Hazel shook her head, felt the chill of the air and sucked in a breath.
His house looked empty. She hoped it wasn't, she needed more. But it looked empty and her hopes were diminishing as she glanced around for anybody who could recognise her. But the street was bare and the house on the outskirts of town was lifeless.
Jason's home was a big one, threatening and lonely.
She would knock, she decided, ask to borrow their house phone to call somebody and just use whatever she saw as she passed through as her evidence. Pictures on the wall, things left on countertops, anything. But for this to work, she needed an answer. Maybe she could ask questions, poke at his parents to see what they knew.
She wanted to avoid it, she wanted to stay far away from his family because she didn't want to poke at healing wounds. They weren't involved in the crime, she knew they weren't. Their alibis were too clean, they clearly thought the world of their kid. But maybe they knew more, maybe they knew enough to give her a push and tell her what it was she was missing.
Stopping in front of their door, she took in another deep breath, swallowed the stone in her throat and listened to the hollow rapping of her fist against the wood of their door.
She held for a moment, waiting one second, then two... three, four, five...
Nothing. Not a single sound.
Then she tried again. But still nothing.
Nobody was home.
She visibly sank, her heart dropping and her body slumping as she dropped her head into her hand and held back a cry of frustration. She needed something. She felt like her time was ticking and soon to run out. How long would it take for whoever was responsible to decide they that were sick of the game, to ruin it all and point her out to the crowds of people who always chased the mystery of Hazel White?
She didn't want to be Hazel White.
When that happened, it would be over. She wouldn't be able to investigate, she would have to drop the case, drop everything and hide. Then what? Have no friends? No future? She didn't have the grades to get a good job, she didn't even go to school and would never be able to.
Her desperate thoughts quickly turned to thoughtless movements as she reached her hand out, looked over her shoulder behind her, to the windows across from her, the roads and the streets.
Nothing.
She turned the handle, clenching her teeth and expecting her hand to stop turning, to meet a lock that prevented her from going further.
But she didn't.
The door was open.
This was stupid, she knew it was stupid. But she couldn't stop herself from turning, looking over her shoulder again and stepping in as she closed the door behind her.
Then, she was surrounded. The memories of when this case opened clung to her mind, with every glance around the house, she saw reminders of the news, of all of the articles when the Barber family were desperately trying to find their son. When the photo's of the home came out, when Jason's face was printed everywhere with big bold red letters above reading 'missing'.
It felt so much more real.
This whole time, she was chasing just a name, not a boy with a family, with a life.
He was on the walls around her, looking at her with a smile while his dad tugged him closer with an arm around the back of his neck, he was looking at her through younger eyes when his cheeks were chubby and he was sat on his mothers lap smiling at the camera, never once thinking that one day he wouldn't be there anymore.
She didn't know how they could look at all of these reminders. They were suffocating. How could they pass photos of him staring right back at them every day when they walked from the kitchen to the front door?
The house was tidy, quiet with just the creaks of age in the floorboards. Not a sound, not a thing out of place. Photos, potted plants that were green and flourishing, dark wooden floors so clean she could see herself looking back at her with tired eyes. It was a lifeless home, dust-coated surfaces, small fine hairs lingered in the corners and edges of the room, on the stairs and anywhere else they could reach.
Hazel's nose tickled with the smell.
But this was it, this was Jason's home.
She wanted to keep the visit short. This was breaking laws and whatever she found here, she knew she would have to keep it to herself. So, she took just seconds to think of where to go, where to put her focus.
Her heart was pounding as she looked through doorways, frightened of a shadow appearing and turning into an angry man, livid at the sight of a stranger in his home. She looked up the stairs, pursing her lips as she stayed perfectly still, wanting to risk no sound, anxious that a neighbour would hear despite how quiet she was being.
She needed to see Jason's room. If there was anything of interest, it would be there.
So she set her sights on her destination, presuming it would be up the stairs.
But she stumbled back, grasping at her heart as movement caught the corner of her eye.
She was forced to take a deep breath, then another and another, anxiously holding her choking cough back as she met the eyes of a black cat sat in the doorway leading to the kitchen.
Just a cat.
That explained the tickle at the back of her nose.
So, she moved on, shaking her head as she crept up the stairs and tried not to touch anything. Not the bannister, not the wall, nothing. If she could have floated up the stairs, she absolutely would have.
At the top, she faced more photos. Grandparents, parents, cousins, aunts and uncles all looking back at her with traces of Jason incorporated into some. She turned away, her guilt dragging her feet as she looked to the three doorways at the top of the stairs. A bathroom and two bedrooms, all with open doors but one.
She knew that was where she needed to be. But still, her curiosity took hold of her as she gazed into the parent's bedroom, finding a plain-looking room. Typical parent bedroom. Double bed, nightstands, clean and tidy. Nothing of interest.
She turned to Jason's door, creeping towards it and carefully reaching for the handle. She pushed, hearing a howl from the old hinges as it moved under her force and she was struck in the face with dust. It was stronger than the dust at her own apartment and she realised that neither parent could bring themselves to even glance into the room anymore.
She closed the door and swallowed another stone of guilt.
The room itself was pretty tidy for what it was. She hadn't seen many teenage boy bedrooms in her life. The grey carpet was spotless and the walls were covered in posters, older bands and artists she didn't suspect a guy like Jason to listen to. Fleetwood Mac, Prince, Queen as well as others like AC/DC and The Clash. The bed was unmade, with black covers and unmatched plaid blue pillows, likely from another bed set. A desk sat by the window, empty. It was likely there was a laptop there once, maybe a pc that was taken as evidence and then lost.
She didn't have many expectancies, but still, she was taken by surprise.
She wasn't sure where to even begin searching. Where do teenagers hide things? In their closet? In drawers? Under their bed? Maybe even in their clothes and trash? She knew she would have to check all of these things, even if briefly.
So she got started, lifting her sleeves over her hands to use as make-shift gloves. Not good ones, but better than just her bare hands. She started at the desk, glancing over pots of pens and scattered pencils. A sheet of paper lay lonely and yellowing, a timetable with notes scribbled on the back.
'Finish French homework', 'Meet Ricky and Amelia for movies', 'buy birthday present for dad'... generic reminders of life. Again, nothing of interest. So she moved on to the drawers, rummaging through them. Report cards, detention slips, old textbooks and workbooks. More generic school things.
She turned to the wardrobe, intending a quick search when she was stopped.
There wasn't a sound outside, no car pulling into the driveway or footsteps. But she was certain the front door just opened. So certain that she took no time at all to widen her eyes, hope her heartbeat wasn't audible and scattered towards the bed and pushed herself beneath it with palms clenching onto her lips to hush her already loud breathing.
She listened, feeling her pulse in her neck, hearing her heart in her ears, feeling her hands become hot with sweat as she waited for something, anything, to happen.
It felt like hours.
"Hey, Pickle," she heard, the female voice muffled by the floor beneath her, the walls and the pounding of her heart. "Long time no see- don't worry-"
There was a meow.
"I know, I'm here to feed you now... Misty, would you shut the door already?"
"Oh, sorry."
Hazel could have choked on the air that she almost sucked in as she realised that not only was the voice familiar, it was also terrifying. She had heard the girl enough times to recognise her as easily as a clown in a crowd of businessmen.
Amelia Karr.
There was some rattling, some more meows from the kitchen and the tinny sound of cat biscuits hitting the food dish.
"There, done," Amelia said, her voice sweetened as she likely petted the cat. "Let me just call your mummy, okay, Pickle?"
The fact that the girl was talking like that was a relief, not a relief enough for Hazel to stop holding her breath, but enough to tell her that Amelia thought she was alone with just a cat and her friend Misty, neither of which would judge her for the cutesy voice she had just put on.
"Hey, Ms. Barber. I fed Pickle for you." Amelia said, speaking into the phone as silence followed after, their steps paced back and forth on the floor below. "Don't worry about it. I'm locking the door and leaving the key under the plant by the window, okay? Okay, have a nice day... bye."
Hazel shuffled slowly, her arm aching as it was pushed against a box in her haste to hide but too scared to move enough to ease the pain of a corner stabbing her skin. But her comfort really wasn't important at this moment in time.
"They really pay you just to feed their cat?"
"Yeah. I used to do it all the time when I was with Jason and they'd leave some lunch in the fridge for us. They're really nice, and besides, Pickle's cute." Amelia stopped and what followed were an assortment of coos and purrs. "You're getting old, huh-"
Her voice was replaced with a much more genuine 'huh?' as something snatched her attention away.
"Misty, you're trailing in footprints-"
Hazel's eyes went wide, almost cartoonish as her lips pursed in the hopes that she wasn't about to hear what she thought she would.
"I wiped my feet."
"Wait," Amelia crept forwards, the wood under her feet creaking. "They're barefoot. That's... that's weird."
Hazel would have cursed herself had she not been holding her breath and holding her lips in a strong grip, her eyes looking out from under the bed to watch the doorway directly in front of her, terrified of it opening. She hadn't even thought about the footprints she was tracking in, she was an idiot, undeniably so now. Her panic left her in a state of utter desperation. Reckless desperation.
The footsteps from downstairs moved, getting closer, creaking at the stairs in two sets as the girls followed the trail slowly, their own silence speaking for them before they stopped again and Hazel was forced to see the pair of feet casting a shadow beneath the door in the space between the ground and the bottom of the door.
"...They go into Jason's room..." Amelia said, her voice breathy.
"That's his room?"
"Yeah. I-" she let out a huffed breath. "I don't want to go in there."
"I'll check?"
"Mhm..." Amelia said and turned around as Misty stepped closer.
It was as if she knew Hazel was there and wanted to make her heart burst in fear. She slowly inched the door open, the loud creak dragging on and on like a shriek in all of their ears until Hazel could see the ankles of the two girls and her own footsteps that lead them there. Amelia was shuffling on the spot, her back turned to the bedroom while Misty stepped closer.
And closer.
And-
"Stop, no, never mind," Amelia said, turning and pulling Misty back. "Don't go in there. It was probably his mum or something, I don't know. But don't go in."
"Are you alright?"
"I'm fine- I just don't like it."
"We'll go," Misty said, turning and pulling the door with her as Hazel sank, letting her forehead gently sink into the carpet beneath her. "D'you think we're safe to go back to school now? I mean, y'know, what if Ryan finds out?"
"How would he find out?" Amelia said with a huff as they stepped away from the bedroom. "It was only a pair of shoes anyways. Leo's loaded, he'll be fine." Their footsteps began to fade. "Ryan won't dare do anything to me. My mum knows his aunt, so I can just tell her if he does anything-"
Then, they were gone, the door clicked behind them and after a moment of fiddling with the locks, Hazel knew they were definitely gone.
But she stayed where she was for a moment longer, shaking her head and peeling her hands from her face as they trembled. She couldn't stay any longer.
"Idiot..." She uttered to herself for getting herself into the situation in the first place and began to push herself out from under the bed, stopping only once to take a final glance at the space she was hidden. Before she left entirely, she stopped and squinted.
The box she was pressed against seemed oddly lonely under the bed and, now she was alone, she felt just a little more sure that nobody else would turn up. So she took her chance and reached for it, pulling it out while easing her breaths and anxiousness.
It was a typical box. A shoebox, something plenty of people keep under their beds when hoarding habits kick in. But this wasn't empty, nor was it full. Instead, as she opened the top, she found only a handful of things inside. Scrap paper, a make-shift ashtray that smelled particularly strange. She could guess why. And a small empty baggie.
Her head fell to her shoulder as she lifted the scrap paper, still feeling the beat of her heart from the earlier moments and the new information she found here. But these papers were a mess, there were tons of them with small notes scrawled across, more reminders to himself she guessed. Some made more sense than others with just an attempt to make additions and figure out the math of some numbers. Money. Others were random letters. R- W, A- C, S- C, A- W... she couldn't make sense of them, but figured it was code.
Then she found another slip of paper, scrunched up and tossed in with the rest of the notes.
Pick-up. SBH, 74Tb Rd.
Southblock Hotel.
Again.
She grabbed all the notes she could, shoving them into her pockets as she shut the box and kicked it back under the bed, frantic to leave and too hesitant to stay any longer than she already had done. She took one last glance around the room, searching for anything obvious but found nothing and with that, made her way out and down the stairs, to the front door and then-
She stopped.
The door was locked.
So she turned, spinning on the spot to look for another way. A window? Maybe the back door?
She couldn't take much more of this, her heart was rampant, her face was pale and her breathing was too deep as her head felt woozy in its attempt to get oxygen all around her body. why did she do this?
The cat meowed at her, but even with her love for the animal, she didn't stop and greet it. She would have liked to, but she was in the middle of breaking and entering. This was no time for-
She stopped and petted the cat.
Then, she proceeded to the backdoor, hoping it wasn't locked. And to her dismay, it was. But the keys were also right beside it. So, she unlocked it, put the keys back and left, hoping she didn't cause a mess by leaving it unlocked. She would say that the likelihood of having somebody break and enter their house was slim, but given her situation, that would be a major, undeniably stupid, lie.
It took a moment for her to deem her surroundings as safe. She stood, feeling the notes in her pocket and listening to distant cars and chatter, she peered around the corner of the house and saw no shadow of a single person and she turned away from the garden to hurriedly make her way back to school.
She was never going to sleep easy again after that.