Presented by SHANNON MUIR’S INFINITE HOUSE OF BOOKS
Presented by SHANNON MUIR’S INFINITE HOUSE OF BOOKS
SPONTANEOUS CHOICES SHORTS features short serialized fiction by author Shannon Muir, that may be later released as part of e-book or print collections. In 2019, these serials will appear every second and fourth Thursday (and fifth Thursdays as they occur) beginning January 17, 2019. The story line featured over the next sixteen days is “A Spontaneous Kind of Mystery,” featuring the return of Marnie and Zane. This is part 12 of 16.
Marnie didn’t know what else to say. She couldn’t reassure her friend Sophia, or give any concrete proof that their suspicious about Colby were correct.
“I’m going to reach out to Holly and be sure she’s fine!”
Sophia hung up on Marnie before she even had the chance to say anything more. Meanwhile, Marnie turned her thoughts back to her own research. It would definitely be a long night, with little sleep for any of them. Marnie decided to put her energy into finding out who Colby’s mother might be, to see if the Colby they dealt with was indeed the same one Tessa thought he might be.
The next piece of information she needed would be Colby’s last name.
Marnie sat down at her computer and tried to figure out how to search. Colby might be a local college student working at the bookstore; she did know there was a community college near that area of town. Since Fall already came and went, maybe he’d done something of merit to be mentioned in the school paper there.
Marnie went to the community college website, found the news section, and from there located the community college’s student paper. In the search box she typed one word: COLBY.
She knew it to be a long shot, but at this point she didn’t know what else to do.
Marnie tapped the magnifying glass icon to begin the search and waited.
The search returned a Student Staff profile.
COLBY CRALLE
It listed both the current school year and the prior school year as his terms on staff.
More importantly, it also had a picture of the same young man they’d seen buying coffee.
Marnie read the paragraph about Colby aloud.
“Colby joined the school paper staff while still a senior in high school in Aubryville, doing a series of special reports on being a bridge student on our campus. Now a freshman at the college, Colby works as a Staff Writer on Arts and Culture stories.”
Marnie immediately recognized the name of the town where Colby went to high school as being not far away from the city. Just days earlier, they’d met Blake there while trying to learn more about the Royales. The connection didn’t surprise her.
Now, Marnie realized the time to be getting late in the evening. Zane told her to contact if there was anything more, but it seemed a bit late. All she had was a cell phone number.
She decided to text him, even though she wasn’t sure if it was a personal or work phone or not. Marnie decided to keep it pretty vague, just in case.
So she sent a text that simply read:
THE LAST NAME YOU ASKED ABOUT IS CRALLE.
With that, Marnie decided to go to bed. There wasn’t much more she could do tonight.