Dear Seraphina,
By now I’m sure you’ve heard the news. Everyone has. How Trent McAllister tried to drug and rape yet another victim. How before he even had a chance to unbuckle his belt, he was stabbed to death.
You’re probably asking yourself what kind of person takes another person’s life. Even if it is in self-defense, killing another living, breathing soul isn’t an easy thing to do. There is a moment before the tip of the knife pierces flesh when you ask yourself if you really want to take this next step. And then, before you know it, the moment passes, and there is no turning back.
I want to tell you why I did what I did. I want to try to make you understand.
I wasn’t lying when I said that you and I are much the same.
We both grew up in foster care.
We both grew up wanting to act.
Of course, you reached your dream. You’ve starred in major Hollywood movies. You’re famous and beloved around the world. You have a team that works with you closely—a team that will obviously do whatever it takes to protect you.
Me, I played small roles in high school plays and later at a local theater, but I’ve never managed to break into the movies, or even TV, like you have. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve tried countless times, but nothing ever worked out in my favor.
I suppose if I had kept at it—beating the pavement for auditions, so to speak—I may have gotten lucky eventually. Because that’s usually what it takes, right? Talent and determination, absolutely, but a little bit of luck too. Being the right actor at the right audition at the right time of day with the right casting director . . . it’s like a line of cosmic dominos, perfectly aligned and falling at the perfect moment. I could imagine turning on the TV one day and pointing out to my friends: “Hey, look, that’s me!”
Then again, it’s not like I have any friends. That’s one of those things left over from foster care. As you know, Seraphina, growing up in the system can be tough. It’s hard to make friends. It’s hard to open yourself up to people when you know they might leave you for a different home at any time.
You never did receive any of my letters, did you? Part of me had thought that might be the case. So when you saw the news about Trent McAllister and what had happened to him, the name Jennifer Smith meant nothing to you.
I want to tell you so much more about me, Seraphina, but I’m not sure how to do it. It might be easiest if you put yourself in my shoes. That shouldn’t be too difficult, with all your acting experience, and since we both had a similar upbringing.
So imagine, if you will:
Growing up, you don’t have a mom or a dad to take care of you. Instead, you’re forced into the foster care system. Overall, the experience is positive—the homes you’re placed in are nice enough, the foster parents decent people—but you understand from a young age that you can’t really be yourself. You have to smile even when you’re sad, because if you don’t, questions are asked, so many questions, and then you’re sent to see a psychologist, who asks even more questions.
The only way to navigate the foster care system, you come to realize, is to act.
And as time goes by, you find that you actually enjoy playing a role. You enjoy acting. And so in middle school and high school, that’s just what you do. But while you know your acting skills are good—you play Rebecca Gibbs in Our Town and Ann Putnam in The Crucible—those skills are nowhere near as good as you wish they could be.
Professional training is out of the question—far too expensive—but you do your best with what you’ve got, and after high school, you save up enough money to move to Los Angeles.
After two years, you’ve gone on countless auditions, and while there have been a few nibbles, there are never any bites.
You have a few friends that you’ve gotten to know, fellow aspiring actors who you’ve met around town. You and your friends go out drinking at night. And you find that the less luck you have on auditions, the more you end up drinking, and the more you drink, the easier it is to forget.
This is how you meet Trent McAllister.
Though meet might be too generous a word. You are a girl at the bar. He is a guy at the bar. He’s a bit older than you typically like, but he’s cute enough that when he offers to buy you a drink, you say yes. And, well, you don’t know what happens after that.
Much of that night is a blur. Except for the part where the two of you end up in some motel room. You’re only partly conscious by that point. You are aware that you’re naked, and that you’re face down on the mattress, and that a man is on top of you. You try to speak. Tell him to stop, to get off you. But he doesn’t. In fact, it seems the more you protest, the more aggressive he becomes. And he is brutal. Like he wants to punish you for something beyond your control. It doesn’t matter how much you beg, how much you cry, he won’t stop.
Until finally he does. By that point, all the fight has drained out of you. You just lie there on the bed, bruised and broken, barely aware when he goes to the bathroom to wash himself off and get dressed.
As he opens the door to leave, this stranger from the bar—the one whose cheeks grew dimples every time he laughed at one of your silly jokes—tilts his head slightly and says, “Thanks for the good time.”
Later—much later, once you’ve begun to heal—you wonder about all the ways things could have been different. All the ways you could have prevented what happened. Whether or not there had been any warning signs from the start.
You don’t know who the man is. He never gave you his name. But you’re sure you would recognize him if you ever saw him again. His eyes—those piercing blue eyes—still haunting you.
You start going out more, almost every night. But you don’t go out to have a good time. You go out to find him.
You love to act, and that’s exactly what you do—you play the role of just another young woman at the bar, drinking and dancing and having a good time. Guys buy you drinks, and you act like you drink those drinks, but you only take a sip or two before you dump them out when the guys aren’t looking.
You need to stay alert. You need to keep an eye out, so that when he shows up again, you’re ready.
A few months later, you spot him.
He’s already selected a victim. She looks to be about your age, blonde with a tight black dress. She’s with friends, but it’s clear they aren’t close friends. Just like you on the night you were selected. He no doubt knew close friends wouldn’t let one of their own go home with some random guy, at least not without getting some information first, just in case. The guy is smart. He knows how to pick them.
You watch him flirt with the blonde. She’s already tipsy, throwing her head back every time she laughs. When he offers to buy her a drink, she says yes, and after he pushes through the throng of people to the bar and raises a hand to flag the bartender, you edge closer.
Just as you suspected—as he turns away from the bar, he surreptitiously drops a pill into the girl’s beer. He shakes the bottle slightly to dissolve the pill as he makes his way back to the girl, and when he hands her the drink, she leans forward and kisses him on the cheek.
Your stomach drops. You want to rush over there and knock the beer from the girl’s hand. But the truth is, you had been expecting this. That’s why you’ve been prowling all these bars and clubs the past couple of months. Waiting for him to show up. Waiting for him to select another victim.
You’re prepared. You know what needs to happen next.
Pretty soon, the pill takes effect. The girl starts to stumble a bit. She appears loopy. And the man, expecting this, holds her closer, the dimples in his cheeks growing larger as he laughs like she’s just said something funny.
He makes sure to scan the club one final time before he directs the girl toward the exit. He is big and strong and manages to lead her along with no problem, right past the bouncers at the door and into the night.
You follow the sound of her Jimmy Choos clicking hollowly off the sidewalk. Down one block, then another. He gets her into his car, slumped over in the passenger seat, and then hurries around to slide in behind the wheel.
As soon as he’s in motion, you hurry to your own car and speed down the street to catch up with them.
They end up at a motel fifteen minutes away. The man doesn’t stop at the front desk to get a room; apparently he’s already secured one. He helps the girl out of the car and straight to a door on the first floor.
Again, your stomach drops. The motel room you eventually exited—after crying on that soiled mattress for what felt like hours, afraid to walk through the door into a world that would forever now look and feel and smell different to you—was on the first floor too. Getting up a flight of stairs with a half-conscious girl isn’t easy. The man knows what he’s doing.
But what sickens you even more is the fact you don’t immediately call the police—you have to wait. If he isn’t caught in the act, they might not be able to charge him. So you need to wait; despite how much it tears you up inside, you sit and wait. After ten agonizing minutes, you finally make an anonymous call.
You park across the street at another motel. You slump low in your seat when the police cruiser arrives ten minutes later. Two cops get out and look around the parking lot before they slowly approach the room number you reported. One of them knocks on the door while the other stares out at the street.
After a minute, the door opens. The man is standing there. It looks like he hurriedly put on his shirt and is busy tucking it into his pants.
For a second or two, he looks apprehensive.
And then a smile splits his face.
He steps out of the room and closes the door behind him. He shakes the first cop’s hand, then shakes the second cop’s hand. They talk for a minute, and during that time the man’s expression hardens, and he starts scanning the area, clearly searching for the person who called in the tip.
You slump even lower behind the steering wheel. For a moment it feels like the man’s gaze has zeroed in on you, those piercing blue eyes penetrating your soul. But as one of the cops continues to talk, the man finally nods and then goes back to the door. He opens it but doesn’t step inside, just holds the door open long enough for both cops to glance in. One of the cops grins at the man, slaps him on the back, and then they return to their cruiser as the man shuts the door and hurries to his car.
You don’t move for the longest time. Even when your legs start to cramp up. You just hide behind the wheel, staring at the motel, not knowing what to do next.
The man must be a cop. That much is obvious based on the familiarity of his interaction with the two officers. And now that you think about it, he even looks like a cop. Tall and broad-shouldered with a steel jaw and a clean crewcut.
You didn’t plan for this. You consider calling the motel directly, or even crossing the street and demanding to speak to the manager in person. But that won’t work. The manager won’t tell you anything. Besides, it’s doubtful the man—the cop—gave his real name or paid with a credit card.
In the end, you leave.
The girl, you tell yourself, will be fine. She will eventually make it out of that motel room, just like you did so many months ago. She might not be the same girl anymore, but at least she will survive.
You scribbled down the man’s license plate while you followed them, and the next day you look him up. His name is Trent McAllister, and he is indeed a cop. You do more research, scouring local news articles and diving deep into social media. You learn that over the past several years, two women have come forward alleging sexual assault, but in the end neither of the charges stuck. Trent remains an active police officer.
With no other recourse, you contact the Los Angeles Times.
You speak to a reporter about your experience. She is an investigative journalist who stays on the story for weeks, surveilling Trent McAllister much like you did, but in the end, she admits that she doesn’t have enough to publish an article. But she does threaten the police chief that she will do so, bringing up your story and how you witnessed what took place that night with the blonde, how two officers showed up but did nothing. One thing leads to another and soon Trent McAllister is pushed out of the force.
But men like Trent McAllister always end up on their feet. There are no formal charges he has to reckon with. He walks away scot-free, with a sizable pension, from what you’re told. He gets into the private security business, looking after B- and C-list celebrities who can afford him on the cheap, until eventually he is hired to protect one of Hollywood’s rising stars.
As for your next steps, you decide to leave Los Angeles. You end up in a small town three hours away. Get a job as a cashier at a grocery store. Decide to put your past behind you.
Then one day at work, you see him again.
It’s a rainy weekday morning and not very busy, only a handful of customers trickling in and out of the store. The woman who comes in to swap out the magazines in their little racks on the front end is by your register. You make small talk with her, paging through the most recent issue of OK! Magazine, when suddenly your heart stops.
The woman notices the sudden silence and looks up.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
You don’t respond. You just continue to stand there, frozen, staring down at the open page. There’s a shot of a young actress standing on the red carpet of some premiere. The actress looks gorgeous in her Versace gown, smiling with her hand raised to wave to the crowd. But it’s the man standing just behind the actress that has caught your eye. He’s barely in focus, but it’s more than enough to recognize him.
Trent McAllister.
And just like that, you’re back in that motel room, naked and pressed face down into the bed.
“Hey,” the woman says, gently touching your arm. “Are you okay? You look pale.”
Without a word you pivot away, straight to the bathroom. You need some time alone. Some time to think.
In the bathroom stall, you get out your phone and google Trent McAllister. It doesn’t take long to learn that he created his own company, VIP Protection, and that he had been hired to provide security to the young, beautiful actress.
Almost immediately, you start to form a plan.
Trent McAllister deserves to be punished for what he has done. Not just to you, but to all the women he’s raped.
And so you begin to write letters to that young, beautiful actress. Letters that start out innocuous enough, but whose tone, over time, begins to escalate. After all, you have to take it to a place where Trent McAllister will feel the need to get involved.
Now, if you have one regret, it’s what happens to Kara Hogan. You need to prove your devotion to the young, beautiful actress. To show Trent what you’re capable of. There is simply no other way to do it.
Once you send your last few letters, you know Trent will show up sooner or later.
And he does show up, exactly as expected.
Part of you worries that he’ll recognize you from that night so long ago, that the plan you’ve so carefully constructed will fall apart like a house of cards.
But when he does look at you, he barely even blinks.
Getting him in the trailer the next night isn’t difficult.
Stabbing him once he’s in the trailer, well, that turns out not to be difficult either.
And slipping the knife into Jennifer Smith’s hand as she lays unconscious on her bed?
Easy as pie.
Kids go into foster care for many different reasons. From what I’ve read, Seraphina, you were abandoned as a baby. Your mom had you when she was very young, and she was scared and didn’t know what to do, so she left you outside the hospital one night with a note saying she hoped you went to a good family. Immediately afterward she regretted it, but she knew she would get in trouble for abandoning you like she did, so she didn’t come forward. But that didn’t stop her from always thinking about you, and eventually tracking you down so many years later.
That wasn’t the case for me or my brother. While I don’t remember much about him anymore, I do remember that I loved him more than anything else, and when he died, it was like my whole world had been ripped away from me.
Our mother didn’t care much for either of us. We were an inconvenience. A burden.
When my brother and I cried, our mother yelled at us, which made us cry more, which made her yell more. An emotionally abusive cycle. She would leave us by ourselves, which meant there was a five-year-old looking after a three-year-old for hours at a time.
One day, when our mother wasn’t home, my brother and I were sitting in front of the TV. When I left to use the bathroom, my brother decided to do what he’d been trying to do ever since he was able to stand up on his two chubby feet: climb up onto the kitchen counter.
As soon as I realized he’d left his spot on the carpet, I called out his name. I heard a noise and hurried into the kitchen. And there he was, standing on the counter. I screamed. The panic in my voice caused him to whip his head around, which caused him to lose his balance, which then . . .
I’ll never forget what happened. Even now, after all these years, I can close my eyes and see him falling. It’s like it all happened in slow motion. The surprise on his face from hearing me scream. His eyes widen. His mouth opens. And then he falls. Head first.
I was frozen. I wanted to rush forward, wanted to catch him, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. All I could do was stand there and watch him fall.
As soon as I heard him hit the floor, I snapped out of my paralysis. I rushed forward, already feeling tears on my face. I kept saying my brother’s name, but he didn’t respond.
I knew that in the event of an emergency, I should dial 911. But we didn’t have a phone.
I ran out of the apartment. Since it was a weekday, I had to knock on six or seven doors until someone finally answered.
An ambulance was called. So were the police. And then Child Protective Services.
I never saw my brother again.
I was placed into the custody of CPS. I started my journey through the foster care system, but the girl who had been taken from that apartment—the one who had stood frozen in place while she watched her brother fall to his death—was different now.
As I mentioned before, Seraphina, I learned to play a role. I learned to act.
And, well, years later, after my time in Los Angeles, I decided to confront the woman who had once been my mother. During those years in LA, I had tracked her down—I’d had no interest in seeing her, even though she lived only a few hours away; I was just curious about where she ended up. But now, with nowhere else to go, feeling alone and directionless, I decided to confront her. If not for me, I told myself, then for my brother.
That was how I ended up in Gleason. Not to live there. Certainly not to settle down there. But simply to confront the woman who I hated most in the world.
I found a hotel to spend the night, with the intention of going into the store the next day. I hoped she’d be working. I would go to her line. I would look her in the eye. And the moment she recognized me—because what mother wouldn’t recognize her own child, even if twenty years had passed?—I would tell her just how much I hated her.
But guess what, Seraphina? She didn’t bat an eye. She smiled at me like I was any other customer that happened to pick her register. She even made small talk, though for the life of me I can’t remember what she said. I was too shocked by the fact that she didn’t recognize me. She didn’t even pause to look at me again, as if she thought she might know me from somewhere.
I don’t know why, but it was like Trent McAllister had drugged me and taken me to that motel room all over again—only this time it was my soul that was bruised and beaten.
I left the store in a kind of daze. I wondered if maybe I had made a mistake. If the thin woman at the second register with the long dark hair and sharp cheekbones and a bit too much makeup wasn’t actually Jennifer Smith.
But her nametag said JENNY. And she looked exactly like I remembered her. She was two decades older now, yes, but you don’t forget your own mother.
I wasn’t sure what to do next. I could try to face her again, but what good was confronting her if she didn’t know who I was?
Then inspiration struck. I still had some money left. So I got an apartment. I applied for a job at the grocery store, and pretty soon I was working shifts as a cashier.
Jenny, as everyone in the store called her, actually trained me. It was a surreal feeling, standing behind the register scanning strangers’ items while the woman who had given birth to me stood a few feet away, coaching me on what to do if a customer presented a check or a bill of more than twenty dollars or an expired coupon that they insisted I must accept.
I worked there for several months. I became friendly with much of the staff. I learned that Jenny had worked at Weaver Brothers for years. That she wasn’t married and that she didn’t have children, or if she did, she never talked about them.
Jenny still went out drinking, sometimes with people from work and sometimes by herself. She had several DUIs under her belt and no longer had her driver’s license, so she took the bus everywhere. There were a few bars near the trailer park, and she often ended up at one of those late at night.
One night I’d gone out to the bar just to observe her. Jenny got wasted. A seedy-looking guy started talking to her. It was clear he planned to take her out of there and that she was in no position to make any decisions on her own, and I had a flashback of that night at the club when Trent McAllister left with the blonde in the tight black dress.
I still felt guilty for not helping that woman, so I decided to intervene.
When the seedy-looking guy asked who I thought I was, I said I was her daughter.
If Jenny heard this, she barely reacted, practically passed out on her feet, and soon I had her in my car and took her home.
When I pulled up in front of her trailer, Jenny seemed to wake up a little. With her head tilted back on the headrest and her eyes closed, she smiled and said, “Did you tell that guy you were my daughter?” Then, the smile fading, her voice went low and quiet, almost plaintive: “I had a daughter once. A son too.”
I managed to get her into the trailer. I’d needed to fish the key from her purse to let us in, and I didn’t realize I had forgotten to return it until I’d laid her down on the mattress and then returned to my car.
I ended up giving Jenny back the key the next day at work; I said I found it on the floor in the breakroom, that she must’ve dropped it. I didn’t tell her how I’d gone to the hardware store earlier that morning to have a copy made. Even then I couldn’t say why I had done so, only that deep in my gut, I felt I might need it someday.
Why did I end up staying in Gleason? Well, Seraphina, I liked the place. It was nice and quiet. The people at work were good and decent, and I enjoyed what I did. As I said in one of my letters, every day was like a new acting experience. I put on a mask for the customers, became a different person. Especially when I was around Jenny.
Then one day I opened a tabloid magazine and saw you—and standing behind you, Trent McAllister.
As soon as I learned about his connection to you, an idea began to form.
You see, Seraphina, I realized that it wasn’t just Trent who needed to be punished, but Jennifer Smith too. For being a terrible mother. For what had happened to my brother.
She never faced any jail time, by the way. It’s true what Trent McAllister had written in his notes: there had been some kind of screw up on the police’s end, which resulted in the charges being dropped. She had lost her son, and she had lost her daughter, but she never wanted either of us in the first place, so that wasn’t much of a punishment, now was it?
After a couple of weeks, that inkling of an idea still hadn’t grown into anything substantial. How, I wondered, could I do something that might bring Trent McAllister and Jennifer Smith together? The question haunted me—so much so that one night I woke up suddenly, as if from a nightmare, except instead I was exhilarated by a revelation.
That inkling of an idea had finally grown into something. It had rooted into my brain, spawned branches and leaves.
I still had the copy of Jenny’s key. On one of my days off, I snuck into her trailer. I looked everywhere to find stuff that had her writing on it. Scraps for a grocery list, anything. Eventually I found enough of what I needed, just the right amount that would give me the chance to practice her handwriting. And once I did that, I started sending you those letters—letters, I knew, which would eventually pique Trent McAllister’s interest.
I’d needed to set a trap, and the fictional version of Jennifer Smith—the one that wanted to be abused during sex—was the bait.
I figured Trent wouldn’t send a lackey to take care of this situation—he’d want to do it himself. But I didn’t know when. Every day after sending that last letter, I kept glancing toward the entrance doors, expecting the next customer to walk through to be him.
When he eventually did come, pushing one of those small shopping carts like any regular customer, I felt my heart stop again. Suddenly I wasn’t sure I could go through with it. Especially when he finally came to check out. I had to step away from my register. I felt like I had all those years ago, five years old and watching my brother fall to his death.
The asshole yelling at Jenny is what finally broke my paralysis. I stepped back on the rubber mat, turned on the light to signal that my lane was open, and asked Trent McAllister if he was ready to check out.
I can’t begin to describe to you how difficult the experience of facing that monster was for me. It felt like every muscle in my body had tensed up. I realized after maybe thirty seconds that I’d been holding my breath and I was worried he might notice, but he was busy watching the scene two checkout lanes over.
In the end, Trent barely even glanced at me. Even if he did—even if he had taken a long look—I wasn’t worried. It had been almost two years since I’d met him at the club. I had dyed my hair since then. Cut it short too. And even if everything was the same as it had been that night, I doubted Trent would have noticed. He hadn’t seen me as a person at all, but as his prey.
As soon as I finished the transaction and handed him his receipt, I knew he would want to get inside Jenny’s trailer to see her things, if he hadn’t done so already.
I’d been anticipating this. For months, I’d been cutting out pictures of you from magazines. I’d scratched out your eyes for dramatic effect. With the pictures of your mother, I’d torn out her entire face.
As soon as Jenny had left for work the next morning, I’d used the key to let myself in. I hid the pictures under the mattress on the floor. I put the yellow legal pad—the one I’d used to write all my letters to you—in the kitchen.
Then I left and waited in my car at the end of the lane so I wouldn’t be noticed. Eventually Trent McAllister showed up. He entered the trailer and was in there for some time. As soon as he was gone, I went back inside to retrieve everything I had planted.
I followed Trent for the rest of the day. It wasn’t difficult. When he entered the McDonald’s across the highway from the grocery store, I went in too, wearing my work polo, like I was heading to the store, even though I actually had the day off. I bought a Big Mac and fries to go, and once everything was bagged, I approached Trent at his table.
I came up with some silly reason to talk to him, but he seemed to buy it. Especially when I mentioned the incident the previous day, where the customer was yelling at Jenny. That certainly got his attention. I could tell he wanted to ask more, but I knew telling him too much, at least right away, might raise a red flag. After some back and forth, I finally managed to tell him exactly what I wanted him to hear, except . . . well, there’s a funny thing about that.
You see, much later that night I went through Trent’s phone. I read the encrypted messages he sent out to your team. I was curious if he would mention our interaction, and he had, but he left out one particular detail.
“Yeah, it can be stressful,” I’d said. “I guess maybe that’s why Jenny drinks so much. Heck, one time she got so wasted I drove her home from the bar so that she didn’t leave with some creep. When she gets enough alcohol in her, she’ll go home with anybody.”
Do you see what Trent did there? He omitted that last part.
For the rest of that afternoon and early evening, Trent stayed parked at the gas station across the highway from the trailer park. He only moved after Jenny walked up the lane to the highway. She had changed into a low-cut blouse and tight jeans with heels. I remembered the night I drove her home, and I figured she smelled of cigarettes and that same cheap perfume.
She walked to one of the bars nearby, a real dive, and went inside. By that time it was almost ten o’clock.
Trent waited until eleven o’clock before he entered the bar.
And what happened after that? Well, one can only imagine, especially if they’d seen how Trent treated the blonde in the tight black dress back in LA. I didn’t bother going inside. I waited out in a parking lot across the highway. Almost an hour passed before Trent came back out of the bar, guiding Jenny toward his car as she drunkenly stumbled on her heels.
As soon as Trent got her into his car and pulled out onto the highway, I started my car. But I was in no hurry. Unlike last time, I knew exactly where they were headed.
Trent pulled into the trailer park a few minutes later.
I parked in the shopping mall behind the woods, put on a pair of latex gloves, and then hurried through the trees, coming out behind Jenny’s trailer. I had the copy of her door key in one hand, and in my other hand was something I’d taken from her trailer earlier that day.
I paused at the rear of the trailer, tried to listen to what was happening inside. I couldn’t hear anything besides the TV.
I hurried around to the front, looking around to make sure there were no witnesses. Then I went straight to the front door, unlocked it, and stepped inside.
Trent had just gotten started. He’d pushed Jenny down onto the mattress and was in the process of yanking off her jeans. He didn’t hear me until the last moment, when I’d stepped on a part of the floor that creaked. He stood up straight and spun around, and that’s when I plunged Jenny’s kitchen knife into his chest.
How many times did I stab him, Seraphina? I honestly can’t say. So far every article I’ve read online has noted “multiple stab wounds,” but there has not been an official number released.
I knew it would take more than just one stab to end his life. I would need to do it twice, maybe three times. But once I started, Seraphina, I couldn’t stop. All I could think about was what he had done to me in that motel room, and what he had done to that blonde in the black dress, and to all the other women who had come before us and after us, and I stabbed him for each and every one.
He fell to the floor. He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. He just lay there, bleeding out onto the carpet.
I stepped back, the knife still in my hand, and looked over at Jenny. She was passed out on the bed.
I edged around Trent McAllister’s body and crouched down next to her. For a moment, I thought she might open her eyes—her lids fluttered briefly—but they remained closed.
Putting the knife in her hand, I pressed down hard to leave her fingerprints.
I stood to leave, but then considered Trent McAllister again. I knelt beside him and searched his pockets, taking out his iPhone. It was a newer model and could only be accessed by passcode or Face ID. All I needed to do was point it at Trent’s face—his eyes were still open—and then I was in.
After I read through everything, I returned the phone to his pocket.
Before I left, I pulled the disposable phone I’d purchased weeks ago from my own pocket and called 911.
On the way home, I tossed the trailer key and pieces of the disposable phone down several different sewer grates.
I couldn’t sleep at all that night, Seraphina. Not one wink. I was too wired. I kept refreshing the browser on my laptop, waiting for the moment the local news website updated.
By nine o’clock that morning, it had.
Not much detail was given—they didn’t list any names, of course—but the short article noted there had been a fatal stabbing at the trailer park and police were still investigating.
I copied the URL, went to TMZ.com, and clicked on the button that asked “Got a Tip?”
Oh yes, I had quite a tip indeed.
Hours later, TMZ ran the story. They reported that Trent McAllister, whose company worked exclusively for you, had been found dead in a trailer in Gleason, California. They noted that not many details had been shared by the police, but that several women had accused Trent of sexual assault during his time as a police officer.
It hasn’t even been two weeks since the incident. Jennifer Smith has been charged, of course. A good defense lawyer could make the case that she had simply been trying to protect herself from a rapist. But that wouldn’t explain all the stab wounds. She will probably face some time in prison.
My brother deserves a whole lot better, but at least it’s something.
And me? Well, yesterday I put in my notice at the store. I told the managers that I’d enjoyed working there, but that it’s time to move on. One of them asked where I planned to go, and I smiled and said Los Angeles.
That’s right, Seraphina, I’m headed back. After all this time playing a role (the role of a lifetime, some might say), I realized my acting skills have improved significantly. So I figure now’s a better time than any to start auditioning again.
I know, I know. Acting can be a tough gig. But at least I no longer have any reason to be afraid of the city. I know that if anybody tries to hurt me like Trent McAllister hurt me, I can handle them.
And I know it’s not going to happen overnight, getting my first role. It’s going to take time. It’s going to take talent and determination. And a little bit of luck, of course.
Maybe one of these days, Seraphina, you and I will meet on set. We might pass each other, and I might smile at you and you might smile back, and maybe that will be the end of it. Or maybe I’ll have a scene with you. We’ll talk off camera. Share some stories and jokes. Become friendly with one another. Maybe even become real friends.
And maybe one of these days, Seraphina, I’ll share this letter with you. Probably not—although I may be a risk taker, I’m not stupid—but I do like the idea of one day telling my story to someone, and if I share it with anyone, I figure it might as well be you.
I imagine you’ll be dumbstruck at first, once you read all these pages. I won’t blame you; it’s a lot to take in. You might be furious at Mike Reynolds, assuming you haven’t already fired him. You might even try to make amends with Kara Hogan, put her in one of your movies, do what you can to advance her career. Because you’re that kind of person, Seraphina. You’re good.
Me? I wouldn’t call myself good. I wouldn’t call myself bad, either. I guess if I had to call myself anything, I’d call myself a survivor.
After some time, when you’ve managed to process this letter and everything I’ve been through, you’ll tell me that you understand I had no other choice. You might even hug me. Tell me that it’s over now. And of course, I’ll hug you back. I’ll thank you for understanding.
I’ve never had any real friends, but I think you could be my first. After all, we are much the same, you and I.
So until that day, Seraphina, I wish you well.
Yours truly,
A Fan