The second time I saw the headline, I had an uneasy feeling. It was unsettling, seeing that it wasn't the first time the large letters had stared up at me:
"Double suicide at Chamber's Cabin"
What was even worse was having seen it just a month or so before, when I had been studying for my finals. The Chamber's Cabin was a part of Auburn Park, a fairly large, popular area people went to camp or explore. Cabins dotted the land, but there was plenty of room for campers as well.
It was the summer I would turn twenty four. I had my own small apartment about ten minutes away from the university, although the tradition of spending summers at the Mikaelson's was still very much in full swing. They had a beach house at our groups favorite beach, and once we got into college, we used it to our advantage.
I was seated in the kitchen, the huge windows allowing the sun to light up the room. I brought my coffee cup up to my lips, reading through the front page article about the second double suicide. The paper didn't mention that this was the second time it had happened, though.
"Awful, isn't it?" Elijah asked as he joined me in the kitchen. "And they're pretending it's the first time."
"Yeah, like we don't remember the first two times it happened," Janelle rolled her eyes as she entered the room. "It's terrible. I wonder what drove those people to do it, in a fairly popular place..." she trailed off.
"Wait, did you say first two? As in this is the third time?" I set down the paper, my coffee mug next to it.
"Yeah. The first time they tried to keep it on the down low, so it wasn't 'officially' released to the media. But of course it got out. But the second time it happened, it started to worry people."
"Well, yeah, I can see why."
Janelle nodded, sitting next to Elijah at the breakfast bar. "And now it's happening again."
"The paper says the cops are starting to think it's not suicides," I said, trying to find the paragraph with the information I wanted. "Yeah, right here. 'Officials are now considering the possibility of having a serial killer on their hands.'"
"Wait, I think I remember this," Janelle said slowly, her features showing she was deep in thought. "Remember in high school? For the criminal justice class, we talked about how in the 70's there was a serial killer who would make it look like their victims killed themselves. But then the killer just disappeared-"
"And about thirty years later, they came back. Or a copy cat did. But the case went cold." I finished, doing the math in my head. "It hasn't been thirty years."
Janelle raised her eyebrows. "I think you and I should do some research."
-
"Okay, so the first murder-made-to-look-like-suicide happened in 1974," Janelle said, not looking up from her laptop. "It happened four times within five months, and then the killer disappeared. In 2002, there was a recurrence, but the cops couldn't prove that it was the same killer, or even that there was a killer, really. That time it was three times in four months, and then the case went cold. And now it's back, but it doesn't sound like they're connecting the cases." She paused, scrolling further down. "Wait, I think I know why."
"Why?" I asked, continuing my own search on my laptop.
"The one in 1974 happened in North Carolina, and the one in '02 happened in Connecticut-"
"Whoa, whoa, listen to this," I cut her off. "Did you know Auburn use to be a ranch?"
"It was?"
"Yeah. In 1943 a couple owned it, that year the husband found out his wife was being unfaithful. He killed her, making it look like she killed herself, and then took his own life. The cops called it a double suicide. And guess where that happened?"
"Don't say it," Janelle mumbled.
"Chamber's Cabin."
"Oh, you said it. So what, now every thirty so years they come back and kill other people?"
"Once you get into the ghost story part of this, yeah. But come on, that part's made up."
"How do you know that?"
I rolled my eyes, looking up from my screen to Janelle. "Ghosts? Really? Those don't exist."
"Yeah, you're right," she chortled, looking back at her screen. "We should go."
"Where?"
"Auburn. Chamber's Cabin."
"What, are you serious?"
"Is that a problem? Are you scared, Audrey?"
"No," I half-lied.
"Then let's check it out."
"I-" Her suggestion screamed bad idea, but I refused to be the one to back out. "Okay."
"I'll make the reservations." Janelle smiled, grabbing her phone and standing up.
