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That statement made me shudder inside. He underestimated Jesse entirely.
“Wait,” I realized, “why don’t I need to call Jules down here?”
He hesitated, “Uhhh, because I already have them.”
“Shut up! You’re lying to me!” I said, with a massive grin on my face.
“Anyway, let’s move on.”
“No, no, no. Back the truck up here Danny! You have Jules’ prints? Why?”
“None of your darn business Elliott!”
That’s okay. He didn’t have to tell me but Jules would have to later. I was sort of averse to the idea of finding out but I was also dying to know.
“Okay, okay,” I said quickly abandoning the idea that he was going to tell me.
Danny hadn’t handled the box with his own hands, he had used a handkerchief he always kept with him but never used. I sort of wondered why he even owned it until I saw him take it out to the handle the box.
He went to a locked file cabinet and retrieved a folder, flipped through it and took a sheet of paper out that looked similar to the one he had just used to document my own fingerprints. He put the rest of the folder back in the cabinet and locked it. Jules’ file. He sat back down at the lab table and reached for a shelf above him. He pulled a small cardboard box out and opened it to reveal a stand magnifier. He compared all of the signatures and found only mine and Jules’.
He decided there was nothing on that side of the paper. He unwrapped the paper flipped it, repeated the entire process and found nothing. Again, dusting the cardboard box that held whatever it was that was inside but finding nothing.
“Time to open it,” he said.
I was pretty frightened to be honest with you and I actually felt like telling Danny to let me do it in case it was something that could harm him.
“Danny? I think I should open it, just in case.”
“Nonsense. Wait,” he laid his ear against the package. “Nope, not ticking. I’ll open it.”
“This isn’t funny Danny. I’m pretty nervous.”
“I know son. It’ll be okay.”
He pulled off the tape that bound the lid and dusted it as well, finding absolutely nothing yet again. He peeled the lid back.
My eyes widened in fear. Jesse was more insane than even I gave him credit for.
“My God.”
Chapter Seven
This is How I Win
Danny was taken aback by what he saw. He stood up quickly with a gasp and nearly fell over his chair trying to distance himself from what was in the box. I was frozen, my hands trembled where I stood and I couldn’t willingly move a muscle. I peered at the horrifying message he was sending with dead eyes, a feature I wanted him to share with me soon.
A million thoughts streamed through my head. At first, I wanted to run, to grab Jules and run with her, somewhere far away, somewhere only we know, somewhere he could never find us.
In that instant, she became my only dream, my only wish for the future. I cared about nothing else and no one could stop us, not when every fiber of my flesh wanted nothing else but to be with her. My immediate reaction was flight until I realized he would never stop looking. Jesse was no longer the friend I remembered him to be. He hadn’t been for awhile. If we had vanished, I knew he would try to find us and I was so scared to imagine him still out there waiting for his opportunity again, striking when we least expected, when he thought we were comfortable.
He would wait until our thoughts of him were a distant memory for us. I cringed. He had to be stopped, now. That flaming box, came back into focus. I wanted to scream out, to tear what I saw into a billion pieces. I suddenly wished I’d never told Danny. I wish I had opened it on my own so the motive for the murder I was going to commit because of it wouldn’t become so apparent.
“I have to kill him,” I accidentally said aloud.
“No!” Danny screamed, grabbing my shoulders. Breathing deeply to steady his calm, he said, “I know you don’t mean that son! Elliott, I’m gonna’ get who did this.”
I gained control of my neck and turned my head toward him, “You’re going to arrest Jesse immediately?”
