Chapter 23 #2
No one has ever protected me so fiercely before. Summer is fierce in her own right. Protective in her own way. She may talk a big game, and a lot of it she sure as hell can back up. But she didn’t hunt down her step-father. She wouldn’t know where to begin hunting a person.
What she did, she did in self-defense. In the heat of the moment. She learned to overcome her freeze and embrace her fight and it saved her life. She was willing to help me fight back against Richards, but not by kidnapping and killing him and then cutting out his organs.
Not like my stalkers.
What if I had had someone like that after my mom passed? And if I have that now, do I no longer have to fear my past? Fear my father may show up at any moment?
Because someone out there is willing to do anything and everything to keep me safe. Even if it means they have to drown in the darkness to keep my head above water.
Summer smacks my legs. “So come on, chin up, girl. Let’s prove your hot tattooed men and your hot masked men are one and the same so you can fuck them at the same time.”
I can’t help but laugh, maybe I need to just stop thinking so much. Then again, murder is kind of a big deal. Probably one of those things I should overthink about.
“Pull up the video clips you have again,” she asks, getting back on track.
We spend the next several hours dissecting everything we have, analyzing the notes, comparing the nicknames and handwriting, pouring over my memories from the party, breaking down the videos we have until her whiteboard is full of notes.
By the time it’s dinner time and both our stomachs are growling, we could probably write an entire dissertation on the situation. Summer is a firm believer the first masked man is not in the second video.
The finger wave is in fact the same, but the heights and body types do look different. The angles of the camera and where the videos were taken are different, so it’s impossible to be sure, but she’s convinced both men on the second video are too big to be the same as the first video.
I can’t prove her wrong, but she can’t prove she’s right either. “Your bias is showing,” I argue as I order Thai food on my phone for us.
She mocks me, repeating the phrase in a ridiculous tone, but I only my eyes. “Two nicknames, two handwritings, two men.”
She throws herself back into the pillows. “We don’t know that for sure,” she disagrees. “We don’t have all the notes.”
A fair enough point, but we’re still at a stalemate.
It could be true either way and we can’t prove either to be untrue.
“We know I have at least two stalkers,” I say, splitting the difference.
“But now what?” I ask, pointing at the board.
I feel like I know and understand them better.
They’re set on taking care of me in any way they deem I need to be taken care of.
Chores, handiwork, protection, sexually. All of the above. I have to admit, liver aside, I do feel pretty taken care of.
They have to be some of the most creative stalkers I’ve ever heard of.
“And we only have three suspects,” she says in a sing-song voice.
I give her a droll look. “And what am I supposed to do? Just text the group chat? Hey by the way did you guys murder my professor and have you been breaking into my house? What if you’re wrong?”
“That would be awkward,” she agrees, unhelpfully.
“They seemed genuinely surprised and disturbed by the liver too,” I add, thinking back to their reactions.
Jude looked as disgusted as I felt when we walked back into the room.
Good on him for not throwing up in front of everybody.
But he definitely did not look entertained by everything.
“They were also with us the entire night the cops think Richards was kidnapped.”
She narrows her eyes on me, waving her hand in my direction. “Not really vibing with all your logic and reason right now. Plus, we were sleeping. Maybe they weren’t with us the entire time.”
I’m already shaking my head. “Their car never left and no windows or doors were opened during the night.” Having every single window and door monitored whether the security system was engaged or not seemed like overkill, but it did come in handy.
Summer’s mouth hangs open. “You really looked into it that much?”
I flip her off. “You were getting into my head. I needed to know.”
She smirks. “You were disappointed, huh?”
Maybe. Not that I would ever say it aloud. “The point is, it can’t have been them. So new suspects?”
We go in circles, suggesting random people only to decide why it’s probably not them. We know it can’t be my father. It’s unlikely to be anyone from my hometown. My best estimate is that the stalking started when I moved to college.
The shadows never visited me at home.
“We have to be looking at this wrong,” Summer ponders. “Maybe not people in your life now,” she continues. “Maybe it’s someone you interacted with when you moved here and they’ve been silently watching since?”
Well shit. That’s a good point. But it’s been years. I can barely remember who I spoke to a week ago let alone when I first started college.
“Anything stand out?” she presses.
“You,” I deadpan, making her snort.
“What about movers? They would have had access to your house?”
I did use movers.
My father was pissed about me going to school even though he couldn’t admit it. There was no better university closer to home he could demand I go to instead. Not going to college would have made him look bad. He was still unhappy about losing his unfettered access to me though.
So like any reasonable adult, he threw a tantrum and refused to help me move. Refused to even say goodbye. At least not in the normal parental way.
“I could probably go back and try and find what moving company I used,” I suggest. I don’t have any real memory of the guys who helped me, but it’s a logical approach.
Summer nods and writes that down on the board. “What about any work done on the house?”
“Probably, but nothing that stands out.” Would I even still have the records for anything that was done? It probably would have been the homeowners who would, not me. All of the bills were sent to them.
She hums, tapping the marker against her lips. “We’ve eliminated all your exes,” she says, not that there are many, “but what about hookups? Dates you turned down?”
I wrack my brain until there’s no one else I can possibly think of and we have a respectable list of people just as our food gets delivered to her door. We both sigh but I do actually feel a little better.
“It’s a place to start,” Summer encourages. “We’ll figure it out.”
I know we will.
She meets my eyes, the heaviness from our earlier conversation hanging in thick sheets around us. “You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.” Her words are whispered, speaking to more than just this situation ahead of us.
I have a feeling I’m going to need that reminder because all signs point to things ramping up this week.
It is almost Halloween after all.