The Haunting of Secrets (17 page)

He checked with his sources at the hospital
yesterday and found out that Mary will be out of the hospital soon.
That leaves little time for him to execute the final phase of his
plan—a plan in which he needs Aimee lost and alone. She must feel
desperate, so lost in her solidarity that the thought of her
fleeing is plausible to the world. The irony is that she'll never
escape. He won't let her.

But first, she must be broken. He can see it
in her eyes, the yearning that comes with newfound love. But it's
an illusion, a faҫade that will soon come to an end. He can't wait
to carve her eyes out of their sockets as she realizes the
betrayal, forever preserving the perfect look of hurt and shame
that will gleam out from her blue orbs forever.

He has something to complete first though. A
necessary errand he will truly enjoy. Every pawn is in place and
it's time to finish this game.

Except in this match, it ends when the queen
falls.

Chapter
Twenty-Nine

~ The Road Never Travelled
~

A short while later, I’m back at Dejana’s
house, showered and ready to work out the details of the final
phase of our plan to catch a killer. I brush out my long, black
hair, grateful after so much emotion to do something as simple as
that. I get dressed in a soft, black, cotton shirt and dark blue
jeans before I make my way to Dejana’s room; a short climb up the
stairs from the main floor where the guest bedroom is located. Her
room is at the far end of the hall and overlooks the back yard. I
put on my gloves as I run up the stairs, careful as always to cover
what I can. I knock on her door and hear rustling before the door
swings open. There stands Dejana, dressed in a trendy, peach fitted
shirt that scoops at the neck and skinny jeans. Her hair is up, a
clear indication that she’s been drawing. I’m not surprised since
it soothes her, keeps her centered. It makes me wish I had some
kind of talent like that, something I can draw upon in bad times.
Oh well, you can only do the best with what God gave you. It’s
clear from her rather annoyed expression that she did not want to
be disturbed.

“Um, sorry if I interrupted your creative
time, I just thought Leah would be here any minute, so I dressed
quickly and headed on up,” I explain.

Her expression goes from annoyed to confused
before it settles on sheepish. “No worries Aim, I was just drawing
some things I’ve had on my mind lately and must have lost track of
time. Come on in girl” she says as she backs away from the door so
I can enter. “I’ll even show you what I’ve been working on.”

I enter her room and as usual, the untidiness
of it surprises me. As a person who lives her life simply and
without a lot of miscellaneous stuff, Dejana’s room is
claustrophobic. There are large drawing papers, pencils, and
markers that litter the white comforter atop her bed and floor.
It’s as if she goes where the inspiration takes her and if it means
moving to the bed without cleaning up the desk, then so be it. It’s
the organized chaos of a very creative individual. However, in my
mind, she would give some women on the show
Hoarders,
a run
for their money.

She leads me to her bed where I see a number
of large, white papers with dark, pencil drawings on them strewn
about. I am immediately drawn to the one on the top of the pile.
It’s a black and white portrait of the first girl we identified as
one of the killer’s victims. Dejana has drawn from memory, every
single facet of the young girl’s face. But she did more than that;
Dejana was able to draw her as if she were alive, happy, and
beautiful. The life practically glows from her drawn eyes. It makes
me want to reach in and steal whatever it is that makes this girl’s
life complete. It’s amazing.

“Dejana,” I gasp, “no matter how many times I
look at your portraits, they never cease to amaze me. Even without
ever knowing her, you gave her life. Thank you,” I say, emotions
swirling within me.

Dejana just sits back and smiles at me, ever
confident in her ability, but never boastful. “Thanks. It means a
lot. I tried my best to draw her as I thought she was. She deserves
to be remembered. When we catch this killer, I’ll make a drawing of
every one of his victims and give it to their families. I just hope
it’ll help them have some peace,” Dejana says, giving me yet
another reason to be in awe of her.

I take a few minutes and sift through the
drawings on her bed. I see people from school in various scenes.
One shows a boy and a girl kissing, their embrace recorded by her
steady hand. Another shows two girls laughing in the cafeteria,
their faces not giving away any of their secrets. I continue to
look through, amazed at how well Dejana has captured and documented
the very essence of the people that attend our school. I’m just
about to praise her again when my breath catches in my throat. I
have reached the bottom of the pile. I move the other portraits
aside as I pull out an extra-long piece of white paper, almost the
length of her bed. It’s a portrait of our school, half of it
perfect and the other half charred. I take a closer look at the
charred part of the sketch and see that flowers only grow on the
charred side, the same one that held the cafeteria. The sun and
clouds hover over the entire building, a clear message that says
life is still there. I look even closer at the ruins, bring them
almost to the point where they touch my face and I realize that the
charred remains aren’t just random. Within the remains, I can see
letters that spell out the phrase:

We will never forget.

“Oh Dejana,” I say, clearly at a loss for
words. What could I possibly say to tell her how amazing and
wonderful this piece is or how perfectly it captures what everyone
feels? I hear her move behind me; studying the sketch with me.

“I wanted to remember them somehow. I
couldn’t get them out of my head, those thirty-seven that lost
their lives. I found that drawing this, as I remembered their
faces, helped me. Maybe one day I can share it with the families or
with our school and help others heal as well. Or maybe not,” she
says gathering up all the paper. “It may just be silly.”

I stop her from her frantic gathering of the
papers, put my hand on her arm, wait until she looks me in the
eyes, and say “Not silly Dejana, brilliant. Beautiful,
breathtakingly brilliant.”

She nods and sets the papers back down on the
bed, the grief ever threatening our hearts literally and
metaphorically, put to bed for now. She shakes herself out of her
stupor. “Okay, enough of the heavy. Isn’t Leah supposed to be here
by now? Where is that girl?” she asks with a huff. “I’ll go
downstairs and get my cell to text her and see where she is.”

Dejana makes her way out the door, the pencil
holding her bun in place, bobs while she walks. She mumbles some
kind of question on her way out that I can’t understand so I follow
her as she makes her way to the door, trying to ascertain what she
was asking. For that reason alone, I see it. I catch the glow of it
through the window. Something outside is on fire, casting a bright,
yellow shadow piercing the darkness that surrounds the house. I
yell Dejana’s name and run full tilt towards the back yard. Dejana
follows me, confused by my behavior, but sensing my urgency. I run
through the den, barely slowing down to open the revolving kitchen
door before I throw open the door to the backyard and run out into
the darkness. I stop running the minute I make it out the back
door.

Dejana was following me so closely that she
runs into me. She starts to say ‘what the hell?’ but stops in
mid-sentence. She finally sees them. Standing before us,
illuminated by a large burning tree in Dejana’s backyard, is Leah.
A knife is held to her throat by a man in a ski mask and covered
from head to toe in black. The only piece of flesh visible is his
eyes. The exact color of his irises is hard to decipher through the
slits of the mask. The eerie glow from the fire blazing behind him
reflects in his eyes, intensifying his already hard stare. The
memories in my mind vibrate, confirming what I already know. Before
us, stands the killer we have so desperately sought out these past
weeks. He’s here, a few feet away from me and I want to rip his
heart out. I tear my eyes away from the dark figure holding the
knife and finally look at Leah. My anger immediately grows when I
see the look of pure terror in her eyes.

“Let her go, it’s me you want,” I spit at the
killer as he holds my friend hostage.

Behind me, I hear Dejana whisper a quiet, “Oh
my God,” but to her credit, she makes no move to hysterics. Because
of his mask, I can’t see the killer’s reaction, but I can sense his
hesitation. He had used Leah to lure me out here and now that I’m
close, he seems to be waiting for something. Maybe he’s waiting for
me to offer to trade my life for Leah’s. I see the knife in his
hand lower infinitesimally and I dare to hope that he takes me
instead.

“I’m here right in front of you; the only one
who knows all your secrets. If you want to shut me up asshole then
come and get me,” I say, taunting him, doing my best to get him to
focus on me and not the knife at Leah’s neck. For a few moments, I
think it’s working. Then, off in the distance, I hear sirens from a
fire truck. I turn to the sound, my heart picking up the pace as I
realize they must be coming here. One of the neighbors must have
seen the flames and called the fire department. I turn back to Leah
still in the killer’s grasps, her face a portrait of intense fear.
Seconds before the fateful moment, I realize too late that this was
his plan all along. He wanted me to see this, needed me to watch as
he tormented Leah. He wanted me to have hope, just so he could
watch it disappear. He takes one last hungry look at me before
sliding the blade across Leah’s throat. Blood pours down the front
of her shirt in waves, staining all it comes in contact with, a
dark crimson.

I scream, “
No!”
and take off toward
Leah; desperate to save her though I know in my heart it’s too
late. The blood is quickly beginning to pool at her feet. The
killer callously shoves her frozen, shocked body to the ground,
before turning and silently blending into the dark night. I fall to
my knees in front of Leah and cradle her head in my lap. I put my
gloved hands over her neck wound in a vain attempt to staunch the
blood loss, but there’s nothing I can do to save her. I had my
chance to convince the killer to take me and I blew it. Behind me,
I hear Dejana on the phone, calling for an ambulance, her voice
rising in shock and panic to be heard above the sirens. I look down
at Leah and try to find the words to comfort her, but my mind is
numb, drowned in guilt. Her death is senseless, a punishment for
helping me and a decoy for the killer to escape. I blame myself. I
should have never gotten Leah involved with this search in the
first place.

I look into her frightened eyes and say, “I’m
so sorry Leah.”

She grasps my hands and tries to speak, but
the killer must have severed her vocal cords, because all that
comes out is a gurgle. I feel her push something small and hard
into my hand; I look down and see a blood splattered flash drive.
Her eyes bore into mine again as she tries to tell me something,
but it’s lost in the recesses of her torn and battered throat. I am
overcome with grief. My heart is heavy, weighed down with the
knowledge that the world will never know how wonderful Leah is, how
brave she was to go up against a killer armed with nothing but a
laptop and a mission, all to give the souls of those poor murdered
girls peace.

Then it hits me like a splash of cold water
over my face, an idea so simple, so easy to complete, pops into my
head. It’s so obvious I wonder why I hadn’t thought of it before.
There will be a way for her to live on, to never be forgotten. For
the first time ever, I voluntarily take off my glove and offer
another person my bare hand.

“Take my hand. If you touch me, every memory
you have will flow into me. I promise you, it won’t hurt. I want to
share those memories with everyone. If you’ll trust me, I will make
damn sure that this world never forgets you, ever.”

As if she knew her life was leaving her, Leah
uses her last bit of strength to grasp my hand. Instantly, Leah’s
memories fill me. I tilt my head back, absorbing, reveling in the
decency of them. Through Leah’s eyes, I can see how much she cared
about others, the times she helped teach computer skills to
technologically challenged adults, the thrill of solving puzzles in
computer programming class and challenging herself to new computer
hacks, just to see how far she could go. She never knowingly
damaged anyone with her work and it was clear in her memories she
had friends who cared for her. I had just reached the most recent
of her memories, when they ceased. Surprised, I looked down and
realize why. Leah’s eyes have dulled over; her soul no longer
inhabits her body. Without the soul, the body is just an empty
shell. Gently, I place Leah’s hands across her chest in the
universal sign of death. For once, I am grateful for my curse. I am
thankful that I could give Leah a shot at immortality. She deserves
no less for her efforts, for her bravery, but most of all, for
being an unwitting sacrifice in a deranged killer’s plan. She
didn’t deserve to be taken so young.

The roar of fire engine sirens fills my ears
as they reach Dejana’s house. Vaguely, I register the firefighters
as they run around me asking questions, preparing to put out the
fire in the tree. A few kneel in front of me; lift me away from the
body as they make vain attempts to save Leah’s life. They don’t
realize she’s already gone. I look down at the flash drive huddled
in my red hands and I put it in my pocket. I see my blood stained
clothes, vaguely recognize that I am bathed in Leah’s blood, the
blood of an innocent. Rage fills me. I vow then and there, I will
do anything to bring this creep down. If I have to forfeit my life
in the process, so be it. It wasn’t much of a life to begin with
anyway.