The Haunting of Secrets (11 page)

“There’s only one way to help her Leah and
that’s to find out everything we can about this girl. It says here
her name is Elizabeth Donovan. What do we know about her?” asks
Dejana, hoping that work will take Leah’s mind off Aimee. Once the
computer is in front of her, Leah seems to snap out of it. Her
fingers, always at home with a computer, find the keyboard and
spring to life. Leah is working so fast that Dejana can’t keep up.
She hacks into God knows how many sites to dig up as much
information as she can about Elizabeth. Sadly, it doesn’t take her
long to find the one thing that completely dashes any hope of
helping her. Elizabeth is beyond their help now.

Beside them Aimee gasps for breath as her
head snaps up from the table. She shudders from the intensity of
the memory and looks around, momentarily confused by her
surroundings. Aimee holds her arms over her stomach in an attempt
to ward off the nausea that always seems to come after experiencing
a memory. Especially one from this sick bastard. Dejana rushes over
to the sink, pours her some water and rushes back to her side. She
gets down on her knees and carefully lifts Aimee’s head up to put
the small glass of water to her parched lips.

“Drink,” she pleads. “You’ll feel better.”
Dejana helps Aimee drink a bit of the water, which she immediately
spits out; her face contorts with disgust like the taste of it is
revolting to her now. Slowly, Dejana sees her eyes clear as the
blue becomes brighter and brighter. From the other side of the
kitchen, she hears Leah shuffle her feet. Dejana almost forgot she
was there. Almost. Unsure exactly how to proceed, Dejana decides to
ask Aimee a question, hoping that it brings her back to the real
world.

“Do you know where you are?”

Aimee looks around the kitchen, her now clear
blue eyes take in the scene before her. “Yes. I’m in your very
expensive kitchen drooling all over your nice table and freaking
out poor Leah sitting over there on the other side of the table.
Did I miss anything?”

Grateful that Aimee is joking, Dejana laughs.
If Aimee can be sarcastic, that means she’s not too upset about
Leah witnessing her enveloped in a memory. “You missed the part
where you almost threw up on my table. But, I’m willing to look
past it.”

In the chair next to Aimee, Leah’s fidgeting
as she looks at her, the shock from the encounter rendering her
speechless. Dejana is about to take pity on Leah and send her on
some fool’s errand when Leah finally finds her voice. “Well, that
was fun. Can you never do it in front of me again, please?”

“I’ll try,” Aimee concedes. “As long as you
can keep what just happened a secret. Can you do that, Leah?” Aimee
asks, her voice filled with trepidation.

“Of course I can. I don’t want people
thinking I’m nuts too.”

“Good, cause we have work to do.” Aimee flies
out of her chair, desperate to get moving. “I saw the girl he
picked out for his next victim. It’s her,” Aimee says, pointing to
the computer screen. “And we have to hurry, because it won’t be
long before he grabs her.”

Dejana gently pushes Aimee back down into the
seat and takes both of her hands into her own.

“We don’t have to save her. He can’t hurt her
anymore. She’s gone. She died in the bombing at the school. Leah
found her obituary. She was one of the thirty-seven.”

Chapter
Eighteen

~ Evil Rising ~

He is ecstatic, dare he even say jubilant,
from the success of his recent venture to take care of the little
problem that resulted from the bombing. It was so easy to steal the
locker list with combinations from the school’s secretary. It’s no
coincidence that she’s his neighbor. He put a sleeping pill into
her Earl Grey tea she unfailingly drinks every night before bed.
Considering the amount of whiskey she adds to her tea as well, he
was sure she didn’t notice the addition of the narcotic. Besides,
he’s so easy to trust no one would ever guess he is capable of
doing such a thing. Everyone is under his spell and he’s one hell
of a magician. It doesn’t matter that he was more comfortable in
the other school; the bomb was just a minor setback. Once he found
out from his unwitting spy at the county office the location of the
building where school would be held while the former was under
construction, he spent days staking it out. Some may think him
insane to invest so much time, but it was simply a means to an end,
an integral part of his overall plan. He had to know every crack
and crevice of this building; they must be his to dominate as much
as the puppets that lackadaisically walk around from class to
class, mistakenly under the assumption that they are in control of
their lives.

He saw her run, saw the fear in her eyes. The
only thing that could have made the moment more perfect was if he
spilled her blood. How he longed for his knife, to feel it enter
her, feel the blood pool up around his hand. But, restraint is the
key right now. It’s the terror, the fear he longs for more so than
the actual kill itself. The torture is what arouses him, what feeds
the monster within him. It must be the blood of an angel, someone
worthy of him. He longed to go after her, but he couldn’t. He had
to stay at lunch and pretend that nothing out of the ordinary was
happening; convince his friends surrounding him that he doesn’t
have a care or need in the world. They would never know his true
thoughts, or know that he was thinking of gutting her across the
middle and bathing in her blood. If they ever knew the truth about
him, they would run, too.

Chapter
Nineteen

~ Burned ~

I am lying in my own bed, despondent and
disheartened. I feel useless. I am no closer to finding the killer
than when he first touched me. I pull my purple comforter over my
head in a futile attempt to ward off the world, the memories
swimming in my head. I’m just about to give in to my uselessness
and depression when I hear a noise at the window. Sighing heavily,
I try to decide whether to acknowledge it when I hear a loud crash.
I jump out of my bed, grab the knife I hid under my pillow ever
since that night the killer paid me a visit, and run to the window
ready for battle. I hear a curse word from a familiar voice seconds
before I see Logan’s darkened figure try to make its way through
the broken window, little shreds of glass catching his clothes here
and there.

“What the hell, Logan?” I ask exasperated.
“Just because I don’t answer your ‘rock call’, you decide to break
the damn window? What were you thinking?” I ask rattling off
question after question in one breath, giving him no chance to
answer.

Logan, obviously ignoring all of my
questions, continues to concentrate on climbing through my window.
I return the knife to its hiding place under my pillow and stand
with my arms crossed, facing Logan. As pissed as I am about my
window and how clueless I feel as to how I’m going to explain to
Mary how my window got broken, watching Logan’s cute butt try and
wiggle through the hole that used to be my window, is actually
entertaining. He is twisting his way through the shards of glass,
breaking what he needs to here and there, trying his best not to
get cut. His expression is intense. Like last time, he’s wearing
dark, blue jeans with a black t-shirt in a failed attempt at
concealing himself. He’s almost through the window when his arm
catches on a piece of glass he doesn’t see and it tears into him
with a vengeance. I hear him cuss and see a cut, about three inches
long on his arm just below his shoulder, begin to bleed. I grab a
towel from my floor and run over to him, hoping to stop him from
bleeding all over my floor. I might be able to find a reasonable
story for the window, but blood on the floor would send Mary over
the edge.

Logan’s face registers shock as I run towards
him. He takes a few steps back, clearly confused by my behavior. I
wonder then when things had shifted between us. It’s then that I
realize I am not as wary of the possibility of his touch as before.
I’m not sure when things started to change, but I am grateful they
did. I reach Logan and wrap the towel around his arm to stop the
bleeding, careful not to actually touch his skin. He places his
hand over the towel to hold it in place and his gaze lifts to
mine.

For a moment, I’m lost in his eyes; I feel
the case around my heart melting. For the first time, someone sees
through the walls I built to keep people out. For the first time,
someone cared to get to know the real me. My hands start to shake.
I need to move away before I dare to want things I know I can’t
have. My emotions reeling from being so near him, I step back and
head to the bathroom to get supplies from the first aid kit Mary
insists I have under my bathroom sink. I grab the kit and more
towels and head back to play nurse to Logan.

“Sit down, Logan, and let’s see how badly
you’ve hurt yourself,” I insist. Logan walks over to the bed and
sits down lightly. My heart skips a beat seeing him on my bed
again. He’s holding his injured arm at his side, careful not to get
blood anywhere as he inspects the wound. I see his ample muscles
flex as he turns, admire the strength I see in his chest, a product
of many years of playing sports, no doubt. His face is flushed, I
suppose from his injury and his eyes are glazed over with an
emotion I can’t put my finger on. Much to my chagrin, nothing in
his face is an indication of what he is truly thinking. Before he
notices my openly staring at him, I hurry over to the bed and sit
beside him. I pour some hydrogen peroxide on the cut and smile a
bit when I hear him try to hide his wince of pain.

“So, Logan, what brings you here tonight?” I
ask as I continue to clean and cover the cut, hoping that the
elation I feel of having him on my bed isn’t coming through in my
voice.

Logan shrugs and I wonder why he hesitates.
He must have something he wants to tell me, but can’t get it out.
So, I decide to make it a little easier on him. I finish with my
ministrations, walk across the room to get the chair from my desk
that sits adjacent to the window, and bring it over to sit in front
of Logan, turning the chair around and straddling it so the back of
the chair is between us. He is holding his head down, hesitating
for some reason.

I sigh, already tired of this game. I’m sure
my feelings of despondence are showing. “Spit it out, Logan. Just
tell me what you came here to say,” I demand a bit too harshly.

Logan studies his hands for a minute more,
clearly unsure of how to say something.

I grab my gloves from the bedside table, put
them on, and approach Logan carefully. He never looks up from his
hands. Even though I’m not sure anymore that I want to know what he
came here to say, I put my gloved hands on top of his clenched ones
and wait patiently for him to look at me, all the while trying to
think of something soothing to say to him. A good three minutes
pass before Logan unclenches his hands and wraps them around mine.
The heat from his hands seeps through the gloves and it’s
intoxicating. I have never been this close to anyone, never shared
this type of intimacy. I understand better now why couples hold
hands. My heart beats like a drum in my chest, I am incapable of
hearing anything else, feeling anything else outside of this
moment.

Slowly, Logan raises his head and he meets my
eyes. The minute our eyes meet, the nausea hits me full force.
Fleetingly, I wonder if my feelings for Logan could be some sort of
trigger for unveiling memories. But I don’t have time to ponder
that right now; he can’t see what happens when I’m encased within a
memory. I have to get out of here before the past takes over. I
stand up quickly, knocking the chair in front of me out of the way
and hitting Logan all in the same motion. Panic engulfs me; I have
no other option but to run. I fly out of the room and turn right,
not sure of where I am going, but trying to put as much distance
between Logan and me as possible. I never want Logan to see me when
I’m experiencing a memory. That would be the quickest way to push
him out of my life forever and I was just getting used to having
him around. I run down the long upstairs hall, all the way to the
attic door. Behind me, I hear Logan yelling my name, but I don’t
answer. I open the door and race through to the attic, locking it
behind me. I’m halfway up the stairs when I hear a pounding on the
door, but I ignore it. I have just enough time to make it all the
way up before I collapse. The darkness takes me and the memory
begins.

* * * *

I am standing over a rectangular pit in the
middle of nowhere. The only sounds I hear are the sounds of nature.
It is pitch black save the small light emanating from a flashlight
behind me. There’s a shovel beside me and I must have been digging
for hours, yet I don’t feel tired. My hands are covered in dirt. I
look down and see that my clothes are covered in grime. So much so
that I can’t tell if the clothes are darkened from the dirt or if
I’m really dressed in all black. I stare at the pit in front of me,
it stares back, an endless cavern of nothingness. The most
satisfying part is almost here. I reach my hand in my right pocket
and feel around for the lighter. I hold it in my hand, wanting to
enjoy this moment as long as possible. The lighter feels cold
against my dirty hand. After a minute, I open the lighter and flick
it to release its flame. The yellow light is beautiful,
mesmerizing. My pulse quickens as I throw the lighter into the pit.
It touches her gasoline-soaked body and immediately erupts into a
beautiful light brightening the sky like a beacon. The outline of
her body is clear now; I can witness first-hand the melting of her
skin, the destruction of every piece of evidence that could ever
convict me. I inhale the smoke of her burning corpse allowing it to
infuse me with power. I rub my hands together and smile in triumph.
I even dare to laugh as I bask in a job well done. It does not
matter who hears me, we are completely alone in this burial
place.