by Kelly Oram
“Huh, that’s actually really sweet. Too bad we’re going to use his present to put him in jail.”
After a minute of fiddling with the lock, it clicked open. Angela started to lift the lid and my heart skipped a beat. “Wait,” I whispered.
Angela looked up at me. “Did you want to do it?”
“No! I—I—I can’t look. I don’t want to know what’s in there.”
“We have to look.”
“But what if it is him? I can’t handle it. You look. You look and then don’t tell me. If it’s him, I don’t want to know.”
“Ellie.” Angela’s voice turned sympathetic. “It’ll be okay. If it is him, then we’ve stopped a murderer from killing innocent girls. You’ll be safe again.” She smiled playfully. “I’ll be ungrounded on the weekends again.”
That made me smile. “Ah, the real reason you’re helping me.”
We both managed a short laugh and then Angel took a deep breath. “Here goes.”
I pinched my eyes shut and held my breath.
“Oh,” Angela whispered in awe. “Wow.”
“What!” My eyes flew open and Angela handed me the toolbox.
Inside the box was what was left of Seth’s parents. A handful of photographs, a matching set of wedding bands, a pair of eyeglasses, a lock of his mom’s hair—almost an exact match in color to mine.
“She was beautiful,” Angela said, staring at a picture of Seth’s mom.
I picked up a family picture and looked closely at Seth’s father. “So was he,” I said. Neither of us could raise our voices above a whisper. “It’s no wonder Seth is so…”
“Yummy?” Angela offered.
Seth was a nice mix of the two of them. He had his father’s eyes and his mother’s nose and smile. In the picture they were on a beach and a nine-year-old Seth was proudly showing off a sand castle like he didn’t have a care in the world. He had on a smile I’d never seen him wear. The picture hinted at just how much his parent’s deaths had changed him. My heart just about broke in half seeing them together.
When the front door slammed shut downstairs, I jumped so high the contents of the toolbox scattered.
“They’re home!” Angela hissed.
I frantically shoved everything back in the toolbox, while Angela took off Seth’s Jacket and fixed the clothes in his closet to cover up the wall.
“We can’t get out the window,” I told Angela. “We’re going to have to wait until Ms. Wainwright goes to her room or something, and then sneak out.”
“What about Seth?”
“He’s probably still in jail.”
Just then we heard Seth’s aunt say, “You want me to make you a sandwich or anything?”
“No, thanks,” Seth replied—geez he sounded depressed. “I’m just tired.”
“Alright. Then I’m going to make some calls in my office for a while. We’ll get this sorted out.”
“Yeah, sure.” Seth didn’t sound as optimistic as his aunt.
We heard the sound of the office door shut and then there were feet heavy on the stairs. Angela and I looked at each other in horror. Seth’s bedroom door was hanging wide open and in like two seconds he was going to walk in and find us snooping through his stuff. We were dead.
“Quick, Angela, hide behind the door. I’ll distract him and you slip out.”
“Ellie, no!” Angela grabbed the taser from the nightstand. “I have a better idea.”
“We are not tasing him! He won’t hurt me, Angela,” I hissed as I shoved her behind his door and made sure she was out of site. Then I dashed over to his bed and hugged his pillow like I’d been sleeping for a while. I’m not even sure my eyes were all the way closed when he walked in his room.
“Ellie?” he gasped.
I did my best impression of someone being stirred from a deep sleep. After a moment, I took one look at his destroyed face and didn’t have to act when I rushed to him and threw my arms around him. “Seth! I’m so glad you’re back. I was so worried.”
The way his arms came around me was more reactive than anything. “What are you doing here?” he asked, shocked and completely confused.
I pulled my chin back to look up into his eyes, but I refused to loosen my grip around his waist. “I know about Travis,” I said. “That’s what Angela came to tell me about.”
“Ellie, wait, I swear I—”
“It doesn’t matter,” I told him quickly. I didn’t want to hear his excuses. I didn’t want to even think about what he’d done. If I could just ignore that and focus on his face—his beautiful pain-stricken face—I could forget anything was wrong and just be glad to see him long enough to get Angela to safety.
“When I saw the cops out front of your house last night I thought I was going to be sick. They took you away in handcuffs, and after hearing about Travis I was sure they were taking you to jail. I thought I wouldn’t see you again, and I’d left so mad yesterday. I thought you were going to spend your life in prison thinking I hated you.”
I squeezed Seth even tighter and my name escaped his mouth in the form of a sigh. He hugged me back as if my very presence was renewing his strength.
“How come they let you go?” I couldn’t help asking.
“They only brought me in for questioning.” Seth’s body tensed beneath me. “I don’t know why they bothered. They didn’t believe a word I said. The only reason they didn’t arrest me was because they didn’t have any proof. Travis’s car is still missing, and he didn’t get a good enough look at his attacker. The guy wore a mask and came at him from behind when he was getting in his car.”
I shuddered, wondering how Seth could talk so nonchalantly about a guy he’d nearly killed. Seth felt me shake and squeezed me so tight it almost hurt. I scrambled for something to say. “I hope you don’t mind that I came over, but I was just so worried sick about you.”
“Mind that you came over?” Seth repeated incredulously. The confusion may have been gone from his voice, but the disbelief sure wasn’t. “I was afraid you’d hate me. I didn’t think you’d ever let me explain.”
Hearing Seth’s door creak, I glanced over his shoulder. My sister was still waiting for a chance to make a break for it. I felt Seth start to turn and brought my hand to his hair, slowly raking my fingers through it. Seth’s eyes fell shut at the caress.
“I don’t need an explanation,” I told him. “I just need my boyfriend to kiss me.”
Seth was baffled, but successfully distracted. Angela could have driven a tank out of his room and he wouldn’t have noticed. “You just said the B word,” he said.
“And yet you’re still not kissing me.”
Seth didn’t have to be told again. He kissed me so earnestly that even though I knew he had a closet full of dead and possibly soon-to-be-dead girls’ pictures, I melted in his arms. On the bright side, Angela was able to escape safely. On the not so bright side, I was now kissing someone who probably stabbed a guy and possibly killed four girls, and I was finding that I didn’t really want to stop.
Thank goodness for Lady GaGa. If there’s one thing that can kill my mood to make out, it’s pop music. “Don’t answer it,” Seth growled—apparently, it didn’t kill his mood. But I knew it would be Angela attempting to rescue me, so I answered it.
“Hello?”
“Ellie, hey, are you still at Seth’s?”
Seth heard Angela’s voice come through the receiver and that did kill his mood. He let go of me and fell to his bed, scowling. I laid down on the bed with him, even though that made me want to kiss him some more. I needed to be close enough to him that he would still hear whatever excuse Angela was about to give me.
“Don’t worry, we’re not fighting anymore,” I explained to Seth, smiling when he rolled against me and draped his arm over my stomach. In the phone I said, “Yeah, I’m still here. Seth got home like five minutes ago, so I was thinking I’d stay for a while. Why, what’s up?”
“You’d better get home. I just heard Dad wake u
p.”
I shot straight up. There was a good chance this excuse was real. “Thanks. I’m coming right now.”
Seth clung to my hand and gave me an inquisitive look. “Sorry,” I said. “But I do not want to have to explain to my father what I’m doing at your house at eight in the morning in my PJ’s.”
Seth looked unhappy about having to let go of me, but at least he didn’t look pissed off. “Are we ever going to get the chance to make out with no interruptions?”
“Not right now,” I said. “I’ll call you later. I’m glad you’re home.”
Seth walked me to the front door and wouldn’t let me go until I kissed him. “You owe me a make-out session,” he warned me. I just responded with a smile.
Angela practically tackled me the minute I walked in the door. “I cannot believe we got away with that!” she said once she’d slammed my bedroom door shut. Both of us headed straight for my window. “When that front door opened I thought we were goners. Nice distraction, by the way. Way to make out with a murderer.”
My natural instincts wanted to spit out some stupid comeback, but the only thing that came out of my mouth was a sigh.
“You have to accept it, Ellie. We have to call the cops.”
“But we didn’t find anything that proves he did it. It could still not be him.”
“But what about those pictures in his closet? There were three girls there that aren’t dead yet. Do we have to wait until they are?”
I was defeated and I knew it. “I guess not.”
Three hours later I still wasn’t convinced talking to the cops was the right thing, but Angela and I were sitting in the food court of the mall with the detective we’d talked to before. “I could have come to your house,” Detective Pierce said once he’d ordered a coffee and joined us at our table. “I really should be talking to you with your parents.”
“No!” Angela and I said together. I think it startled Detective Pierce.
“Our parents are leaving to go on a cruise this Wednesday,” Angela explained. “If they knew about all this they would cancel their trip.”
“It’s their twentieth anniversary,” I added. “And they’ve never been on a vacation without us before. It would break their hearts if they didn’t get to go.”
“You mean to tell me that you girls will be home alone this weekend?”
“I’m almost eighteen,” Angela said, taking offense. “We’re old enough to be home alone. Plus, we have an emergency contact list five miles long. We’ll be fine.”
“And there’s really no reason to worry, right?” I asked. “I mean, you said last time that all this stuff with Seth is probably just coincidence. Right?”
The detective tugged at his collar, obviously very uncomfortable about something.
“What?” I demanded, while Angela more politely asked, “Did you find something?”
The cop looked around the crowded mall and leaned over the table to whisper to us. “We found your friend Travis’s stolen car. There was a knife inside.”
“What’s that got to do with Seth?” I asked.
“Or the Saturday Night Slasher?” Angela added.
“The knife was covered in blood, so we ran DNA tests. We found Travis’s DNA, as well as the DNA of two of the Saturday Night victims. Whoever attacked Travis is definitely our serial killer.”
“Well, that doesn’t make sense,” I argued. “The Saturday Night Slasher has been flawless. He hasn’t left one single fingerprint or strand of hair or anything through four murders. Why would he suddenly attack some random kid, steal a car and then be so careless to leave the murder weapon behind. That’s just stupid.”
Detective Pierce patronized me with a smile. “Crimes of passion are always more careless. Your boyfriend was really upset about Travis getting physical with you.”
“But you can’t prove it was Seth who attacked him!”
The cop’s smile turned rueful. “It’s true. There’s no proof that it was Seth who attacked Travis,” he said. I don’t think he was trying to console me. “Everything, even what you’ve told me about the pictures in his room, is all circumstantial. We can’t nail this kid until we have hard proof.”
I flinched at the way he’d said nail this kid. This cop was convinced, and he was out for blood. And if he was that convinced, and he was the lead detective on the Saturday Night Slasher case…
My world came crumbling down around me. “So it’s true then,” I mumbled. “Seth really is the…” I couldn’t finish my sentence. My boyfriend was a serial killer. I kissed a serial killer. I liked a serial killer. Still liked him.
I felt Angela’s arm go around my shoulder, but it didn’t make me feel any better. “What am I supposed to do now?” I whispered.
“Uh, break up?” Angela suggested.
“No!” Detective Pierce said so suddenly that Angela and I both jumped.
“What?” Angela gasped.
“I can’t just stay in a relationship with a murderer.”
“Eleanor,” the cop said gently. “You have to act normal. No sudden break-ups. If Seth thinks you’ve figured out his secret, if he suspects you’re going to turn on him at all, he’ll kill you to protect himself. It’s what these guys do. You have to play along until I can catch him. It’s the only way to keep you safe.”
“But Seth won’t come after me. No matter how much he probably wants to, he can’t. It’s too risky and he knows it. He said as much when I told him Angela thought he was the Slasher.”
“You told him that?” Angela gasped.
“I had to tell him something,” I snapped defensively. “He was more than a little butt-hurt about you calling the cops on him.”
That made Mr. Detective man flinch. “You told him that you guys called me?” he asked carefully.
“Do I look like I’m stupid?” I said. “Of course I didn’t tell my boyfriend that my crazy sister called the police and accused him of murdering four girls. I wanted to keep him as a boyfriend at the time. No. Angela told him she called the cops on him in the park after he pulled a knife on Travis. He didn’t understand why she would rat him out so easily when no one actually got hurt and he was only defending me.”
“So he doesn’t know that you’ve been contacting the police about this? He just thinks it’s a crazy theory?”
“Yes.”
“And does he think you believe it?”
“Of course not.”
Detective Pierce sharpened his gaze on both of us and slowly asked, “Have either of you told anyone anything about any of this? Your parents? Friends?”
Angela shook her head and I said, “Just when I told Seth Angela’s crazy theory. But I didn’t tell him how much she believes it.”
Detective Pierce let out a breath. “Good,” he said. “This has to stay just between us. If Seth suspects anything at all, he’ll come after you. I’m doing my best to get him behind bars, but I need just a little more time.”
I raised my hand as if waiting for the teacher to call on me. “So, I’m still confused. How exactly am I supposed to act like a normal girlfriend to a murderer?”
Detective Pierce laughed. Highly unprofessional, if you ask me. Stupid authority figures thinking they are so superior all the time. Of course, I have anger management issues. “From the sounds of it, you are already anything but a normal girlfriend, so just be yourself.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I snapped.
I had no idea why my question made the detective smile, or Angela snort. Judging from the looks they were giving me, I was waiting for them both to sigh and go, “Oh, Ellie.” They had to spell it out for me before I got it.
“It seems that you keep young Mr. Bishop on his toes in the romance department,” Detective Pierce said.
“Huh?”
“You make him insanely jealous because all your friends are guys, you don’t put up with his crap, and I’m guessing you probably don’t put out enough for his liking either,” Angela translated. “I think Dete
ctive Pierce is saying you’re unpredictable in a relationship.”
Detective Pierce nodded and said, “Which will work to your advantage. We’ll get him as quickly as we can, and I’ll keep an eye on you, but just remember the most important thing to keeping yourself safe right now is never let him know you suspect him.” He glanced at Angela next to me and added, “You, either.”
I looked at my sister with a frown. All she’d ever done is suspect him. “We are so dead.”
“This sucks.”
I was eating Ben and Jerry’s straight from the carton on my front porch Wednesday morning with Angela, instead of playing hockey in the park where I should have been. This was the second game I’d missed.
Ever since my psycho boyfriend knifed down some jerk that tried to feel me up, everyone I knew was avoiding me like I had the plague. They hadn’t actually said not to show up, but it was pretty clear that they were afraid to even look at me for fear that Seth would come after them next.
I watched my boyfriend viciously attack the punching bag in his garage. “My life is over.”
“That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?” Angela asked.
“Um, no. Thanks to Seth, everyone I know is terrified to come near me. I’ll never play hockey again. I’ll never have friends again. The only people who still even talk to me are either related to me or kill people on the weekends for fun.”
“Look at the bright side. You only have two more years until you can find a nice out-of-state college where nobody knows you. Assuming your boyfriend doesn’t kill you first.”
“Thank you so much for that, Angela.”
As if he knew we were talking about him, Seth looked our direction and waved tentatively to us. He took a minute to gulp down some water and wipe the sweat from the back of his neck.
“And speaking of our serial hottie,” Angela said as we both plastered fake smiles on our faces and waved back. “Is it wrong that I still wouldn’t miss watching his workouts for anything, even knowing he uses those muscles for overpowering helpless girls?”
I didn’t want to miss them, either. That was part of my problem. I sighed again and Angela echoed it. “How are things in fake relationship land?” she asked upon the return of my depression.
