Walking in the Shadows (31 page)

“And?”
Jaz
asked
,
locking her arm in mine as if to brace me. I could tell from her face
that
we were both thinking the same thing.

“I haven’t heard fro
m him since Saturday,
”
h
e replied, his voice husky.

Jaz
dropped my arm. “What? Did you try to call him?”

“
Yeah
,
and
so did his
m
om. I asked around and no one
else has heard from him either
.
”
Brad blinked at Jaz twice
as if he was trying to keep his thoughts from where ours were.

I could feel the world around me getting fuzzy.

“
No, no, no,
” I cried
, falling
back against my locker as my body became numb
.
“
S
omeone has to call the police.”

“
Vera
!
” Tad
rushed forward out of his classroom.
“
What’s
going on?”

“Mike is
missing,
” Brad replied
,
his hand shaking as he dialed
his phone.

“
Vera
, are you okay?”
Jaz
asked
.

“I have a bad feeling
about this
.
” I swallowed against the darkness at the edge of my vision.
Bad didn’t even begin to cover what I was feeling. There wasn’t even a word for the amount of dread that was coursing through me.

“Mrs. Crowley, maybe you sh
ould call the police?” Brad
said
into his phone
.
“Let me know as soon as you hear anything.”

“
Vera
, do you want to c
ome into my classroom?” Tad insisted, holding
out his hand.

“Yeah, I’
m not feeling very well.
Jaz
can pick me up at work tonight
? Then
we can hang out at your house
instead of the mall
?” I asked
, and when Jaz nodded her head
Tad led me into his
class
room.

“
Y
ou don’t think that
—?” Tad began
as I sat down.

I put my head on the desk
as the emptiness began to fill me to the breaking point.

“Yes.”

“Isn’t it a little soon t
o jump to conclusions?” Tad hoped as he sat
down in front of me.

I
look
ed
up
.
“I had this feeling when I woke up the morning I found out my parents were dead.”

“That mustn’
t be a good feeling.”

“I know everything about this
,
and I can’t protect anyone. It’
s like it follows
m
e around
—
like
wherever I go
people die,
”
I croaked
,
tearing at my hair.

“You can’t say that…I mean there’s no
real pattern to who gets killed,
”
Tad replied,
coming towards me and running his hand across my face.

“What if there is a pattern
,
but it’s not logical?”
I whispered as the thoughts I had always had tumbled to the forefront of my mind.

“What are you saying?”
h
e asked
,
letting his hand drop.

“What if it’s one person that is running the whole
thing
…
a cult? A person who gets a power rush from killing
,
but has no one to kil
l
,
so they find
a person who
wants someone killed
. The
n there is no rhyme or reason to the killing, no logical explanation
,
but both get what they want. It makes it diffic
ult to link the murders,
” I explained
,
fee
ling my body beginning to shake
with the memory of the first time the thought had occurred to me.
I had felt
it
the second I had watched the news and saw the second victim’s face.

“
T
hat’s sick,
” Tad
murmured with
his hands in his hair, “b
ut sounds right.”

“Who has a motive to kill Mike though?”
I asked.

Our eyes met
,
and I knew he was thinking the same thing. He stood and walked to the white boar
d before turning to look at me.

“No, that’s too extreme,
”
h
e finally whispered
,
shaking his head.

“I hope so.”

“What about Ashley?”
h
e questioned.

“I don’t know,
”
I mumbled.

“Your parents?”

“I don’t know,
”
I repeated.

“
Are you going to be
coming to my house
tonight
?” Tad asked
,
his face red.

“I think I’
ll stay with
Jaz
tonight. If
they find out that Mike is dead
Bra
d is going to need her and he’
ll be
the first to find out. Then
I’
ll know sooner,
”
I replied
,
taking a deep breath and leaning back in the chair.

“Okay, but le
t me know what’s going on as soon as you hear anything?” Tad pull
ed
me into his arms and hugg
ed
me tightly.
The panic inside of me was beginning to settle in. It felt so normal to be in danger, to always be in panic mode, that my body reacted to it with a strange calm.

The burden of my
parents
’
death
s
and the events that foll
owed it were
a curse to me
. I wondered if any of the other victims
’
families felt the
same and
realized th
at none of them were in Amherst.
They had all stayed in Norfolk
where it had all sta
rted. My resolve was weakening
,
and
it felt as though I was the origin of the murders. They had begun with my parents and now it
had followed me here. It wasn’t plausible
;
I knew
that.
I could never te
ll Tad that I felt I was cursed
because I k
new how it would make him feel. He
would want to protect me from the monster that
the obsession of fiction
had created. In protecting me
Tad might forget to protect himself
,
and then both of us may become the victims. What about
Kirsten
and Bill
,
though? And
Jaz
? Would they be brought to their demise because of their connection to me—because I cared so
much
for them?
It was a wrong assumption of
course.
The
killer didn’t care about who they killed as long as they reaped the pleasure of it.
I tried to
ground myself with that thought. T
hat it was
,
in fact
,
only a coincidence that the killer was now in Amherst.
Still my conscience refused to listen to reason. I knew it was all my fault.

“Almost time to close, huh?” a
girl in her early twenties asked
,
handing me a pile of clothes.

“Yeah, actually
right now,
” I replied
,
looking down at the register’s touch screen
.
“
Would you mind waiting while I lock the door?”

“Not at all,
”
s
he answered with a smile.

“You seem kin
d of distracted?” t
he girl observed
as I bega
n ringing her up and folding the
clothes.

“Just waiting
to hear about a friend,
” I explained as I avoided
eye contact with her.

“Oh,
f
rom Amherst High?”

“Yeah, why did you hear
some
thing?”

“I heard a kid had gone missing and that the police were in an all out search. Ever
yone’s afra
id for him,” s
he replied
as she fiddled in her purse for her wallet.

“I know the feeling. Y
our total
is seventy five ninety,
” I said
as I looked over her should
er
at
Jaz
’s red C
ivic. She handed me her credit card without saying a word
. I ran the card through with shaky hands before giving her the
receipt
.
“Thank you, have a good night.”

She turned
saying
,
“I hop
e they find your friend and he’
s okay…stay safe.”

“Thanks, you to
o,
” I choked,
feeling that the fear
of this k
iller had spread like a plague and
the whole town was scared. The girl walked to her car
quickly
and the second she was inside locked the doors.

I locked up and went out to meet
Jaz
. She had her head leaned
against the back of the
seat
with her eyes
closed and
from the paleness of her skin she looked—“
Jaz
!”
I screamed
,
knocking
on the glass window.

She jumped and my heart stopped hammering against my ribs. She
unlocked the doors
,
shaking her head.

“Sorry
, I just don’t feel well,
”
s
he clarified
,
and f
or some reason I was overcome with the feeling that I should hug her, so against my will I did and she hugged me back.

“Brad is super upset
,
and I just don’t have a good feeling. I saw how you reacted this morning
,
and I know what you were thinking
—
all
I can think to myself is
that
you’r
e right
.
”

“I don’t want to be
...
I have prayed and wished that when I got in this car you woul
d say Mike was alright,
”
I said, taking a deep breath and closing my eyes for a moment.

“I gue
ss we
should get going?” s
he s
aid as she took a deep breath.
“My m
om ordered
pizza
,
and
she wanted us to pick it up. I haven’t been able to eat all day.”

My stomach growled.

“I’
d forgotten all about food until you mentioned pizza.”

“Yeah, just thinking of the smell makes my mouth
water,” s
he
remarked as she pulled into the pizza joint a block down
and
looked over at me
.
“Come inside with me? I don’t feel like being alone
,
and I don’t want to leave you alone either.”

“Of course,
”
I said with a squeeze of her shoulder.