“No, no, no. Back the truck up here Danny! You have Jules’ prints? Why?”
“None of your darn business Elliott!”
That’s okay. He didn’t have to tell me but Jules would have to later. I was sort of averse to the idea of finding out but I was also dying to know.
“Okay, okay,” I said quickly abandoning the idea that he was going to tell me.
Danny hadn’t handled the box with his own hands, he had used a handkerchief he always kept with him but never used. I sort of wondered why he even owned it until I saw him take it out to the handle the box.
He went to a locked file cabinet and retrieved a folder, flipped through it and took a sheet of paper out that looked similar to the one he had just used to document my own fingerprints. He put the rest of the folder back in the cabinet and locked it. Jules’ file. He sat back down at the lab table and reached for a shelf above him. He pulled a small cardboard box out and opened it to reveal a stand magnifier. He compared all of the signatures and found only mine and Jules’.
He decided there was nothing on that side of the paper. He unwrapped the paper flipped it, repeated the entire process and found nothing. Again, dusting the cardboard box that held whatever it was that was inside but finding nothing.
“Time to open it,” he said.
I was pretty frightened to be honest with you and I actually felt like telling Danny to let me do it in case it was something that could harm him.
“Danny? I think I should open it, just in case.”
“Nonsense. Wait,” he laid his ear against the package. “Nope, not ticking. I’ll open it.”
“This isn’t funny Danny. I’m pretty nervous.”
“I know son. It’ll be okay.”
He pulled off the tape that bound the lid and dusted it as well, finding absolutely nothing yet again. He peeled the lid back.
My eyes widened in fear. Jesse was more insane than even I gave him credit for.
“My God.”
Chapter Seven
This is How I Win
Danny was taken aback by what he saw. He stood up quickly with a gasp and nearly fell over his chair trying to distance himself from what was in the box. I was frozen, my hands trembled where I stood and I couldn’t willingly move a muscle. I peered at the horrifying message he was sending with dead eyes, a feature I wanted him to share with me soon.
A million thoughts streamed through my head. At first, I wanted to run, to grab Jules and run with her, somewhere far away, somewhere only we know, somewhere he could never find us.
In that instant, she became my only dream, my only wish for the future. I cared about nothing else and no one could stop us, not when every fiber of my flesh wanted nothing else but to be with her. My immediate reaction was flight until I realized he would never stop looking. Jesse was no longer the friend I remembered him to be. He hadn’t been for awhile. If we had vanished, I knew he would try to find us and I was so scared to imagine him still out there waiting for his opportunity again, striking when we least expected, when he thought we were comfortable.
He would wait until our thoughts of him were a distant memory for us. I cringed. He had to be stopped, now. That flaming box, came back into focus. I wanted to scream out, to tear what I saw into a billion pieces. I suddenly wished I’d never told Danny. I wish I had opened it on my own so the motive for the murder I was going to commit because of it wouldn’t become so apparent.
“I have to kill him,” I accidentally said aloud.
“No!” Danny screamed, grabbing my shoulders. Breathing deeply to steady his calm, he said, “I know you don’t mean that son! Elliott, I’m gonna’ get who did this.”
I gained control of my neck and turned my head toward him, “You’re going to arrest Jesse immediately?”
“Elliott! We haven’t found reason for him to want to do something like this. This is too advanced for him.”
“No,” I scoffed, “it’s not. You don’t know what he’s capable of. Growing up I always knew he had a little bit of an evil streak, I just underestimated it. He’s a lunatic Danny. You’re wrong.
“Look, it obviously took two people to do it Danny. How do you explain that? Huh? Taylor must have taken the picture for him.” I pointed to the picture hanging off the edge of the table. It showed the frame of Jules’ bedroom window.
“Maybe he used a tripod Elliott, I don’t know for sure but for the sake of argument, say I am starting to believe your theory. I have no evidence that he’s done anything.”
I stared hard at the two photographs in front of me. It was him, I could tell, in the shape of his body, in the way his fingers grasped at the blade he held at my sleeping Jules’ throat, in the way his eyes bore into mine through his dark ski mask. I knew it was him and if Danny couldn’t prove it, bad things were going to happen to him. He pushed through a really dark line with me and was begging for a reaction. I’m guessing he wouldn’t like what it was and I also guessed how much he underestimated me.
The second photograph was Jules’ hanging painting. The letters Y.O.U. dripping in red paint. I couldn’t bring myself to pick up the photographs. I stared into the small harmless cardboard box that contained them and noticed that the filling inside was torn canvas.
“Danny!” I yelled.
“What?!”
“The, the.......painting! It’s shredded in the box!”
I was starting to feel nauseated. I knew what the painting represented to Jesse. It was Jules. He was going to kill Jules and soon.
“Okay Elliott. Listen,” he said, trying to calm me down, “we need to get back to your grandma’s. We’ve wasted enough time here. Just let me lock all of this in the evidence room and I’ll call Julia’s parents and..”
I knew what he was trying to do. He was trying to downplay it, like it was something that could happen to just about anyone, but I knew. I knew that this was probably one of the sickest things he’d seen in Bramwell.
“No!” I interrupted. “Jules’ parents can’t know. They’ll leave Bramwell if they hear of this.”
Danny looked on me with pity.
“I can’t Elliott. They need to know. Think of the danger that Julia is in? Is it worth her life? This has spun so out of control. It’s too serious to take the risk.”
On our way back to my grandma’s and granddad’s I could barely keep two thoughts in my head. I was reeling in physical pain. My entire world was about to crumble on top of me and there was nothing I could do about it. I walked into the house and everyone was cheery and happy and full of life.
“Mom,” was all I could mumble off my tongue.
She could tell something was wrong. She ran up to me and hugged me and I hugged her back. I felt like I was seven again, and I’d skinned my knee and ran to my mom for her to make everything better, to make the wound disappear but this hug couldn’t make it all better. It was just a reminder that nothing could fix the pain but a locked away or a dead Jesse. I didn’t really want Jesse dead I just wanted the monster that was doing this to die inside him and for him to be at least somewhat normal again.
“Let’s go into mom’s room Shelby. I need to talk to you,” Danny said.
Everyone watched with solemn eyes as I nearly toppled over trying to get to my grandparent’s room.
“It’s okay everyone! Granddad? Can you put on some music?” My dad said before closing the door to the bedroom behind him.
I plopped at the edge of my grandparent’s bed and examined the fibers of the shag carpet beneath my feet. I listened as Danny revealed the details to my parents but I felt as if I were in a fog. The words were barely audible. They all buzzed around me in slow motion. I snapped back into reality when Danny mouthed the words ‘Julia’s parents’.
“Wait,” I said.
“Elliott, I already told you, I have to contact them.”
“I know, but please, let me tell them? In person?”
I looked at my parents and they kindly agreed it would be the best plan.
> “Danny?” My mom asked. “Can you take him?”
That was my mom’s way of making sure I was safe and that I wouldn’t take a much wanted detour to the Thomas house.
“Sure Shelby, of course I will,” he said.
We got to Jules’ house and I willed my heavy body up her mountainous front porch steps. I knocked on her door with a deafening thud.
The door opened and an exuberant Jules jumped in my arms. “Elliott?” She asked in slow motion.
“Jules,” I said peeling her off of me, “I need to tell you something.”
The terror that was in her eyes was enough for me to die inside a million times over. Her smile faded into sheer terror. Her lips were shaking as she’d ask questions. I stood to support Jules while she relayed everything to her including everything that had happened before then.
Jules’ mother had to be supported and taken to her couch. All their lovely family from Pennsylvania stood motionless, aghast at what they’d heard.
“We’ll have to send her to Mauch Chunk with you Isabel,” Jules’ dad finally said.
His words panicked my heart. It began to beat irregularly. I felt empty and she hadn’t even left yet.
“No,” Jules said calmly.
“It’s not permanent Julia,” her mom said. “It’s just until we resolve whatever it is that’s going on here.” The tears began to fall softly down her cheeks.
Jules held my hand and the weight of our predicament began to melt off. This immediate medicine was going to be leaving me when I probably needed it most, but this was the price I would pay to keep her safe and I wanted nothing more than her safety.
“It’s only a matter of time,” I whispered. “I’ll get you back here before you know it love.”
“If you think this is best,” she said to the room. “I’ll pack tonight.”
I’ll pack tonight. Three words. Three daggers into my thumping chest. I could go with her, I told myself, I could go with Jules. I’m sure Isabel wouldn’t mind.......but your Jesse’s target, I reminded myself. Could he follow me? Would he do that? Yes. He would. I would have to wait until I could expose him for what he was and that would clear the path for Jules to come home. The sooner, the better.
“Danny?” I asked my uncle under my breath.
Everyone shifted uncomfortably in their own skin as they buzzed about the house getting themselves ready to leave earlier than they’d planned.
“Hmm?” He asked.
“What do you have in the way of video surveillance?” I asked not expecting much.
“We’re one hundred and nineteen people in this tiny town Elliott. I hadn’t even had to dust for prints in over five years. We have nothing,” he said, confirming my suspicions.
“I’m gonna’ go to Charleston then,” I said.
“Wouldn’t hurt to try,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. He didn’t look hopeful.
“Mr. Jacobs?” Danny said and began a private conversation.
I snuck into Jules’ room to visit while she packed. When I walked into the room she was alone, it was against the rules, but under the circumstances no one would care. She stood fearlessly at her window. The very one Jesse uses to invade her home and stared darkly through the hundred year old glass. I rested my shoulder against the jamb of the door and gazed upon her.
She was no longer a girl anymore. She had thinned out so much lately and although Jesse was definitely to blame I couldn’t help but think she was also shedding her youth a little bit. In contrast though, her hips were a bit rounder, her neck and face no longer, her bones had matured.
She was a young woman and that made me wonder if I had matured alongside her, unaware, as she most likely was, of the invisible progression. I hoped I looked every bit the man I felt like right then because I knew, just by looking at her, that we would be married and shortly after graduation. I felt it in my rapidly matured bones.
“My dad said they’re leaving the day after tomorrow, early,” she said, having seen my reflection in the glass.
She turned her face toward mine and I could see the tears sink into her blouse.
“Oh Jules,” I said and with two strides I had her in my arms. “It’s not forever Jules.” Though it will feel like it to me, I thought.
“It will feel like it to me,” she said, speaking my thoughts aloud.
I sighed. I couldn’t argue with her but I could at least try to make her feel better.
“It just feels like it might,” I lied, “because there’s not a definite time frame.”
“Maybe,” she said, trying to appease me.
It was pathetic trying to keep up appearances with a person who knew your every thought.
“This is stupid,” I laughed. “It’s gonna’ suck, big time, but it’s beyond us right now Jules and it’s something we have to do.”
I stopped because I knew I’d just end up begging her to stay if I continued. I couldn’t help but be selfish sometimes. I changed the subject to save myself.
“Let’s spend the day tomorrow, just you and me and get our absolute fill of each other.”
We knew that was impossible but we could try.
“Of course babe. I need a lot of you to tide me over. You know? It’s funny but the more I touch, and kiss, and just be with you the greater my need for you is. We’re a catch twenty two. I’m damned if I do indulge myself in you and damned if I don’t. You’re the very worst kind of addiction, the most dangerous,” she said.
“Would you go back? Change it? If you could?”
“Not for anything,” she smiled up at me.
I squeezed Jules’ hand and asked her to call me in the morning, knowing I would barely sleep a wink.
The next morning, I felt like I was waking from a dream. I shuffled into the kitchen glancing at the mess that was my hair in the hallway mirror.
“Hey mom,” I said.
“Hi honey. Hungry?”
“Nope.”
“I understand,” she said and sat beside me. “What are the Jacobs going to do Elliott?”
“They’re sending Jules to Mauch Chunk, like I thought they would.”
“When can she come back?” She asked. “When they figure out who is doing this?”
“I know who’s doing it ma’. I just have to prove it now.”
This time she didn’t argue with me, whether it was because she started to believe it was possible that Jesse was responsible or that she didn’t want to ruffle my feathers, I’m not sure. The phone rang then and it was Jules.
“Come over,” she barely said, “let’s go to the rock bridge.”
That was all I needed to hear and I was as good as out the door.
I picked Jules up from her house and her eyes looked so tired, her skin was beginning to hollow on her even more now but her smile was still as warm as ever.
“I’ve missed you terribly,” she said softly.
“So have I dear. It feels like ages.”
We slowly walked our invisible path to our marble slab and were in absolutely no hurry. I was so grateful that Jules hadn’t seen the package. I tried to leave out as much detail as possible for her sake. It would have done nothing but worry her more and she was looking so frail these days.
I was dreading her departure but was hopeful that Jules would let the worry stop taking its toll on her. I jumped onto the face and turned to pull her up with me. I had a sickening feeling that this was our goodbye, albeit temporary, but a goodbye nonetheless and made the decision to savor every last second.
For hours, we sat side by side intertwined, talking. From little things like Maddy’s reactions to all the gifts to things like her concern that I not do anything drastic. In the end, I promised that no one would get hurt, at least not by my hands. Eventually we fell asleep. Neither of us had slept well these past few days, weeks really, and as we laid skin to skin we drifted off until the moon woke me.
“Jules,” I whispered.
“Hmm?” She said, not opening her eyes.
“It’s ten o’clock babe,” I said, sliding my pocket watch back into my pocket.
“What?” Her eyes popped open.
“Yeah,” I laughed, “ten, at night.”
“Oops.”
“Yeah, I think we should get you back home so they don’t worry.”
“Grrrr.”
“We have to. I don’t want them to call Danny or anything.”
“Okaaaay.”
We hurriedly walked to my truck, tripping over roots and whipping ourselves in the head with leaves.
“Why didn’t I bring a flashlight? We need to just keep one in our bags. They’re kind of useful, especially since we do stupid things like this. I’ve decided, from now on, I will have not one but two flashlights on me at all times.”
“You’re cranky when you first wake.”
“I know,” I laughed.
It was a solemn ride to Jules’ house. I didn’t even know when Jules was leaving because I didn’t ask. It hurt too much to think about.
“I’m leaving tomorrow morning,” she said, riding my wavelength.
I wasn’t expecting that.
“What? Tomorrow?” I asked in disbelief.
“Yeah, my mom isn’t comfortable with me being here any longer and it’s affecting her. My Aunt Isabel is taking me home with Rocky and the rest will follow after New Year’s.”
“I don’t think that’s wise Jules, so many will be on the road tomorrow. It wouldn’t be safe.” She wasn’t buying it. “Besides, you can’t leave before New Year’s, it’s the only time you’ll let me kiss you in front of your family and I get a secret thrill from it.”
“Shut up,” she laughed.
“No, but seriously Jules, you can’t leave before New Year’s.”
“I don’t have a choice Elliott,” she choked.
The remainder of the trip was agonizing because I knew this would be the last time I would see her for days, weeks, maybe even months.
The uncertainty was as painful as the separation itself. I wanted to kick myself for falling asleep. I should have kissed her until my lips were bleeding to get my fill of her. I should have drunk in the greens of her eyes, re-memorized the lines of her face over and over and burned them into my memory even deeper than they already were. I wasted so much time. I could have been with her, instead we were unconscious and I felt a bubbling fear rise in my throat.