Blur (Blur Trilogy) (17 page)

Daniel left home deep in thought about their suspicions that Emil
y
was murdered, and the possibilit
y
that a killer might have visited her grave and dropped something off there or taken a memento with him when he left.

CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE

Daniel arrived at Ronnie Jackson’s house a few minutes before four. For some reason he was nervous. Even though he didn’t want to be rude, he realized he needed to swing b
y
the bathroom as soon as he got inside.

After parking at the curb and walking up the drivewa
y,
he knocked on the door.

A dog was barking inside the house.

Trevor.

A few seconds later he heard someone’s footsteps.

It took a moment for whoever was there to unlock the door, but finall
y
it swung open and a man appeared.

Daniel recognized him as the person who, at the funeral, had told him he was thankful that he’d come, that it meant a lot to him. From Daniel’s online research into Emil
y’
s life, he knew this was her dad.

“Yes?” Mr. Jackson didn’t seem to recognize Daniel from seeing him at the funeral, but Daniel suspected he might not remember ver
y
much at all about that da
y.
Emil
y’
s shagg
y,
shedding golden retriever, Trevor, stood b
y
his side, staring at Daniel, panting, his tail wagging.

Daniel introduced himself, then said, “I’m here to see Ronnie. I know him from school.” He added, “He asked me to come over.”

“Well, Ronnie’s with his mother right now running errands.” Mr. Jackson hesitated, as if he were tr
yi
ng to figure out what to sa
y
next. “The
y’
ll be home in just a few minutes. Please. Come in.”

A piano sat at one end of the living room. Surprisingl
y,
there was no TV, just a brown-striped couch, two recliners, a couple of floor lamps, and a coffee table with four magazines arranged neatl
y
on its glass top.

The couch and chairs were covered with dog hair. It must have been quite a chore to keep them clean with Trevor around. An open doorwa
y
at the other end of the room led past the dining room to the kitchen.

Alright, here came the embarrassing part. “Um, ma
y
I use
yo
ur bathroom?”

“Sure. We’re remodeling the one down here; just go upstairs, second door on
yo
ur right.”

“Thank
yo
u.”

When Daniel reached the top of the stairs and saw the stickers on the first door to the right, his heart seemed to come to a stop. A sheet of paper was taped to the door. Written in a girl’s flower
y
handwriting were two words: “Emil
y’
s Room.”

Daniel stood there staring at the door. A flurr
y
of images and questions swarmed through him. The funeral, the football game, T
y’
s cr
yp
tic comments, the horrif
yi
ng dream last night.

And then, as if out of nowhere, he heard a voice inside his head:
Go in. Look around
.

No, there was no wa
y
he was going to do that.

But the voice persisted:
Just take a look, that’s all
.

He heard Mr. Jackson putting dishes awa
y
in the kitchen, which was out of sight of the stairwa
y.
From there, he wouldn’t be able to see Daniel enter the room.

But despite that, he didn’t open the door. Instead he strode toward the bathroom.

However, when he got there, he couldn’t quell his curiosit
y
and he went back and pressed gentl
y
against the door to Emil
y’
s room and eased it open.

Just for a minute. Just to see where she lived.

Then Daniel stepped into Emil
y
Jackson’s bedroom.

CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO

The pink walls had posters of bo
y
bands, horses, and kittens. There was a calendar hanging above her desk with da
ys
neatl
y
crossed off, ending on the da
y
before she disappeared.

Emil
y
didn’t have space for all her books. The shelves were jammed and there were books piled on the floor and even stacked horizontall
y
on top of the ones that were shelved.

She liked fantas
y—
T
olkien, Rowling, Paolini, and others, and preferred hardcover to paperback. The shelves looked sturd
y,
but sagged under the weight of the heav
y
volumes.

Her bed was meticulousl
y
made, with a neat pile of stuffed animals positioned, just so, beside the pillow.

The small polka-dot garbage can beside her closet was empt
y
and the onl
y
things on the desk were a closed laptop, a spiral-bound notebook, a propped-up photo of her and Ronnie with Ackerman’s Studio logo imprinted on the corner, and a pencil holder with seven items in i
t—a
highlighter, two mechanical pencils, three pens, and one red Sharpie.

The room was neat. Too neat. The kind of neat a mom might go after when she’s getting read
y
for compan
y.

Or ma
yb
e when she’s tr
yi
ng to tid
y
up and preserve the memor
y
of her daughter.

Daniel stood motionless just inside the doorwa
y.

He wasn’t about to go rooting through Emil
y’
s things, shuffling through her dresser drawers or digging through her closet. He felt weird enough just being here looking around her room, but there was one thing he wanted to do before leaving: take a look inside that spiral-bound notebook on her desk.

As he stood there, he wondered if this was the notebook people were talking abou
t—t
he one that’d supposedl
y
been in her locker at school, the one T
y
had mentioned.

Daniel leaned toward the hall and listened intentl
y.
It sounded like Mr. Jackson was still in the kitchen.

It wouldn’t take much time at all to flip open the notebook and just take a peek at what was inside, then get out of her room, hit the bathroom, and head downstairs.

Finall
y,
Daniel reassured himself that he would have enough time to glance through it before Mr. Jackson would get suspicious of the toilet not flushing, so he walked to the desk.

As he picked up the notebook, a loose sheet of paper slipped out and glided to the floor.

He knelt to replace it and saw that it was written in the same script that appeared on the sign on her door.

Quickl
y,
he scanned it.

It’s right after second hour. All around me, people are talking and laughing and getting snacks from the steel-and-glass vending machines.

I watch the Popular Kids talk. I watch them and I despise them and I env
y
them and I hate m
ys
elf for wanting to be like them.

Then one girl shifts to the side and leaves a small opening in the circle, so I step in.

But the
y
don’t notice me. The
y
just keep talking and laughing in their cool-student-sort-of-wa
y
and I don’t know what to sa
y.
I don’t have an
yt
hing to sa
y.
The conversation goes on without me.

I’m invisible to them.

Ever
y
time I think of something to add, the
y’
re alread
y
talking about something else.

The rest was written with a different-color pen, as if she’d paused and then picked up the entr
y
later to finish it:

So, finall
y,
I step back and the circle closes up again . . . like a wound healing itself . . . and I go to the window, unwrap m
y
cand
y
bar, and watch the geese fl
y
south for the winter.

As I eat something sweet.

Next to the steel-and-glass machines.

The words were so sad, and Daniel couldn’t help but think again of dreams and death and the stor
y
Miss Fl
yn
n had read in English clas
s—t
he one about the girl who wanted to be a movie star and never got up enough courage to leave her hometown.

He remembered what he’d been thinking on Tuesda
y
when he went to Emil
y’
s funera
l—t
hat she was the kind of girl ever
yo
ne walked past at school, ignored at lunch, never reall
y
had time for.

Until she was dead. Then all the students made time for her funeral.

Some things about the world were just tragicall
y
upside down.

He slid the paper back into the notebook, and began paging through it.

And immediatel
y
felt uneas
y.

One name appeared dozens of times, scribbled in the columns and margins. A name with hearts drawn beside it.

The name of his best friend.

K
yl
e Goessel.

CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE

Daniel stared at the words, then flipped forward and backward through the notebook. No other bo
ys
’ names were written in the columns next to the English notes and algebra equations, just K
yl
e’s.

Emil
y
obviousl
y
had a crush on him, but the other da
y
K
yl
e had said he didn’t even know her.

But he does know where her locker is.

And he did act a little strange when
yo
u asked him about her.

Also, when the
y’
d shown up at the locker that T
y
had shoved Ronnie into, T
y
had said he knew about K
yl
e and Emil
y.
What did all that mean?

But K
yl
e was with Mia, and he wouldn’t have led Emil
y
on. He wasn’t that kind of gu
y.
And for as long as Daniel had known him, he’d never dated
yo
unger girl
s—l
et alone those who were two
ye
ars
yo
unger than him.

Whatever it meant, there was something more going on here, another whole level of meaning, like in a puzzle or a riddle where what
yo
u see isn’t what
yo
u get, where looks are deceiving, and things aren’t what the
y
appear to be.

And he couldn’t shake the feeling that this all had to do not just with Emil
y
herself, but with her death.

Her murder.

As Daniel was thinking about that, he realized that he didn’t hear sounds coming from the kitchen an
ym
ore.

Out the window, movement on the street below caught his attention.

A car turning into the drivewa
y.

Quickl
y,
he closed up the notebook and set it back on the desk, tr
yi
ng to make sure it was in the same position as when he’d found it.

Downstairs, footsteps were crossing the hallwa
y
leading to the stairs.

Daniel hurried out of the bedroom, closing the door softl
y
behind him. He rushed to the bathroom, quickl
y
used the toilet, flushed it. Rinsed his hands.

When he left the bathroom, Emil
y’
s dad was at the top of the stairs, as if he were standing sentr
y
in front of Daniel’s onl
y
exit. “He’s here. Ronnie is. I told him
yo
u’d be right down.”

“Thanks.” Daniel tried to read his face to tell if he had figured out what he’d done.

Before Mr. Jackson turned around to head back down the stairs, his gaze flicked toward Emil
y’
s room. Daniel felt a sweep of nervousness.

Mr. Jackson studied the door longer than he needed to, but in the end he said nothing about it and simpl
y
led Daniel to the living room.

Daniel breathed a quiet sigh of relief as he followed Emil
y’
s father down the stairs.

Ronnie was hanging his jacket on a hook near the front door. “He
y,
Daniel.”

“Hi, Ronnie.”

“Thanks for coming over.”

“Sure.”

Mrs. Jackson appeared in the doorwa
y,
introduced herself, and Daniel shook her hand. She looked at him curiousl
y.
“So
yo
u know Ronnie from school?”

“He’s the quarterback,” Ronnie told her. “On the football team.”

“Sheriff B
ye
rs’s bo
y?
”

Daniel nodded. “Yes.”

“Aren’t
yo
u the one who passed out at Emil
y’
s funeral?”

Not the question he’d expected, and not one he was excited to answer. “I felt dizz
y.
I’m sorr
y.
I—”

“Ma
yb
e it would be best if
yo
u left,” she cut him off.

“Mom,” Ronnie objected. “It’s oka
y.
”

Daniel wasn’t sure wh
y
she would want him to leave just because he was the gu
y
who’d fainted at Emil
y’
s funeral, unless she thought it had disrupted things too much or that it was some kind of stunt he was pulling.

“Dear,” Mr. Jackson said to her, “let Ronnie and his friend talk, the
y’
re jus
t—”

She glared at him harshl
y,
then spun on her heels and headed to another room. Daniel couldn’t even imagine what this famil
y
was going through right now, and whatever Mrs. Jackson’s reasons, he wasn’t about to sta
y
if she didn’t want him to.

“It’s alright,” he told Ronnie and his father. “I should probabl
y
be going an
yw
a
y.
”

“But
yo
u just got here,” Ronnie objected.

Daniel wanted to talk with Ronnie, but he reall
y
did not want to get in the middle of this. “We can catch up at school tomorrow. Cool?”

Mr. Jackson was looking toward the room his wife had stormed into. He set his jaw and left to find her, leaving Ronnie and Daniel alone.

“Can I talk to
yo
u on the wa
y
to
yo
ur car?” Ronnie asked.

“Sure. Come on.”

As the
y
left the house Ronnie said, “M
y
parents,
yo
u know. M
y
mom, she’s just . . .”

“Yeah, no. I get it. Don’t worr
y
about it.”

Daniel remembered the photo Emil
y
had taken of herself and Trevor at Wind
y
Point. “He
y,
I read in the paper that Emil
y
had left home to go on a walk out b
y
the lake. Did she do that a lot?”

“Not all the time, but it wasn’t that unusual. She left a note that she was taking Trevor for a walk before she, well . . .
yo
u know.”

Daniel thought of how Emil
y
had told him that Trevor was in the car. He wanted to ask Ronnie about it, but couldn’t think of an
y
wa
y
of doing it that wouldn’t sound weird. After all, how could he have possibl
y
known about her dog being in a ca
r—i
f that was even the case?

Instead, he took the conversation in another direction: “Do
yo
u know what was in the locket of her necklace?”

Ronnie looked at him curiousl
y.
“How did
yo
u know about that?”

“She was wearing it in a couple pictures at the funeral. I guess I just thought she must have liked it, worn it a lot.”

“Yeah, um, I don’t know. I think it was a picture of some gu
y
she liked. But here’s what I reall
y
wanted to talk to
yo
u about: her cell phone.”

“What about it?”

“She didn’t have it on her when she was found.”

“So she didn’t carr
y
it in her purse?”

“No, her pocket, mostl
y.
”

Would her cell phone reall
y
have fallen out of her pocket if she just went into the water?

No.

Unless she fell off Wind
y
Point, ma
yb
e—b
ut then what about her broken glasses up on the beach?

Daniel wondered if the fact that she didn’t have her phone with her had raised an
y
red flags with law enforcement, or if his father had looked for it. He hadn’t mentioned an
yt
hing, but then again, his dad wasn’t reall
y
allowed to fill him in on the details of his cases.

Bringing up the broken glasses might have helped Daniel get information from Ronnie, but he knew his dad was against his sharing an
yt
hing about them. And, honestl
y,
the last people in the world Daniel wanted to get worried that Emil
y
might have been murdered were her famil
y
members.

Ronnie alread
y
thinks that.

Regardless, he held back from sa
yi
ng an
yt
hing about the glasses. Instead, he asked Ronnie about what he’d brought up the other da
y
at school. “So,
yo
ur sister knew how to swim?”

“Not just knew how, she swam all the time at the YMCA back in Madison before we moved here. She was reall
y
good.”

“Is there an
yt
hing else?”

“She was thinking about going out for Mr. McKinne
y’
s math club thing next semester.” Ronnie paused. “To tr
y
and make some new friends.”

“Oka
y.
”

“Are
yo
u going to find out what happened out there at Lake Algonquin? What reall
y
happened?”

Don’t make a promise
yo
u can’t keep.

But Daniel did an
yw
a
y.

“Yeah. I am.”