Adrianna shook her head, reaching for the pizza to take another bite. When she finished chewing she said, “You look kind of dead.”
“Aren’t you a charmer?” I questioned jokingly.
Adrianna rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. Did you wake up late or something? You usually wear mascara at least.” Suddenly, she leaned across the table, poking my dry bottom lip with her pointer finger. “And where is your Chapstick?” She looked around the room slowly before meeting my gaze again. “Are you even the real Claire?” she asked in a mock whisper.
I reached into my pocket, pulling out my Chapstick and rolling it onto my lips before putting it back in my pocket. “Come on, it’s not that serious. So I didn’t wear any eye makeup today; I’ll live.” I grabbed another apple slice and munched on it slowly.
“I never thought I would see the day that you weren’t wearing your usual makeup in school.” She shook her head slowly.
I rolled my eyes. “Honestly, I didn’t even think about it at all today.”
“Why not?” She reached across the table and swiped my bag of chips from my tray. I usually ended up giving them to her anyway. The oil from the chips made me break out, so eventually I just stopped eating them. I always grabbed a bag though, knowing I’d either end up giving them to Ade or would trade her for something else on the days when she actually brought her lunch.
I shrugged, like I didn’t know why. As if. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“So that’s why you look dead,” she replied, munching on a chip. Then she looked up and gave me a sheepish grin. “I mean that in the nicest way possible. You know you’re gorgeous.”
“Mhm,” I murmured.
“Why didn’t you sleep well?” she asked, returning to the topic at hand.
I sighed, looking down at my tray. “Don’t laugh.”
“Why would I laugh?”
I shrugged. “Just don’t.”
“I won’t.” She raised a hand like she was giving a pledge and added, “Scout’s honor.”
I took another bite of my pizza, chewing slowly before explaining. “I had a nightmare.”
Adrianna nodded, waiting for me to continue, so I did.
“Then, when I woke up, I thought I saw David burying a body in his backyard.”
Adrianna’s mouth dropped open and she leaned over the table with wide eyes. “What!?”
“Right? That was basically my reaction, except more frightened, and it included speed dialing 911.” I shoved the last apple slice into my mouth as Adrianna processed what I’d just said.
Her questions came out all at once in a long string of words. She barely even took a breath between each one as she spewed question after question about last night and what happened.
I raised my hand to stop her. “Whoa. My brain is too tired to register all of that. One question at a time.”
She huffed, but repeated one question nonetheless. “Did David get arrested?”
I shook my head no. Then I proceeded to tell her everything that happened, including me running into David’s house and going down to his basement. She was just surprised as I was that the police hadn’t found anything and that his basement was empty.
I drained the rest of my water. “What if I didn’t actually see what I thought I saw? What if my mom and the officers were right and I was hallucinating or I dreamed it all?” I hung my head low at the thought. What if I’m going crazy? Maybe I do need to have an appointment with Mrs. Rodriguez after all.
Adrianna pursed her lips in thought. Her brown eyes squinted for a moment before she shook her head at me, saying, “No.”
“No, what?”
“No, I don’t think you were hallucinating.”
I frowned at her. “What makes you think that?”
Adrianna shrugged her shoulders. “I just know you. I also know what David is capable of. If he’s really as derranged as we think he is, then wouldn’t he have to be pretty smart?”
I nodded slowly, not seeing what she was getting at.
“Well, I read online that serial killers usually have extremely high IQ’s. That’s how they get away with stuff for so long.” She pointed down at the last bite of pizza. “You want that?”
I shook my head no, waving it off. She smiled and finished the pizza. I leaned closer to Adrianna, lowering my voice. “So, if David is a serial killer, and he’s supposed to have such a high IQ, then why is he being so careless?”
Adrianna shrugged. “Maybe something’s different. Maybe he isn’t able to follow his normal routine or something, so now he’s on edge. I don’t know. I can ask my mom tonight and see what she thinks.”
My eyebrows rose to the top of my forehead. “Don’t ask your mom.”
“Calm down, Claire. I’ll ask discreetly.”
I rolled my bottom lip into my mouth, biting it gently.
Adrianna polished off the bag of chips. “I think you should check his yard. Make sure the police didn’t miss anything.”
I shook my head at the idea. No way in hell I was going over there alone again, especially not after the last time.
She noticed my hesitation and read my mind. “I can come with you. I’ll walk home with you after school and stay until dinner, then we can watch his house. If he leaves, we’ll sneak over and check it out. If we find something, we go to the police with it, and if we don’t then we leave David alone and hope he stays away from you and your mom. Besides, he would be stupid to continue anything with your mom now that he knows you’re onto him.”
She had a point. “Okay, let’s do it. Bring your phone so we can take a picture of anything we find.”
“Of course. Where’s your phone? I texted you and you never replied.”
I looked down at my hands. “I left it in David’s house the last time I snuck in.” When I glanced up, her expression was shocked.
“I’m not even going to ask,” she said after a moment, shaking her head.
“Yeah, that’s probably for the best.”
Chapter Seventeen
Boredom
The sound of running water and dishes clanking was the tell tale sign that Mom was cleaning up the kitchen. After dinner, Adrianna and I had excused ourselves to the living room to sprawl out across the floor and finish our homework. Really, neither of us had much work to do and had finished before dinner was even ready. I knew that if we finished our work before Mom went up to take her shower, Adriana would probably have to go home. The guise of doing homework had been the only reason Adrianna was allowed over, considering my behavior last night.
Beside me, Adrianna twirled her freshly dyed, purple lock of hair around her finger and pretended to scrutinize a math problem. After we finished our actual homework, we decided to flip through our math textbook, going over the chapter we were currently on. We were making up problems and answering problems we hadn’t even been assigned yet. By the time the water in the kitchen turned off, we had gotten about three days ahead on homework questions. Adrianna began to work on a new problem as Mom walked down the hallway toward us. I pretended to be deep into solving a problem. I even typed out some random calculation onto my calculator. It was all for good measure, because just as I expected, Mom stuck her head into the living room to check our progress.
“How are you girls getting on? Need any help with anything before I get in the shower?” Mom asked with a smile.
I shook my head no as Ade said, “No thank you, Mrs. Anderson. We’re almost done and then I’ll be heading home.”
Mom’s smile enlarged. She loved Ade like she was another daughter. “Oh honey, you take your time. It’s starting to get dark, so if you’re still here when I get out of the shower then I’ll give you a ride home.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Anderson.”
Mom waved off her thanks, saying that it was no big deal. Before she turned to head up the stairs, she commented on Adrianna’s new color choice. “Oh, and I love the purple.”
Adrianna smiled brightly at the complimen
t as my mom disappeared up the stairs. We waited in silence until her bedroom door closed and then began packing up our things. I stacked my textbook, folders, and notebooks, while Adrianna stuffed hers into her floral print backpack. Then I walked halfway up the staircase, just far enough to where I would be able to hear the water start, while Adrianna slipped on her shoes. Finally the shower water began to run, so I hurried back down the stairs to put my shoes on.
“She usually takes about fifteen minutes to shower, so we have plenty of time. Let’s just hope David doesn’t come back in that time period.”
Adrianna left her backpack by the front door, and then proceeded to follow me to the back door. We wanted to stay out of sight in case David came home. Not long after we finished eating dinner and had returned to our homework piles, we heard David’s car pulling out of the driveway. Ever since he left we had been waiting on pins and needles for my mom to leave us alone, and now we finally had our chance. We needed to get into his backyard, take a look around, and see for ourselves if anything was buried in his yard last night. I wasn’t going to believe that the ground was undisturbed until I saw it with my own eyes.
Outside, the sky was just beginning to darken. It was that weird in-between period when the day and the night began to overlap. If we knew for certain when David was going to return, I would have preferred for us to wait until nightfall, but since we didn’t know how much time we had, we decided to move fast instead. Thankfully, David’s house was at the end of the street, and there was a large, overgrown hedge, which ran along the opposite side of the fence near the street and would hide us from view. Since it was also David’s property, much like the rest of his land, the grass and weeds were tall and unkempt. Therefore I wasn’t too worried about someone seeing us, rather that David would return and add us to his vile collection.
Before I jumped the fence I took another look at David’s house. It was still and quiet, and there were no cars in sight on the street. I climbed the fence like a pro, swinging my leg over quickly to avoid the sound that the chain-link made, and landed in David’s yard with a soft thud. Adrianna joined me—her entrance was a lot less graceful and far noisier—before we got to work. The outskirts of the yard had overgrown grass, while the center was just hard dirt. Before David moved in, there had been a poorly constructed, brick patio where the hard dirt was. Now all of the bricks were stacked in a line along the back of the house to the right of the back door.
Maybe he actually was trying to fix the house up at one point. I scoffed at my own thought. He didn’t plan on sticking around long, so why would he do that? Was it to keep up appearances?
“Where was he standing?” Adrianna whispered, furrowing her eyebrows as she asked.
“Um,” I turned to look up at my bedroom window that faced out over his yard. In my mind I saw David standing with his shovel in his hands, and the body bag on the ground. “There,” I pointed, hurrying toward the spot.
Adrianna joined me, peering down at the clearly untouched ground in front of us. She looked up at me with a questioning expression lining her features. “Are you sure this was it?”
I nodded fervently. “One hundred percent sure.”
Her eyes lowered to the ground again, and she slowly began to spin in a circle as her gaze swept over the expanse of hard, packed dirt. When she faced me again, I saw the unmistakable glint of skepticism in her almond shaped eyes. It was the same look my mom and the police officers had worn last night. They hadn’t believed me then, and Adrianna was starting to change her stance as well. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to prove I wasn’t going crazy.
I did the only thing I could think of. I dropped to my knees, smoothing my hands over the dirt and then digging my nails into it. Up close I could have sworn that I saw the faint imprint of an X in the dirt, but I had began digging too quickly to even examine it. It was most likely just my mind playing tricks on me again. I tossed handfuls of soil to the side while Adrianna squatted down next to me, watching me in horror. I probably looked so neurotic, digging and sifting through the dirt to prove that I hadn’t been hallucinating. At this point, I didn’t know who I was trying to convince more, Adrianna or myself.
“Wait, what’s that?” Adrianna asked, causing me to stop as she pointed out a small piece of black plastic that I’d uncovered.
I hoped to God it wasn’t Holly Martin. Somewhere inside of me I thought I would find a way to get David locked up, and that the police would find Holly alive. I began to dig faster, not stopping again until the plastic bag was fully in view. The lighting made it hard to see, but it helped that it wasn’t too dark out yet. Once I had fully uncovered the small piece of plastic bag, I pulled on it gently and it slipped out of the dirt. It was just a small, black, plastic bag. Definitely not what I thought I saw from the night before.
I threw the bag to the ground, anger creasing my brow. It was just a stupid plastic bag. I was crazy. I must’ve dreamt or hallucinated the whole thing. “We should go before David comes back,” I resigning, giving up and beginning to push the dirt back into the small hole I’d created.
Adrianna picked up the plastic bag, turning it in her hands. “There’s something in here,” she declared, before she began to rip a hole into the bag. She pulled the sides back, cautiously peering inside, before she breathed a sigh of relief. “I thought it was going to be a finger or something,” she confessed, letting out a nervous laugh. “It’s just a picture.” She pulled the Polaroid out of the bag and all of the color drained from her face.
“What is it?” I asked, taking the picture from her hands.
Adrianna turned to the side and threw up the lasagna we’d just eaten for dinner.
“Gross,” I groaned, my stomach gurgling. But I wasn’t referring to Ade’s vomit; instead, I was referring to the scene depicted in the photograph. In the picture, Holly was lying on the ground, topless. The picture was taken from the hips up. Her long, blonde hair was tactfully placed to hide her breasts and show exactly what this picture was meant to. The six on her forehead was small, but in view, and there was a large number six cut into her chest and stomach, with the top of the six starting between her breasts on her sternum and looping around across her stomach and over the left side of her ribs. The only thing that kindled my hope was that Holly’s eyes were open. There was life in them, and pain that was emphasized by how her features were creased with agony. I flipped the photo over to get rid of the horrible image from my mind, and that’s when I saw it. There was one word printed on the back of the picture.
Boredom
If it was possible, the word elicited even more hatred for the man responsible for this. What kind of human being could harm another like this? And for the sole reason of boredom? David was more horrific than I’d ever imagined. In my mind, it didn’t get any worse than this. For a moment I actually hoped Holly was dead because what was a life where you were in pain and being held captive, away from everyone and everything you’ve ever known, and being tortured because of sheer boredom? The agonizing expression on her face was hard to look at.
“What do we do?” Adrianna asked.
I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. Then I hurriedly began fixing the ground to make it look as untouched as possible. It was harder than I thought it would be. “We’re going to leave now before we get caught, and while it’s still light out. Then you can take the picture home with you to your dad. He’s a police officer so he’ll know what to do. You can tell him I found it in my neighbor's yard and gave it to you to give to him because I was too afraid to call the police.”
We hopped the fence, hurrying through my yard and back into the house. Adrianna locked the door for me since my hands were so dirty. We walked down the hall to the bathroom where I scrubbed my hands clean as Adrianna tried to calm down. She appeared as frazzled as I felt on the inside. When I finished washing my hands, I went to let her out the front. She tucked the picture into her backpack and then slung the bag over her shoulders.
“Tel
l me what your dad says,” I instructed, pulling her in for a hug.
She squeezed me tightly, letting the hug go on for longer than usual. “I will. My dad will fix everything. Love you. Be safe, and make sure you lock up behind me.”
I nodded once before I pulled away. “Love you too, Ade.”
She gave me a forced half smile before pulling the door open and walking out into the rapidly darkening night.
Chapter Eighteen
No Response
For the first time in a few days I actually felt refreshed, like I’d had a good night’s sleep. I gave credit to the peacefulness that overcame me at the thought of David finally being caught. As I carefully went over each strand of curly hair, flat ironing it for school, I knew the day was going to be hectic, but I was prepared for it. I was oddly calm for a girl who had just gotten proof to show the police that her neighbor actually was the creepy psycho she thought he was. It was cathartic knowing that soon everyone would believe me, and he would be thrown in prison for all of the horrible things he’d done.
I pulled the flat iron away slowly, finishing going over the final lock of hair. Then, I set the straightener on the sink and took a deep breath. I was ready for today. I couldn’t wait to see Adrianna and for her to tell me her dad was going to take care of everything and I wouldn’t have to worry about David ever again. At the thought, a huge grin swept across my face. I looked happier than I had in a few weeks, and I was starting to look like my old self again. I was wearing my usual makeup, black mascara on my upper and lower lashes, and had applied a layer of Chapstick to my lips. My style was even thriving considering my excitement for the day’s expected events. Instead of the jeans and sweatshirts I had been wearing to school for the past few weeks, I had woken up early and put a little more thought into my outfit. Dressed in a pair of light wash jeans with cuffs at the bottoms and a green, knit sweater that made my skin tone glow, I actually felt pretty.
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