[1674] Who Killed Romi Larsen? -Chapter 1

Hiya!

I shared an excerpt of this story a few days ago, but it was the second chapter (which as I'm altering this whole beginning, is slowly becoming the third lol). This however, *is* the first chapter...well the first half of the first chapter. The darn thing is ending up being 3k-ish words long.

I'll give the context again: Romi Larsen is an esteemed thriller novelist, who after the death of her best friend Vinnie, loses all desire to keep writing. She moves to a small town under the guise of writing a new novel based on it, when in reality it's Vinnie's hometown. She has no desire to fall in love or branch out into the town, wanting to keep to herself, but her downstairs neighbour keeps butting in and trying to expand her world and make her want to live again, and slowly she finds herself caving without even noticing.

As ever, I welcome any and all feedback but have a few questions that if you have any specific thoughts on would be great:

1. Does this work as an opening chapter? Do you get a sense of the world, tone, characters etc. Is anything missing?
2. Do you think you get an understanding of who Romi is from this yet? Do you get her goals yet from this?
3. The reason for the move is explained more fully the in second half of this chapter, is that too late? Can we live in the suspense for a bit or is it just plain confusing?)
4. Anything confusing or missing from here?

Excerpt: Who Killed Romi Larsen? chap 1 pt1

Crit: 1676

Thanks in advance!