Maybe more than one.
Again, I pick up my phone and dial the emergency number. And again, I get a recorded message.
With no other recourse, I curl up on the couch and pick up the journal. Locating the page where I left off, I breathe deeply, swallow the fear lodged firmly in my throat, and resume reading.
The next entries are a nightmare, a transformation from curious youth to depraved monster.
I read several pages in a blurry rush, as if speeding through the words will lessen the horror. By this point, the author of the journal has found a young girl that they’re . . .interested inand has lured her to the mansion.
The following descriptions leave me sick to my stomach, and I can’t help imagining this happening right now, beneath this very mansion.
And happening to Alice.
I’ve got to get help.
I’m dialing 112 again when I’m struck by what I’ve just read. I have the last piece, and all the clues line up. They make sense.
Dropping the phone in shock, I keep my ears attuned to the robotic message as my mind spins. As I connect a timeline to the murder described in the journal.
It’s the young girl found in the catacombs.
She didn’t drown. That’s not how she died.
She was murdered.
And it all happened when Noah lived here.
Noah and Ric. Both young men at the time, possibly teenagers. I think back to the confrontation they had at the dance. Ric called Noah a coward and accused him of running away after the girl was found. The little sister of Noah’s girlfriend.
A vise clenches my chest. I can’t draw a breath. It’s as if the air has been sucked from my lungs.
Was Noah involved?
I turn and stare at the wall, but what I’m really seeing is Noah. The kiss we shared. The safety of his apartment. The note he left me this morning.
Is he really out of town? Or was that a lie? A cover story for why he can’t be reached?
Because he’s busy doing other things.
I feel like I’m losing my mind, but right now, everyone is a suspect. I’m only reading about one murder, but I know there were others.
Like the journal said, it’s a family secret.
Lina Ivarrson was killed in 1985. Noah and Ric hadn’t even been born yet.
Four decades later, Rose disappears. Now Alice.
But how many others in the years between?
I remember dancing amongst all the monsters, and I fold my arms over my stomach. The deaths are a joke to them.The family. And I was there with them. Dancing, laughing, playing, eating.
I’ve known too many wealthy and powerful people, the elite who believe they’re superior. Believe they’re entitled to do whatever they want. Take anything. Hurt anyone. And they continue to get away with their crimes.
Unless someone speaks out.
I pick up the journal. Pages and pages describing murders.
I have proof. Evidence.
