The Summervale Series, page 9
Her bed linen was lavender and covered in stripes and tiny flowers. I couldn’t see very well in the light of the moon, but the wallpaper was pink and also floral.
It was so inherently girly.
I raised my knife, the point glimmering in the light, and was about to push the blade down into her neck, or her stomach, wherever the easiest placed to cut was when Kelsey’s eyes opened, and she was now holding onto my wrist.
“What are you doing in my room, Darcie? And with a knife?”
I sighed and began to pace.
“What does it look like I’m doing.”
“Well, I don’t know, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out maybe you’re trying to kill me.” her eyes widened as she put the pieces together. “Omg! Are you the Summervale Killer? Did you kill Ashlea?”
“Shh. No, I didn’t kill Ashlea, okay? And I’m not here to kill you. I just wanted to tell you not to mess with Dane and me.”
There was a beat where I expected her to scream, but she surprised me by swinging her legs over the bed and sitting up to look at me.
“Well, you could have just told me. You could have just confronted me at school or something. You didn’t have to break into my house and hold a knife at my throat.”
“I’m sorry, okay? I just… It’s just what I do. I break into people’s houses and clean up messes.”
“With a huge kitchen knife?” she asked, gesturing at the sharp kitchen implement still in my hand. I slid it back into my pants.
“It’s not what you think, okay? I am not a killer. Well, I have killed, but I am not THE killer. They’re still out there.”
Kelsey took it all in, not saying anything for a minute or so.
A dog began barking outside, and the next door’s sensor light came on.
Kelsey and I both stood and turned toward the back window.
The tree outside creaked, but there was no wind tonight. It was hot and eerily still.
And then there was the sound of tapping at the window.
Kelsey screamed and grabbed onto me.
“Oh, my God. What if the killer’s outside?”
“It’s okay. I’ve got a knife.”
The tree that was outside Kelsey’s window swayed and rocked as if someone, or something, was climbing it.
“Oh, my God. They’re coming up here. They’re climbing the tree!”
“Shh. Stay behind me.”
“Darcie, just in case we die, I just want you to know, I’m sorry for what I did today. I just wanted you and Dane to be together, to be caught together. It was a little experiment. But it was mean.”
I glared at her. “Yeah, it was cruel, and I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life. And you’ve possibly also ruined Dane’s college football aspirations, but I forgive you.”
The branch tapped against the glass again, and Kelsey held on tighter.
Then a hand reached out and slid open the window and climbed in. It was then we got our first glimpse of the intruder.
“Dane?”
“Oh, my fucking God, Dane. You scared us. What are you doing here?” said Kelsey.
“Sorry, Kels, Darcy, I’m sorry, but I followed you. Why are you here in Kelsey’s house?”
“You followed me?” There was a moment when I was angry, but it was only a brief second, and it all melted away when I saw his gorgeous face.
“Never mind. I’m here because I’m angry. But I’m not anymore. Don’t worry about it. Let’s just go.” I began to leave Kelsey’s room and heard someone follow me. I hoped it was Dane.
I made my way out of the house the way I came and into the backyard. Dane followed close behind, as I thought.
“Why are you here, anyway?” he asked.
I didn’t answer. I just walk away, back down the side of the house and onto the road toward our houses. He continued to follow me.
“Darcie?”
I turned on him, and he stopped in his tracks in the middle of the road. It was the middle of the night, so there were no cars.
“It’s just a thing I do when I can’t sleep, okay? That’s my big secret. Now you know.”
“What? So you break into people’s houses? To do what?”
I watched his face for a reaction, for any emotion. But there was nothing.
“You don’t care that your girlfriend is a criminal?”
“Darcie, I know your past. I know you had a rough upbringing. There’s an explanation.”
“No. You don’t know anything about me.” I turned and began to jog down the street. He jogged after me, not giving up.
“Then tell me. Let me in, Darcie. As I said, I love you, and you’re gonna have to try a lot harder than that to get rid of me.”
I slowed down and stopped but stayed facing the direction I was going.
“Fine. I’m not the killer, okay? There’s a good reason why I break into houses, and into… other places. I’m the fixer. I clean up other people’s messes. Mainly, one person in particular.”
He put his hand on my arm and turned me toward him.
“Whose messes are you trying to clean up?” When I didn’t answer him or look at him, he tilted my chin up with his finger, so I had to look at him. “Hey, you don’t have to do anything for anyone. Okay?”
I looked into his eyes, see the gorgeous deep blue and the sincerity in them, and pulled away and continued running toward my house.
I didn’t care if he followed me this time.
nine
THE PROBLEM WITH KELSEY
DARCIE
The following day, the sound of a siren outside my window woke me from my slumber. I sat up, looked out the window, and saw not one but four police cruisers in the street. I slipped out of bed and moved to the side window, the one facing Dane’s house, and saw the flashing blue and red lights at the end of the street and the yellow of the police tape.
Oh, my God. Were they at Kelsey’s house? I grabbed a sweater and slipped into my sneakers, and not worrying about my pyjamas. I made my way out into the street. I found Dane standing outside the yellow police tape, looking just as confused as I was.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Someone was killed last night at Kelsey’s house.”
All the blood drained from my head, and I felt a little faint.
“Oh, my God. Dane, we were there last night,” I hissed as quietly as I could.
“I know.”
As we spoke, the front door opened, and two morgue assistants in white overalls that said Coroner on the back carried a stretcher out of the house. On it was a body covered in a sheet.
On the sheet was a bloodstain, right where the person’s neck should be.
We heard sobbing then, and Kelsey’s little sister Morgan comforted her mother on the porch of their house. Kelsey’s father had even returned from working at the hospital in the city. He stood on the porch next to his family, looking shocked and ashen.
Dane and I knew then that the person on the trolley, now in the back of the coroner’s van, was Kelsey.
Kelsey was dead.
I reached for Dane’s hand, and he did the same. We gripped each other tightly.
We then knew two things for certain:
We were in that house shortly before Kelsey was killed. So, our prints would be all over the scene. And we also knew
the killer wasn’t us.
He or she was still out there and was slowly picking off our friends one by one.
It wouldn’t be long before we were next.
ten
THE PLOT THICKENS
DARCIE
A few days later, around dinner time, there was a knock at my front door. My dad wasn’t home yet, and I was eating dinner and studying at the kitchen counter. I grabbed another slice of pizza and stuffed another bite in my mouth as I walked down the hall toward the door. I was chewing when I opened the door, thinking it might just be Dane or someone from school.
But I was wrong.
On my doorstep were the same two police officers who had questioned Stacey, Dane and me earlier. The same officers on the case of the rest of the murders in Summervale.
The rest of my slice of Hawaiian pizza fell out of my hand to the wooden floor. I hastily swallowed, the pizza going down my throat in a lump.
“Officers, can I help you?”
“Miss Ryder, we were hoping we could ask you a few questions?”
“Sure. I’d be happy to help, but my dad’s not home. It’s probably not wise for me to say anything without him.”
“Your father is at the station, along with Mrs O’Connell and her son, Dane. We said we’d bring you in as well. So, would you mind coming with us?”
I froze, my heart beating a million beats a minute.
“Um… am I in trouble, officers?”
“Yes,” said one officer.
“No,” said the other at the same time. The second one glared at his partner and turned back to me. “You are not in trouble, Miss Ryder. We just want to ask you a few questions down at the station. Like I said, your father is already there waiting.”
I looked back over my shoulder and debated whether to leave my pizza on the counter and my open can of soda or put them in the fridge.
“Did you have company, Miss Ryder?” asked one of the officers.
“Oh, no. I was in the middle of doing homework and eating dinner. But I can come.”
They nodded, and I grabbed the keys of the hook, left the half-eaten pizza slice on the floor and locked the door behind me. I pocketed the keys in my jeans and wiped the grease on my leg, and then followed the officers to their cruiser.
When I arrived at the station, I discovered my father and Dane’s mother weren’t there. Dane was the only one sitting in the interview room when I walked in. I stopped walking and turned on the officers.
“You lied to me. I’m not saying anything without my father, who is my lawyer.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“It doesn’t matter, Miss Ryder. We have sufficient evidence to suspect that you and Mr O’Connell have something to do with the murder of Miss Kelsey Leigh.”
I was at a loss for words.
Okay, I knew this day would come, but I never expected them to confront Dane and me like this.
“But…”
“Darcie!” Dane ran to me, and I threw my arms around him.
“Sit down, Miss Ryder, Mr O’Connell. First, we will question you together, then separately.”
“Is this even legal?” I asked, taking a seat on the other side of the metal interview table. It was so shiny I could see my reflection on the tabletop. It reminded me of an autopsy slab.
“Yes. And it’s the only way we can move forward with this investigation. With your parents involved, we wouldn’t be getting anywhere. Now, where were you both on the night of August the third, precisely three days ago?”
“At home,” said Dane.
“Asleep,” I said, almost at the same time.
One of the officers sighed audibly. “Let me try this again because we know you’re lying. We have proof you were at the Leigh’s house that night.”
“What proof?” I leaned forward, folding my hands on the table before me.
And that was when the lead officer slapped a series of black and white photographs on the table in front of Dane and me.
The world stopped, and so did my heart.
The first picture depicted a figure walking down the street dressed in a hoodie. It wasn’t very clear in the first, but in the second, you could clearly see it was me in those pictures. My face was turned toward the CCTV camera that obviously caught these images. They were from a neighbour’s house across the street.
The third one was perhaps the most incriminating. It showed Dane and I standing at the side of Kelsey’s house after we had snuck in, and the fourth showed us standing talking to one another in the middle of the road.
“So, Miss Ryder, Mr O’Connell, have you got anything to say?”
eleven
THE ACCUSATION
DARCIE
“I… I can explain those.”
“Me too. I was only following Darcie,” said Dane.
The officers looked at me.
“And Darcie? These images clearly show you two at the scene of the crime before and after the time of death.”
“After?” My heart startled. “No, no. That’s impossible. I didn’t kill her. I only went to talk with her.”
The second officer brought out his phone and zoomed in on something on the screen and then slid it across the table to me.
“Then why were you carrying a knife?”
The image on the phone was clearly a blown-up image of one of the black and white surveillance pictures on the table, but this one zeroed in on my hand. And in it, I was clearly holding a large kitchen knife.
“I… I swear I didn’t kill her. I know it looks bad, but I can explain,” I said.
Looked bad? It looked like I was heading to jail on a one-way ticket without passing go and collecting two hundred dollars.
“Darcie didn’t do this, officers. And neither did I.”
“Fine. Whatever you kids say. We will get the truth out of you, one way or another. Mr O’Connell, would you mind coming with us?”
I flew off my seat. “No! Where are you taking him? He’s innocent.”
“I can see the loyalty you both possess toward one another, which is why we have to split you up now. Don’t worry. Your boyfriend is not being arrested, yet anyway.”
The police officer smirked—actually smirked—before escorting Dane out of the room.
I slumped back into my uncomfortable chair.
The second officer stayed behind with me, shutting the door after Dane and his partner had left. She turned toward me.
“Now, Miss Ryder. Tell me the truth. Why were you at Kelsey’s house carrying a knife on the night she was killed?”
I sighed. “It was stupid, really. I was angry with her.”
She sat down opposite me and opened up her notepad to a new page and clicked the pen.
“Enlighten me.”
“It all started when I stupidly agreed to do a favour for Kelsey. But it was all a lie. She locked Dane and me in the sports shed.”
She took some notes. “What favour did she ask of you?”
“She asked me to get the sheet music from the sports shed for the music class we had next. We were meant to rehearse for the band. But she played a trick on me and locked me in the sports shed with Dane.”
“And you were angry with her because of this, what? Little prank? By the looks of things, I don’t think you’d mind being stuck in an enclosed space with Dane.”
I narrowed my gaze at the female officer but didn’t say anything.
She continued.
“No, I didn’t mind. It’s the fact that I fell for her lie. She wanted to expose Dane and my relationship.”
“Why would she want to expose your relationship? Weren’t you guys ‘out’?”
I inwardly cringed at the use of her wording. This woman was unbelievably rude and grating on my nerves.
“No, not officially. Plus, our parents are engaged, so it’s kind of… I guess, forbidden.”
Her eyes widened, and she nodded, taking more notes.
“I see. So, you were mad at Kelsey for this prank, even though it allowed you and Mr O’Connell to be together?”
I let out a frustrated breath. “Yes. But I don’t know why I have to tell you all the sordid details of my relationship with Dane. I don’t kiss and tell.”
I folded my hands back across my breasts.
“Fine. But it helps me create a clear picture in my mind of the situation. So you were angry at Kelsey after exposing you and Mr O’Connell’s relationship, so you went over to her house in the middle of the night with a knife?”
“Like I said, I didn’t go over there to kill her. I just wanted to talk. Plus, killers are roaming around town. I want to protect myself,” I shrugged.
“Killers? Plural? What makes you think it’s more than one person?”
Great. She had me there. How could I tell her that the woman who abused me when I was a child had told me this in the asylum I had broken into the night of the party? And the fact that I threatened her to get it out of her with a scalpel.
“It… it’s just a guess. I love true crime shows and mystery novels. My dad always called me his Nancy Drew growing up. I love figuring out who the killer is.”
She writes something else down on her notepad, and from this angle, I can see the words: “fascinated with crime and murder” written there.
I smirked.
Well, she wasn’t wrong.
“Right. Well, let me tell you something. We do actually suspect that there are two killers in town. One who committed the original murder of the woman found washed up at the beach and a copycat of the original. So tell me again how you know this?”
I sighed.
“Fine. On the night of the party, my friends and I threw a party at the old asylum next to Summervale Cove Lighthouse. The night Ashlea was killed, someone told me there were two killers.”
“Who told you?”
I was more than happy to throw my past tormenter under the bus.
“Her name is Wendy Anderson. She’s a patient at the asylum.”
She quickly flicked through her notes and pulled out a manilla folder from under the photographs, notepads, phone and pens on the desk.
It was my file from when I was a patient at the same asylum.
“Ah, yes. Wendy Anderson. Sixty years old, originally from New Jersey. It says here you had her arrested before you were admitted yourself to Summervale Cove asylum.”
What in the hell? I slammed my hand down on the file angrily, making a loud slapping sound, causing the officer to jump in her seat.
“Does it also say there that she abused me for years when I was a child? That she hit me, burned me, starved me, held my head below water at bath time and locked me in the cupboard for hours?”
