“I’ll take it from here, Grandpa,” Eric said, giving the older man a pat on the back.
His grandfather lingered a little longer to eye Kaylee like she could very well be a threat to his grandson’s very safety, then he turned around and walked away, leaving her and Eric alone.
“Sorry about that,” Eric said. “He can be a little over the top when it comes to looking out for me. I can’t really get mad at the guy, though, since he raised me.”
“It’s fine. My mom’s like that too.” That wasn’t exactly the truth. If anything, her mom was actually trying to get her out of her comfort zone more often.
“Yeah. Anyway, I was wondering when you would show up. I see you took a shower. You know, you actually clean up pretty good.”
“Gee thanks . . . I think. So can I come in?”
“Actually, I was thinking that maybe we would go out.” He stepped out of the house and shut the door behind him.
“Alright. Where are we going?”
“Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t been anywhere in this town.”
“Well then we’ll just have to change that. There’s not too much to see if I’m being honest, but I’ll give you the best tour that I can.”
Eric started towards his car and Kaylee followed.
“Oh, and since you asked me about it last night, my grandpa doesn’t leave the house much because he’s a psychiatrist. He’s semi-retired now and runs his practice out of the house. Sees a few patients a week. That’s about it. None of the neighbors know that he does it, so they make up stories when they see strangers show up periodically throughout the week.”
“Why doesn’t he just tell them the truth?”
“Because he doesn’t care what people think. Plus, I think he secretly finds it amusing that people think someone like him could ever be a drug dealer.”
Eric unlocked the doors before climbing into the driver’s seat.
Kaylee walked around the front of the car to the passenger side door. As she sat down, she found herself once again thinking about what Mia told her. About Emma. As much as she didn’t want to believe a word that Mia said, she was struggling with doubts. What if Eric really was the guy that Mia claimed he was?
She watched Eric slide the key into the ignition. But before he could turn it and start the car, she grabbed his forearm.
“Wait,” she said.
He looked at her. “What’s wrong?”
“I have to ask you something first before we go anywhere.”
“Alright.” He pulled the key out and leaned back in his seat. “Ask away.”
“It’s about Emma . . . Emma Henderson.” She studied his face to see if the name prompted a reaction from him, but it didn’t. “You knew her, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I knew her. What about her?”
“She was your girlfriend at one point, wasn’t she?”
He looked her in the eyes. Brow furrowed. Head tilted to the side. Then he spoke. “Who told you that?”
“I don’t think it really matters.”
“I think it does. Who told you?”
This wasn’t off to a good start. Kaylee already wished she could backtrack and try this all over again, but it was too late for that. She was already committed.
“It was Mia,” Kaylee answered.
Eric smiled and shook his head. “Of course it was.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“So what did she tell you?” Eric ignored her question to ask a few of his own. “Did she say that I cheated on Emma? Or did she go with the version of the story where I stalked her after we broke up?”
“Both actually.”
“Wow. She must really want you to hate me for some reason.”
“So Emma was your girlfriend then?”
“We went out a few times two years ago, but I wouldn’t call her my girlfriend. I mean, we were only fifteen.”
“Did you cheat on her?”
“No. I didn’t. Someone told her that I did, but it never happened. Not that it mattered. Her friends were convinced that I did it, and she wouldn’t give me a chance to talk to her and explain that it was nothing but a lie. I even tried to go to her house, but her mom—who hated me—wouldn’t let me talk to her.”
“Did Emma tell her that you cheated? Or that she thought you cheated anyway.”
“No. She wouldn’t tell her mom that. She didn’t tell her mom anything. They weren’t close.”
“Why not?”
“Because her mom treated her like crap. Always nitpicking her appearance, calling her a slut whenever she dressed in anything that she found inappropriate, and telling her to monitor everything she ate to make sure she didn’t get fat. I mean, nothing Emma did was good enough for her.”
“What about her dad?”
“Oh, she loved her dad. Talked about him all the time. But she didn’t hold back when it came to complaining about her bitch of a mother.”
“But why would Mia say that you stalked Emma after you broke up?”
“I was trying to explain myself. Trying to get her to believe me that I didn’t cheat on her, but she didn’t want to hear it. If you want to call that stalking then be my guest.”
“What happened after that?”
“Nothing. We stopped talking. I left her alone, since I could tell that she didn’t believe me and obviously wanted nothing to do with me. I pretty much didn’t see her again until we met at that party a couple of weeks later. We even talked about getting back together.”
“Did you?”
“We never got a chance. That was the night she died.”
“You mean the car crash?”
“If that’s what you want to call it.”
“What do you mean?”
“The police said that she had been drinking that night when she flipped her car, but I know for a fact that she didn’t have even a sip of alcohol at that party. We were together the whole night until she left.”
“Why did she leave early?”
“I don’t know. She got a text, said she had to leave, and then she was gone. I never saw her again.”
“So what do you think happened?”
“I don’t know. But if Emma drank that night, it had to have happened sometime between leaving the party and crashing her car.”
“You think she met someone on her way home? Stopped off at a friend’s house maybe?”
“It’s possible. I don’t know. I’ll probably never know, but I do know that something’s not right about the way everyone thinks it happened. It just doesn’t add up.”
Kaylee nodded, processing everything he just told her. While she wanted to believe him, she just didn’t know what to believe right now. She felt like such an outsider.
“Any more questions for me?” Eric asked. “Or have I answered them all to your satisfaction?”
“Eric, I’m not trying to—”
“I think you should probably go now,” he interrupted her. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m not in the mood to do anything today anymore. Although I don’t know why you would want to do anything with a cheater and a liar like me anyway.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to accuse you of anything. It’s just that I’m—”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m used to people assuming the worst of me.”
“Eric, please let me explain—”
“See you around, Kaylee.”
So much for anything close to resembling a normal day. She opened the passenger side door and climbed out. But before she could close the door, Eric spoke up again.
“You should really be careful who you trust.” He looked up at her, not even a glimmer of warmth left in his expression. “People aren’t always who they appear to be. Just a little word of advice.”
Unsure how to respond to that, Kaylee decided not to reply at all. She shut the door and then started to head back across the street.
She was about halfway to her house when she sp
otted the wrinkled and repulsive face of Frank watching her from one of his windows on the second floor. As soon as he noticed her looking back at him, he ducked away from the window so he could not be seen.
Kaylee picked up her pace after that. Wasting no time getting back inside her house and locking the door behind her. And she wasn’t in a hurry to leave the house again any time soon.
***
After the day that she had—a very stressful and confusing day—Kaylee did something that she hadn’t done in a long time. She spent nearly an hour soaking in a hot bath to clear her head and relax. And although she wasn’t quite able to achieve the state of total relaxation that she hoped for, it did help.
When she got out of the tub and wrapped a towel around herself, she did feel as if she left some of her stress and her worries back in the tub of now lukewarm water.
All things considered, she didn’t feel like she could ask for any more than that.
Leaning over the tub, Kaylee pulled out the plug and allowed the water to drain. Then she left the bathroom, shutting the light off behind her. She went straight for the dresser in her closet. Her bedroom was chilly compared to the bathroom, so she was looking forward to getting into some warm pajamas.
Then maybe she would even make a cup of tea, cuddle up in bed, and then do some sketching.
Who was she kidding?
The sketching wasn’t going to happen.
But she could read a book or watch a movie. Both of which took a lot less brain power than trying coax herself into drawing again. A task that had been so wildly unsuccessful lately that it felt utterly hopeless.
Opening the top drawer of her dresser, Kaylee fished around inside until she found a pair of pajamas, grabbed some underclothes from the drawer just below that, and then turned around. She was about to drop her towel and start getting dressed when—out of the corner of her eye—she noticed that the blinds on one of the windows weren’t closed.
She frowned, annoyed with herself for not paying attention. Although she was pretty sure that she had closed the blinds before she got in the bath, but since she was so preoccupied lately, it must have slipped her mind.
She moved to the window and was about to shut the blinds when she noticed a tiny red light in an open window at the house next-door—Frank’s house.
Narrowing her eyes, she leaned forward for a closer look. There was something in the window. It was hard to tell what it was at first. But after taking a few moments for a longer inspection . . . it dawned on her what she was looking at.
The object set up in Frank’s window—facing directly towards her room—was a camera on a tripod.
Kaylee’s stomach tightened and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She moved away from the window and pressed her back against the nearest wall. In that moment, there was only one thing she could think to do.
She shouted a single word at the top of her lungs.
“Mom.”
13
“HELLO AGAIN, JULIET,” DETECTIVE FERGUSON said from the doorstep. “You said on the phone that this was an emergency?”
“Yes, it is. Please, come in.”
The cop entered the house, and Kaylee’s mother shut the door behind him. He came to a stop and looked around, hands on his hips. His eyes settled on Kaylee and he gave her a curt nod.
“Evening, Kaylee.”
Kaylee—now dressed in those warm pajamas—stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the foyer, leaning against the doorframe with her arms folded. She didn’t reply to the detective. She wasn’t thrilled to see him again—after the way he interrogated her the last time—but all would be forgiven if he arrested Frank for spying on her like the disgusting pervert that he was.
“So what is this all about?” Detective Ferguson asked.
“You mean you didn’t tell him over the phone?” Kaylee asked her mom, making no attempt to hide her impatience.
But her mother ignored her. Turned to the detective to answer his question. “There was an incident tonight.”
“An incident?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of incident?”
“Well, I’m not sure how to say this, but the—”
“The pervert next-door has been filming me,” Kaylee cut her mom off, tired of listening to her beat around the bush.
“Filming you?”
“Yes. He has a camera set up, facing right into my room. Who the hell knows how long it’s been there for, but he’s obviously been watching me, and you have to do something about it.”
“Next-door neighbor . . . do you mean Frank Palmer?”
“Yes. He’s a creep. He came up to me the other day and really freaked me out.”
“When did this happen?” her mother asked.
“It doesn’t matter, Mom. He needs to be punished for what he did.”
“And what exactly did he do?” Ferguson asked.
Kaylee raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“Did he touch you?”
“No . . .”
“Did he make any physical contact with you at all when you crossed paths with him the other day?”
Now Kaylee could see where this was going, and she didn’t like it one bit. “No, he didn’t. But I could tell that he wanted to. It was obvious.”
“That may be true, but we can’t go around arresting people based on assumptions.”
“But what about the camera? You have to be able to arrest him for that.”
Ferguson scratched the hairs on his chin before he spoke up again. “You know, this really isn’t my department. I’m a homicide detective. You should have called the station and they would have sent over an officer.”
“You’re right of course,” her mom said, “but you said that we could call you if we needed anything, and I don’t know, I guess I just wasn’t thinking.”
Ferguson nodded. “Don’t worry about it. No harm done.”
“Wait,” Kaylee spoke up, “so are you saying that you’re not even going to arrest him?”
“I can’t arrest people based on hearsay.”
“Hearsay? It’s not just hearsay. Why don’t you go up to my room and look out my window? You’ll see the camera.”
“Are you sure it’s still there?”
“Yes. Unless he took it down in the last, like, ten minutes.”
Ferguson didn’t reply, and there was nothing that Kaylee could garner from studying his face in terms of determining whether or not he was going to help. All she could do was wait for him to give her an answer, which was extremely annoying when that answer seemed like such an obvious one.
“Alright, then show me,” Ferguson said at last. “If I see a camera, then I’ll go next-door and have a word with Mr. Palmer. But if I don’t, then I’m leaving and I won’t be as quick to answer the phone the next time you call. Is that clear?”
Kaylee stared at him with lips pressed tight together and eyes narrowed for a beat before finally her lips curled into a perfectly fake smile and she provided him with a reply in an exaggeratedly sweet tone.
“Crystal clear.”
A minute later, Kaylee opened her bedroom door and gestured for the detective to go ahead and enter.
“Right there.” She pointed at the window that faced Frank’s house. “You can see the camera out there.”
Ferguson made his way across the room in no particular hurry and then stopped in front of the window. He peered out, stared for a few moments, and then looked over his shoulder at Kaylee.
“I don’t see anything.”
“Look again then because I know it’s there.”
The detective took a second look, but it didn’t last long. He looked at Kaylee again. “Turn off the light.”
“Why?”
“Because I can barely see outside with it on.”
Kaylee flipped the switch on the wall to bathe the room in darkness.
Ferguson took a look out the window again. Stared for a few moments before he reached into his
pocket and extracted a small flashlight, which he flipped on and then shined out the window.
“Kaylee. Come over here.”
“Why?”
“I think you need to see this.”
She approached the window. Stood beside the detective and squinted as she looked out the window. With her bedroom now dark, and Ferguson shining his flashlight towards Frank’s window, it was much easier to see the window clearly, although Kaylee was not pleased by what she saw. Or more precisely, what she didn’t see.
“No, that’s not right.” Kaylee shook her head. “It was there. I saw it. He must have moved it. I know he had a camera facing right into my room.”
Ferguson said nothing. He turned off his flashlight before he made his way over to the other side of the bedroom and then flipped on the light. Then turned to face Kaylee.
“I think it’s time for me to leave. Have a nice night.”
“No, Detective Ferguson, please. Just go over there and talk to him. Please. That’s all I’m asking.”
“I don’t have any cause to do that. All I have is your word.”
“And why doesn’t my word mean anything?”
The detective didn’t answer that question. Once again that veteran cop demeanor not failing him as his face might as well have been carved from stone.
And suddenly Kaylee felt like she had a pretty good idea why he didn’t trust her. “It’s because I’m a suspect, isn’t it? You think I killed Mrs. Henderson.”
“If you or your mother have any more problems with peeping toms, call the police department directly next time, alright?” Ferguson turned to leave the room, but he found his path blocked by Kaylee’s mom.
“My daughter isn’t lying, Detective. I saw the camera too. I know you’re a busy man, but all we’re asking is that you go over there and have a word with that man. Do you really think my daughter can feel safe tonight knowing that he’s been watching her like that?”
Ferguson sighed and looked down at his feet, shaking his head and rubbing the back of his neck. “You know I shouldn’t be doing this, right?”
“So . . . does that mean you’ll do it?”
He looked up at her mother and raised his hand with all his fingers held up. “Five minutes. No more than that.”
The Killer Next Door: A Murder Mystery Page 8
