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I was up way too early the next morning. It was just before seven when I dragged myself out of bed and downstairs for my first cup of coffee. I was anxious. My mind was so preoccupied with what to do next that it wouldn’t stay quiet long enough for me to sleep. By eight, I was on my second cup and growing increasingly impatient, waiting for Gwen to text.
As much as I tried, reading was a no-go. I couldn’t concentrate. So, I went through my notes on the case. I went through the photos I’d taken. I went through the suspect list. Nothing new came to me. I needed those background checks. If Isaac couldn’t help us, what would I do then? I had no clue. I made my way upstairs to my room and usual nook to wait.
Another hour passed before my phone chimed. I jolted from my window seat (where I had taken to staring out of the window, lost in thought) and ran to the nightstand where it sat. Gwen had finally texted, He’ll do it.
I texted back, Thank you so much! I owe you big time. At the end of this, I included two kissy face emojis.
More than you know, she replied. I’m coming over.
Okay.
I dropped the phone on my bed and wondered what she meant by ‘more than you know’.
Ten minutes later, I met Gwen at the front door. We both waved to my parents on the way upstairs; they were just waking up and on their first round of coffee. As soon as we entered my room, Gwen began to tell me how everything had gone down the night before.
“So, I told Isaac what you needed, and he said he could do it, and it would be easy,” she explained.
“Great,” I replied, and waited for the eventual “but” that I sensed was coming from her tone.
“There is a catch, though,” she said, and her face scrunched up in a look of disgust.
“Okay, what’s the catch?”
She let out a long, defeated sigh. “He would only agree to do it if I went on a date with him.”
“What?” I asked, surprised by this turn of events. “When?”
“Tonight.” This was accompanied by a roll of the eyes that would make teenage girls around the world proud and envious at the same time.
“And you said yes?” I asked, incredulous.
“Well, I had a condition of my own,” she added, now wearing a devilish grin.
I didn’t like where this was going. “Which was?”
“A double date. With you and Jason.”
“Gwen-” I started, but she interrupted me.
“I know you guys have something weird going on, and it would be super awkward, but that’s the only way I’d be comfortable.”
“Well, as it turns out, it won’t be that awkward.” I smiled sheepishly.
Her eyes went wide, and her mouth formed the shape of a perfect ‘O’. “Wait. Are you serious? You guys are together?”
I nodded. “Yes. We decided last night that we wanted to enjoy our few months together rather than keep our distance from each other after all this is done.”
“Oh wow!” she exclaimed. Then, in true Gwen fashion, she hugged me and jumped back excitedly as something new occurred to her. “Your popularity at school is going to skyrocket.”
My brow furrowed. “You say that like it’s a good thing.”
“It is,” she insisted.
I shook my head and sat down on the edge of my bed. “Agree to disagree. I like Jason but would prefer not to be a part of the ‘in-crowd’. Everyone thinks I’m weird, and that’s perfectly fine with me.”
She sat next to me and took my hands as if she were just comforting me over losing a loved one. “If you’re going to date the football team’s star wide receiver, it’s really out of your hands.”
She was right, and I knew it. Still, it was a small price to pay for spending more time with Jason before we went our separate ways. I shrugged. “I’ll deal with it when we come to it. Right now, I feel like we’re close on this case, and that’s where my focus remains.”
“Okay,” Gwen said, reluctantly accepting the change of subject. “Isaac said he could get the answers you need before we go to dinner.”
“That’s awesome,” I said excitedly. “Thank you so much.”
“Of course.” With that done, she steered the conversation back to my so-called dating life. “Now, tell me how it went with Jason.”
Much like any teenager, Gwen was obsessed with gossip, especially of the romantic variety. I told her about my walk with Jason, the kiss, and the handholding, and it all seemed to satiate her need for information. Next, she told me how she felt about the impending date with Isaac. Hesitant and nervous were the feelings at the forefront.
“Do you even like him?” I asked.
“As a friend,” she replied. “I never really thought of him as a potential boyfriend. I mean, it’s Isaac. He’s like, king of the nerds.”
“Well, just because you hide it well doesn’t mean you’re not a nerd,” I pointed out.
“Hey.” Gwen seemed hurt.
I began making my case by counting off on my fingers. “You’re a Harry Potter fanatic, a D&D player, and spend a lot of your time at a comic book store. You could be his queen.”
“Okay. Good point.” She seemed to think a moment and then shrugged. “I mean, he isn’t unattractive. He’s nerd cute, ya know... in a way.”
“Yeah.” I smiled cheekily and picked up my phone. “I’m going to text Jason and tell him our plans.”
***
Jason was not thrilled about the double date with Gwen and Isaac, but he knew it was the only way to get the computer geek to cooperate. So, he went along and picked up Gwen and me from my house as supper time drew near.
“Thanks for doing this,” Gwen said as we pulled away from the curb.
Jason shrugged. “It’s fine. Just know, if Isaac comes at me with any dumb jock jokes, I will retaliate.”
“Understood,” Gwen winked and giggled. “As a matter of fact, I encourage it. That could be entertaining.”
“Let’s just get what we need out of him before we offend him,” I said, and immediately felt bad. Then I remembered Isaac didn’t like me, despite the fact I’d been nothing but nice to him over the years, and the guilt passed.
Isaac Blevins lived with his parents in an old Elizabethan house that sat far back on a large bit of land. The land once had been a nine-hole golf course that shut down several years before. I remembered my dad’s disappointment at losing his favorite place to get in some practice holes. The house desperately needed renovations, and my first thought as we drove up the long driveway was that if there was ever a house that was destined to be haunted, it was this one.
Out of the Toyota and up to the large, covered porch, Gwen rang the doorbell. We waited momentarily before we heard footfalls on hardwood floors heading toward the door. When it opened, Isaac looked out at us through thick glasses. His white/blonde hair was mussed but looked as though it was supposed to be that way. Unnaturally red lips spread in a smile that was goofy and nervous at the same time. All this was paired with skin so pale that most of his classmates believed he was albino. This was not the case, though it didn’t prevent the boy from being burdened with the nickname ‘Milky’.
“Hey, guys,” Isaac greeted with a small smile. “Come on in. We can head up to my room and get started.”
“Milky?” a woman’s voice called from the hallway. A slender woman with bright red hair and a pale complexion of her own appeared in the foyer. “Who is it?”
“Mom, these are some friends from school,” he answered. “We’re just working on a class project.”
I couldn’t believe his own mother called him by his nickname. She continued, “Okay. Just keep it down. Your father is trying to take a nap.”
“We will.”
Isaac motioned for us to follow him upstairs. Down the hall and to the last door on the left, Isaac’s room was dimly lit and smelled of burning incense. “I’m afraid I don’t have much in the way of seating. Just the bed.”
The posters on the wall were not the kind one would typically see in a teenager’s bedroom. There were no rock stars or supermodels, but Albert Einstein took up one wall and Steven Hawking another. The wall above Isaac’s bed was covered by a huge Milky Way map showing where the earth was situated by pointing to a tiny spot near the outer rim. It also showed other discovered systems.
I joined Jason and Gwen on the bed. Isaac pulled up the screen on his desktop and went to work. “I have the site open. I wanted to take a look at it before I started attempting to get in. It should be a fairly easy hack. The trick is to hide the fact that I’m in there.”
“And how do you do that?” I asked curiously.
“I can bounce the signal through a few different IP addresses. If anyone did notice I was picking around in there, they’d have a hell of a time tracing it back to me. I should be able to get in and out in no time. I doubt anyone will pick up on it. Our police force isn’t exactly tech savvy.”
“Aren’t you accessing a national database?” Jason questioned, somewhat irritated.
Isaac shrugged. “Yes, but I’m going through the local police server.”
“Smart,” Gwen said, impressed.
I had no idea, neither did Gwen, if what he was doing was actually smart or if she was just encouraging him.
“I know,” Isaac said proudly.
I wanted to ask Isaac then and there why he had refused to friend me on social media. It was the part of me that was still a high school kid and offended by such things. Still, I kept my mouth shut and remembered my priorities.
“You got the names?” Isaac inquired, pulling me back from my thoughts.
I pulled the pad of paper from my bag. “Yeah. Check the men from this list. I want to see what kind of criminal records they have. More specifically, I want to know if any of them have a history of violence.”
“Got it.” Isaac’s finger flew across the keyboard. The data on the screen moved so fast that my brain didn’t have time to register what I was looking at. Then, finally, a window opened, and the image in the background was the logo of the Lafayette Police Department. Isaac typed in the first name. “Daniel Hendershot had a drunk and disorderly when he was twenty-two. That was nearly ten years ago. Nothing since then.”
The mugshot showed a young Daniel with long, messy hair, vacant eyes, and what appeared to be a bit of vomit on his chin.
“You can skip Singh,” I said. “We’ve determined he was out of the country.”
“Okay.” Isaac went to search for the next suspect. “Joseph Banks is clean as a whistle. No arrests. A couple of speeding tickets.”
“All right,” I said, hope dwindling.
“Moving on,” Isaac commented. More strokes of the keys and the file of the final suspect popped up on the screen. “Jackpot. Domestic violence, two counts of assault, resisting arrest. Thomas Milner shows signs of serious anger issues. Says he spent a year in prison for his last assault back in 2015 and had to complete anger management classes once he got out. According to a note, he still attends the classes to this day and hasn’t had any more incidents since getting out.”
“He still seems like our most likely suspect,” I confirmed. “Isaac, can you give me the current addresses for all three men?”
“No problem.” He took my pad and a pencil from his desk and wrote down everything he could find. “There you go.”
“Thanks, Isaac,” I gave him my best smile. “This was a huge help.”
“My pleasure,” he clicked out of the site and turned to us with a goofy grin. “Now, if that will be all, I believe we have a double date to get to.”
I fought the urge to roll my eyes and only nodded.
“Yes,” Gwen said, trying to look excited. “I am starving.”
***
Back in the 4 Runner, Gwen and Isaac slid into the backseat while I rode up front with Jason.
“So, you guys are chasing a bad dude, huh?” Isaac asked, looking between the three of us. We each only nodded.
“That is so awesome.” Never thought he’d approved of something like this, so we gave him weird looks, and he started to explain himself. “I mean, not the tragedy that sent you on this path, of course. Jason, I am so sorry for your loss. It’s just that you’re getting out there, taking the law into your own hands, hunting down a killer. Something like that takes serious testicular fortitude. Very brave.”
“Or stupid,” Gwen added. “Depends on your point of view. You guys aren’t seriously going to their houses, are you? Don’t you think it’s time to get the police involved?”
“We already tried,” Jason sighed. “They said without proof, there was nothing they could do. So, now we’re going to get proof.”
There was silence after this. Awkward and tension-filled. I couldn’t speak for Jason, but I was on the verge of losing my temper. One more comment from Gwen would do it, which was surprising. I thought for sure Isaac would be the one to push Jason or me to snap.
“So,” Isaac spoke up, breaking the silence, “Holly, all that business about you solving a murder case at a ski resort was actually true?”
This question was more than a little confusing. “Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?”
“It’s just a lot of people at school thought it was all BS,” he explained.
I turned in my seat to look back at him. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah,” he replied with a shrug.
Anger flashed through me. “It was all over the internet.”
“Well, you can’t believe everything you see on the internet.” He said this with a smugness that made me want to slug him.
“But high school kids do,” I pointed out.
He waved this off. “You’re generalizing.”
“Look, it’s not like I went around bragging about it.” I had no idea why I was defending myself to this kid I barely knew.
“I know. That’s part of the reason people doubted it,” he explained. “A normal person would have never shut up about it.”
I threw my hands up in frustration. “Whatever. Is this why you lied to me about being on social media?”
A look of guilt came over the boy’s face that seemed completely foreign there. Isaac was never one to show much in the way of emotion. He was more of a robotic know-it-all. “Okay, yes. I thought there was something shady about the whole thing.”
I let out a disbelieving breath. “That’s so messed up.”
Isaac looked away from me. “Sorry.”
I felt angry and embarrassed. As much as I’d told myself I didn’t care what everyone else thought, I couldn’t deny the way I felt at that moment. It certainly explained why everyone had treated me like the plague since I’d returned from Christmas vacation the previous year.
“Holly,” Jason’s voice brought me back from my thoughts. I turned to look at him. “I always believed you.”
“Me too,” Gwen said from behind me.
I smiled, touched by their reassurances. “That’s all that counts.”
By the time we were seated at the restaurant, I was feeling much better about myself, and my mind turned toward our suspect list. While the others carried on with small talk, Jason and Isaac getting along surprisingly well, I kept going over the lists of criminal offenses committed by Thomas Milner.
Then, I thought of all the mystery books I’d read over the years. All the television shows and movies. The stories taught me that ‘the obvious answer was rarely the right answer’. Was Milner too obvious? Or was I only overthinking?
It was likely the latter.
I hadn’t followed many true crime cases (which was something I’d have to remedy if I was serious about my career path), but in those cases I was familiar with, the obvious answer was the right answer. Thomas Milner had murdered Mrs. Shannon Kenilworth, and I would prove it.