Page 51 of Diluted Truths
Hand in hand.
Will
“What the fuck?” Sarah asked, clearly just as perturbed as we were.
The whole experience at Amherst Insane Asylum was fucked up. The moment we walked in, I knew it wasn’t going to go well. Initially, I hoped my intuition was wrong.
Griffin was…off, but didn’t seem dangerous in the moment. That was until I began leafing through his journal. When I turned to the first page that showed his drawings of Jackie I wanted to puke. The drawings were lifelike, yet she had never met him. The obsession he had with her was unhinged.
The moment he touched her I saw red. The only thing on my mind was to get him away from her, no matter what. Watching him hurt her, even if it was an accident, made something snap deep within my soul. No one got away with hurting Jackie, not anymore.
“So you didn’t tell him anything about us, about our case, about me?” Jackie asked Sarah, still shaken up. She still hadn’t let go of me in someform, our hands currently clasped. It was as if I was her lifeline to reality in the midst of the chaos.
Sarah shook her head. “No, I told him nothing. I don’t understand how he knew anything about you.”
“Maybe he had read some of her previous articles,” Bec interjected and turned to Jackie. “You are pretty well known in the sphere of covering criminal cases. Maybe he was trying to get attention for what he did and came across you. Your piece on Ted Bundy blew up about a year ago. That could be how he heard of you.”
Jackie nodded her head as she processed my sister's words. “That’s a possibility, yeah. There was a picture of me published with the article.”
“How did he figure out how your apartment, your room looked?” I asked, not convinced it was as simple as they were believing.
“What?” Sarah exclaimed as she looked at Jackie and then to me, her eyes frantic. “Someone explain, now!”
I grabbed the journal that we had accidentally brought with us when we left the asylum and handed it to Sarah.
“Look.”
She began to rifle through the pages. I could see the moment she got to the pictures that made me want to drive back and strangle Griffin myself.
“Oh my god,” she whispered and showed Bec. “Ophelia, the details of your house and even bedroom are exact.”
Jackie nodded her in response. I didn’t think she was handling any of this well. I mean, who would? I looked at the page again, taking in the drawing Griffin made. There was no denying that they were beautiful. He captured her incredibly well, you would think he drew it in real time. I hadn’t seen all of them back at the asylum, just the first few.
I flipped the page expecting more of the same, but this time I was in it. It was the night Jackie had her nightmare at Theo’s. The drawing depicted her and I asleep on the couch. The only thing odd is that therewas a shadow in the corner. The same corner Jackie was talking to when she woke up that night.
I began rifling through my bag that held my notes on the case at hand. That shadow was oddly familiar. I pulled out the picture that Carter had given me of Joey and the shadow. As I compared the two, they looked oddly similar.
Jackie grabbed the two photos, and just stared.
“H-how is this real? How is this happening?” She looked up to me, despair covering her face. I had no answers for her because I too didn’t know, but I did know I would do anything to figure it out. I kissed the top of her head, hoping that would offer some form of reassurance for the time being.
I turned to Sarah. “Griffin mentioned something odd. Did he go missing right before he committed the murders?”
“Ummm… well, not exactly. He was an adult and no one reported him missing but he didn’t show up to work and made some purchases in… let me check,” she responded as she dug through her own notes. “Yes, here it is. He traveled to… damn it.”
“What?” Bec and I asked in unison.
“Eugene, Oregon,” she responded.
I began to get an eerie feeling.
“How long was he there for?”
“Why?” Sarah asked as she began to look through her notes once more for the answer to my question.
“Humor me,” I responded.
“He was there for five days,” Sarah responded.
