Blur (Blur Trilogy) (23 page)

CHAPTER
FORTY-SIX

“Tomorrow is a parent-teacher conference da
y,
” K
yl
e said. “Is
yo
ur dad taking
yo
u to meet with an
y
teachers?”

“No. M
y
grades are good enough.”

“Me too. M
y
mom’s cool with how I’m doing. So, what are
yo
u up to?”

“Well, we still have football practice at three thirt
y,
but that’s it.”

“Mr. McKinne
y
will be at school before that.” There was a hint of mischievousness in his voice.

“And?”

“And that means he won’t be home.”

“Obviousl
y,
so what are
yo
u . . . Oh,
yo
u’re not suggesting that w
e—”

“Yeah. Go to his house, have a look around outside,
yo
u know, check out the pool where his wife drowned, see if we find an
yt
hing.”

“That was two
ye
ars ago. I doubt that at this point we’re going to find an
yt
hing that would implicate him.”

“But what about the basement window? We could check the sight lines to make sure he wasn’t l
yi
ng about seeing her dive into the pool.”

“What if the neighbors see us?”

“Ma
yb
e all we need to do is walk past his house. There’s nothing illegal about that. Ma
yb
e from the wa
y
it’s positioned, if the angle’s right, we’ll be able to see into the back
ya
rd from the road. He’ll be at school an
yw
a
y,
meeting with parents. If he reall
y
did kill Emil
y—
k
ill his wife to
o—w
e need to find out as much as we can about him before going to
yo
ur dad.”

Telling his father about what was going on made sense, but right now all the
y
reall
y
had was conjecture. The
y
certainl
y
needed something more solid if the
y
were going to go to the sheriff.

“I suppose walking b
y
and having a peek at his place wouldn’t hurt an
yt
hing,” Daniel said. “What time are
yo
u thinking?”

“Well, I have to work later in the afternoon and
yo
u need to be at school to change for football practice. What, a little after three?”

“Yeah.”

“How about one o’clock?”

“That should work.”

The
y
found Mr. McKinne
y’
s address online.

“I know that neighborhood,” K
yl
e said. “There’s a strip of forest behind his house over near Mr. Ackerman’s plac
e—M
ia’s friend had her senior pictures taken there at his house. We could just slip through the woods, have a look around, and be gone. In and out. Fast and clean.”

“Fast and clean?”

“I read it in a book somewhere. Something this one FBI agent likes to sa
y.
So, what do
yo
u think?”

“Yeah, the woods sounds better than walking b
y
the house. Besides, there might be a fence around the pool and we wouldn’t be able to see it from the street out front.”

“Alright.”

“And there’s a road on the other side of that forest?”

“Yeah.”

“We can leave our cars there,” Daniel said.

“Sweet.”

This was probabl
y
not a good idea in an
y
wa
y,
shape, or form, but as Daniel drove home, he figured that just walking through the woods and having a look around wasn’t that big of a deal.

Especiall
y
if this gu
y
reall
y
had killed two people.

CHAPTER
FORTY-SEVEN

All the lights in the house were off when Daniel got home. He figured his dad had alread
y
gone to bed, so he was careful to be quiet as he went to his bedroom.

He was about to change for bed when he heard a light rap on the window.

Then again.

Someone tapping on the glass.

The onl
y
person he could think of who might be there was K
yl
e, but that would be strange; he would have texted first.

And would he reall
y
have gotten here so fast?

Could it be Emil
y?

Another blur?

He wasn’t too excited about the idea of pulling back the curtains, but he knew he needed to see wh
o—o
r wha
t—w
as on the other side.

On his wa
y
to check it out, he heard it a third time.

Apprehensivel
y,
Daniel drew back the shades and saw Stac
y
Clern on the other side of the glass.

He slid the window open.

“Sorr
y
if I startled
yo
u,” she said.

“What are
yo
u doing here?”

He was surprised to see he
r—
y
e
s, he wa
s—b
ut she did have a histor
y
of showing up at his house late and unannounced, so he wasn’t completel
y
shocked.

“I need to talk to
yo
u. Can I come in?”

His first impulse was to tell her no.

“What is it?”

“I don’t reall
y
want to talk through the window.” Her voice was hushed. She gestured toward the windowsill. “Ma
y
I?”

He didn’t like the idea of letting her in, but this chatting-
through-the-open-window thing wasn’t ideal, and the living room wasn’t great either, since the
y
might easil
y
wake up
his dad.

He slid the window all the wa
y
open. She waved off his help and climbed through on her own.

“I like
yo
ur room.”

“Thank
yo
u. So, what is it? What’s so important that
yo
u came over here at this time of night?”

“I wasn’t sure what else to do, since
yo
u seem to be avoiding me at school.”

“What are
yo
u talking about? I haven’t been avoiding
yo
u.”

“I thought ma
yb
e it was about the dance.”

“No, I’m . . . The dance?”

“I thought
yo
u were gonna call me Saturda
y.
When we were at the lake
yo
u told me
yo
u were going to call me in the afternoon.”

“I tried to. I texted
yo
u a bunch of times. You never returned an
y
of m
y
messages.”

“You did?” She looked confused. “I didn’t get
’e
m.”

“None of them?”

“Uh-uh.”

He took out his phone and verified that he had the right number.

“Yeah, that’s it,” she told him. “I don’t understand. That’s so weird.”

“Are
yo
u getting other people’s messages?”

“Yeah. Ma
yb
e it’s something with the phone compan
y.
”

“Let’s tr
y
one right now.”

“M
y
phone’s at home. Send me a text. I’ll check it when I get there.”

He did.

Honestl
y,
being in his bedroom alone with Stac
y
felt a little uncomfortable, especiall
y
since it seemed like things were sort of moving forward with Nicole: friends, sure, but it felt like the
y
were edging closer to something more than just a casual friendship.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about the glasses,” Stac
y
said. “Did
yo
ur dad find out an
yt
hing?”

“Not that I’ve heard. No.”

“Did
yo
u think of checking when Emil
y
went to the lake? Ma
yb
e we can find out who else was there at the same time.”

“M
y
dad doesn’t want me looking into things an
ym
ore,” he told her truthfull
y.

“Oh.” A pause. “So how are
yo
u? I heard
yo
u were at the doctor’s
ye
sterda
y.
”

Man, word got around.

“Ever
yt
hing alright?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

Actuall
y,
I’m not sure. I’ve been having these blurs.

“What was the appointment for? Because of the game? Because of
yo
ur head?”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

He weighed how to respond, how much he should share with her. “Some stuff has been happening.”

She gazed at him with concern. “Are
yo
u alright, Daniel? I mean reall
y
alright? It seems like something’s . . . well . . . What’s going on?”

He didn’t want to tell her about the blurs, per se, but he decided to fill her in a little bit on what was happening, at least indirectl
y
wh
y
he’d needed to see the doctor
ye
sterda
y.

“It’s the wa
y
I see things.”

“The wa
y yo
u see things?”

“What’s real and what isn’t.”

“What do
yo
u mean?”

Tr
yi
ng to think of how to explain things, he gazed around the room and finall
y
had an idea. Daniel held up a blanket so that it hung verticall
y
above his bed. Stac
y
stood beside his desk, her back to the wall. He noticed that she was tapping her fingers nervousl
y
against her leg.

“Alright,” he said. “Imagine that ever
yt
hing on
yo
ur side of the blanket is realit
y.
Those are the things
yo
u can see, taste, feel, whatever. The things that are reall
y
there. Ever
yt
hing on m
y
side of the blanket is . . .”

“Just imaginar
y.
” She finished his thought for him. “All in
yo
ur head.”

“Right. Now, from what I’ve found out in the last week, most people have a prett
y
thick blanke
t—b
arrie
r—t
hat’s in their minds that helps them know which side the
y’
re on.”

She was watching him carefull
y;
if he didn’t know better, he’d sa
y
waril
y.

“So we can tell what’s real and what’s not,” she said.

“Exactl
y.
But now imagine that the blanket is a shower curtain or something and
yo
u can see through it, but ever
yt
hing on the other side is blurr
y.
So
yo
u’d know the other side is ther
e—”

“But
yo
u’d be able to tell which side was which.” Stac
y
sounded slightl
y
relieved. “You’d see the difference.”

“Yes.”

“And that’s
yo
u?”

A pause. “No. Not quite.” He dropped the blanket. “It’s gone.”

“The blanket is?”

“Yes.”

“Completel
y?
” She’d moved almost imperceptibl
y
farther from Daniel.

He nodded. A moment passed.

Stretched thin.

“Does that scare
yo
u?” he asked her.

She didn’t answer but said instead, “But can
yo
u tell this is real? That I’m reall
y
here, in front of
yo
u, right now?”

“Yes,” he said.

But he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure about an
yt
hing.

Not since realizing he was going insan
e—a
t least, that was the onl
y
explanation he could think of, since according to the neurologist there was nothing ph
ys
icall
y
wrong with his brain.

But he wasn’t about to get into all that with Stac
y
tonight.

“Ma
yb
e I should be going.” She seemed to have suddenl
y
become uneas
y
being here with him.

“Don’t worr
y,
it’s just . . . I guess I’m tr
yi
ng to sort a lot of things out right now.”

“Yeah.” She edged closer to the window.

He offered to help her climb out, but she looked at him strangel
y
and told him that no, she was fine and that she would see him tomorrow, and then she was gone, leaving Daniel to evaluate whether he should’ve told her what he had, and what the next step needed to be in unraveling what was going on.

The stuffed animals and flowers at the grave
ya
rd, the broken glasses, the necklace, the clues that pointed toward Mr. McKinne
y—
a
ll of it intrigued and confounded him.

Ma
yb
e
yo
u do need to tr
y
to find out who might’ve been at the lake the da
y
Emil
y
disappeared, like Stac
y
suggested.

How?

He didn’t know.

Once again he heard, from somewhere inside of him,
Sta
y
on this. Seek the truth. Learn what happened.

Yes.

Tomorrow.

Visit Mr. McKinne
y’
s house.

He and K
yl
e would seek the truth, learn what the
y
could, and then slip awa
y
before an
yo
ne knew the
y
were there.