CHAPTER 33
1207 Words
Cooper nearly had a heart attack when his phone rang.
He'd been waiting for this call for three days. That's how long it had
been since he'd last seen Calla at the station. Since his interrogation. Since his world
had been rocked with the revelation of who the killer might be.
He hated it, but he understood the radio silence. That was the only reason why he
hadn't blown up Calla's phone with a dozen calls already. He may not have been a
murder suspect, but he was being watched. Closely. Everyone was.
But now she was making her move. And he was ready.
He snatched the vibrating phone from the coffee table, half-hanging off the couch
when he answered it, breathless. "Hello?"
"Come over. We need to talk. And try to act casual about it, please."
She didn't have to say anything else. Cooper hung up and sprinted to his room. With
no real conscious thought, he fell to his knees and yanked the shoebox out from
underneath his bed, ripping off the top to expose the array of photographs stowed
inside. He shuffled past a dozen images of Calla, ignoring the burn in his face. At
last, he found the polaroid he was looking for. On a whim he grabbed a second
photo—the one of Ryan and Jacob, stupid grins on both of their faces—before
shoving the shoebox back into darkness, burying his secrets.
In his hurry to get dressed, he almost headed out the door in only a hoodie and his
boxers. When the cold air hit his legs he yelped and jumped back inside, thankful no
one had seen. Or at least, he hoped no one had seen.
Once properly dressed, he practically sprinted to Calla's house. He kept reminding
himself to stay calm—to act casual, as Calla had told him to. He was just going to
see his neighbor. Say hello. Nothing weird about that, right?
No. Not at all. Unless you considered discussing murder weird.
He paused at her door, trying to catch his breath. He didn't even have time to ring
the doorbell before the door flew open and Calla was there, a look of irritation on
her face.
"Do you know what the phrase act casual means?"
He shrugged, his cheeks flushed. He decided to blame it on the cold air.
She rolled her eyes and turned. "Come on, you moron."
Cooper took that as a signal to let himself in. He closed the door behind him and
twisted the lock for good measure, glancing around the empty house. The bright
afternoon sun filled the space with a warm glow, lighting up the kitchen in brilliant
golden beams. Calla rummaged around the cabinets, flitting through the shafts of
sunlight, her hair glowing like a flame with each pass.
Cooper hesitantly walked over and took a seat at the circular dining table to watch
her. Something about her felt different. Off. He was about to ask what it was when
he realized she was wearing her hair down today. The thick curls floated down her
back, framing her face.
"Did you do your hair?" he asked suddenly, surprising himself.
She looked up at him and raised an eyebrow—her usual what the hell are you talking
about look.
"Never mind," he muttered, laying his head on his forearms.
He felt like he was going to explode if he didn't tell her what he knew. And soon.
Six names. Six faces. Six suspects.
"One feather is of no use to me," Calla finally said. "I must have the whole bird."
Cooper raised his head and twisted in his chair to face her. She had her back to him,
filling two glasses with ice from the refrigerator.
"Sorry?" He cleaned out his ear with his pinky finger. "Come again?"
She poured water in one of the glasses, focused on her task. "It's from Grimm's
Fairy Tales . The full excerpt was cut off. Thank God for Google."
It took Cooper's brain a moment to catch up. "You're talking about the missing
page. Jacob's death note."
"Correct." She walked over and handed him a glass. He sucked half of it down
quickly, shuddering as the icy water hit his throat. "Pages, actually. We were right.
The killer left a note in Jacob's locker. And he left a note at the crime scene."
Calla set her phone down on the counter and slid it in front of him.
"How did you find these," he muttered, analyzing the evidence. The first picture had
clearly been taken at the crime scene; the words on the page were barely legible
through the massive bloodstain dominating the right side of the page. The second
picture took him a moment longer to piece together.
"I went to Cory's place. After the station." Calla pulled out the chair across from his
and stared down at her glass, tracing patterns in the condensation with her index
finger. "We had a nice...chat. And then I snuck into his dad's office. Goldmine."
"You what?" Cooper pushed his glass away, alarmed. "What if you'd been caught!"
She propped her chin in her hand, leaning against the table.
"Well. I wasn't."
"And if you had?" he insisted.
She shrugged. "My problem. Not yours."
He blew out a breath, his eyes falling back down to the evidence on her screen. "So.
What am I looking at?"
"Besides the obvious?" She leaned forward and tapped the screen, zooming in on
the bloody page. "That's the page the killer left behind at the crime scene. And a
duplicate of that page." She swiped across the screen. The second picture
appeared. A gloved hand held up a much cleaner, crisper copy of the page, a row of
lockers in the background. "Which the killer left in Jacob's locker. As a warning."
"Duplicate?" Cooper swiped back and forth between the images, surprised. "They're
identical pages?"
"Not identical." Calla sat back in her chair. She clutched her glass, contemplating
the quickly-melting ice inside. "They're from the same book, yes. But not from the
same copy. It's not possible." She flicked her fingers in his general direction. "Look
at the page left at the crime scene. The edges are gilded."
"A special edition, maybe?" he murmured, narrowing his eyes at the screen. His
hand went to his pocket, where he'd tucked away the polaroid. He drew it out now
and compared it to the image on the screen. Now that he knew what to look for, he
could see it: a muted shimmer of gold ran down the edge of the page.
"That's what I think," Calla confirmed. "The killer is using one copy to leave his
little..." she trailed off and then smiled. "Death notes. And with the other..."
One note to warn. And one note to taunt.
Cooper thought back to that horrific night at the Halloween party. He could still
smell the bitter aroma of the beer in his hand, could still see the smoke billowing
down from the third floor, the fog machine left unattended. He replayed the moment
he stumbled over Tracy's body. The realization that his hands were braced against a
warm, wet floor—soaked with Tracy's blood.
- Writer
