The Haunting of Secrets

by Shelley R. Pickens

  Logan stands, turns his back to me, and walks to the window. The grief he held under such control is now evident in his posture. He looks at the floor, as if the ground can save him from a world that’s just too harsh to face head on. His anger at the injustice of lives lost so young kept in check by balling his hands in and out of fists. He turns and I see on his face the overwhelming pain he’s unable to hide. Yet his eyes show another emotion. One I can’t quite put my finger on. For his sake, I hope that it is faith. The kind of faith that is universal, that binds us and tells us that we can get through anything. He positions himself to jump out the window then turns, apparently wanting to address me once more before leaving.

  “You’re a survivor. I wanted you to know. You should know how many lost their lives that day. I also wanted to see you, so I could be sure that you were all right. But I never expected this. Never expected this overwhelming pain in my chest to come up and choke me the minute I see you. I won’t make you share that. I won’t do that to you,” he says, emotion evident in his voice. “But mainly, I came here to tell you one important thing,” he says, his face grim yet determined as his brown eyes bore into my blue ones.

  “What Logan?” I prod knowing I couldn’t take anymore, but willing to endure the immense grief that has come forth in waves, threatening to overtake me. “Tell me what you came here to say.”

  “I’m just so glad that you weren’t number thirty-eight,” he says before he leaps off the windowsill, disappearing into the dark night.

  Chapter Nine

  ~ The Devil is Red For a Reason ~

  He sees nothing past the blinding red of his fury. Some idiot decides to set off a bomb in his school and messes up the most intricate plans he worked so hard to organize and lay down for his next two victims; one of whom is now dead. They both were carefully chosen, two beautiful specimens of nature, ripe for the taking. And they were stolen from him. Stolen! Now school was out indefinitely until they could find a place for all the misplaced students and see if the structure could be rebuilt. Yet the urge is already creeping up on him. He caresses his knife in his pocket, lets the feel of cold steel calm him. He decides not to wallow in this temporary setback. There’s still one other girl he has handpicked for the list and there will be opportunities to find more at school when it resumes. He simply needs to rework what he has done and adjust his timeline. He can only hope his urges hold out. He is determined not to let them control him. He can control it; he will control it.

  That settled, he now turns his attention to the other problem created by the bomb; the fact that the strange girl knows he is a killer. He felt the jolt when he touched her. He saw her eyes cloud over and could feel her roaming around in his head. He just couldn’t figure out how she had done it. Exactly how much she knows, he can only wonder. But if there is a chance at all that she might have gotten anything from his memories, she would be a threat to him and the life he has worked so hard to build. He can’t be positive she knows his secret, but it doesn’t matter. Even the slightest chance deems that she be dealt with swiftly. Even if she had an inkling of his desires, any knowledge at all of his need to feel their blood pool over his hands as he slides the knife inside his prey, would mean she has to go. No matter how careful he is from now on, she could be the one to cause his downfall. And that he just can’t have. No, that won’t do at all.

  Chapter Ten

  ~ The Best Laid Plans ~

  The next few days pass in a blur as the town grieves and buries the students lost in the bombing. Since I have no friends, save Dejana, I don’t have any funerals to attend. On the plus side, I now have more time to devote to protecting the students that survived. Protect them from a monster they don’t even know exists in their realm. As my mind heals, I do my best to remember as many details as I can from the few nightmares that have resurfaced. I write them in a journal and compare each, trying my best to find some connections, some small detail that would help us find the place where he takes these girls.

  The day after Dejana and I formed the plan to get as much information as we can on the killer, she decides to bring Leah to my house. Luckily, the meeting will be private since Mary is at work and due to the bombing we are out of school until the district can find a safe place to send 3500 kids to learn. I am exceedingly nervous about meeting her. I’ve spent so much of my life pushing people away that I honestly have no idea how to deal with others.

  Leah walks into my house flamboyantly and with the unwavering confidence of a girl who knows she’s the whole package: beautiful and smart. She’s wearing skinny jeans and a long sleeved, hot pink top. The only thing on her that doesn’t scream out supermodel are the glasses she wears. She has short blonde hair that compliments her light blue eyes, a bouncy personality for a tech geek and is rather curvaceous. I hate her already.

  Leah, an outgoing southerner who never meets a stranger, saunters straight up to me, grabs my hand and introduces herself. Luckily, I’m prepared for this and manage to thrust out my gloved hand to her before she gets too close. She’s surprised, but otherwise not offset by my lack of enthusiasm for our meeting. Dejana and I quickly fill her in on what we need her to do in regards to compiling a list of every tall girl with long blonde hair and blue eyes at our school. We are careful not to give away any key information as to the exact nature of the situation. Leah would find out soon enough that there is a killer in our midst; better she finds out on her own. If we told her the whole of it at the start, she would most likely tuck tail and run. Dejana and I hope we aren’t overestimating her as it is. As expected, Leah is skeptical.

  “So you want me to research all of these girls for you, but you won’t tell me why? Are you aware that what you’re asking me to do is illegal?”

  Dejana and I share a look, each of us deciding how much information we should tell Leah. I can see on Leah’s face that she’s trying to decide if it’s a good idea to trust us or not. Beside me, I hear Dejana sigh in defeat. I guess it just registered with her that we have to give Leah something if she’s going to elect to help us.

  “It isn’t illegal to just look for these girls, Leah, but something bad might have been done to them. That’s what Aimee and I are trying to find out and why we’re so desperate for your help. If we don’t act quickly, something could happen to them and neither of us wants that on our conscience,” Dejana pleads.

  Leah pushes her glasses back up into place on her face in a telling gesture of determination. I can see that Dejana’s words have the desired effect. Leah returns to the front door of my house to retrieve her computer bag and takes it to the kitchen table. She opens it, gets out her computer, and makes herself at home. “If something bad is going to happen to these girls, then I’m in. I’m not going to stand by idly if someone may be in danger. Now you two get out of my hair for a bit, I’ve got work to do.”

  Dejana and I look at each other smiling, elated to finally see some forward progress in our quest to find the killer, even if Leah has no idea that’s what she’s doing.

  Leah jumps right in and gleefully begins researching. She stays at my house for hours, asking us questions to gather as much as she can from us to use. She decides around dusk that she would keep at it and hopefully, have something for us in a few days. Until then, Dejana and I do our best to look through missing persons on the internet to see if we could find the girls Dejana drew from the killer’s memories.

  As it usually does, the world keeps spinning no matter how awful the tragedy and no matter how much we don’t want it to. I am just grateful to have something to do. I know that school will be back in session soon and I want to be as prepared as I can be for whatever may come. It is a crisp, cool morning, roughly four days since I was in the hospital that we finally catch a break.

  “I found her,” I say, my voice amazed and relieved.

  Dejana turns from her computer and runs to my laptop to see the picture of the girl I found.

  “It’s an older picture but look,” I say pointing to the gi
rl on the screen. “She is a dead ringer for the girl I saw in the memory. No pun intended,” I add quickly.

  “Wow, you did it, girl. You found her!” exclaims Dejana, clearly as excited as I am.

  I scroll down to find the girl’s name. “Megan Parnell. She was fourteen years old when she disappeared. She lives in Hall County just north of us, but went to another school,” I explain as I look at Dejana to gauge her reaction. “I guess he gained more confidence with each kill since he’s hunting for girls at his own school now. Problem is we have no idea exactly how many girls he’s killed or what he’s done with the bodies. Without that information, there is no way we can give the families any closure. It’s tragic.” My elation at the discovery begins to ebb.

  Dejana pats my shoulder with her hand, trying to reassure me. “We’ll get there. We just need time. And hopefully Leah will come up with some hard evidence soon.” That’s Dejana, always the optimist.

  Drowning in frustration, I slam my laptop closed and cross my arms over my chest. For once, I long for another memory to engulf me so I can find more information on the guy we seek. In the past, when I’ve absorbed a person’s memories, they were seared into my brain, unwelcomed and forever a part of me. I’ve witness a lot of horrible things in my short sixteen years, but nothing like this, nothing that has ever shut down my mind so severely that I landed in a coma. I guess, to protect itself, my mind has forced these nightmares into a box I can’t access until it wants me to. Part of me is glad that it did; I am not sure I could survive another onslaught like that. The only memories I do recall with clarity are the normal ones he had early in life. The ones dealing with baseball are the most clear. I wonder fleetingly if Logan might know him. I debate whether or not I should ask Logan about his teammates, but then immediately dismiss the idea. This guy has managed to conceal his true identity from the world and kill who knows how many girls without raising the slightest bit of suspicion. If he were indeed on the baseball team, Logan probably wouldn’t be aware of it.

  I have no idea how to call a memory to the surface or I would since it’s been a while since the last one and then nothing. This is new territory for me. Usually, I do my best to repress the memories; do my best to forget them. I have seen memories of death before, seen others kill as well, but this time it’s different. This time the killer is one of us. This time he stalks where I live. For me, it has become personal. Yet, all I can do is wait. And I’ve never been good at waiting.

  “I hate this,” I begin my voice practically hissing. “I wish I could figure out how to access another memory so I could be of more help. If it doesn’t happen soon I may need you to hit me over the head to force them out.”

  Dejana says nothing in response to my rant. She turns from the computer to look at me, her face grim and laced with fear. “Well you better prepare yourself then, Aim. I just got an email from the school. They found a vacant high school in a neighboring county that will fit all of us. School starts back tomorrow.”

  Chapter Eleven

  ~ Everyone Wears a Mask ~

  Leah’s fingers practically fly over the keyboard as she types away on her Mac composing different databases to organize the information she’s found on the girls that Dejana and Aimee asked her to find. She stops momentarily and takes a sip of her caramel macchiato, her perfectly manicured nails sparkling in the soft light. Leah looks up at the other patrons sitting at the small tables in the local Starbucks. The usual crowd surrounds her, their focus on either the coffee or their own computers. Deep inside, Leah pities them; they really have no idea what they’re doing. She learned from an early age that given the right tools, she could do just about anything. Given the internet, she could be deadly. She feels most at home with a keyboard and a screen since that world is the one she is able to control.

  Leah refocuses on the task at hand, as she creates another program to help her find the elusive information for which she has been searching. Dejana and that freaky girl, Aimee, think they’re so clever not telling her everything. Leah is constantly underestimated, thanks to the pretty face and body she’s been blessed with. It has its uses on occasion, like when she tries to sell her information or programs to rather unsavory men. With one perfectly placed virus, she could bring down the whole city of Atlanta if she wanted to. Sure, she’s sold her unique computer viruses to shady people, but how else would she be able to afford the kind of clothes she wears? Her parents are poor. Her mom is a secretary for a company downtown and her dad is a janitor at an elementary school. Mostly, Leah allows everyone to underestimate her. It gives her the freedom to do the things she wants without suspicion ever falling to her.

  Leah’s finishes compiling the database of information Aimee and Dejana requested days ago. Now all she needs is time to find out what they are hiding. For now, she’ll play along, but soon she’ll have more than enough information to figure out everything. If her fellow students are in danger and Leah can help save them, then she damn well wants to. For the first time, Leah has a chance to change fate, not just play with it through a screen and an internet connection. She has the chance to actually save a life; not just any life, but the life of someone she might know. She lost her boyfriend Daniel from a cruel twist of fate disguised as a bomb. She’ll be damned if she’s going to lose anyone else she loves to an idiot psychopath.

  Leah wipes the fresh tears that have begun to fall, but doesn’t let them deter her from her mission. She has no idea how much time has passed, only that her drink has grown cold. She continues to focus on her screen, staring at the code she created, and trying to work out the kinks. She is so fixated on her work that she doesn’t realize darkness has fallen. Her fingers are numb from the constant typing, but she doesn’t care. It isn’t until someone pulls out a chair next to her and sits down without so much as a ‘hello’ that she even looks up from her Mac. She instantly closes the laptop in fear that someone will find out what she was doing. But as she looks up into the hazel eyes of a friend, she realizes it wouldn’t have mattered.

  “Well, just sit on down, boys. It wasn’t like I was working or anything,” Leah teases.

  Logan and Tyler smile the same lopsided, sexy smile as they make themselves at home in the creaky wooden chairs that Starbucks calls seats. Leah wonders how in the world some guys can be so comfortable in any situation. She may feel most at home in the cyber world, but Logan and Tyler make wherever they are, home. Logan’s presence especially warms the room. There’s just something about him, something about the way he treats people that make them feel like they’re special. It doesn’t matter whether they’re a jock, a geek, or an outcast, Logan immediately is the friend they always hoped to find. Even now as they sit here with Leah, every girl in Starbucks is gawking at the two hotties and shooting daggers at Leah. Surprisingly, neither seems to notice they have an audience. Strangely, both Logan and Tyler are silent, neither in a hurry to divulge the reason for this impromptu visit.

  “So, you boys gonna tell me why you’re here so I can get back to work?”

  “Ok,” Logan laughs, “I get it, we interrupted you. Sorry about that, but we were passing by and saw your car outside. We wanted to check on you. I know these past few days have been hard and Tyler told me that you didn’t go to Daniel’s funeral.”

  Not liking at all where this conversation is going, Leah tries to interrupt, but is waylaid by Logan’s next comment.

  “He was a good friend of ours and I know he’d come back and haunt us if we didn’t at least touch base with you, see how you were holding up.”

  Grief slices her heart like a knife; rendering her unable to answer for a minute. She’d like nothing more than to let loose and cry against Logan’s shoulder until she can’t cry anymore, but Leah doesn’t see the point in that. She believes Daniel is still with her and can see everything. She doesn’t want him to see her broken down. That’s why she didn’t go to the funeral; she isn’t ready to say goodbye. Leah uses every bit of her willpower to push back her anguish and not show
weakness in front of Daniel’s friends. Daniel was her world; the least she could do is try to make him proud of her.

  “Thanks for checking on me, but I’m fine. You both can go forth in life knowing that you did right by Daniel. Are we done now?” she asks, her voice catching a bit.

  Tyler and Logan share a look. It’s obvious they don’t believe her. Since Logan crashed and burned, Tyler figures it’s his turn to try.

  “You didn’t go to his funeral, Leah. You even missed the candlelight service we had that night for the thirty-seven who died. Why wouldn’t we think that’s strange? Daniel talked about you all the time. He loved you and he wouldn’t want you sitting here alone, typing on your computer, and ignoring the people that care about you in the real world.”

  The truth behind Tyler’s words stings. Leah was clinging to the cyber world to cope, to the detriment of her so-called real life—or what’s left of it. How can she explain to Tyler and Logan, to anyone, that Daniel’s loss is simply too much to bear? Would they understand how devastating it is to lose the only person that anchored her to the real world in the first place? That’s one reason she loved Daniel so much; he made a world she can enjoy living in, where she was the only thing that mattered. Or rather could live in. Now that Daniel is gone, that world holds no meaning for her anymore. Before melancholy threatens to drown her, Leah pushes down her grief and focuses on the present.

  “The ‘real world’, as you call it Tyler, was destroyed for me that day the bomb went off in the cafeteria. Nothing matters anymore, except finding who did it. Now, unless you boys have gained some computer wizardry that I’m not aware of, you’re no help to me.”