Loren Chapman.

It was the very early evening when Loren Chapman arrived with her daughter Victoria out at Spencer’s farmhouse. Spencer had collected Amy from school after leaving Jessica Wolfe’s house and then returned home to start getting things prepared for tonight. About half an hour before Loren was due to arrive; Spencer had put their dinner in the oven, the apricot chicken he’d prepared previously so that it would be ready about an hour after Loren and her daughter had arrived. Meeting his guests at the front door, Spencer had called Amy so that she could be introduced to Victoria Chapman. Victoria wouldn’t be starting at Carter Junior H.S. until the following year afterwards. Her two older siblings would have both left Carter by then so it would be nice for Victoria to already be acquainted with another student.

Spencer told the two girls to head off and get to know each other better before saying that he would call them for dinner later. Amy led Victoria away towards her side of the dwelling’s lower floor. Spencer led Loren to the kitchen area where he’d prepared some space on the dining table for them to go over the PTA’s administration work. Loren placed an exceedingly large number of files and folders on the table. Spencer’s eyes widened at just how much stuff Loren had brought for them to go over. They would be at it all night.

Rather than diving right in, Spencer first offered Loren a drink to see if she was thirsty before then seeing if she would like a look around the house. With a glass of wine in hand, Spencer gave Ms Chapman the full guided tour that he was becoming quite proficient at with the number of people he’d shown around his renovation lately. As he’d come to expect and still hoped for, Loren was immensely impressed with the work Spencer had put into redoing the place. She made mention of his cleanliness which was something she especially liked as she dealt with it daily in her job as a house cleaner which made Spencer feel happy. Kirsten would never have wanted him to turn into a slob after her passing. All around Loren complimented his attention to detail and told Spencer that the same skill would be needed to be a successful PTA President.

It was an elegant segway to the real reason Loren was there. Their tour timed nicely to conclude just as they were re-entering the kitchen. Dinner was someway off still when they made a start on the transference of office. As the great stack of papers had foretold, the process was a lengthy one. Spencer’s first impression of the job was that it first looked like it would be taking up way too much of his time. The length and breadth of the work Loren was doing as PTA President was outstanding. She appeared to be taking on almost any sort of job herself. Spencer didn’t mention it but he first thought her to be a micromanager of the highest order. He could think of a dozen different tasks she, and now he, could delegate that would cut the workload dramatically.

As the night wore on and dinner had passed, Spencer slowly but surely began to form a differing opinion of Loren Chapman than he had at first. It was probably the only occasion he’d spend any significant amount of time with her and he was noticing things he never would have otherwise. Physically Loren was an attractive woman. In her late thirties with long straight brown hair, she carried her years well even with the added stressors of a trio of children and a hard and physical job. She was fit but not in a cardio-bunny/gym-goers way but in an honest hard-working sense. The other thing Spencer was guessing which could explain all the effort and time she’d put into the PTA was that Loren might be a somewhat lonely person and this was her way of filling it. He had no idea when her husband had left her or how long she’d been single but Spencer had a hunch it might have co-incidence around the same time she’d thrown herself body and soul into the school parents association.

In any case, it wasn’t as unpleasant a task as Spencer had been expecting and he enjoyed Loren’s company for the evening. It was still quite late by the time they’d finished. Well past 11 pm. A small, primal desire-driven part of Spencer, that hadn’t been there a few weeks ago, wondered at the possibility of offering for Loren and her daughter to stay the night. It would give Spencer the chance to help “drive away the loneliness” he’d been presuming in Loren and soothe the beast inside him awoken by female company. Instead, Spencer mentally laughed to himself at his ridiculous teenage hormones taking over once again and wished Loren and Victoria a good night with a generous portion of left-over dinner in a takeaway container. Spencer and Amy had a great deal of spare plastic containers from all the nights he couldn’t quite bring himself to start cooking.

Friday was another quiet day for Spencer or so he thought. He dropped Amy off at school and made sure to catch Darcie Collins before she left. After his evening with Loren, there were several things he wanted to start going over with his Vice-President. Spencer checked and made sure that Darcie would be in Cherryville to see their girls’ play on Saturday. Spencer would catch up with her at the game.

At home, Spence made sure Amy’s uniform was pressed and clean for her first game. It was an old hand-me-down uniform the school had given her to wear. The material faded and looked worn but at least it would fit.

With no real plans for the day, Spencer decided that he would set out on a trail hike. He thought of taking the canoe out but something in him just wanted to see the view from the top of the hills far above his property. It felt like ages since he had summited the peaks above him. A full day with no other distraction until he had to pick up his daughter again would give him plenty of time to hike the approximately 12-mile round trip. Spencer first made sure he had two full containers of water for his backpack and a healthy amount of trail mix for the walk seeing as he would skip lunch as a result.

Going up is always much harder than coming down Spencer thought when he was roughly two-thirds of the way to the top and three and a half hours in. He’d finished his first water bottle much sooner than he’d expected but knew there was a watercourse not much further ahead where he’d be able to refill. A tall waterfall had worn out the ground around it and formed a natural pool that was two metres deep in some places. This time of year, the water falling from above would be less but it was sure to be icy cold with winter approaching. The approach to the waterfall was blocked by thick timber trees. The clearing nestled in a cutback formed by an offshoot of the main peak so that you couldn’t see down into the Avonwick town and valley from that vantage point.

Puffing from his trek so far, Spencer was distracted by the cold white clouds forming from the water vapour in his breath. So much so that when the trees began to open up and he would be able to look ahead to the pool he didn’t notice at first the person mostly hidden under the fall of water from above them. It was as he was still forty or so feet back from the water's edge that his eyes were drawn to the figure stepping away from the flowing torrent. The fact the person seemed naked helped his eyes to catch what he should have been aware of sooner.

Spencer gasped and then cursed himself for making a sound as he tried to hide behind a tree so he wouldn't be caught spying on the naked person. He waited for a thirty count before cautiously peeking out from around the tree’s trunk to look again. The figure had left the waterfall now and was shoulder-deep in the water. Female, they had long straight black hair slicked to their skull from bathing. It was only when they started to turn towards Spencer’s location that he recognised the face as Evelyn Malone just as he slunk back into cover.

Spencer hadn’t been entirely silent this time as he heard Evelyn call out, “is somebody there?”

Spencer didn’t move a muscle. He began to workshop ideas in his mind of how to sneak back away and down the mountain unseen, abandoning his pursuit of the summit.

Evelyn called out a second time a minute later after Spencer hadn’t answered or begun to move.

“I’ve got a gun,” Evelyn declared, confirming the truth with an audible click of a firing hammer.