The Little House of Paints

Chapter 23

I stay in bed for longer than usual, thinking, mulling over everything that happened last night. Thinking is one of the only things that I can do anyway since in my haste to get away from my dad, I left my phone downstairs. I'm going to need a few minutes to get the willpower to get out of my warm bed and face the mess that is surely waiting for me downstairs.

"Knock, knock," Teagan calls from the door. Since it is still locked, I am going to have to get up to open it for her. The time for willpower is here and now.

"I'm coming," I roll off of bed. The door is pushed open as soon as it is unlocked. From the looks of her under eye bags she has probably been up all night.

"Is the store open today?" She goes over to my closet and opens it up. The door is now more sticky than wood. We have completely covered it in the past couple of days.

"Yeah, it should be." I rub my eyes, trying to get them to focus on the notes.

"So, your dad isn't home?" She doesn't give me a chance to answer the question, before firing off another one, "Where are the other Post-its?"

I point over to my desk drawer that we have been keeping the notes in. She goes over, grabs a pen out of the cup on my desk, and writes something on the topmost note of the diminished stack.

Whatever she is adding has to be new information. So far we have not added one repeat note. My curiosity has me perking up. What had she learned last night when she was with Max? Did she finally figure out what the boys are up to?

However, when I get close enough to the door, I see that Max's name is still in its original spot. Instead on the newly added note is a new name, one that I am unfamiliar with. It reads Elena Andrews.

"Do you know her?" My confused look gives her my answer. "I knew it." She doesn't tell me what she knows, instead she takes out her phone and starts to text someone.

"Wait, who are you texting?" Maybe someone else from Sandra's friend list is talking to her, but I tend to doubt it. She waited until she had confirmed that I didn't know Elena Andrew to text this person. With horror I realize what she is doing.

"Teagan, is that Max?" I demand. That is the only person that she knows here and I doubt that she is texting with one of her friends back home about this. No, those questions she just asked were not for own curiosity instead they were to satisfy someone else's.

She continues to ignore me, instead opting to take a photo of the door. I slam our make shift investigation board closed before she gets a chance. This causes her to finally look at me, a little startled at my actions.

"What are you doing?" I try again, perhaps now that I have her attention she will answer.

"I know who the killer is. I know who killed Sandra." You would think that she would be glad to have figured out who it is so that we can get justice for the victims, but instead she looks sad. Like what she is about to say is going to pain her.

"Who?" If she knows then we need to call the cops. Get them to arrest them. Put the monster away.

"I think that you might want to sit down for this, Ken." She grabs my hand, trying to lead me back to my bed.

"Just tell me. Wait, did you call the police?" I once again go to try and pick up my phone, but come up short. I pull her with me downstairs so that I can grab it. Picking it up from its spot on the couch, I get ready to dial.

"They already know I promise you." That stops me. It wouldn't be helpful to the police to get another call about the killer if they are already on it. They could have already caught him by now for all I know. To just clug up their lines with repeat information would be dumb and unhelpful.