Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-four
Matt
Horizon Wellness Center looks even drearier in the light of day with a drizzle of rain. I’ve been sitting in my rental SUV going through some emails. We’ve been back in Illinois less than twenty-four hours and I’m already playing catch up.
Celia’s emails have gone from mildly annoying to vaguely threatening in tone. I call her. “We’re bypassing professional courtesy and heading directly towards a restraining order,” I crack at her when she answers.
“You’re not going to be laughing after you hear what I have to say.” Her tone is the usual patronizing and cold clip. “The internal investigation on you has suddenly been dropped.”
Most people would be relieved.
But I’m going to have a sudden tragic accident.
“Okay… okay.” I take a deep breath. “Thanks for letting me know.”
“Matthew… I… I’ll let you know if I get any more of an idea… Goddamnit. Watch your six. I’m really sorry.” My chest tightens at the worry in her voice. Celia prides herself on being cool, calm, and collected at every turn. “Get the hell out of Illinois as quickly as you can.”
I don’t commit to cutting and running.
She knows I won’t.
“What good are your lofty ideals if you’re dead?” Is her parting shot.
I scrap looking at the rest of my emails and clip my badge to my belt. It’s time to meet with Keir. Jogging through the rain that’s picking up, I finger the gun holstered at my side.
Managing to not get drenched; the skies seem to open up more after I’m in the lobby of the building. Kim, one of the Center nurses, looks up from preparing her coffee and chuckles.
“You just missed a shower.” She pulls a cardigan over her scrub top. “We’re getting all sorts of guests today.”
She tosses her stir stick in the garbage shaking her head. “If you’re here for the meeting, it started about fifteen minutes ago.”
“What meeting?” I ask, as Dave, one of the executive producers of the documentary spots me from down the hall. He tries to get my attention.
“Oh… you’re not meeting with Dr. Richardson, Mrs. Lassiter, and Dr. Wallen?” Her lips form an ‘o’ and she raises her eyebrows. “Never mind. Who are you here for?”
“Mr. Marcus.” I lower my brows as I stalk closer to her desk to question her further about the meeting when Dave calls out to me.
“Agent Scholl?” Dave waves his hand as he answers his ringing cellphone. “Uhh… hold on.” He directs my way.
Not today. Dave’s a decent guy, but I’ve been leery of them filming here since the beginning.
I pivot towards Keir who’s walking into the lobby. “Where would you like to talk?” Following him to the resident lounge, he’s quiet and melancholy. “I’m going to record our talk, if that’s alright with you.” I place my phone on the table after sitting across from him.
He nods, clearing his throat. “Yeah.” He changes position in the chair a few times, his nerves getting the best of him. “Where should I start?”
“Do you have any memories from the day you were attacked?” I keep my voice level and unleading.
“Not exactly? I’ve been having vivid nightmares. I didn’t know who the person in them is…” He scratches his arm, his gaze focused out the window. “I don’t really remember her, but her face is sort of familiar.”
“How do you know that this person exists and isn’t something your imagination made up?”
He nods at me. “I wouldn’t just make that connection. I was in therapy and talking about my dreams. That’s when I found out that a video exists. I was told that one of the graduate students matched the description and she’s on the video attacking me.”
“Where’s this video?”
There are only three female graduate students: Jolie, Liz, and Eden.
He takes a couple of pictures from his pocket that look like blown up video stills in grainy black and white.
I squint to see the first. My heart stops.
The first picture is Eden swinging what looks like a laptop at the back of Keir’s head. The angle is awkward, and he looks like he’s talking. Her face is smeared in the photo, but her stature, hair, build… all the same.
I grab the second photograph, which gives a clearer picture of her face and it’s almost serene.
These are doctored.
Fuck me. What’s going on here?
“Who gave you these?” I flip them over, so I don’t have to look at them. Who’s trying to frame Eden for hurting him? Doesn’t he realize both Caleb and Eden were kidnapped and shot?
Probably not.
He looks anxious and unsure as he looks back out the window. “They didn’t want to be named, because they said it would be unsafe.” His voice is devoid of emotion.
“Keir.” I try to keep my voice steady and calm. “These pictures have been photoshopped. Do you know what that is?”
He gives me a confused look. “I think so. Made up?”
“That’s why I need to know who gave them to you.” I roll the sleeves of my dress shirt up trying to school my features. I don’t want him to shut down because I look as fucking angry as I feel.
He looks at his lap.
“I… I told them I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
I want to shake him. He’s mentally checked out.
“Do you know who the female in the pictures is? Do you remember her?”
He swallows a few times, and his eyes look filled with unshed tears.
“I have nightmares about her. Strangling her.” He makes a slight choking sound, and tears fall.
That answers a question. He’s responsible for the bruises Eden had on her neck a few weeks back.
Is his mind twisting the whole thing?
“Keir, which therapist were you talking to, can you tell me that?” In order to get to the bottom of this, I have to get an idea of who he’s talking to. Before he can answer me, the building intercom crackles to life.
“Code Red. The building is in lockdown, please stay where you’re at until you’ve been given the all clear.” The message repeats twice more.
Kim runs into the room, out of breath. “Agent Scholl, can you come with me?”
I don’t want to leave Keir by himself, but without much of a choice I stuff the pictures in my pocket and follow her.
She runs down the corridor to the meeting room the film crew has been using. I’m a step behind her, “Who called the Code Red? What the hell happened?”
Turning slightly to look at me, she says, “Dave… holy crap…” Winded, she shakes her head. “There’s a body.”
The documentary executive producer looks ghost white, and he’s sucking on his vape like his life depends on it. “We were doing a sweep of the camera we placed on the grounds. Christ, I’m going to need therapy after this project is over.”
I follow him to their temporary set up of monitors and mixing equipment. He points to a camera that shows through the pouring rain what looks like a body lying next to the maintenance shed. It’s definitely not a bag of cut grass.
I tell everyone to stay in the room and lock the door.
Calling 911, I run outside with one hand on my holster. Skidding to a stop next to a female body splayed out on the ground next to the shed.
Dark hair draped over her face. Limbs splayed. Foam and blood from her mouth. I check her for a pulse and there isn’t one.
I pull open her button up short sleeve shirt to start giving her chest compressions and almost fall back at what’s been cut into her skin. Someone took a sharp jagged object and pressed in ‘Time is Now.’
I gag, then keep working. Each compression makes the blood ooze and the rain to wash it down. Minutes drag as I keep working and then the shouts of paramedics, the police officers, and Rick.
I get up and back away. The blood on my hands is quickly gone in the rain.
In a daze, I head back inside to talk with Dave, along with Rick. “Do you need to sit down?” he asks me as I stagger a step or two.
“I’m in shock. It’ll pass.”
Rick looks ready to argue with me but seeing the look on my face he throws his hands up.
Dave is breathing into a paper bag when I get back to the meeting room. His staff in varying degrees of panic. “Is your recording streaming and then taping over itself?” I ask him with a direct tone.
He startles; his eyes are saucers while he lowers his bag.
“We have it stopped and ready to replay.” He shakes himself. “There isn’t anything on it, though. Except… her.” One of his staff starts to cry and pace the room.
Dave won’t be the only one needing a counselor.
“Were you trying to stop me earlier to tell me about this? You should have called 911 immediately.”
He shakes his head. “No… no, we noticed a discrepancy on one of our dailies that we were going over. Along with something else…” He looks like he’s seconds from vomiting. “Might be nothing.”
“I’ll see about that.” At this point, everything could be something. “Show me.”
Dave instructs a bawling and shaky staff member to show me the daily footage that alarmed them. She pushes her glasses up. “I’m a true crime buff. I’ve seen all the documentaries done about the Lassiter girls’ disappearances, or I might not have noticed it.”
I pull a rolling office chair up to where she’s looking for the segment. She plays it and then pauses. “Did you see that?” she asks in awe. “I’ll play it again.”
Then I do.
I fucking see it, and my immediate thought is of Keir and if he’s safe sitting in the lounge by himself and where the fuck is Caleb at?
In that second, I know I got things wrong.
Camp Carroll just got heavier. I look around the room and turn back to the film member, “Don’t tell anyone. This information doesn’t leave this room.”
She nods with a terrified look on her face.
“What else was Dave referring to?”
She slides a puzzle book towards me.
“What’s this?” I ask incredulously.
“Dave likes anagrams and sometimes when he’s done with a word search or something, he starts doing anagrams of random… or not so random words.”
It looks like ‘Lassiter’ made the list and my stomach drops further.
It was all there in front of my fucking face.