Phantom Recall

40 || emily and harvey

Leon and all the others are gone by the time I come out of the building. Either they were in a hurry to leave or I took longer than I thought to get my legs moving again. At the very least, I've made up my mind what I'm doing, so the second I step outside I head to the nearest house. It's the dead of night. I'd be shocked, honestly, if the owners were awake at this hour. The lights inside are off. I creep past the doorway and peer into the living room — TV is off, no lights are on there, either. Same with the kitchen. Every room downstairs is dark and empty. But I see no computers, so up the stairs I climb, soft step after soft step.

The first door I step through is a bedroom. Also unoccupied, as it turns out. Perhaps the family is away. More importantly, there is a laptop here, sitting on a small desk littered with papers and little cartoon figurines. I hurry over and open the computer.

No password required. My luck hasn't run out after all.

With my one track mind in motion, I click on the internet browser icon and type in that name as fast as I can.

Emily Walker. I can't imagine there are too many spelling variations it could have...

E-m-i-l-y W-a-l-...

Something comes up. As it's prone to doing, the internet predicts my search before I finish typing the last few letters. And so flood in the search results within seconds.

The top result is an article dated two years ago.

-

Great tragedy in a small town: the murder-suicide of Emily Walker and Harvey Louis.

Though for years its humble existence was overlooked by the general public, recently East Bridge Academy has earned itself a most unfavorable spotlight as a result of its links to three tragic deaths. The first is that of 16-year-old Harvey Iver Blackburn — referred to by his classmates and teachers as simply "Iver" on account of his shared first name with another student. Blackburn's body was discovered the morning of April 22nd floating in the school's outdoor swimming pool. Following an official autopsy report, it was determined that Blackburn had been drowned after fighting for his survival, as pathologist David Xiao declared. Evidence of a struggle showed proof that Blackburn's death had not been suicide. However, being that it was outside of school hours, and no security cameras in the neighborhood caught sight of the incident, the culprit could not be immediately identified by authorities.

The news came as a great shock to the staff and students at East Bridge, though perhaps none greater so than Emily Walker, a science teacher at the school, as well as Blackburn's legal guardian. Walker had been working as a teacher at East Bridge for about five years, following a transfer from her previous position at Summit Middle School. In an interview with the police officer in charge of the investigation, Walker stated she had transferred due to severe financial difficulties she was dealing with at the time. "Not only is East Bridge closer [to her home], but the cheaper tuition was supposed to help with all the bills, and supporting Harvey, as well..."

Walker also informed the authorities about her suspicion surrounding one of Blackburn's classmates, 17-year-old Harvey Louis. When asked why, Walker merely stated, "I never liked that boy. He was always so cruel to my Harvey. Please, I beg you to look into it..."

Unfortunately after a brief investigation, Walker's statements were written off as marks of unwarranted bias, as no evidence could be found linking Louis to the murder. "It's possible someone could have cornered Harvey [Blackburn] from outside the school grounds," said one officer. "The pool is outdoors and could easily haven been accessed by an outsider. As of now there's no proof that anyone affiliated with East Bridge is the culprit."