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He reaches over and clicks off the lamp. “Goodnight, Hale.”
The room morphs into darkness, for which I’m thankful. I don’t want him to see the shame I know registers on my face. “Night, Rhys.”
I sink farther beneath the cool sheets, listening to the hum of the air conditioner, acutely aware of the note’s proximity to me.
Where is the author of the note now? How close are they to me?
I grab my phone from the nightstand and plug in my earbuds. I replayed the audio file of Torrance’s interview three times, listening for the exact moment he realized that I was a part of the investigation. I listen to it again, trying to merge the past with the present, to discern if Torrance and his brother know more than they claim.
Rhys wants handwriting samples—and he’s looking for the suspect amid Joanna’s case. He still refuses to see the emerging pattern, the lotus petals floating on the lake…
If I mark today as the nexus where my and the victim’s paths crossed, then I might know where to start.
14
Book of Him
Lakin: Then
I read his letter in the sun.
It wasn’t some cliché rainy night, with howling wind and creaking shutters banging against the house. It was a bright, sunny morning when I held the off-white stationary in my hands as I stared out over Silver Lake from my parents’ back porch. I remember thinking the paper was so creamy. Soft and rich. Delicate. And the morning was so bright.
Once I was released from the hospital, I returned to my parents’ home to continue my physical therapy. I took the semester off from college. That choice was made more for self-preservation than for my recovery. The investigation had circled heavily around Drew. Detective Dutton liked him for the prime suspect, and the media smelled rich blood in the water.
I was in hiding, more or less. Wary of the sharks in the water.
A few letters and emails came at first. Prayers. Well wishes for my recovery. The hope that my attacker would be arrested.
Then others started to pour in.
Angry, spiteful letters written anonymously, blaming me for my own mishap. I had been drunk, at a bar, therefore I was asking for trouble. I had never corrected Detective Dutton on my assumed state at the Dock House. Even if I’d tried, I doubted he would’ve believed me. The letters asked the question: What right did I have to point the finger at Andrew Abbot? A wealthy, well respected member of an affluent family.
And as I predicted, to stave off the negative media frenzy, Drew and Chelsea announced their engagement the same week I was released from the hospital. It momentarily thwarted the investigation, but Detective Dutton used the announcement to his advantage, singling out a motive for Drew.
Then the media turned on me. I was painted as the eyesore, the irritating blemish in Drew’s picturesque life. The scorned, jealous, obsessive student with an unhealthy obsession for her college professor. I read it all in the letters. I was called names: whore, slut, even prostitute. One of the anonymous letters declared I had been trying to blackmail Drew into giving me passing grades.
It became a wild, swirling vortex, and when Drew was ultimately cleared with an alibi, I knew the dam was about to burst, the floodwaters coming for me.
My mother tried to get me to focus on recovery. Cam tried to reassure me that it would pass—like every drama at school, people would soon move on, forget about the scandal.
But I was being sucked down by the undertow.
Then his letter arrived.
Just when the storm clouds seemed to be dispersing, the clear blue day giving me hope, chance guided my hand to pluck his letter from the pile. I sat on the rocking chair on my mother’s porch and tore open the envelope, and a shiver rocked me.
I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as you.
The horror in your face, the pale wash of your porcelain skin, as the darkest red swathed you in a shroud of death.
Mesmerizing.
You’re everything I have been searching for.
Do your wounds ache with the memory of the blade?
Do you feel that hollow echo longing for completeness each time you touch the scars?
