Page 277 of The Invite
Tossing it aside, I pick up the photos spread out in a mess, along with cutouts of headlines from a local newspaper of some hillbilly town. I realize I’m staring at a copy of crime scene pictures.
In a dingy basement.
Could it be?
Time stands frozen when I take in the close-up shot of one of the dead bodies slumped on the ground. It’s Nessa’s father lying in a pool of his own blood. I recognize him from the family picture Nessa has at her place.
Didn’t she say her parents died in an accident?
I flip to the next photo and the earth beneath me shakes as I gaze at a young and slim guy chained to a metallic chair. Dead with a single gunshot wound to his forehead.
Johnny.
There’s no doubt in my mind that I’m staring at the aftermath of Nessa’s captivity. This is where she was held. However, the injuries on her ex-boyfriend’s corpse doesn’t look like the work of an immature killer.
The tragic story Nessa told me plays in my head. It’s like I’m seeing bits and pieces of it, but when I’m putting it together, the puzzle isn’t quite fitting right.
Shouldn’t it be one of the killer’s bodies besides Johnny’s rather than her dad’s?
What am I missing?
What did she lie about?
Is Anonymous fucking with my head from beyond the grave?
Flinging the photos aside, I lunge for the photocopy of the newspaper. When I read the headline, my entire world tilts.
Two High School Teenagers Were Captured and Tortured by Local Couple.
One of the victims is their own sixteen-year-old daughter.
Below it is the same family picture of Nessa with her sitting in between her parents. I read the names written in small letters in a caption.
Daniel Bloom (Father). Tyra Bloom (Daughter). Debolina Bloom (Mother).
The next breath explodes out of my lungs at the truth.
It wasn’t random burglars. It was her parents who found her that night with Johnny. It was them who kidnapped and kept them hostage. All because she broke their rules? Is that it?
But why would she lie about her name? I understand hiding her identity from the world. From me too, though? That’s a punch to my heart. After everything, she couldn’t trust me?
“No,” I sigh. “I will not doubt her.”
There must be a reason she didn’t tell me.
Something on the floor catches my eye. I bend over to grab it, realizing these are more pictures that must’ve slipped from the bundle. When I turn over the first, I stumble back a step.
For a second, I think I’m hallucinating.
Nessa sits on a chair in the teachers’ lounge with a man in a suit kneeling before her with his hands on her knees. While a stoic Detective Arjun stands to the side.
Fuck. That’s why she was late that day.
She was talking to them behind my back.
Why?
I hope to find the answer in the second picture. However, it raises even more questions. Along with raising the hair on my neck.
