Page 4 of Deadly Night
This case remains unsolved, and the investigation, though cold, is ongoing.
Hadley
Scotty stares back at me from the front of the local newspaper. His snarky grin and messy brown hair never changing. He’s frozen forever in time at the age of seventeen. He didn’t even have his driver’s license when he died.
A tragic story.
Remembered as a cautionary tale.
A legend that haunts our small community.
A nightmare that has followed me for the past four years.
I was one of the last people to see Scotty alive.
He’d asked me out on a date. At least I thought it was a date, but really, I was a stupid bet between him and his friends. He humiliated me. Made me a laughingstock in his friend group. I never wished death on him, though. I’ve always wondered what really happened to him.
The police have questioned me several times over the past four years. My story never changes. During the middle of the movie we’d met up to watch at the theater, he tried to stick his hand up my shirt.
I slapped him, and his friends were all sitting a few rows back filming and laughing. Making me their joke.
Scotty told me his friends dared him to feel me up to see if my boobs were real or if I’d been stuffing my bra. I ran out of thetheater and went home, vowing that boys were stupid and that I hated them all. He came by my house later to apologize.
That was the last time he was seen alive.
His family thinks I know more than I say.
I don’t.
If I had answers, I’d give them.
I want more than anyone for his murder to be solved.
For his killer to be the one carrying this guilt that haunts me.
Sometimes when I close my eyes, I still see him standing in my doorway, all red-faced and out of breath. I thought it was from the cold, but what if he was running from someone or something? If I’d invited him in and not slammed the door in his face, then maybe he’d still be alive today.
My cell phone buzzes, breaking my focus from the past.
Unknown:I can’t get you off my mind.
I stare at the message, debating on texting back.
Unknown:What would you do if I chased you?
For the past few years, I’ve been having a textual relationship with someone having any clue who is on the other side of the messages. They know me. That much I do know. They tell me things about myself that only someone watching me…stalking me would be aware of. Things like the books I read. Passages I highlight. Fantasies I dream of happening to me in real life.
Sometimes they leave me gifts.
Sometimes I think they watch me sleep.
I even installed a camera trying to catch them, but I swear they know my code and erase the videos.
My finger hovers over the on-screen keyboard. Blush stains my cheeks as I think of a naughty reply.
Beep. Beep. Beep. The smoke detector sounds.Shit. I lay my phone to the side and turn the burner off. I was boiling water to make some pasta before I got caught up reading the newspaperand didn’t realize I turned the wrong knob. I’ve melted my butter container lid to the burner.
The smell is dreadful.
