The Darkness Inside Us (A Detective King Suspense Thriller) (A Detective King Novel Book 3) (12 page)

Now this boy, tossed aside like a used Kleenex. The creature is getting restless, it’s trying to get to Kelly as quickly as possible and no longer cares what it has to do. What did I do to this thing to make it hate me so much? Why is it so desperate to ruin my life? Is it just because I found out what it was? That I picked up the pieces where everyone else saw nothing but random chaos? If that’s the case, why doesn’t it go after Owens or any of the other uniforms that picked up the trail? I shake my head. Whatever this thing wants with me, I know that it’s afraid. It’s worried and it’s scared.

It’s on the run now. It’s on the run and it’s scared of me and that means that it’s going to do whatever it needs to do to get away. But not until after it’s gotten Kelly. It’s scared that I’m going to catch it, which means that it has a weakness to find. I need to get to Kelly. I need to get to her and I need to make sure that she’s safe.

Or, I need to stop this thing once and for all.

XIII

“Babe, you missed a phone call,” Tim says, kissing me on the forehead and waking me up at the same time. He’s sweet, but I hate being wakened. There’s honestly nothing worse than being drawn out of sleep, even if your sexy coworker is the one doing it for you. I blink a few times and look over at my alarm clock. I’m twenty minutes late, but I’m sure that I’m not the only one who is going to be showing up late to this thing. There’s no school today and I doubt that there are a lot of teachers overly excited to get back to that killing field. I feel sick to my stomach just thinking about it. I don’t want to go back to that place. Thankfully, I have Tim here.

I groan and reach over to the nightstand, grabbing my phone and pulling the charger out of it. If I got the phone call, then no doubt Tim got the call as well. Granted, an English teacher is a little more important than an art and sculpture teacher. I wish I was like Tim. I wish for college I’d gone to Florence and Rome to study. I wish that I could have a laid back atmosphere to work in and find myself employed in a discipline that people hardly even talk about anymore, let alone admire. I mean, when was the last time anyone went to a sculpture and felt awe and wonder by looking at it? But so long as he has the body of a god and the personality to reflect it, then I’m more than willing to stick around and listen to him talk about a dead art.

Looking at the phone, I’m not surprised at all to see that it’s Russell who called me. He’s trying to get everyone as early as possible to come to school and sit down to talk about how we’re going to handle all of this. I don’t find Russell nearly as annoying as everyone else, but a call this early is excessive. Why would he think it’s necessary to call us all before six to make sure and remind us to come into work? I don’t even bother listening to the voicemail. I delete it and drop my phone back on the bedside stand.

Lying back down into the warm, welcoming embrace of my bed and the pillows, I enjoy the small amount of comfort and relaxation that I’m offered before going in to face another extremely long day at school. I’m sure the FBI and the police will be there again, telling us that it’s not a neurotoxin or whatever that bat shit crazy detective tried to sell Russell. I believe that it’s a neurotoxin that killed Pamela and those two other kids just about as much as I believe that there’s a Bigfoot or UFOs. Why they called the CDC in for that is beyond me. Tim agreed with me last night while we drank wine and tried to shake off the stigma of a long, painful day. I didn’t know Pamela well and I didn’t like the girl Alice one bit. The boy who killed himself, Carl, I’d never even seen before.

“Babe,” Tim calls from the kitchen to me. He’s making me breakfast just like he does every time he stays over. We’ve gotten comfortable enough that we’re okay with each other taking it easy at our places. Honestly, I think I’m going to marry Tim. Unless some unknown skeleton comes toppling out of his closet, I don’t see why I shouldn’t. He’s a great guy altogether and he gets me. He’s sweet, funny, and smart. Outside of the whole sex appeal situation, what more am I supposed to look for in a guy? “Who was that kid last night? He sounded awkward.”

Patrick Henrys. I shake my head. My God, last night was uncomfortable when he showed up. I won’t even begin to ask how he found out where I live, but the fact that he had the stones to show up and start complaining about how he was in love with that Jezebel Alice, is beyond me. I remember last year that he’d been a sad sort of kid, depressed and always looking too deeply into things. He’s the kind of kid that I pictured cutting himself with razor blades after writing bad poetry and reading Catcher in the Rye. I tried to encourage him the most that I could, but I wasn’t wanting to inspire this kind of a relationship in any sort of way. I don’t want to be his therapist. I want him to get a healthy perspective on life and see that everything isn’t so dark. Bad things happen, people do terrible things, and the world seems cold and distant, but that’s only because we haven’t yet seen the bigger picture. Everything works out in the end.

“Oh, just a kid from my class last year,” I shout back to him, throwing off the blankets and getting up. I suppose it’s time to actually get this day started. That’s the only way to ensure that it ends eventually. God, why did this happen?

I don’t stand in the shower for long. Shaving my legs and washing my hair as quickly as possible, I climb out to the smell of Tim’s cooking and know that I’m not going to be going through all of this nonsense alone today. Tonight, we’ll crack open another bottle of wine and try to deal with this insanity the best we can. It takes an hour to get my makeup ready and I do it at the table with Tim while he ties his tie over and over again while reading the newspaper. I wish I was a guy and only needed twenty minutes to get ready. Seriously, they don’t even have to shave their faces every day. Tim looks amazing with a fresh coat of stubble on his cheeks. I swear, boys will never know the pains that women go through.

“Ready to get this started?” Tim asks me with a sigh. “It’s all over the newspaper. I’m sure there will be lawyers and press and the whole circus there waiting for us.”

“Gag me,” I groan, grabbing the bowl of oatmeal and heading back to my room. “Let me get dressed and we can go.”

While I’m getting dressed, I think over what was on my mind yesterday before school while I was getting ready. I had been thinking over how much time Tim spends at my place and how little time he actually spends back at his. I honestly think that it’s time to pop the question and ask him to move in with me. I mean, I’m still not ready to get engaged, but I want him here with me all the time. I’m tired of nights without him here. He makes me laugh and he makes everything more enjoyable when he’s around. Honestly, I’m not sure if I am in love with him, but it feels awfully close.

He kisses me the moment I open the bedroom door and I can’t help but feel my heart flutter a little. He’s so handsome. I love a man who wears a tie and a vest and makes it look classy. I swear he’s a GQ model on the side. “Ready to go?” he asks me, pulling away slightly from the kiss, our eyes still closed.

“You messed up my lipstick,” I tease him.

“You can fix it on the way,” he grins.

Every day we go to work together, we stick to the same routine that we’ve had since the beginning. Tim reads the newspaper while I eat breakfast and I read it while he drives and listens to NPR. He’s a news hound and I swear he knows more about current world affairs than any of the social study or government teachers. I often ask him why he doesn’t teach a different class and then I get a passionate lecture about the love of the arts. I flip open to the obituaries where they already released the statements about all three victims at the school tragedy. I’m surprised that the police allowed their names to be released so quickly. But more importantly, I see underneath their obituaries the name of someone very familiar to me. I read an article about a woman named Katherine Peterson who died a few days ago and read all the way to the end where it says that she leaves behind a daughter named Kelly. I immediately picture Kelly at school. She’s probably the only other English teacher there that I can tolerate, let alone enjoy to be around. I swear that I have more fun with her at in-services than I do with anyone else. She actually makes them fun.

I feel my heart sink for the first time in a while. I don’t think yesterday’s events have hit me or Tim quite as much as they hit other members of the staff. I didn’t see anything and it made me worried that none of us are nearly as safe as we’d like to pretend, but all in all, I feel just the same. I feel frustrated that we missed a day of school and that we’re going to have to be dealing with this and all the other precautions that come with it for several years until confidence returns with the school board. I know that Tim thinks it’s a shame, but little more than that. As for this, I genuinely feel bad for Kelly. I’m not an overly religious or spiritual person, but I hope that her mom has gone to a better place.

She wasn’t at school yesterday, probably because of this.

The first thing that I think of when we hit a wall of traffic is that we need to do something for Kelly. We need to get together and plan some sort of care package to send to her, or I’ll even drop it off for her. Heck, I would be more than happy to go over and see her, make sure she is holding up okay. I think I know the neighborhood that she lives in. I try to think what it would be that she’d want in a care package, when I look over at Tim in his aviators and can’t help but think about how handsome he is. How did I get so lucky with him?

“What’s the art department doing today?” I ask him.

“Well, once we do the main address,” Tim shrugs. “I guess we’ll talk about how to handle kids suffering thanks to this little crisis. I don’t know. Art kids are super emotional as is, I can only imagine what this is doing to them. I know that Hank wants to do some sort of memorial project to help the kids express their sorrow and respect for the dead. What about English? The usual?”

By the usual, I know exactly what Tim means. The school district has a familiar way of handling any and all forms of tragedy or worrisome events. Their minds are always set on the idea that just ignoring and pretending like things didn’t happen is the best way of handling their scenarios. I hope they have something better planned than ushering the students like cattle to the counselors’ offices. I don’t think that’s the way to manage children who have just been traumatized. I’ve enjoyed listening to what the art department has done with Parker High. They’re much more proactive than what I’ve heard about other departments. It was actually a joke at college about how the multiple school districts treat responding to tragedy. Now that I’m living it, I honestly find it less amusing.

At the district offices, the parking lot is packed with cars from everyone who is going to be joining this meeting and listening to the superintendent addressing the atrocious catastrophe at Parker High. I feel something roll in my stomach. Sensing my discomfort, Tim grabs my hand and gives it a squeeze. I squeeze his hand back.

Inside the building, we see everyone from police officers, advisors from the FBI, media representatives, public relations workers, teachers, counselors, and the upper echelon of the workers in the whole organization. I don’t like the looks of any of it. It feels like I’m in the middle of somewhere where I don’t belong. I’m amidst the giants and I shouldn’t be here. I look at the strange faces and see only a handful that I recognize and even those are not faces that I’m eager to see. I look at Tim and he has the same look of disappointment on his face as well. Neither of us is looking forward to whatever is coming.

Thankfully, I see Mrs. Connelly, and approach her. She’s talking with Kate, Shauna, and Rebecca; which makes me think that they’ve probably already heard about Kelly’s mom as well. They are all good friends with Kelly and I feel the urge to hear what it is they have to say about it. What do they think that we should do for her? On the whole car ride, I tried finding something to do for Kelly, but I came up empty. What do you do for someone who has lost their parent in a murder? I suppose there really isn’t anything that we can do for her, but a gesture would still be wonderful. It would make me feel better.

“Debra.” I approach the woman I’d called Mrs. Connelly for so long that it feels awkward addressing her as a peer. She looks at me with a sweet, appreciative smile, happy to see me. Wrapping my arm around her, I give her a sort of awkward side embrace which I’m glad to get out of when she finally releases me. “How are you holding up?” I ask her, knowing that this is what’s expected of me today. Today, I’m going to put on the face of the concerned instructor, even though the mask doesn’t fit.

“I’m well, sweetheart,” she answers kindly. “How are you?”

“Shocked,” I answer with a half-truth. “I’m still taking it in and processing all of it.”

“Aren’t we all?” she answers with a smile.

“I wanted to ask if you heard about Kelly’s mother?” I ask her, pushing the conversation where I want it to go. Honestly, I don’t have the patience for any of this. I want to sit down, do my time here, go to lunch, go back to Parker High, and finish the day discussing what’s next with my department members and head. I’m not interested in prayer vigils, community outreach, or anything else that might fall into those categories. A spinster, a recluse, and a bitch don’t really strike me as martyrs. I know that makes me sound like an awful person, but it’s what I’m dealing with right now.

“I did,” Mrs. Connelly answers with a concerned and horrified tone that makes me conjure up images of church ladies gasping at the thought of such a horrendous tragedy. The other ladies who were friendly with Kelly nod in somber agreement that they too had been notified of the terrible turn of events. “We were just discussing a little brunch or something that we could set up to help her in this trying time of hers. With her mother passing and the tragedy that’s unfolded here at school, that poor woman must be suffering under more than she could possibly bear right now.”

I have to resist the urge to roll my eyes. My parents raised me to keep up the appearance of graciousness, kindness, gratitude, and optimism; but underneath our exteriors, we still see the world exactly how it is and we don’t like it any more than the rest of the human population. I think of myself as an optimistic person, but I’m not ignorant. I know how the world really is. Mrs. Connelly is a sweet woman, but I can’t help but think that she lives in a fantasy world where everything is rainbows and kittens. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that she goes to bed listening to gospel hymns.

“That sounds like a fantastic idea,” I smile at her warmly. “I want to help her any way that I can.”