I sat up in bed, gasping for air. My hair was damp with sweat and stuck to the moist crevices of my neck. I darted my gaze around my pitch-black bedroom. I looked at the clock beside my bed. It was 7:16 in the evening. I had slept all day. After taking a deep breath to calm myself, I stumbled out of bed and pushed open the blinds. The thin, purple glow of twilight lined the horizon. I stood in front of the window and pressed my forehead against the glass. The cold, hard surface felt soothing against my overheated skin. Flashes and images from my dream replayed on a loop in front of my closed eyelids. Her cold stare, her voice empty, and her eyes back. It was just a dream, of course. A blatant reflection of my current anxieties. Nothing deeper than that.
My breath stilled. My heart rate slowed. But when I opened my eyes again, I sucked in a sharp gasp. “What the hell?” I blurted out, jumping away from the window. In the front yard of our apartment building stood a dark figure. It looked like the silhouette of a man, but as I squinted in the dim light, I couldn’t ascertain the person’s gender. He or she appeared tall, dressed in all gray, wearing a beanie and a zip-up hoodie. I couldn’t see the person’s facial features, but I could feel a pair of eyes leering into me. I stood frozen, waiting for the figure to move, speak, or communicate with me somehow. But no movement occurred. The figure was a lifeless statue.
I blinked three times, trying to clear my vision. I rubbed my eyes and when I opened them again, the figure was still standing there, motionless in the glow of twilight.
“Rosie!” I screeched. Every muscle in my body shifted into fight or flight mode. I sprinted out of my bedroom and across the hall. When I found Rosie’s bedroom door, it was left open a crack.
I clutched the handle, but halted when I saw a flash of bare skin. There was a man in Rosie’s bed. Rosie was on top of him, completely naked, straddling him. She rocked and rolled into him, and with a grimace of pleasure she released a climactic moan, then glanced over her shoulder at me.
“Jesus!” I cried out. “Shit. Sorry.” I slammed her door closed. Breathless, I stood in the hallway, hugging my arms. My breathing grew frantic. Slowly and deeply, I sucked air into my lungs and then forcefully let it out.
Through Rosie’s bedroom door, the springs of her mattress stopped bouncing. Light, hurried footsteps creaked on the floor, and the door slowly crept open.
“Dani?” Rosie poked her head through the opening. She had hastily thrown on a pair of baggy sweatpants and a red, laced bra. She hadn’t bothered to put her shirt on. Her smooth, glossy skin was exposed. I couldn’t see the boy in her bed, but I could hear him shuffling around, probably looking for his clothes.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered, my voice shaking heavily. “I didn’t know you had a…friend over.”
“It’s okay,” Rosie said. She didn’t even appear slightly embarrassed that I just watched her have an orgasm. Her only visible emotion was concern for me. “What the hell happened?”
“There’s someone watching me,” I said. “I know it sounds nuts, but I swear I just saw…”
Rosie’s jaw fell. She covered her hand with her mouth. “Oh, God. Don’t tell me.”
I stared at her. “What?”
“Where’d you see him?”
“Through my bedroom window,” I replied.
Rosie stormed toward my room and stopped in front of the window beside my bed. She bent over and squinted through the glass, focusing hard. I stood behind her and peered over her shoulder. Only mowed grass and shrubbery consumed the ground below. The figure was no longer in sight. The lawn was empty.
“I swear I saw…” I stammered.
“I believe you,” Rosie said. “It was probably my ex again.”
“Who?” I blinked, trying to recover from the shock and panic that rendered me speechless just a minute ago.
“Brian Summers. He was my high school boyfriend. He used to drive by my house all the time before my dad finally threatened him. I hadn’t heard from him in years, until he called me last night when he was drunk, telling me he still loved me and yada yada. I wonder how he found out about Jared.”
“Jared?” I asked. “Is that the guy in your room?”
Rosie nodded casually, then slid the window open. Still basically topless, she poked her head out into the night air. “Fuck off, Brian!” she shouted. Her voice echoed across the apartment complex, scaring a flock of birds out of the oak tree beside our building.
She closed the window with a slam and spun around to face me. She adjusted her bra, where abundant cleavage spilled out of the cups. I swallowed hard and averted my eyes.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s not that big of a deal. Brian is a complete stalker, but he’s harmless.”
My thoughts shifted to my confrontation with Rob, the way he squeezed me threateningly and said through gritted teeth, You don’t know what I’m capable of…
I couldn’t help but suspect that he was the person standing on the lawn. Either that, or I was going crazy and had imagined the entire thing. That wasn’t the most unlikely possibility. I was beginning to feel like my sense of reality was slipping away from me. My mental stability was teetering over the edge of a slippery slope. My thoughts scrambled through my head so relentlessly that I couldn’t even see clearly. It was like seeing the world through a cloudy, tinted lense.
Rosie said, “By the way, I invited some friends over tonight. I understand if you’re not feeling up to hanging out, but if you want to, the offer is there. It might be good for you to just…try to relax.”
I closed my eyes. Socializing with sorority girls was the last thing I wanted to do. “Will there be alcohol?” I asked.
Rosie grinned. “We’re in college. Duh.”
I considered it for a moment, then said, “No…I probably shouldn’t. I think I’ll just stay in my room and watch the news. I’ll check for updates about Leah.”
“Up to you,” Rosie said. “Anyway, I’m gonna go back and…ya know…continue what I was doing.” She turned and exited the room, her footsteps fading away as she crossed the hall. I heard her bedroom door shut with a click, followed by the continued bouncing of mattress springs. Rosie’s muffled moans could be heard through the thin walls of our apartment.
I crawled into bed and covered my ears.
I spent the next hour tucked into bed, scrolling obsessively through my phone. Rosie was right—news about Leah’s disappearance was exploding all over social media. My entire timeline was flooded with shared posts displaying pictures of Leah, and a trending headline that read, Twenty-Two-Year-Old Woman Gone Missing During a College Party on Saturday: Suspicions Rise About Fraternity President As Suspect.
As I read further, I gathered that the accusations of sexual assault were not based off of physical evidence. Several female students had spoken out on social media across various platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I spent a solid thirty minutes skimming through the stories written by women who claimed that Rob had assaulted them at some point. Most of the sources were anonymous. The only post that stood out to me was written by Debbie Allen. She was in one of my public speaking classes during my first year. She posted a story about how Rob had pulled her aside at a party and sniffed her neck without asking. The story offered zero evidence of the incident, and to be honest, I doubted that sniffing someone’s neck was considered assault. It definitely wasn’t connected to Leah by any stretch, but the post got over five hundred shares. Despite Rob’s threat of violence in which he demanded that the rumors stopped, the suspicions surrounding his involvement were blowing up like gasoline on a fire. By now, there was nothing anyone could do to stop it.
After a while, the light from my phone began to irritate my eyes, so I put my phone on my nightstand and turned off the light. It was almost nine o’clock. Muffled chatter drifted through the walls. As I listened curiously, I could only hear soft, female voices. Rosie must have just invited the girls over tonight. That was unusual for her. Groups of men had a tendency to flock toward her like desperate, love struck
sheep.
I rose from bed and tiptoed into the hall, careful not to be noticed by any of Rosie’s friends. I knew that if they saw me, they’d assault me with questions about Leah. Her disappearance was all anyone wanted to talk about lately. I certainly was not in the mood to be interviewed by a bunch of women who barely knew me.
I lingered quietly in the hall, arching my ear toward the living room. I remained out of view.
“…Either way, Rob will definitely be brought in for interrogation,” I overheard one of the girls saying. I recognized her voice as Jenna’s.
“I don’t think you guys understand how police investigations actually work,” another girl responded. “Without a body or any evidence to suggest she was killed, the police can’t do anything. They have to wait until a body shows up.”
Jenna said, “Leah disappeared on the beach, which means she might have drowned in the ocean, right? What if her body is lost?”
“It’ll turn up eventually,” someone replied.
A rush of nausea tightened into a knot in my gut. I covered my mouth, trying to suppress a gag.
Rosie chimed into the conversation.“Who knows. Maybe this will end up being one of those cases that never gets solved.”
“I’m just glad that Rob is finally getting called out on social media for being disgusting,” Jenna said. “I always thought that kid was invincible. His parents have enough money to get him out of anything.”
Rosie clicked her tongue. “But not this. Even if he is innocent, his reputation will never recover after all the social media attacks.”
Jenna cleared her throat. “Hey, Rosie… Can I ask something?”
“Shoot,” Rosie replied.
“I know you and Dani are super close, and I really don’t mean to offend you by asking. But…” She hesitated. “What if…?”
“What?” Rosie asked.
One of the other girls finished the sentence for Jenna. “I think she’s trying to ask about the possibility of Dani being the murderer.”
My stomach lurched. I inched my way closer to the living room, angling my ear toward the chatter.
“Oh, come on,” Rosie said. “Dani doesn’t have a cruel bone in her body. If anything, a bit of a backbone might do her some good.”
Jenna spoke softly, as if she was afraid of eavesdroppers listening in. “I know, but…didn’t Leah and Dani get into a fight that night? What if Dani got angry, lost control, and…blacked out?”
“No,” Rosie cut in immediately. She spoke with confidence and assertion, letting everyone in the room know that it was her turn to speak. “That’s ridiculous. I know Dani.”
“But did you actually see where she was when Leah was on the beach with Rob?” Jenna asked. “Dani passed out in the backyard, and no one knows how she got there. I heard she told the police that she doesn’t remember anything. I see that as a red flag.”
“Stop.” Rosie’s tone of voice was firm and demanding. Everyone in the room went silent.
As I stood in the hallway, a storm of rage burned inside me like a racecar engine. My breaths grew wild and hysteric. Panting heavily through flared nostrils, I stormed past the living room. Four sets of eyes darted in my direction, wide and horrified.
Jenna looked at me as if I had just caught her in a crime. “Hi, Dani,” she said with a straight and stiff back.
I ignored her and looked at Rosie. “I’m going out,” I said as I slipped my arms through the sleeves of my leather jacket.
“Okay,” Rosie said with a strained smile. “See you la—”
I aggressively slammed the door behind me.
• • •
I wasn’t sure if my key to Leah’s apartment still worked; it had been a long time since I’d used it. I didn’t want to have to break inside, but the urgency of the situation allowed me no choice. I couldn’t wait around while Rosie’s friends bounced ideas off of each other, accusing me of something I didn’t do. I had to take action and figure out the truth on my own.
A cold chill floated in the night air. I parked my car in front of Leah’s apartment, which was located on a narrow side street in Collingswood. It was a simple, charming residence. I was proud of her when she finally signed the lease. After years of being a slave to her mother, she finally mustered up the self respect to be independent. That’s all I’d ever wanted for her.
The apartment complex was quiet and still. When I approached the front step of her apartment on the first floor, I pushed the key into the hole. The door opened with a slow, metallic, rusty creak. It almost sounded like a painful moan. When I stepped inside, I could still detect the scent of Leah lingering in the air. I switched a light on.
The carpet was neatly vacuumed, the shelves were dusted, and the kitchen counters were wiped down. I looked around, searching for something, any irregularity that might grab my attention. But everything seemed normal, if not a little cleaner than usual.
I scorned myself for assuming the worst-case scenario. What was I expecting, anyway? Did I think there would be blood splattered all over the carpet? Did I think I’d find bloody footprints trailing from the living room, with sharp knives and screwdrivers in the sink? Did I think I’d find a body in the bedroom?
The image brought a lump to my throat. I hadn’t checked her bedroom yet.
Calmly and steadily, I began tiptoeing through the narrow hall toward her bedroom. This was a bedroom that I had spent many nights wrapped in Leah’s arms. Memories of the two of us flashed into my mind as I strode forward. I remembered Leah’s head thrown back in ecstasy, her steady moans, the grip of her hands on my hips. I remembered the way she trembled when she climaxed, as if she’d finally reached the state of euphoria that she’d been chasing her entire life. She had me. She had all of me. Long ago, in a different time, she and I were wrapped up in one another, bound together by lust, thirst, and love.
My heart pounded like a fast-paced drum against my chest. All the blinds in the apartment were pulled shut. The only light came from the living room behind me, which faded away as I tiptoed into the darker corners of the home. The only sounds I could hear were my own footsteps and the rush of blood in my ears.
Leah’s bedroom door was closed. I gripped the metal doorknob, which felt icy cold against my sweaty fingers. When I turned it, there came a sudden thump behind me. I spun around manically. A scream erupted from my throat.
“Fuck,” I muttered to Leah’s cat. My panic resolved a little. Fred, Leah’s seven-year-old British Shorthair looked up at me expectantly, his tail squirming behind him. I crouched down and stroked his ears. “I almost forgot about you, Freddy.” I picked him up and carried him into Leah’s bedroom.
I flipped on the light switch and absorbed my surroundings. A picture frame was propped up on the nightstand beside her bed. It was a photo from our high school graduation. Leah barely passed the twelfth grade, and she was reluctant to walk in the ceremony, but I begged her so that we could take a picture together. The two of us were smiling in the photo, posing in our graduation gowns while our classmates cheered all around us.
I grinned at the photo, then turned toward a wooden desk in the corner of the bedroom. There was a neat pile of papers on top. Curiously, I flipped through them and shook my head when I saw that most of them were bank statements and bills that were to be sent to her mother’s address. Her mother’s monthly credit card bill cost more than all of Leah’s utility bills put together. No wonder Leah struggled to make rent every month.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, pulling my attention away from Leah’s bank statements. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and glanced at the screen. It was my mom calling again. I hadn’t spoken to her in a week.
Reluctantly, I lowered Fred to the ground and answered the call.
“Danielle Elizabeth Kent,” my mother said sternly. “Why haven’t you called me back all this time?!”
I rubbed my eyes groggily. “I’m sorry. I haven’t been able to focus or remember much.”
“God. Honey, are yo
u alright? I heard about what happened yesterday and I’ve been trying to reach you. You must be troubled beyond belief.”
“You can say that,” I replied. Fred nestled against my leg and purred.
“What on earth happened?” she asked. “People on the internet have been putting the blame on the Seagrave family. They’re saying that the president of one of those frats is responsible. The boy’s father made a very angry Facebook post about how people have been treating his family. Apparently, they’ve been harassed. Their home was vandalized and protesters have been gathering on their front lawn. I sure hope he’s guilty, because if not…”
“He is,” I said. “He has to be.”
“What have you been doing all this time?” my mom asked. “It’s been several days, and I can’t imagine that you’ve been studying…”
I bit my lip. “I haven’t been studying a whole lot. No.”
“I know you’re grieving, but your first final is tomorrow. These times are tumultuous and difficult, but you can’t abandon your studies.”
I remained silent.
“Are you listening to me? Danielle, I don’t think you understand how worried me and your dad are. You’re not in a good state of mind. Your dad and I both think that you should leave campus for the week and come home.” She waited for a response, then asked, “Where are you right now?”
My eyes wandered toward the small, rectangular window in Leah’s bedroom. I squinted across the street. A tall street lamp stood erect, and below it’s dim glow was a dark figure again. The details of his or her physique were so obscure in the darkness that I still couldn’t decipher the person’s gender. The person was wearing the same black beanie as earlier, with a black hoodie and a light scarf that blew in the breeze.
I had no doubt that the figure was staring directly at me. Paralized and transfixed with sharp, calculating eyes leering through Leah’s tiny window.
“Dani?!” my mother said. “Will you answer me?”
“I can’t talk now,” I murmured. With a trembling hand, I hung up the phone and put it in my pocket. My panic returned just as quickly as it had dissipated a few moments ago. My breaths deeped, gaining fast momentum. My pulse slammed like a hammer against the knot in my throat. Should I run? Or should I just stand here, planted? I stared at the figure. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled.
Shelter in the Dark Page 6