Haunted by the Past (Original)

Chapter 16

"How dare you!" I snapped. "Brodie is dead! We buried him."

"Yes, but-," he paused to gather his thoughts. "But nothing about Brodie's death makes sense!"

"No," I shook my head vehemently. "Triple-6-... H-he had somehow followed her, watched her go up the staircase! He heard how loud the music was!"

"Dani," he paused and took a deep breath. "The likelihood that Triple-6 managed to pick up on her trail after she went over the back fence without being noticed by Heather is slim. I checked out her home afterwards. I followed her most logical path to the Night Owl. It was late afternoon, but still light enough that she would see anyone following her on the street. So when she said she wasn't being followed, I believe her."

"There are other ways!" I argued.

"The trees in her neighborhood are very high and give good cover to anyone walking beneath them. Tracking her by a drone without the drone being detected would have been difficult," he continued. "Let's not forget that everyone, including Cameron, agreed that it would be best if she skipped school the next day. She didn't leave the apartment until she was kidnapped the next night."

"No! He's not Triple-6! No way! No how! Not possible!" I jumped out of my seat.

"I'm not saying he is," he sighed. "But let's say he was helping him, for whatever reason. Maybe he was threatened. He had cousins at Mallard Elementary, didn't he?"

"No!" I shouted. "No one betrayed anyone! No one helped a fucking psychopath kill Heather!"

"Dani, why was he supposedly killed in a car fire?" he pressured. "That was so unlike Triple-6, it makes no sense! Unless it wasn't him!"

I bolted out of the room, unable to handle being in the same room as him. How could he suggest that Brodie would knowingly sentence Heather to such a horrible fate!? Then to suggest that's Brodie was still alive!? If I closed my eyes, I could still see the crime scene investigators circling around the blackened shell that was once Brodie's car. I could see the silhouette of what was once his face in the driver's seat. Even though the crime scene tape had been put up quite a distance away and the cops tried to block visibility, I still saw it between the cracks of their tarps.

I glanced up in the middle of the hallway and spotted Eli's camera looking straight at me. There was no question in my mind, he was watching me.

"I know what you're thinking!" I yelled. "You're thinking 'Oh, I'll just give her some time to come to her senses!' Well that ain't happening, Elijah Quentin!"

I could almost hear his annoyance at me using his full name. He hated being called Elijah, but more than that, he hated the name of his father. As much as he loved his mother, he hated the fact that she gave him Quentin as a middle name. I asked him once why he didn't change it. He said it was easier to forget that it even existed. That made reminding him of it all that much more grating.

"We helped lower Brodie's casket into the ground! You. Me. Naomi. Vic. Wayne. Dylan. We watched as they covered it! Remember!? We stayed until nightfall by those benches under the maples!" I continued. "Yes, it was a closed casket wake. Of course it was, he was fucking burnt to a crisp! Burnt blacker than Wayne's burgers at the 4th of July party! Don't you dare suggest... don't suggest it wasn't him, that it was a lie. Not now! Not after all this time! You fucking perpetuated the lie!" Tears of frustration began to escape the corners of my eyes. "No... no. No! No! NO! I went there! I went to the town center that day! I watched from behind the tape as they-... as they removed his body from the car! I know you and everyone else told me not to go, but I had to. I had to see how badly my life was unraveling. He... the body... it crumbled as they tried move carefully him. Parts of him fell... disintegrated to ash and blew away in the wind before it even hit the ground. He is gone - dust now!"