Chapter 19
Keisha arrived back home, nervous, upset, angry, and determined to get to the bottom of this.
She wasn’t surprised to find Jaxon sitting outside the house, waiting for her.
As soon as she hopped out and walked to the front door, he got up from the steps.
“I don’t even want to think that something is going on in the background, egging Kelly on,” Keisha muttered, walking past him.
“No, but considering her actions tonight, and the fact that this situation is worsening by the day,” Jaxon pointed out, “better to find out right now if we should know about anything else.”
“She’ll be so angry when she finds out about this.”
Jaxon shook his head. “And yet everything she’s been doing is a cry for help, long before this suicide attempt.”
Keisha nodded. “I know that, and I hear you. I get it. One of the nurses mentioned that to me also,” she shared, “but it still doesn’t make it any easier.”
“No, of course not.” He walked over to the front door, and she quickly unlocked it, and they both stepped inside. There was an eerie hollowness to it. Only to do a 180 shift as the dogs barreled toward them, barking and jumping with joy.
She crouched down to greet them laughing as they knocked her over in their joy.
When she finally stood, she sighed. “You know, this is not where I wanted to stay at all. But, after both my parents were gone, it just seemed to be the easiest solution for Kelly.” When he didn’t say anything, she looked over at him. “You think it was the wrong decision, don’t you?”
He shrugged. “I don’t have any thoughts on whether that was the right or the wrong decision.
You were doing the best you could in a really tough situation.
You just lost your parents, and you were suddenly responsible for your younger sister, who was now in a wheelchair.
Keeping afloat with all that going on was huge,” he noted, shaking his head, “but you made it work, and that’s what counts. ”
Her shoulders sagged. “I don’t know. Considering how it’s going, I won’t let myself off the hook quite so easily.”
“Of course not,” he whispered, with a smile in her direction. “You care, and, because you care, it’s easy for everybody to twist you around.”
“Which shouldn’t be a thing,” she cried out. “People should be good and decent.”
“Sure, but then they get into situations like Kelly’s, where they can’t see their way out.”
“And what has any of this … and Kelly … have to do with these damn phone calls?”
“I don’t know,” he said, with a smile. “And I don’t want to think that she had anything to do with it.”
Keisha stared at him. “Oh God, is that why we’re here?” she asked in an ominous tone.
He groaned. “We need to figure out what’s happening. I don’t know what’s going on, or who is doing what, but we need to figure it out, and that means we must clear up anything we can.”
“Are you seriously thinking she’s the one making the calls?”
“I don’t know that she is personally. What I’m more worried about is that she might be connected to somebody online who is pushing her to take her own life, potentially someone who has been in the background, pushing her to send these phone calls.
I’m not saying she made them, but I’m wondering if maybe somebody around her was making them for her. ”
Keisha stared at him and shivered. “Are there really people like that out there?”
“Yes,” he stated immediately.
She gasped and then closed her mouth and hurried to her sister’s room on the first floor. “I don’t know why anybody would want to help somebody else take their own life,” she muttered.
“Because some people are assholes who get a rush from the power to be had by orchestrating this shit from behind their computers,” Jaxon explained. “I have no idea if that’s what happened, but we need to figure it out.”
He didn’t say anything else, as they walked into Kelly’s bedroom. Keisha winced because everything was dark. As he turned on the lights, it was obvious that Kelly hadn’t been living in a decent mental state for a while.
“Good God,” Keisha said, staring around. “I wasn’t seeing this before.”
“When were you last in here?”
“She doesn’t want me in here,” she replied, as she bent down to pick up a box of pizza right by the door. “She’s been pretty vocal about that too.”
“Of course, but that still begs the question, when were you last in here?”
She shrugged. “I brought her laundry in maybe a week or so ago, but I didn’t really get a chance to see anything because she got angry that I had entered without her permission.
And of course I found her on the floor this morning but again, it’s not like I was looking around at anything. I was focused on her.”
“How old is she?”
“She’s twenty-two, but I don’t know that she’s way younger in terms of maturity,” she clarified, with a note of humor.
“No, of course not, especially if you look at this room right now,” he pointed out. “I’m surprised that the wheelchair maneuvers in here as well as it does.”
“And I don’t know if it does. She can get to the edge of her bed there,” she pointed out, “and the rest might just be …” She winced, looking around at the state of everything scattered around the room.
“She might just be crawling.” When he looked at her, she shrugged.
“She’s not a big fan of the wheelchair, but she’s not a fan of crawling and pulling her legs behind her either. ”
“That is a very strange scenario,” he noted, “but I guess if she prefers it, then it doesn’t matter.”
“Exactly, and honestly, as long as she was eating and sleeping and functioning on a normal level, maintaining in some way, then I was happy to leave her be. Obviously I’m not thrilled about the state of this room.”
The state of the room could mean so much, and in this case none of it was good. It was a complete disaster, and there was literally a pathway to the bed and every other space was covered with dishes and take-out containers.
“I presume she’s ordering in,” Jaxon suggested, as he pointed around the room.
She frowned and nodded. “Apparently, though I didn’t know that.”
“So, she’s independent financially?”
“She has some money, from the accident.”
“Ah.” He frowned at that.
“Why the frown?” she asked, watching him.
“Because that money could go toward all kinds of things, including getting her job skills, to keep herself happy and motivated and moving her forward in life,” he pointed out, “but I get that it’s much easier to just sit back and do nothing.”
She groaned. “I’m really not in a position to discuss her mental state.”
“Of course not,” he agreed, “but it’s obvious that she needs some help.”
“Yes, but she won’t go, so that leaves me with no options.”
He didn’t say anything more, but he walked over to the computer, tapped the screen, and hit Enter to bring up whatever she had been looking at last. Sure enough, there was an open Chat. He swore as he sat down.
“What’s the matter?” Keisha asked.
“Let me see what’s here first, and then I’ll tell you.”
She read over his shoulder and saw somebody was talking to Kelly, as she discussed how much she hated her life and how she didn’t want to be here. Keisha winced as she read it. “Good God, she’s seriously unhappy.”
“Of course she is, and we’ve seen it in many cases involving veterans,” Jaxon shared, “but I was hoping she would pull through.”
“There’s so much she could do. It’s partial, she’s a partial paraplegic,” Keisha stated, her voice rising as she looked around the room again. “She’s got the full use of her hands and her upper chest. She doesn’t have full use of her legs, but she can maneuver ever-so-slightly with them.”
He didn’t say anything, just nodded.
As he scrolled through the Chat, she suddenly realized an odd silence had filled the room. “What’s the matter?” she asked.
“This person—in a very subtle way—has been encouraging her to take her life.” He pointed out a couple instances. “See here and here? He’s telling her, if that’s what she wants to do, then maybe her life would be better off that way, and she wouldn’t be a burden to anybody.”
“Oh my God.” Keisha bent down to read it. “That’s awful. She isn’t a burden.”
“No, but she’s got in with a group of people here,” Jaxon noted, “and I don’t want to leave this page because I’m not sure how to get back to it.
Nevertheless it looks as if we’ve got at least one person here who’s encouraging her to make choices, pushing decisions that she wants to make, but not necessarily good decisions for her mental health at this point. ”
He pulled out his phone and started sending screenshots of the conversations to Richard.
When Richard phoned him a little later, he asked, “What the hell is all this?”
“Keisha’s sister swallowed a whole pile of pills tonight, so I thought that, while she was away from her computer, we should figure out if anybody online was pushing her into these acts. Those screenshots are part of a Chat conversation I found open on her computer.”
“Good God,” Richard said. “Not the kind of people you want your sister around, are they?”
“No, and, from the looks of it, she’s been sliding down this pathway for quite a few months, if not longer.” As he went back as far he could, he added, “It seems things really picked up about the time I came back.”
“And that’s not your fault,” Keisha stated immediately.
“No, not my fault, but certainly could be what sent her down this road.”
She groaned. “And that again is not your fault.” He didn’t say anything, and she heard Richard in the background.
“Give me your address. I’m coming over. I want to take a look at this.”
“Good, you do that,” he muttered. “I don’t know what our legal status is, but, considering that Kelly tried to commit suicide, I’m hoping we get a pass for invading her privacy.”
“Yeah, absolutely. Once someone makes an attempt like that, there are all kinds of different legalities,” Richard murmured. “Besides, Keisha would be considered her caregiver and responsible adult.”