ratty luggage, I had left Kingsley with less than I had brought back for this vacation. The suitcase crashed to the ground, jerking my arm. A truck door slammed behind me, confirming I had a witness. I smiled at myself, about to make a joke of it before Travis could. He had always had a great sense of humour.

  “Need a hand with that?”

  I froze. It wasn’t Travis. Travis’s extra hand was his younger brother, Mike. I turned around slowly. Mike was wearing a white t-shirt, blue jeans, and a ball cap. He leaned against his nineteen-eighty-something single cab Ford pickup with a self-assured smirk on his face. Dammit, he looked like a model posing for a Coca-Cola advertisement. And, dammit, I noticed. I also noticed that after two days of driving, I wasn’t looking so good myself. I glanced down at my UBC t-shirt a
nd yoga pants. There was a yellow stain on my shirt. Mustard? I hadn’t eaten anything with mustard on it.

  A memory so vivid struck me, I could have been seventeen again.

  “Miah Williams! How’s it going?” Mike called, hanging out the driver-side window of his pickup truck. I was standing in front of Kingsley High. Four years older than me, Mike had already graduated, and before this moment, I couldn’t tell if he knew I existed. Not even when I had worn that lime-green string bikini that would’ve made my dad blush to the dugout where all the Kingsley teens went swimming. My name on his lips made my insides flutter. I didn’t wonder why he had nothing better to do on a weekday afternoon, like work. No, I hoped my ponytail was straight. I crossed and uncrossed my arms and tried to make covering the ginormous pimple on my jawline look natural. Mike Hayes had singled me out. It was a dream come true.

  “Hi.” My voice literally squeaked. I was mortified.

  He grinned, well aware of his effect on any girl within a two-town radius. Danika and I had been crushing on him since junior high, and that day of all days she had an orthodontist appointment in the city.

  “Stuck on the grad committee?”

  “No.”

  “Avoided that drama trap, eh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you have a date?”

  “No.” I realized I hadn’t answered with more than one syllable and added, “Not yet. Haven’t really thought about it.” That was a lie. I had been having a recurring nightmare in which my cousin Donny, wearing his dad’s powder-blue suit, hands me a corsage. I had even considered being ‘too sick’ to go, but felt guilty after the three hundred dollars Mom had dropped on my puffy pink princess dress to match Danika’s puffy pink princess dress.

  “A good-looking girl like you? Really?” Mike asked. “Well, how about me? I clean up real nice.”

  I felt like the luckiest girl in Kingsley.

  I could have been seventeen again, except I wasn’t. The familiar pickup truck was now rusted along the wheel wells and hood, no longer a prized possession but a farm truck. Mike was thicker and not as baby smooth. My stomach twisted for different reasons than it had all those years ago.