* * *
“Miranda!” my father called. “You have a letter!”
I ran downstairs to meet him in the front hall. I took the letter and sat in the living room, making myself comfortable as he continued to look through the mail. The white envelope had no return address. It wasn’t until I ripped it open that I realized it came from Caleb.
My heart jumped. I hadn’t spoken to Caleb since he stormed out of the house a few days before, and I regretted letting him leave like that.
Looking down at the writing scrawled on the paper, I began to read. It read:
Dear Miranda,
I am writing you to apologize for the way I spoke to you the other night. I don’t always know how to phrase how I feel. I spend so much of my time guarding my words that when what I am really thinking slips out I feel like I don’t have control. I am much better at writing out what I meant to say.
I realize that some of the things I confessed may have taken you by surprise. But everything I told you... I felt. I have been in love with you since we were in the same first grade class. You were distinctly different from your sister. You were more quiet and unapproachable, but your words, when you did speak, were sincere. I admired that. I carried that memory through the years.
I made the mistake of believing that your sister would be more like you, but she wasn’t. It was hard for me to imagine that two girls that were identical to one another could be so different. Before my parents’ divorce, I may have been more open to Nastasia’s superficial attitude, but after, I wanted more out of a relationship. I wanted someone who understood me. Someone who cared to hear what I had to say. Not someone who only cared about the next party we should be seen at. I wanted someone like you.
It is hard to describe, but I don’t see your sister when I look at you. I see the girl I met in the first grade, the shy girl with the warm blue eyes. Realizing my feelings were a huge conflict, I stood in the relationship, feeling trapped. I knew you wouldn’t even consider me since I was already with Nastasia. I would have given anything to be close to you, but I wouldn’t have ever harmed your sister.
I know now that there could never be anything between us, and I will never again repeat any of this to you, but I just need you to believe me.
- Caleb
Letting the words sink into my mind, I felt conflicted. I did have feelings for Caleb, but in some part of my mind, I was betraying my sister. Although there was no real substance to their relationship, he was still involved with her, and that was a huge conflict for me. It hurt me to believe I just couldn’t follow my heart, but there was an invisible barrier I just couldn’t cross.
Then there was the possibility that Caleb may not be everything he appears. A part of me wanted to believe he had nothing to do with harming my sister, but the truth was he wasn’t happy and could have done anything to get her out of the way.
My thoughts drifted to the dream I had of the crash, remembering the set of boots as they stood outside the car.
A chill ran down my spine.
Could it have been what my sister actually went through? Was someone there, standing in the darkness, waiting for her car to crash? Could it have been Caleb or someone else we knew? Could it have been a stranger?
Tracing the writing on the letter with my eyes, my breath caught in my throat. It didn’t look like the writing on the note I received, but I couldn’t be sure. Remembering what Lisbeth said about Nastasia keeping the notes in a tin, I ran upstairs.
“Where are you running to?” my father asked, shouting after me.
“Nastasia’s room,” I shouted back as I hurried down the hall.
I entered my sister’s bedroom. Sprinting across the room, I reached under the bed and pulled out all of the things I had hidden under there. Finding a small tin box, I opened it.
Upon lifting the lid, I immediately noticed a picture of my sister. Her smile was bright. She stood between her two best friends, Britney and Lisbeth, wearing their cheerleading outfits. Lifting up that picture, I found more photos of Nastasia with various friends at different social events.
At the bottom of the stack, I found a picture of her with Caleb. While she seemed happy, Caleb hadn’t even bothered to smile as the photo was snapped. He looked bored as he posed with an arm lazily draped around her shoulder.
Putting the picture back in the box, I found three small cream-colored envelopes in the bottom of the tin. Removing one, I opened the flap, pulling out the piece of cardstock.
My eyes traced the heavy-handed rounded strokes of the writing on the note as I read it. “I know what you saw,” I read aloud.
I picked up Caleb’s letter and noticed the light linear strokes of his penmanship. “The writing doesn’t match,” I said to myself, feeling relieved. “It wasn’t you.”
“What are you doing, Miranda?” my father asked as he walked into the bedroom. “It isn’t who?”
I glanced up at my father as he stood before me with his arms crossed. “It isn’t Caleb,” I told him excitedly before realizing I had been hiding so much. “I suspected Caleb of having something to do with Tasia’s accident, but it isn’t him.”
My father kneeled down on the floor beside me. “Of course it wasn’t Caleb. He would never do such a thing,” my father said calmly, his voice soothing.
“I couldn’t be sure of anything,” I told him, shaking my head. “Not after I got that call from Lisbeth.”
“Lisbeth? Tasia’s friend?”
I nodded, suddenly feeling emotional. “She told me that Caleb knew Samantha Cole. She made it seem that there may be some link between Caleb and the Samantha Cole murder.”
He raised an eyebrow, watching me closely. “And that note?” my father questioned, seeing the papers in my hand.
“I received this letter from Caleb today,” I told him, holding up the paper in my right hand. “This other one is a note that Tasia received from... someone who was harassing her.”
“Harassing her? Why did you not tell me anything about this before?” he asked harshly, his face beginning to turn bright red. “What have you been hiding from me?”
“I didn’t know until the other day,” I told him, blurting out my words as I handed him the note. “She was supposedly receiving weird gifts and notes at school. She never told anyone about it. I didn’t know until Lisbeth called me.”
My father looked over the small piece of cardstock. “We need to hand over this note to Det. Conner. This could help her investigation,” my father told me. “What does it even mean? What did she see?”
I shook my head. “Lisbeth told me all that she knew. I have to talk to Britney and see what she knows.”
“No,” my father said sternly. “Let the authorities handle this. You need to rest. You haven’t been sleeping well. You are having nightmares every night. You have dark circles under your eyes.”
“Daddy, I have to know what happened.”
“I can’t lose you, too! Leave it to the authorities,” he told me, his blue eyes meeting mine in a pleading manner. “Please, promise me.”
With my brows drawn together and my lips forming a tight line, I nodded reluctantly. Although I was conflicted by his request, I saw a glimpse of his inner torment which I couldn’t possibly ignore. He loved me, and he couldn’t live with yet another loss. “I promise.”
As I watched my father stand up and exit the room with the letters in hand, my eyes lingered on my camera which I had placed on a dresser a few days before. My mind suddenly drifted to the picture which was left inside the macabre gift on my doorstep. The picture had been cropped manually. Why? Perhaps to center the two individuals in the photograph. Or perhaps... to remove evidence that had been in the background of the picture itself.
Jumping to my feet, I grabbed my camera. As I held it in my hands, I remembered I had stored previous snapshots on my SD card. I walked straight into my bedroom with purposeful steps. Sitt
ing down at my desk, I connected my camera to my laptop, navigating through the files of pictures I had taken over the years.
Since the picture was taken two years before, it took quite some time to find the shot in question. “Got you,” I said aloud as I double clicked on the image, making it bigger.
My sister’s brilliant smile overtook my screen, and I felt a knot in my chest. It was hard to believe that she was gone, and I had scarcely allowed myself the time to mourn. However, seeing an image of her brought the grief I had been trying to suppress to the forefront.
I felt a tear escape my eye. Quickly wiping it away, I shook my head, trying to focus on the task at hand.
I adjusted the size of the picture, focusing on the dark background. The picture was taken at night just before a football game. Although bright flood lights lit up the night’s sky, there were many shadows in the background since the field is surrounded by dark patches of forest.
Noticing the half empty bleachers, I focused on the blurred faces, but I hardly recognized anyone. To my recollection, the seats were mostly vacant as many people had not arrived or were hitting the concession stand before the game.
My eye drifted to the right portion of the photo which had been ripped. Although the pixilation of the photograph prevented me from getting a clear view, I noticed two distant figures standing just outside of the bleachers. One of them was clearly a female with brown hair and light skin that bared a resemblance to... Samantha Cole!
I gasped.
My breathing quickened.
My heart began to pound violently in my chest at the realization that I may have captured Samantha Cole’s last moments before her violent murder.
My eyes reluctantly shifted to the other figure who appeared to be slightly taller. In relation to their proximity to one another, this person seemed to be her companion that night. Could this person have been her killer?
This image confirmed in my head that it couldn’t have been Caleb. He was playing that night. He couldn’t have been standing on the sidelines with Samantha. She was there with someone else that night.
I needed to sharpen the pixilation of the photograph, but I didn’t have a program that could do that; however, I knew someone who did.
Entering my web browser, I logged onto my email account. After attaching a photo, I wrote:
Hello, Mrs. Fayson.
I need your help sharpening the image and softening the pixilation of this photo. I believe the person on the right located by the bleachers in the background of this photograph is Samantha Cole. This image may have been captured moments before her death, and her companion could very well be her murderer. This could aide in the police investigation for both Samantha’s and my sister’s murder. This is a very urgent matter that can use your assistance as soon as possible. You can contact me on my cell phone since I don’t want to worry my father should I be mistaken. Thank you!
-Miranda
I clicked send, hoping that she would get back to me as soon as possible. This photo could be the evidence needed to bring to light the motive for my sister’s murder and put a face to Samantha Cole’s killer.
Disconnecting my camera from the drive, I heard my father running up the stairs, calling out to me. I hurried to shut my laptop so he wouldn’t see what I was doing.
He entered the room, appearing winded. “What are you doing?” he asked, eyeing me suspiciously.
I shook my head. “Nothing,” I answered.
“Did you not hear me calling you?”
“No,” I said, sitting up straighter in my seat.
My father entered the room, his heavy footsteps making the floor beneath him creak. “I just got off the phone with Det. Conner. She has just arrested Caleb for suspicion of murder.”
“But he is innocent! He didn’t do it, and we have proof,” I shouted, standing abruptly. “You have it right in your hands.”
I motioned to the letters, suddenly feeling dizzy. With my head whirling, I took up my seat again before I fell to the floor.
Rushing towards me, my father put the letters on my desk, appearing concerned. “You need to rest, Randy.”
“But he didn’t do it, Daddy,” I told him on the verge of tears as I rubbed my temples.
Kneeling before me, he took my hand into his. “Det. Conner said that the letters mean nothing. She said that they might not be linked to your sister’s killer,” he said calmly, his eyes red with apparent exhaustion. “I don’t want to believe it either, but she said Caleb was the logical choice. Their relationship was on the verge of ending. He could have been upset about it... . He could have snapped.”
I shook my head. “I don’t believe it.”
Petting my head, he sighed. “We have to trust the police. They know what they are doing,” he said, keeping his voice calm and soothing. “Just get some rest, and I will be back to check on you later.”
I nodded, standing up and walking towards the bed with my father’s aide. My dizziness was adding to my exhaustion, and I yawned. Climbing onto the mattress, I covered myself in the warmth of the comforter and closed my eyes, falling asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
Shattered Page 10
