I paid a visit to Steve and Shelly. "Hey!" I said to Steve. "I'm just checking in on you."
"Thanks," Steve said. "I know this is a stupid question, but how are you feeling?"
"I'm furious. I'm avoiding Facebook because far too many people are glad that trans people are getting murdered. One of those trans people was my fucking brother!" Steve slammed the kitchen table.
"Come here," Shelly said to Steve. Shelly gave Steve a hug, and Steve broke down crying.
"How are your parents coping with this?" I asked. "They must be devastated."
"I'm surprised Dad wasn't happy that Alex is dead," Steve said. "That sack of shit told Alex that he's a sexual predator, solely based on the fact that he's trans!"
"Fuck! Your dad is fucked."
"Yeah. Of course, Dad blames Alex for being murdered."
"If I hadn't known better, I'd say your dad killed Alex." Steve stopped crying and took a deep breath.
"No," Steve said calmly. "Alex was killed in the parking lot where he worked, and he owned a car. So, Dad had no reason to be there. Besides, Alex hadn't spoken to either Mom or Dad since 2018."
"I heard that you and Allison are helping each other out solving murders."
"I tried to convince Steve this is a bad idea," Shelly said. "He won't listen."
"You really need to take time to grieve properly," I said to Steve.
"There is no proper way to grieve," Steve said. "Everything about grieving is unhealthy. Think about it. Do you think it's healthy to be in denial over somebody's death?"
"Allison is convinced that Kate Novack murdered Jason Lawrence. Do you think she's the one who's killing trans people?"
"It's unlikely. Kate identifies as non-binary and goes by they/them pronouns."
"Well, some people think non-binary people are just a subgroup of being transgender," Shelly said. "It isn't exactly uncommon for trans people to cause harm to other trans people due to internalized transphobia."
"But as far as I know, Jason Lawrence wasn't transgender," I said.
"He was the outlier," Steve said. "But we don't have a shred of evidence that Kate Novack is behind this. You know, if you're going to investigate Alex's death and Allison is going to investigate Jason's death, we might as well get together and talk about it. Besides Alex's funeral, the last time we got together was Sarah and Melody's wedding."
"Personally, I think Allison blames herself for Jason's death," Shelly said. "If somebody created a fake Facebook account using Steve's identity and it spread lies about me, I would have jumped to conclusions myself."
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