Page 49 of Stay Away from Him

Melissa started to feel a little fuzzy while she waited for the police to arrive.

She knew she should have gotten up and walked out the door, waved them in, told them where to find the body—anything but stay there, paralyzed on the floor, staring at Kelli’s body as her dead eyes gazed back glassily at her.

But that’s exactly what she did. For some reason, she couldn’t make herself move.

Her limbs had gone cold and distant. Soon, red and blue lights flashed on the walls through the windows, and the sound of footsteps and voices came to her, muffled as though traveling through layers of water to get to her ears.

Then strong hands grabbed hold of her, pulled her to her feet and walked her out the door—but even then, it was like it was happening to someone else.

Melissa felt like a marionette, someone else pulling the strings.

Somehow, she found herself leaning up against the fender of a police cruiser.

A gray, scratchy blanket clung loosely to her shoulders; someone must have wrapped it around her.

Gradually she came back to herself, looking around to see four police cars in total and a handful of uniformed officers walking around the lawn, in and out the front door of Kelli’s house, crisscrossing the street as they talked to neighbors who’d come out of their houses to gawk.

There was an officer close to Melissa too, a man, trying to ask her something. Trying to get her to respond.

“What did you say?” Melissa asked.

“I asked if you knew her,” the man said. He had a mustache and a kindly face wrinkled with concern. “The woman in the house.”

“I did,” Melissa said. “Not very well. I’m a little new in the area.”

What a silly thing to say , she thought. As if he cared about how long she’d lived there.

“Did you see who…” he began, then trailed off before regrouping and trying again. “Did you see who did that to her?”

Melissa was about to answer when another officer came up. “Neighbors say we’re looking for a white female, fairly young, maybe teens or early twenties, brown hair, driving a—”

The wrongness of what he was saying brought her back to herself, snapped her body and her mind back into alignment. Suddenly she was completely alert, coming up off the hard frame of the police cruiser.

“That’s not right,” she said. “A woman didn’t do that. I told the person on the phone, didn’t I? The 911 dispatcher?”

“What did you tell her?” asked the first officer, the one with the mustache and the calming voice.

“It was a man,” Melissa said. “Derek Gordon.”

The two men exchanged a look, then the other officer—the one who came up saying they should be looking for a young woman—was the next to speak. “Did you see him attack her, ma’am?”

“No,” Melissa said. “But I know it was him.”

The guy with the mustache looked at the other officer, who had a round face and pockmarked cheeks. “You know the name?”

“Used to be with the sheriff’s department,” the round-faced officer said.

“He got fired a few years ago, something connected with that murder case—you remember the one, the one that was in the news so much. Doctor killed his wife. Derek botched the investigation somehow, but he couldn’t have done this. I knew the guy.”

“Isn’t that case back in the news?” the mustached officer said. He scratched his cheek, then snapped his fingers. “Yeah, I heard it on the radio this morning. They’re bringing the charges back.”

“That’s exactly what this is about,” Melissa said. “The woman in there, Kelli Walker—she was involved in a group that was trying to solve that old case. So was Derek. But…” She paused, realizing that what she was about to say was going to sound completely crazy. “But he was the killer.”

“The killer of the woman in the house.”

“No,” Melissa said, her frustration rising.

Then she caught herself, shook her head, closed her eyes.

This wasn’t coming out right. “I mean, yes , he killed Kelli. But he also killed Rose Danver, three years ago. He tried to frame her husband for it. But Kelli and I found out, and Derek killed her.”

The two officers were looking at her as though she’d lost it, mouths slightly open.

“You have proof of this?”

Melissa breathed out exasperation. “No, but—”

“And you admit that you didn’t see Derek Gordon kill Kelli Walker.”

“When I got here, she was already dead. But then Derek was here.”

“ After you? You’re trying to tell me he killed Kelli Walker, fled the scene, and then came back?”

Melissa didn’t answer. She paused, turned her body away slightly. He was right, it didn’t make sense.

“Meanwhile I’ve got two neighbors across the street saying they saw a teenage girl come to this house before you. She went in the front door, then came running out later. You see anything like that?”

Melissa shook her head, thinking. There was only one teenage girl she could think of in that moment: Rhiannon. She’d been listening when Melissa was talking to Kelli on the phone. “What kind of car was she driving?”

The officer looked down at his notepad, then read out a description.

It sounded like Thomas’s car. The one Rhiannon was driving.

“I don’t—I don’t understand.”

He looked away, already writing Melissa off.

The officer with the mustache kept looking at her, but there was a pained look on his face, like he was embarrassed for her, or worried about her.

Like he thought she was just a crazy woman who’d been through a shock.

Someone who was not thinking straight. Someone who didn’t have any information—someone who couldn’t help.

“Look,” he said. “We’re going to need your contact information, to take your statement on all this later. But we’re going to be a while here. Can you get yourself home? Is there anyone you could call to come and get you?”

Melissa’s mind drifted back to Bradley, who’d been all day without her at Lawrence and Toby’s house.

Safe, but probably wondering where she was.

Meanwhile, she hadn’t had a bite to eat since breakfast. She gave the officer her contact information, then went to her car.

There she found her phone on the center console, screen lit up with messages she missed when she ran in the house to find Kelli dead. Each message was from Amelia.

Where are you

You have to get back to Thomas’s house

It’s Rhiannon

I know who killed Rose

Where are you? Are you okay? Please tell me you’re getting these.

***

There was a crowd outside Thomas’s house.

Three news vans, reporters, cameramen, and a crowd come to gawk.

Some held signs: Murderer, Justice for Rose .

Instead of turning in, Melissa drove past the cul-de-sac, parked on the street.

Then she snuck across a few backyards, crossing Amelia’s before coming to Thomas’s house and entering by the back way.

She found them in the living room. Rhiannon on the couch, her face red with crying, Amelia pacing, hands to her forehead. Her arms dropped when she saw Melissa, and she let out a breath.

“There you are.”

Melissa stared at Rhiannon, who seemed to shrink under her gaze. “It was you,” Melissa said. “You killed her. Both of them. Kelli and Rose.”

The girl’s face crumpled, turned inward on itself. She didn’t say anything.

“Melissa, no,” Amelia said, and took a step toward Melissa. “You’re not thinking straight.”

Melissa’s eyes snapped to Amelia. “What are you talking about? She was just spotted at a murder scene.”

“It wasn’t me!” Rhiannon shouted from the couch. “I only found her. I was too late. Just like you.”

“Then who?”

Amelia walked to the coffee table, picked up a leather bound book, navy blue, with a ribbon tucked between its pages halfway through. She handed it to Melissa.

“What’s this?”

“Rose’s diary,” Amelia said.

“She kept a diary?” Melissa asked. “Why didn’t the police find it?”

“Rhiannon had it.” Amelia looked at her with an expression that mingled accusation and admiration. “She was hiding it.”

“What does it say?” Melissa held it out in front of her, just looking at it. There was an elastic clasp looped around it. She was almost afraid to undo it and open the pages.

“Just read the last entry. It wasn’t Rhiannon.”

Amelia reached out and pushed the diary closer to Melissa’s body.

“It was Kendall.”