by Kathi Daley
Trevor looked doubtful. “Seems like a long shot.”
“There are two more envelopes,” Mac pointed out. “Open them. Maybe one of them has the answers we still need.”
The second to the last envelope contained a medical report that looked as if it might have been the results from a blood test. The final envelope contained a letter.
I read it aloud.
There are times in life when we are faced with impossible choices. We can become crippled by those choices, which can, at times, lead us to do things we would not otherwise have done. I was a doctor, a man who valued life and vowed to preserve it. I look back on the past few years and wonder how the man who stood so proud when he started his first medical practice evolved into the one writing what will serve as my final confession.
When my son was born I was filled with such joy. His future, I believed, was bursting with possibility, and I knew in my heart that he would one day do great things. As time passed, I saw my hope for his future decay into a terror I cannot quite explain. By the time he was four, I knew the child who was to be the light of my life was filled with a darkness I could never understand. With each year that passed, the darkness took over, and his actions became increasingly violent. My heart, once filled with happiness, became paralyzed with the fear that he would take the life of another.
Looking back, I realize I should have had him institutionalized, but he was still my son, and deep in my heart, I still loved him.
My poor, dear wife, God rest her soul, was terrified of him. So much so that she eventually took her own life to escape his dark presence. I knew at that moment I needed to make a change, so I sold my home and my practice and moved to the far-western shore of the country. I bought a large house that would serve as both my son’s prison as well as my own, and I tried, to the best of my ability, to create a satisfying life for both of us.
It worked for a while. Julius seemed content to sit in his room and draw. But as he aged, the evil in him intensified, until eventually it engulfed him completely. He began to escape the prison I had created, but still I refused to send him away. I tightened the security each time he found his way into the world, but each effort on my part seemed to have minimal effect.
The day I found Julius with the child in his arms and realized my son had suffocated him, I knew I needed to end things once and for all. Julius would have suffered endless torture in an institution, so I fed him his favorite meal and laced his bedtime milk with a drug to make him sleep. Once he was out I administered the IV that slowly and peacefully ended his life.
I left both Julius and the child in a hidden room and waited for the authorities to come, but it never happened. After several months without a report of a missing child, I began to wonder. My own search turned up a runaway named Bobby Miller. He appeared to have the same characteristics as the boy Julius had killed, and I took some blood and ran a test. I was able to confirm with a fair degree of accuracy that the child in my secret room and Bobby Miller were one and the same. I considered calling in the authorities, but to what end? Bobby had been alone in the world and his killer was dead. I suppose I should answer for Julius’s death, but rotting away in prison couldn’t possibly relieve the pain in my soul. As of the time I pen this letter, I am unsure of my next move, but I felt I needed to let future generations know that true evil in its purest form does exist.
“Wow,” Mac said when I had finished.
I handed the letter to Trevor. “Yeah, wow.”
“What should we do?” Mac asked.
“We need to call Woody. This may mess up Caleb’s plans for the Hayride, but I think our lost souls need to receive a proper burial if they’re ever to find peace.”
Chapter 16
Thursday, October 26
Woody took the information we provided and promised not only to confirm the identities of the two victims but to see that the remains of both Julius and Bobby received a proper burial. I hoped that would help both lost souls to move on. The thought of the man and the child being trapped in the house for all eternity was too sad to even consider. I thought I’d wait a day or two and then return to the house. If the ghosts were still in residence I’d know it, and if they had moved on, I felt I would know that as well.
I’d spent the previous day focusing on my homework. My FBI tail was still around, but I had a feeling his time with me was coming to an end. Donovan was trying to find a solution that would allow me to stay in Cutter’s Cove, but as long as the Bonatello brothers were alive, my life, and the lives of those around me, would be in danger.
Today, I decided, I would focus my energy on identifying Chelsea’s stalker. She hadn’t received any new photos since the ones from the previous weekend, but I knew I wouldn’t feel right about things until I’d put this mystery to bed. I wasn’t certain if I would even be attending Seacliff High the next week, and tomorrow was a half day, so today was when I’d have to find my answers.
Chance had verified that at least three of the days emails were sent from the high school, Mike Walker hadn’t been on campus. Unless there were two or more people working together, he couldn’t have been the stalker. The best lead we had was the single email sent from the attendance office computer. It seemed to provide a means of narrowing down the suspect field, but I also wondered why a student with the intelligence to obtain the student passwords in the first place would send an anonymous email from a computer with limited access.
The whole thing really didn’t make any sense.
Maybe what I should be asking wasn’t who’d had the means to send the emails but who’d had the motive to mess with Chelsea. She rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, but most of the students she pissed off wouldn’t have spent the time to stalk her simply to make a point or exact revenge. As we’d concluded, for someone to want to stalk her, they’d need to be obsessed with her.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Mac asked, sitting down across from me at a table on the second floor of the library.
“I’m just trying to figure out who Chelsea’s stalker might be.”
“She said the emails and phone calls have stopped. Maybe you should just let it go. She seems to have.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess, but I hate to leave things unfinished. I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be a student at Seacliff High and I want things wrapped up in case I need to leave.”
A look of pain crossed Mac’s face. “Don’t even say that.”
“Why not? It’s true. I’ve spent a lot of time looking at the situation, and as much as it kills me to think of leaving, I can’t risk my life and the life of those I love to protect my social life. That would make me no better than Chelsea.”
Mac didn’t reply, but I knew she agreed.
“If you ask me, the only one who would spend the amount of time the stalker has obsessing over Chelsea is Chelsea,” Mac grumbled.
Mac had something there. If it was possible for Chelsea to take the photos of herself I’d definitely suspect her of making the whole thing up to get attention.
“Let’s go over things again,” I said. “We know whoever sent the emails had access to student passwords. As far as we know, the only people with that information are Mr. Pruitt, Mike Walker, Art Dupree, and maybe the principal.”
“What about Art’s sister?” Mac asked. “He told you he got the password that permitted him to access the student records from his sister.”
“That’s true. He also said she was dating Mike, so I’m assuming he was referring to an older sister.”
“I can find out,” Mac offered. She set her backpack on the table and pulled out her laptop. I waited while she booted it up. She typed in some commands that I suspected gave her access to school records. “Oh, wow.”
I narrowed my gaze. “Oh, wow, what?”
Mac looked at me. “Art Dupree lives across the street from Chelsea.”
I remembered the photo taken of Chelsea on Saturday morning. Of course. The stalker would have had to have been someone w
ith easy access to Chelsea’s house. It looked like we’d found our stalker, who, as it turned out, was the very first suspect I’d put on my list. I supposed that was a lesson in going with your first instinct.
“I bet he’s in the computer lab. I’m going to talk to him,” I said.
“Do you want me to come?” Mac asked.
“No, I think it will go better if I speak to him alone.” I glanced at my tail. “Do me a favor and let Chance know what I’m doing and why I need him to give me some space. If he really feels the need, he can wait for me in the hallway outside the computer lab.”
“Okay, I’ll tell him. You don’t think Art is dangerous, do you?”
I thought about the socially awkward guy. “No, I don’t think so. And it isn’t like I’m meeting with him alone in some isolated spot. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“Okay. Good luck.”
Mac went to talk to Chance as I got up and made my way out of the library. I hurried across the campus and, as expected, found Art working on one of the computers in the computer lab. I sat down next to him, waiting to speak until he stopped typing.
“Are you having more problems with your account?” he asked.
“No. I appreciate your help, but I figured out who was sending the emails.”
Art didn’t reply.
“What I don’t understand is why.”
He looked down at his hands.
“You’re a bright guy who seems to have a lot going for him. I don’t understand why you would waste what had to amount to hours upon hours stalking someone like Chelsea Green.”
Art looked up and turned to face me. “I’ve lived across the street from Chelsea since I was four. We used to be friends. Best friends. We even built a treehouse in my backyard where we used to hang out and escape from the world. I was never all that comfortable with other kids and Chelsea’s friendship meant a lot to me.”
I waited for Art to gather his thoughts. Eventually, he continued. “Then, when we were in the sixth grade, she got her braces off and began to climb the social ladder. She stopped coming around for quite a while. Of course, my feelings were hurt and I didn’t understand how she could just throw away what we had. I struggled with her betrayal for quite a while, but eventually, I came to the point where I felt I could move on. And then her grandmother died. Chelsea was really close to her grandmother, and her death really affected her. She still wouldn’t talk to me in public, but in the evenings, when none of her popular friends were around, she’d come over and we’d talk. It wasn’t the same as when we were kids, but it was something, and it meant a lot to me.”
“And then…?”
“And then we started high school and suddenly, once again, I wasn’t worthy of being in her orbit. She seemed to go out of her way to put distance between us. I guess at first I didn’t care. She’d turned into a total snob and I certainly had better things to do with my time than listen to her prattle. Then, when we were sophomores, her best friend at the time started spreading rumors about her. Chelsea was devastated, and for the first time in almost two years she came over to my house just to talk. I was such a sucker, I immediately forgave all the mean things she’d done to me. We talked and I gave her advice, and we really seemed to be us once again.”
“And then?”
“And then she made up with her friend and I was back to being the nerdy kid across the street who wasn’t worthy of her attention. I was angry at first, but I got over it and moved on to other things. I would have gone on with my life and never given it a second thought if her parents hadn’t hit a rough patch over the summer.”
“Her parents split up?” I asked.
“Temporarily. They seemed to have worked it out, but during the period where they were fighting every day Chelsea began hanging out at my house the way she had when we were younger. Suddenly, we were back, and my world seemed complete. She apologized for the way she’d treated me and I really thought she cared about me. But as it turned out, she was just using me. The minute school started up, she was back to ignoring me. I was pretty devastated, but then I realized that, ever since we hit puberty, the only time she came to me was when she had a problem.”
“So you created a problem.”
“I guess it was lame, and I guess I wasn’t thinking right, but yeah, that’s the gist of it. I figured she’d be freaked out when she got the emails and come running to me to fix it, but instead of running to me, she ran to you. When you came into the lab the other day I realized you were close to figuring things out. I wanted to confess, but I suppose at my core I’m a coward. I did stop sending the emails, though, and I don’t plan to send any more. Are you going to tell her it was me?”
I actually wasn’t certain. “Why did you admit to having the student passwords? If you hadn’t volunteered to help me I would never have known.”
Art shrugged. “I guess there was some part of me that wanted you to figure it out. I hate being so needy. I hate that Chelsea has the power over me that she seems to. I guess I felt helpless to end it and hoped you would.”
I had to admit I couldn’t comprehend how someone would become obsessed with another person to the extent Art had become obsessed with Chelsea, but I’d also never been as socially awkward as Art seemed to be. I guess when social interaction is difficult you cling to those you feel the most comfortable with.
“I won’t tell Chelsea it was you who sent the emails as long as you promise to stop. She seems to have moved on from the whole thing anyway. I can’t claim to understand why you felt you had to do what you did, but, as I said, you’re a smart guy with a bright future ahead of you. Don’t ruin it by letting others define your values.”
“I won’t. And thanks.”
The bell for fifth period rang and I said good-bye and headed to class. I wasn’t sure what the future would bring, but at least I felt I’d tied up all the loose ends. If it was my destiny to leave Cutter’s Cove I wouldn’t have to feel I’d left unfinished business behind.
******
When I arrived home from school and saw Donovan’s car in the drive my heart sank. I remembered what had happened the last time I came home to find my handler waiting for me. When Chance had told me after school that he’d been relieved from watchdog duty I should have realized the time of reckoning had arrived.
I knew I needed to go inside and face whatever was waiting for me, but my legs felt numb and I found I was unable to move. I picked up my phone and scrolled through the photos I had of Mac and Trevor. They meant the world to me. I really couldn’t imagine my life without them. In that moment, I knew I would do anything to keep them in my life. I even understood why Art had done what he had.
I wiped the tears from my face and slowly opened the Jeep door. I climbed out and headed to the front door and the destiny that waited inside.
“Oh good, you’re home.” Mom hugged me the minute I walked inside. I could see she’d been crying, but she also had a smile on her face. I supposed she was trying to be brave for me. And I supposed I could be brave for her.
“What’s going on?” I struggled to keep my emotions at bay as I prepared myself for the devastating announcement I knew was coming.
“Donovan’s here. He has news.”
I looked toward the living room “I figured.”
I took one step and then another. I felt like a prisoner walking to her death. It felt like my heart was going to break into a million pieces, but I steeled myself to accept my fate like an adult.
“Donovan,” I said as I stepped into the room. He had on a black suit and a white shirt that seemed much too formal for the occasion.
“Amanda. I’m glad you’re finally home. Have a seat.”
Odd that he should call me Amanda. He, of course, knew the truth but hadn’t crossed the line between my two identities in the past.
I sat down and waited.
“We found the Bonatello brothers.”
My heart skipped a beat. “You did? Are they here?”
Dono
van shook his head. “No. Not here. They’re dead.”
I felt my breath catch. “Dead?”
“Executed. The popular opinion is that their sloppy murder of the men in the vacant lot and their pursuit of you brought more attention to the family than they were comfortable with. The family decided they were a liability and took care of them. We’ve unofficially been informed that the family has no beef with you.”
I sat perfectly still. I wasn’t sure what to think. “What does that mean?”
Donovan smiled. “It means you’re free. The men who were after you are dead and the Bonatello family isn’t interested in creating another problem by pursuing you. You can resume your life as Amanda Parker or you can remain here as Alyson Prescott. It’s totally up to you.”
I looked at my mom, who was standing in the doorway with tears streaming down her face. I had no idea what to say, so instead I started sobbing. There are no words to describe how it feels to have such a great burden lifted from your life. Mom crossed the room and I ran into her arms. I wasn’t sure where my life would take me, but for the first time in a long time I felt like my life was finally mine to live.
Chapter 17
Saturday, October 28
Somehow Caleb had managed to work his magic and make the Hayride and haunted house a reality. I honestly had no idea how he pulled it off, but the house was completely decorated and the party was the best I’d ever attended. I’d been to the house a couple of times since learning the truth about the skeletons in the secret room and I was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that both ghosts had moved on. I felt good about the fact that I had helped the boy to escape the earthly prison that had entrapped him for so many years, and I even found myself hoping the man who had been filled with evil during his lifetime had finally found peace as well.