The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels

by Travis Luedke

  I shook my head. “I told you everything. I even pointed her out to you.” I pointed in Nadia’s direction, but she wasn’t there anymore. Stunned, I looked up and down the street to see where she’d gone, but she had pulled the disappearing act again. I turned back to my former best friend who stared at me like I was batshit crazy.

  “I’m trying to help you, Justin. She’s dangerous.”

  “You’re gonna stick with that line of shit? I will find out the truth, and I know you had something to do with it, or you wouldn’t be here right now. Get the hell off my property and don’t ever call me again.” His face filled with cold hatred.

  He slammed the door in my face.

  Then I realized something. I tried to talk to Rachelle about my vision of Tommy, which led to the fight. It was the fight that led to Nadia’s retaliation against both Tommy and Rachelle. I had caused the very thing I tried so hard to stop, and now it was happening all over again with Justin.

  * * * *

  Chapter 18

  Thursday, October 28th

  I slept through the early hours of the morning in my bed, alone. Nadia hadn’t shown her face since stalking me all the way to Justin’s house.

  I didn’t know what to do, and could hardly sleep for shit.

  When I did sleep in brief fits, I dreamed of things I’d rather not see again. I had nightmares of Nadia tearing into Mikhail, blood and screams and generally unpleasant stuff. By morning I was dead tired. I could’ve crashed for another five hours easy.

  I dragged my butt out of bed at 7:00 a.m. I couldn’t justify skipping any more school. Toast and a steaming cup of hot chocolate with a scoop of instant coffee gave me a much-needed wakeup kick to start the day.

  I found Anita in the library right before school started. We hugged and kissed, holding on for a couple minutes. It felt so right to be with her, smelling her kiwi-strawberry scented hair. I could almost forget the realms of weirdness that had overtaken my life when she kissed me.

  She ruined the temporary spell with a direct question. “What happened with Justin?”

  “He didn’t believe a word I said. If anything, I convinced him I’m crazy. He probably thinks I’m the one who did it. Guess who just happened to be walking by while I was standing on the porch with Justin?”

  “No way! She was there too?”

  “Unh hunh, and she didn’t look too happy.”

  “Oh my god! What do you think she’s gonna do?”

  “I don’t know. I can try to talk to her, beyond that I really don’t know. Do you believe me?” Her eyes slipped down and away. She still wasn’t sure.

  “I think so. It’s kinda hard to swallow. But I don’t think you’re a liar. I’m just not sure what to think. But you know I love you?”

  I couldn’t help but smile when she said the words. “You proved that to me last night.” She blushed and kissed me again. We separated with plans for lunch.

  I looked for Justin, but he didn’t seem to be in school. Then I heard today was Tommy Schroeder’s funeral service. The entire wrestling team had taken the day off school, Justin included.

  I kept thinking, mulling over the shocking revelations of last night. I had a slew of conflicting thoughts and feelings when it came to Nadia. I couldn’t really decide what to do about her.

  Was there anything I could do?

  The one thing I didn’t feel was fear – respect, definitely – but I didn’t fear Nadia. She swore she’d never harm me. But what did she want? Her intentions didn’t seem benevolent. I’d seen firsthand how much of a predator she could be.

  What could I do to stop her from hurting Justin or Anita? There were no solutions. And honestly, I had no real love for Justin. I didn’t wish him any harm, but I didn’t really care much either. Anita was another story. She was off-limits, untouchable. I needed to face Nadia, find a way to convince her to leave them alone, or at least Anita.

  I worked myself up for a showdown with Nadia. I had it all planned out, how I’d stand my ground and demand she back off.

  My plans were changed when I was called to the principal’s office a few minutes before school ended. Two of Moses Lake’s finest, MLPD officers in uniform, stood next to Principal Stanton. Dread filled my guts, turning my stomach in flip flops and my legs to gelatin. I sat down, sweating hard as visions of Justin’s mutilated body swam through my mind. Mixed in with my fears about Justin were snatches of imagery of Tommy’s broken body tumbling across the pit floor as he came to rest in a heap of dead flesh. I tried to keep a level head as my heart pounded into my throat and my armpits saturated with cold sweat.

  “Here, have a seat. And let me see your cell.”

  “What for?”

  “Well you’re not supposed to have it at school for one thing, but I’m going to let the officers take a look at it.” He handed it to one of the police officers. “I’m releasing you into the custody of the MLPD for questioning. If you would like, you can use my phone to call your father quickly before you go.”

  Who would I call besides Anita? Who would answer a phone and do anything for me? No one. Dad was at work and there was no one else to call.

  I shook my head in hopelessness and left silently with the officers.

  I copped all kinds of weird stares as I walked out to the parking lot with the MLPD. Fucking great.

  I rode with them to the downtown police station, in the back of the squad car, feeling like a criminal all the while. An accomplice to murder, an accessory, party to a crime, but I wasn’t cuffed, not yet. In the police station they took me to a spartan cinder block room where I was seated at a cold metal table and told to wait a few minutes, the detective will be in shortly.

  Sitting and waiting for who knows what, my imagination raced through a guessing game of possibilities. I thought of all the people close to me who might be potential targets for Nadia. Justin and Anita, obviously, but what if there were others? What of Taylor? Nadia had gone after him once before. Then there was Cleo and Rafe, and all the other skaters at the park. And what about the wrestling team? Nadia had made a direct threat towards Tommy’s wrestler buddies who were involved in the fight. And what about my father, was it possible Nadia might consider Richard a threat in some way? The possibilities spiraled out in a spider web of all the people who had contact or connection with me over the past few weeks. There I was at the center of the web, with Nadia, the black widow, catching any and all who might pose a threat to me.

  “Hello, I’m Detective Dominic Cassiano.” He shook hands with me, and sat across the table in the only other chair. Salt and pepper hair trimmed short, and a neat goatee, he looked all business. A man who would not put up with any lies from a punk skater. Like a scene out of some gritty CSI episode, I wondered if he was gonna offer me a cigarette.

  He stared at me, trying to strip my secrets with his searching gaze. “So Mike, do you know why you’re here?”

  “They said you had some questions.” I distrusted this guy immediately. I had been involved with police a couple times as a skater in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I didn’t really trust police anyway.

  “Um hmmm, and what do you suppose I might want to ask you about?” The asshole was fishing, looking for me to start running my mouth.

  “I don’t know.” I didn’t take the bait.

  There were so many aspects of my insane life in the last week that would be inexplicable to a police officer, to anyone. I simply couldn’t afford to talk about much of anything. There were no safe subjects to discuss.

  “Really? And what would you say if I told you we talked to your friend Justin Shelby? He came to us a few hours ago, after the funeral of your friend Thomas Schroeder.”

  Aha! That was it. Justin had gone snitch. I felt relieved to know where this was coming from. “Justin is not my friend, and neither was Tommy.”

  “Hmmm, Justin said you were pretty good friends.”

  “Yeah, that was a few months ago. We don’t hang out anymore.”

  “Okay.
And what do you think Justin had to say?” Cassiano made a note on his pad of paper as he spoke. I didn’t answer except to shrug my shoulders.

  “Oh come on. We know what you did to Rachelle Werner.” Cassiano dropped that bomb and then waited a moment for it to sink in before he continued. “If you admit to the truth, accept your guilt, we can probably get the prosecutor to recommend a lenient sentence. You’ve no prior criminal history beyond a couple municipal skating tickets, so maybe we can get you set up with some counseling sessions, community service, and we’ll have to see how Rachelle’s parents feel about her unpaid medical bills.” With this calm sneak attack, Cassiano leaned forward to look eye to eye with me.

  I went straight for denial. “I didn’t do anything. I don’t know what crap Justin told you, but I didn’t do anything.” Technically that was true, and I held tightly onto that sliver of truth.

  “Don’t give me any lies, boy. I can see it in your face. Tell me the truth!”

  “I’m not lying! I don’t know anything and I didn’t do anything.”

  “This girl has second degree burns. She’s been moved to a burn treatment facility in Seattle. Look, see for yourself.” Cassiano pulled two photographs from a file on the table and tossed them in front of me. I couldn’t look away from the horrid pictures of red, raw wounds on Rachelle’s cheeks and arms. I didn’t want to see, but I couldn’t stop looking. It was harsh, like a really nasty rash, only way worse. No denying the fact, Rachelle was marked for life.

  “They’re probably gonna have to do skin grafts!” Cassiano growled in my face.

  I felt nauseous, guilt tearing away at my insides. “I didn’t do it. I swear on my mother’s grave I didn’t do it.” I finally found the strength to look away from the pictures, willing myself to keep my eyes averted from the table.

  “Son, this can go real bad, real quick. Acid in her lotion, that’s assault with a deadly weapon, premeditated. May be considered attempted murder. You could be facing years in prison. What are you, sixteen?”

  I nodded, yes. Fear gripped me so tightly my balls shrunk to little pebbles. “But I’m telling you I didn’t do it. Don’t you hear what I’m saying?”

  Cassiano continued as if I was already tried and convicted. “At sixteen, a judge could decide to try you as an adult, two years shy of eighteen … it’s not that much difference. It’s happened before, right here in Moses Lake.”

  I recalled something about a stabbing a few years ago. The kid was sixteen, and they tried him as an adult. Cassiano wasn’t bluffing, not about that. I felt this situation sliding out of my grasp. The man had something on me, he knew something.

  “The only way you’re getting out of this with any chance at a normal life is to admit your guilt. Waiting to do the right thing is not the right thing. Be a man. Take responsibility for your actions. The judge and the prosecutor will have a lot more respect and leniency if you tell the truth about what you’ve done. Show some remorse.”

  Cassiano sat back in his seat staring hard, willing me to speak with an intimidating I-know-what-a-piece-of-shit-you-are look. I’d seen enough cop TV shows to know it was time to shut my mouth and prepare for the worst.

  “Am I under arrest? I think I should be talking to an attorney. Shouldn’t I have an attorney?”

  Cassiano held his searing stare for a few more seconds. I wondered if he practiced at home in front of the mirror. He was pretty damn good at the facial-psychological-intimidation. I felt intimidated, but there was nothing gained by giving Cassiano information. His patented stare bore into my guilty soul, branding me.

  The detective was angry, he wanted answers. Things were not progressing in the direction he’d hoped for.

  After a loaded silence, he finally answered, “No. Not yet.”

  A great weight lifted from my shoulders, I was halfway to freedom already. They didn’t have enough to arrest me, I hadn’t given them anything.

  Cassiano paused and switched direction. “So, what do you know about this? If it wasn’t you, do you know who did it? Who might have something against Rachelle Werner?”

  Though I had decided to be quiet (attorney up as they say on TV), I opened my big fat mouth again. “No, I don’t know anything. I heard about it from a kid at the skatepark yesterday. I was home sick all day when it happened. I wasn’t even at school.”

  “You were sick? That’s not how Justin tells it. He said you fought with Tommy, that Tommy and his buddies thrashed you, and Rachelle was there watching it all. She set you up for it, didn’t she?” Ole Cassiano knew a whole lot more than he had let on.

  Fuck.

  I tried my best to say as little as possible, yet still answer him. “Yeah, there was a fight, and Rachelle was there. I don’t have any idea if she set me up. I was skating and then they all showed up and started messing with me.” It occurred to me that Nadia’s peculiar brand of first aid might work in my favor. “Do I look like I was thrashed?”

  “No. Doesn’t even look like he hit you. And that’s another thing, Justin said you went off on Tommy. Almost like you wanted to kill him.”

  Though I was sweating hard, I couldn’t help but chuckle. There was nothing funny about this situation, but the insanity of it made me laugh. “I told you we weren’t friends. Tommy was an asshole. We didn’t like each other and we got in a fight. That’s all it was.”

  “The fight had something to do with Rachelle Werner? You couldn’t handle the fact that her and Tommy were dating? You used to date Rachelle, didn’t you?”

  Best friends make the worst enemies. Justin had told Detective Cassiano way too much about my personal life.

  Still chuckling at how quickly my world could turn to absolute shit, I held back the tide of lunatic laughter welling up inside me. “No. We fought because Tommy was an asshole! I have a girlfriend. I’m not interested in Rachelle. I am not jealous! I was home sick the next day. And I didn’t do anything you’re accusing me of!”

  Cassiano reverted back to the hard stare, the I-know-you-did-it-and-I’m-gonna-get-you stare. My sense of the situation wobbled. Had I actually convinced him I’m just a dumb obnoxious skater?

  “Hmm, who can verify that you stayed home sick?” Damn bastard was thorough.

  “My Dad.”

  “Why would Justin come to us and say all this? He also said you went to his house late last night. That’s when you admitted everything to him, right?”

  Would it ever end? This guy was good, and he had me pegged all the way around. He had already known everything before he asked a single question.

  I started thinking hard before opening my big, stupid mouth. If I admitted to being at Justin’s house, I’d have to explain why, the slippery slope of things better left unsaid.

  When all else fails, deny everything. The liar’s motto.

  “I wasn’t at his house, but I called to see if he was okay. He didn’t want to talk. Maybe he’s upset with Tommy’s death, and that’s why he’s lying. Really, I don’t know why he’s saying these things. And I didn’t do anything to Rachelle.”

  “So he’s lying?”

  I nodded, “Sorry to waste your time.”

  He looked at me, and I could almost see the wheels turning. The seesaw situation started leaning more in my favor. All he had was the words of an emotionally distraught teenager. No real evidence. Maybe I could walk away from this, if I just kept my fat mouth shut.

  “Okay. I’m going to verify a few things, get ahold of your father. If I find out you’ve lied to me, I promise you’ll regret it. You will sit in county juvenile lockup for the night, probably for the rest of the week. This is your last chance to come clean and tell me the truth. If you tell me now, I can take your statement and let you go home. Care to add anything to your story?”

  Oh man, this guy had me ready to talk. I wanted to tell him everything. I wanted so badly to point the finger at that damn psycho vampire. But nobody would listen. Nobody ever really listens to me, except for the psycho vampire.

  “No. I
don’t know anything and I didn’t do anything.”

  “Alright, let’s hope for your sake you’re telling me the truth. You’ll have to wait while I get ahold of your Dad. You want something to drink?”

  I didn’t trust this new tack, the friendly Cassiano. But I went along with it. “Can I get a coke?”

  “Sure.” He brought back a Coke and then left me alone with my conscience to stew in the knowledge that I was a liar and an accessory to murder.

  * * * *

  Chapter 19

  Thursday evening, October 28th

  I wasn’t sure of the time when they finally released me to my father, but it had long since grown dark outside and I was starving. Richard waited for me in the lobby, still in his dark blue RSC work shirt. There at his side – holding his fucking hand – was the murdering psycho vampire stalker. When she spotted me coming out the door with Detective Cassiano she ran up and gave me a huge hug, whispering in my ear, “I was so worried.”

  I wanted to yell at her, to scream accusations in her face. She was the reason for all this! If she hadn’t done those horrible things, I wouldn’t be standing at the police station, defending bullshit accusations!

  Nosy as ever, Cassiano, studied Nadia closely. “Is this your sister?”

  “No, she’s just a friend. Nadia meet Detective Cassiano.”

  I introduced her with a mind to start pointing fingers right there. This wicked little girl focused all the intensity of her freakish eyes on Cassiano, one of those unblinking, all-absorbing stares. When Cassiano put out his hand to shake, she pulled him down to her level, eye to eye. “Michael is not the one you’re looking for. You have made a mistake. You have the wrong person, Michael Evans is innocent.”

  Like a scene from a bad eighties sci-fi film, the Detective spoke in an eerie emotionless tone. “Michael’s not the one I’m looking for. I made a mistake. I had the wrong person, Michael Evans is innocent.”

  Richard stepped up and added to it. “Mike’s a good boy. He’d never get mixed up in this nasty business.”