by Steven James
“Yes. He wasn’t thinking and took them from the house.”
No reaction. “Your books are in your hall locker?”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Yes, I heard you. Let’s have a look in your hall locker.”
“For what?”
His didn’t answer him. “Come on.”
They didn’t find anything unusual in Daniel’s locker. His dad had him gather any books he needed for homework for tomorrow and Monday.
“What’s going on, Dad?”
The students who were still in the halls watched—but pretended not to watch—as the sheriff, dressed in his law enforcement uniform, led his son in the direction of the school entrance.
As they walked, Daniel texted Nicole to stay at school instead of going home, to stay there with Kyle.
She didn’t reply.
Daniel’s dad waited until they were away from the other students, then said, “On Monday when we were at the lake you told me you’d gone out there for closure.”
“Yeah. From the things I’d been seeing.”
“You said Kyle was the one who found the cell phones in Mr. McKinney’s house?”
“Yes.”
“Were you in the bedroom before he was?”
“What?”
His dad stopped walking. Daniel stood beside him.
“Did you go in there first, Dan?”
“Yeah, but just for a minute. Mainly I was looking around Mr. McKinney’s office.”
His father was silent.
Daniel felt a stab of concern.
Why would he even ask you that?
“Why don’t you ride with me?” his dad said, but it didn’t sound like a question. He started for the doors. “We’ll pick up your car later.”
No, no, no.
He thinks you had something to do with this.
That’s ridiculous.
You didn’t do anything.
But he’s right, you were in the bedroom first. You could have planted the phones.
No, you would remember.
You’ve been having these blurs. If you can go sleepwalking in the rain and don’t remember it, you could have . . .
No.
He couldn’t have.
You know details about her death that no one else seems to know. You knew about Trevor, about the glasses. You dreamt of killing her.
A terrible, terrible thought: Was that a dream or could it have been a memory?
A nightmare or a reality?
Grayland.
Caught between black and white.
Between good and evil.
That night when Ty and his buddies tried to attack Nicole, he said he saw you at the lake. What if he wasn’t talking about Saturday morning, but about the night Emily died?
No.
The lens was in your locker.
You fainted at her funeral. You keep seeing her.
Stay on this. Seek the truth. Learn what happened.
Stay. Seek. Learn.
No!
The headache split through him, getting worse, taking over. Bright, needle-sharp spikes invading his mind.
A blur.
Everything was a blur.
The barrier is gone, just like you told Stacy.
Fantasy meeting reality, blending, intertwining, becoming one.
There was no football game the night Emily died.
You were free. You might have—
They made it to the doors. “Dad, I forgot something in my locker.” He tried to sound casual. “I’ll be right back. Okay?”
A slight pause. “Alright. I’ll wait here.”
As Daniel passed through the hall he was in a daze.
He had to talk to Kyle.
When he got to his locker he made sure his father wasn’t following him, then snuck down a side hallway and out one of the school’s rear exits, and phoned his friend.
“Daniel? Where are you? I got a text from Nicole. Why did you tell her to meet up with me?”
“Is she there?”
“No, I’m with Mia. I told her to meet us. We’re still waiting for her.”
Well, at least she’s on her way.
“Have you ever thought you might be capable of doing something unspeakable?” Daniel asked him.
“What are you talking about?”
“I mean, you hear about it all the time. Someone snaps and goes on a shooting spree at his school, or some dad takes an axe to his family, or a mom drives off a pier with her babies in the backseat.”
“Okay, you’re scaring me a little bit here, bro.”
“I’m just saying, did you ever wonder if you might come to the place in your life where you could do something like that?”
“No, I haven’t. Some people are whacked out. They lose it.”
Like I have.
This last week.
Blurs.
The headache didn’t ease up, just bristled and regrouped and came at him in consuming waves, each one harsher than the one before.
“But how do you know you won’t someday become one of them?”
A pause. “Why are you bringing this up anyway?”
“I’m wondering if I might have done something terrible.”
“What?”
“I think I might have killed Emily Jackson.”
CHAPTER
FIFTY-EIGHT
“Why would you even say something like that?”
“The other two girls died the nights of our away games. I would have been there, I could have . . . I can’t remember things lately—like digging up Akira’s grave. I could have been the one to put the flowers on those graves.”
“No, that’s not even—”
“How come I seem to know more about this than anyone else?”
“We talked about it before, your mind, you’re piecing this together, you’re—”
“I dreamed that I killed her.”
“Well, for the better part of a week we’ve been suspecting that somebody murdered her. It’s been on your mind.”
“What about Trevor? Or the glasses? How did I just happen to find them? My prints were the only ones on them.”
Kyle was slow in replying. “Where are you? Stay there. I’m coming over. We’ll sort all this out.”
“Behind the school. But I think my dad suspects me. He’ll be looking for me, so don’t pick me up here. You know the woods back here? Meet me on the other side of ’em, on River Drive.”
It was a quiet road, not too much traffic. No one would see them.
As Daniel slipped away, he heard police sirens approaching the school.
Yeah, his dad was looking for him.
And he’d already called in backup.
CHAPTER
FIFTY-NINE
Daniel had just entered the woods when he heard his name being called, but it wasn’t his dad who was yelling for him to stop.
“Daniel, wait!”
He turned and saw Stacy hurrying toward him.
“Stacy, not now.”
“It’s important. I need to tell you something.”
His cell rang, his dad’s ringtone. He didn’t answer it. “I have to go. We can talk later.”
But she didn’t stop. She had a strange look on her face. Maybe it was fear. Maybe it was—
A thought struck him: back at the lake, Stacy was the one who’d pointed out where Emily’s body was found. She’d used almost the same phrase Ronnie had when he was explaining his suspicions regarding Emily’s death, about someone holding her under the water.
Only Kyle and you were there when Ronnie said that.
Daniel took a step backward.
What’s real?
What’s not?
Gr
ayland.
A blur.
Stacy lives near the Jacksons’ house, out by Lake Algonquin.
She’s the one who suggested you find out who was at the lake when Emily died.
His phone vibrated. A text.
Stacy came closer.
“Hang on,” he said. “Where were you on that night when Emily disappeared?”
The phone stopped vibrating.
“What?”
“Were you at the lake?”
“Listen to me, Daniel.” She was only a few feet away from him. “This is very important.”
A blur.
It’s all a blur.
Stay. Seek. Learn.
He glanced at his phone and saw that the text was from Nicole: “Wolf Cave. 30 minutes.”
What?
He looked back at Stacy.
She took another step and held out her hand. “Daniel, take it easy. You have to—”
He reached out to push her back, and his fingers closed on nothing but thin air.
At first he thought she’d somehow pulled her arm out of the way before he could touch her, but then he realized she had not.
No.
She.
Had not.
His fingers had passed through her arm as if it didn’t exist. He reached for her again, tried to hold her wrist, came up with nothing.
He stumbled backward as she simply stood there, quietly watching him.
No. It can’t be.
Thoughts raced through his mind, cycling around each other, vying for his attention, closing in and then fading away as if they were mist caught in a breeze.
She’s not real.
She’s—
Every time you talked with her you were alone—after school, at the lake, at your house, in your bedroom.
She wouldn’t let you help her through the window at your house. She didn’t want you to touch her. She knew where you live and that you were at the doctor’s on Monday, even though you only told Kyle and Nicole.
She never answered her phone calls or texts.
Because she isn’t there.
She isn’t real.
His gaze dropped to his hands. They were shaking.
“Daniel,” she said. “Look at me. It’s time to stop him. It’s not who you think it is.”
His headache splintered apart in his mind.
He lifted his head and locked eyes with her.
Mia couldn’t find anyone who knew her.
Nicole was confused when you said her name.
Stacy had no Facebook page.
Nothing came up for her when they Googled her name.
It was all an illusion. All a dream.
A blur.
The biggest one of all.
Stacy Clern only existed in his mind.
Or maybe she’s a ghost.
Maybe—
“The away games,” she said. “The other girls. That’s the key. Who would have been at those football games? Think of the photos, the girls. Look it up. Stay on this, Daniel. Seek the truth. Learn what happened. Don’t give up.” As she spoke, she began to transform before his eyes.
Her skin became mottled, her hair changed from dark brown to blond, her clothes went from dry to soaking wet. Her flesh began to swell and become bluish. Clumps of lake-bottom weeds appeared in her hair, just like they had when he first saw Emily at the funeral.
Her face morphed from one girl to the other.
He was no longer looking at Stacy Clern.
But at Emily Jackson.
How do people wake up from a dream? They pinch themselves.
He tried it, pinching his forearm fiercely, just like he had when he first saw Emily move in her casket, fingernails digging into his skin, but the image didn’t go away.
You’re awake. This is really happening.
Stacy.
Emily.
Stay. Seek. Learn.
Stacy Clern.
Her name.
No, no, no, no, no!
It couldn’t be.
But it was.
And then she began to disintegrate before his eyes, fading back into time and space as the memories of Stacy swarmed, merged, combined with his memories of Emily, and they all began to become an inseparable part of the moment.
The image faded away until only the outline of a girl remained.
And then even that was gone.
Another text came through.
Also from Nicole’s phone.
As he read it, a terrible shiver shot through him: “Come alone. I have her.”
No!
Stacy told you the key is the photos.
The photos.
Using his phone, he quickly surfed to the articles that reported the deaths of the other two girls and saw that each of the girls was wearing a necklace with a heart-shaped locket in the smiling press photos the newspaper had used to report their deaths.
He gave them each a necklace.
He gave one to Nicole.
She’s next.
Wolf Cave.
Get there.
Go!
Now!
With the sheriff’s department looking for him at the school, using his own car was out of the question.
He angled through the woods to the place where he’d agreed to meet Kyle.
CHAPTER
SIXTY
Mia and Kyle were standing beside his Mustang waiting for Daniel when he burst out of the forest.
“Nicole’s in trouble!” he shouted.
“I think we were followed,” Kyle replied.
“What? Who?”
“A pickup.”
Ty?
His friends?
As if on cue, a maroon SUV rounded the corner in front of them. The same one Daniel had seen at the lake when he was there with Stacy.
No, when you were there alone.
“We need to go.” Reality seemed to be crumbling around him. “He’s got Nicole, and Stacy’s not real.”
“What are you talking about?” Mia asked. “Who has Nicole? And what do you mean, Stacy’s not real?”
The sound of an engine roaring behind them grabbed their attention and they turned to see a pickup swerve around the corner.
Daniel hadn’t gotten a good look at the pickup that Ty’s buddies had been driving Saturday night when they confronted him and Nicole, but he ventured a guess that this was the same one.
“Stacy Clern,” Daniel told Mia. “Say her name slowly—Stay. Seek. Learn. That’s what she told me. That’s what I need to do: learn what happened.”
He was about to tell Kyle where Nicole was, but then remembered that the text from her phone had told him to come alone.
“You said he has Nicole,” Kyle exclaimed. “Who? Mr. McKinney?”
“Yes. I think. I’m . . .”
Both the SUV and the pickup were closing fast.
Kyle threw open the passenger door of his car. “Get in, Daniel. We’ll go get her. We’ll take care of everything. Trust me.”
Daniel stared at him.
He wants you to trust him.
To—
All at once, everything Daniel thought was real began to shift, to fade, to swirl away in a sea of questions and doubt.
Kyle’s the one who found the phones.
He snuck them out of the house—he could have snuck them in.
Daniel stood motionless.
“What is it?” Kyle asked. “What’s wrong?”
The SUV skidded to a stop in front of them, and the pickup rolled in behind. They were blocked in both directions.
“Daniel,” his friend said, “we have to get out of here.”
He’s the one who suggested you go out to the graveyard
in the first place. He knew that killers visit the graves of their victims. He could’ve set the flowers out there beforehand.
Emily had a crush on him.
The text inviting her to the lake had his name on it.
He suggested Ty might’ve done it—to make you suspect someone else?
He could have gotten into the locker room, placed the lens in your locker. He could have put the necklace in Nicole’s—
Stacy said it’s not who you think it is.
“You?” Daniel said softly to his friend.
“What?”
“How did you know someone had found Emily’s notebook in her locker?”
“I heard it around school, like I told you.”
Daniel eyed the SUV warily. The windows were tinted and it was impossible to see how many people were inside.
“Let’s go,” Kyle said.
Ty and one of his buddies climbed out of the SUV. Two other guys exited the pickup.
“Byers and Goessel,” Ty called. “I was hoping our paths would cross again this week. And, oh, look: the little emo girl too. I’m gonna enjoy this.”
She flipped him off. “Enjoy this.”
Thoughts flew through Daniel’s mind.
The yearbook.
The girls.
It’s not who you think it is.
Those other girls had necklaces.
The girls died on the nights of your away games.
The necklaces.
The photos in the yearbooks.
The ones in the papers.
Girls dying over the last two years.
No, Kyle hasn’t been driving long enough.
It wasn’t him. Not at all. It couldn’t have been.
How could you have even suspected it was him?
How do you know what to—
Ty approached them.
Daniel thought of Nicole at Wolf Cave. The text had said thirty minutes. “I don’t have time for this, Ty.”
“It shouldn’t take long.”
Kyle threw Daniel his keys. “Go. I got this.”
“Really?” Ty and his friends scoffed.
“Really,” Mia replied, and positioned herself next to her boyfriend.
Daniel debated for a moment if he should leave.
Ty flicked out his switchblade.
“Is that the best you’ve got?” Mia whipped out a butterfly knife and flipped it around in her hand in a smooth, well-practiced motion.
