Kevin Died

14. The Lead

14. The Lead

_______________

Who the hell did Travis think he was?

Seriously.

To suggest that my friends may know more about Kevin's disappearance than they were letting on. I mean, sure it was weird that they'd seen my phone and hadn't said anything, but like Luke said, they were waiting for me to tell the truth.

And obviously they looked scared because they know I'm in some sort of danger. Not because of thinking they might get caught for something, especially anything as drastic as attempted fucking murder.

Yeah, that was it. They were scared for my well-being.

But even as I tried my absolute best to convince myself that this was the case, there was a pang of doubt that lingered in the back of my head that maybe Travis was onto something with this.

That little shred of doubt, as minuscule as it was, scared me to death.

But I remained with my friends as if all was well, as I'd been doing that entire day. I didn't confront them. I made sure that I didn't let my face contort into anything other than that in which expressed everything was all fine and dandy.

I kept up the facade up all the way until school was out. Jory invited me to hang out, but I declined. I had business to handle once and for all.

___

I entered my home to find Raymond sitting on the couch in the living room.

"What's up?" I greeted.

He looked up from the TV screen to my face and gave a little smile. "What's up with you?"

I shrugged. "Nothing much."

I walked over to the couch after taking my shoes off and tossing my backpack on the armchair, and took a seat next to him. Upon looking at the screen, I saw that he was watching one of his favorite crime shows.

"This again?" I said, dully.

"Don't hate on this masterpiece of a show," Raymond retaliated.

"I guess I just don't get the appeal."

"How can you not?" Raymond shot a peculiar look at me. "Honestly, this one in particular happens to be one of the best episodes."

"Oh yeah? What's it about?"

Raymond's face lit up at the question. He was obviously passionate about the show and had no issue letting it be known. He turned the volume down a little bit and turned to face me

"So in the storyline, there's this guy that was married and had a daughter that was eleven years old. Well, one day he caught his wife cheating on him and in a fit of rage he ended up killing his wife and the lover.

The little girl witnessed it and he locked her up in the basement as a means to prevent her from ever turning him in. One day she broke out of the restraints and tried to escape, but he caught her and amidst their struggle he got carried away and pushed her down to the floor so hard, her skull cracked and she died.

The guy went insane. He lost his whole family, but all he really ever wanted was his daughter back. So he kidnapped little girls of single moms and killed their moms because he felt like all women are whores or whatever. He locked the girls up like he did his daughter and 'took care' of them. But two of them had died for the lack of proper care and his tendency to be hyper-aggressive. Third time around he was finally caught and the girl survived."