Murder, Mystery & Mothers by Fran Heap

At three in the morning, with her cursor blinking on an empty page, Tammy Rumbelow stumbled upon an online listing in rural Michigan. For the First time in months, a flicker of hope sparked.

The realtor’s photos of the little blue cottage with its front porch and white picket fence, had set her heart alight. The interior was as enchanting as the exterior, featuring an antique writing desk where inspiration could strike.

On a whim—or perhaps out of desperation—she’d picked up the phone and bought it based on the pictures alone. She had never even visited the state before. Had fate handed her a lifeline, or had she made the biggest mistake of her life?

Now, six weeks later, Tammy’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel; nerves and fanfare clashed in her stomach. This was it—her fresh start. But a familiar undercurrent of doubt threatened to bubble to the surface. She turned off the highway. The country roads, flanked by dense forests of oak, maple, and pine, marked the last stretch of her six-day drive from Los Angeles to Willowcroft.

She rolled down the window. The crisp breeze tousled long, wavy strands of brown hair over her face. Tammy inhaled, savoring the clean air. It reminded her of childhood summers—when life was untangled.

As the miles stretched behind her, the hum of the tires a constant companion, fragments of her former life in LA surfaced. Tammy’s chest constricted at the memory of her best manuscript—a boundary-pushing idea. But she’d never seen it in print, at least not under her name. Instead, her rushed, uninspired replacement made it to the shelves, the one cobbled together in the aftermath, her creativity fractured and trust shattered.

The book reviews rang in her head. “No emotional depth.” “Lacked soul.” Tammy winc ed, acknowledging their bitter truth. But the one that stung the deepest: “She’s not just over forty, she’s over, full stop.” They don’t know the real story behind those pages.

“You can never do anything right,” her mother’s sneer boomed, reopening old wounds. It had taken years to quiet the nagging doubts from her childhood, but the betrayal let those words flood back stronger than ever. The steering wheel grew slick under her clammy palms.

A road sign came into view, providing a diversion. “Welcome to Willowcroft. Township Population 999. Greater Willowcroft Population 5,124.”

Will I tip the scales to an even thousand? Any distraction helped. Was two thousand miles far enough away to break free?