31. ‘K’ #2
All patient communications monitored
Leaving the grounds prohibited without medical escort
A photocopy of her signed patient agreement was stapled to the back.
So there it was in black and white. Kennedy had spent her entire freshman year winter break at Elodie, fully isolated.
She couldn’t have secretly slipped away to meet her father.
There was just no way. The security was airtight, the rules crystal clear.
I kept staring at the paperwork as a cold, crawling unease slipped down my spine.
Kennedy had told the truth about this particular thing… but what about the emails?
Before now, I’d been utterly certain she was lying about them, because her explanation sounded like total bullshit, but this revelation from the Elodie files had just punched a massive fucking hole in that certainty.
I snapped the folder shut and slid it back into the box, heart pounding. I had to check. Needed to check.
My shoes hit the tiles in quick, sharp bursts until I reached my office and shut the door behind me. The grief support group was easy enough to track down. Corwin Bay only had one, run out of the community counseling center, and a quick search pulled up the number.
I snatched up the phone and dialed.
After three rings, a woman answered in a gentle, measured tone. “Corwin Bay Bereavement Support, this is Carol speaking.”
“Hi, Carol. This is Detective Malachi Sieger, CBPD. I have a few questions for you about your weekly grief support group.”
“Of course, Detective. How can I help?”
“Do you keep records on everyone who attends your sessions?”
“Yes, we do.”
“Do you recall an attendee named Kennedy Campbell? Or could you check your records for her name?” I asked. “She would’ve been there around five years ago.”
“I remember Kennedy. She was one of our youngest members back then,” Carol replied. "It breaks my heart to hear what’s happening to her now. Is that what you’re working on?”
“Yes, ma’am. We’re doing our best to bring her home safe and sound,” I said. “Anyway, would you be able to send me a list of everyone who attended your grief support group at the same time as Kennedy?”
There was a short pause. “Yes, I can do that. But… are you saying you think the Carver may have been in the group?”
“I’m just checking every angle, ma’am.”
“All right. I’ll send you that list right away.”
I rattled off my work email and thanked her, then hung up. My knee bounced under my desk as I waited, heart pounding harder than it should’ve for something as simple as an email.
Five minutes later, my inbox pinged.
The attachment opened to a spreadsheet. Twenty-two members had attended during Kennedy’s time in the group, and one name instantly caught my attention like a hook under the ribs.
Brendan Schneider.
I grabbed the phone and dialed the number listed beside his name. He picked up on the fifth ring, his voice almost swallowed by the background noise of boarding calls and distant chatter. “Hello?”
“Mr. Schneider? This is Detective Malachi Sieger, CBPD. I have a few questions for you.”
“Er… all right,” he said, confusion threading through the static. “Just give me a second to go somewhere a bit quieter. I’m at the airport right now, so I can barely hear myself think.”
The line went muffled as he covered the receiver.
A couple of minutes later, his voice came back, louder and clearer, with the chaos dimmed to a distant murmur.
“Sorry about that. I travel for work a lot, so I practically live at this damn airport,” he said in a lighthearted tone. “Anyway, what can I do for you?”
“I’m calling about your time in the Corwin Bay grief support group five years ago. It’s regarding Kennedy Campbell.”
There was a sharp inhale on the other end. “Kennedy… yeah. I know her. Really nice girl.”
I kept my voice even. “We’ve been exploring every possible angle regarding her recent abduction, and I came across a series of emails she sent over the last few years. The address she was contacting seems to be named after her father, but—”
Brendan cut me off. “You traced that email address to my laptop, didn’t you?” he said hurriedly. “Listen, I can explain all that. But I have nothing to do with her going missing. I swear. I wasn’t even in Corwin Bay when she was taken.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Schneider. You aren’t under any suspicion. I’d just like to hear your story regarding the emails.”
“It might sound strange to you. But I swear, it wasn’t anything inappropriate.
Kennedy was just drowning in grief, like me,” he said.
“One day, she told me she liked to send poems to her father’s old email address.
She said she wished he could answer her.
So I offered to… pretend. I created an email address that looked like it could’ve belonged to her father, and whenever she sent me something, I’d send her short replies, pretending to be him. ”
I stared at the wall, my heartbeat a dull roar in my ears.
“Like I said, I know how strange it might sound to someone who’s never lost a loved one,” Brendan continued.
“But it was just a coping mechanism, and I think it helped her. And I swear I never said or did anything inappropriate. She just reminded me so much of my own daughter. So I… I was just trying to help. That’s all. ”
I thanked Brendan for his time and hung up, exhaling slowly as I set the phone down.
Holy fuck.
Kennedy had been telling the truth all along.
About everything. She’d never spotted her father’s hidden messages in the postcards he sent her.
Never sent him coded messages of her own through all those emails.
Never had the faintest idea that he was still alive, or that he was one of the five monsters behind the Carver killings.
But I’d figured otherwise, and that terrible mistake of mine had led to her ruin.
I’d stalked her. Terrorized her. Broken her down. And now I’d totally stolen her life.
A sensation I barely recognized twisted low in my gut; something I’d only experienced once in the last couple of decades. I’d felt it the day I found Elijah’s body, immediately after that sharp, sick realization that I was too late to save him.
Guilt, raw and corrosive.
And now, as much as I fucking hated it… I knew exactly what I had to do next.