Red Rum: A Rosie Casket Mystery R.M. Wild (inspirational books .txt) 📖

on the street. I was convinced that being an entrepreneur was the only option for me. If it meant I had to start over ten times before finding success, then so be it. I would do it.

Full of renewed resolved, I went into my virtual settings and hovered my thumb over the button to delete the page. But then a new posting popped up in the comments.

“Oh no, please no.”

23

I thumbed the new link. A black and white video played. It was security footage, the angle over our shoulders from the back of the visitation room. On the screen, Mettle and I were trading banter about hidden appendages.

Then Dimitri walked up to the glass.

I pressed stop. As much as I hated him, I couldn’t bear to watch him die again.

Instantly, the comments piled up below the video.

This dude’s the burning monk!

Hi-ho Saigon!

Total witch powers!

Look at that Cossack Dance!

Burn her at the steakhouse! Medium rare!

I’ve seen that big dude before. I think he pulled me over once!

In the comment stream, someone posted another link. This was total doomscrolling. I winced and clicked. It led to another video, this one of an earlier visitation with Phyllis Martin.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I whispered.

I killed the screen and called Matt Mettle.

He answered, breathless. “Yeah, what is it, Casket?”

“We’ve got a big problem. The security footage from this afternoon is already on Facebook. Somebody leaked it. There’s more footage too, even one of the other times I went to see Phyllis.”

He was quiet for an entire minute.

“You there?”

“Yes. How is that possible?”

“I have no idea, but the comments are talking about both of us now. Someone already said he recognized you. It’s only a matter of time before your name is associated with this thing, all over the Internet.”

Mettle said nothing. Then he yelped and I heard running water.

“What’s going on?”

“I’m here. Nothing. Everything’s fine.”

“Are you listening to me? You can get fired for this, Matt. The state won’t tolerate this kind of bad publicity. Trust me. This video will follow you around for the rest of your career—if you even have a career after this.”

On his end, the water kept running.

“Are you still there?”

“Yes, ouch! I’m here,” Mettle said. He grunted as if trying to endure some kind of pain and breathed through his teeth. “I’m thinking.”

“I thought I heard wood burning.”

“Very funny.”

“What do we do?”

“I’m coming over,” he said. “We need to go see the warden.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now. We need to find out who’s leaking these tapes.”

About half an hour later, Mettle’s cruiser crunched into my driveway. Night had fallen and the sky was moonless, the cruiser a dark shape against the spindly trees. The light was on inside the car and Mettle was fiddling with something in the glove compartment.

I grabbed a sweater off the banister and went outside and climbed into the passenger seat. Mettle was wearing a leather jacket, but one of his sleeves was rolled up and there was a large piece of gauze taped to his forearm. At the edges of the gauze, the skin was bright red.

“Are you okay? What happened?”

“I spilled your tea,” he said. He turned off the light and handed me a tall carton. “Your favorite. Rooibos. It might be a long night.”

“Thank you,” I said and sank into the seat. “You know where the warden lives?”

Mettle took a sip from what looked like a milkshake lumpy with protein powder and then he twisted in his seat and reversed from the driveway. “The warden’s a public official. His address is public information.”

“I really hope this gets us somewhere or we’re totally anathema.”

He pulled onto the road. “What does that mean?”

“It basically means we’re screwed.”

Mettle flipped a switch below the dashboard, stepped on the gas, and passed a slow-moving delivery truck. Our flashing lights painted the truck red and blue.

“What’s with you and big words, Casket?”

“The size of the word has nothing to do with it.”

“I’m being serious right now. If you think we’re screwed, why didn’t you just say we’re screwed? Not that anatha-thingie. Nobody can understand you when you talk like that.”

“Because I didn’t mean screwed. I meant anathema. And just because you don’t understand me, doesn’t mean that other people can’t.”

“Don’t dance around what you mean. That’s all I’m saying. Don’t dance around.”

“I’m not dancing around anything, twinkle toes. I said it basically means we’re screwed, which it does, but it also means we’re cursed, that we’ve become abhorrent. It’s a double meaning. Both of our reputations are on the line here.”

“I get it. Like double, double, foil and bubble.”

“It’s nothing like that.”

“When you go around using big words all the time, folks start to think that you think that you’re better than they are. It’s no wonder they’re afraid of you, Casket. They don’t understand half the things you say.”

“Or, perhaps, we shouldn’t be afraid to learn from people who know what they’re talking about,” I said, growing hot in the ears. Indeed, I could never understand why folks wanted to vote for leaders who were just like them. The last thing I wanted was a leader who was just like me. Likewise, I never wanted a teacher whom I could relate to. I wanted my teachers and my leaders to be experts, way more knowledgeable than I was. But apparently, I was in the minority.

Mettle tapped all his fingers on the steering wheel at once. “So you basically think you’re smarter than me? Is that what you’re saying?”

“I never said that. Don’t put your personal hang-ups on me.”

“Well, maybe I’ve got a little something up my sleeve too, little miss smarty-skirt.”

“Like what? That bandage?”

We pulled onto the highway, the night black and empty ahead of our high beams. Mettle kept the light bar on, no siren, and the red and blue lights turned the cornstalks into a rave party in the neighboring field.

“The prison is conducting an internal investigation, right?”

“The warden hinted at that, yes.”

“So that means that because the second video has leaked,