Morana Barnes: Murderous Love

34. Morana Barnes

November 20th, 2022 2:25 am

Gut Feeling:

After May left there was a heavy feeling in my stomach. It caused a sickness to spread throughout my body as I sucked in a harsh breath. It felt like something was clogging my throat making it harder and harder for me to breathe. I wasn't sure what made me feel like that but I knew it wasn't good. I looked at Chaset as Chaset's eyebrows scrunched in concern. "You look sick. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine. What do you have?"

"Well, we started redoing interrogations. I had Merlo and Gonz on it,"

"And?"

"No one seemed suspect, except for Erin Lousey. After some re-evaluating, I think it's important that we dig a little deeper into him. So far, we know that every victim we have, has known of or knew Erin Lousey, they were friends with them. He's at every funeral, he's always the last person they're seen with and it just so happens that he knows more information than we give to the public. We suspected Jace because he was at one of the victim's houses but Erin has been spotted with every single victim we have. That's suspicious and I don't know why we haven't looked into it before,"

"What?" confusion spread through me. "Where did all of this come from, we've interrogated Lousey every time and never got these kinds of red flags from him," something didn't seem right. Something wasn't right. This was so sudden. Having Erin Lousey as the killer just seemed...off.

"This is what Gonz and Merlo gathered. We probably didn't see it because the first victim just happened to be his girlfriend- well ex-girlfriend, and her parents vouched for him,"

"No, Chaset. It's not him,"

"Barnes this is the most evidence we've gathered on any one person. We have to investigate it,"

Yes, we did. Of course, we did but that didn't sway me at all. I didn't believe it was him. "Yeah, ok. Where is he now?"

"Home from what we know. Looks like we're going on a stakeout."

November 27th, 2022 9:00 pm

We'd been watching Lousey for a week now. Nothing was out of the ordinary with him. He went to school, went home, went to work, and repeated the cycle. He never took a detour from that routine. Sitting in the passenger seat my eyes glanced at Chaset. She seemed oddly eager, ready, for Lousey to commit some kind of mistake. To do some kind of suspicious thing so we can bring him in. "You think he knows?" she questioned.

"Know what?"

"That we're on to him?"

"Chaset, I don't know. I still feel like we're wasting our time doing this regardless,"

"Barnes, you can't tell me that it's not suspicious that he just happens to be friends with every victim we had,"

"It is but I don't know Chaset. Something is telling me we're wrong, this is wrong. We're wasting our time when we could be trying to find the real killer,"

"With what evidence?"

"What do you mean?"

"What evidence do you have that proves we've got the wrong guy? Other than the police sketch. Victims get traumatized, and things get altered in their minds, we know this and we should've considered that. They are rookie mistakes that we made,"

"Chaset please, the sketch was fresh. Trauma was there but hadn't fully set in,"

"Bares you're trying to ignore the facts for some gut feeling. That gut feeling can be wrong sometimes. You're not always supposed to listen to it. It can distract you from the truth,"

That's not what this was. I wasn't being distracted from the truth, more like being pulled toward it. For the last week since I'd seen May I'd been feeling sick. My stomach churned violently every time I thought about her. The urge to call her was strong but I didn't want to call her. I didn't want to talk to her, not after what she did.

My throat constricted and I swallowed harshly sucking in a short breath. Chaset hadn't noticed because she was so focused on Lousey's house. I turned my head toward the window and watched as Erin Lousey walked out of his house. It was unusual of him to do at this time of night.

Chaset sat up straighter and we watched as a car pulled up and Erin got in. Chaset glanced over at me before looking back toward the car Erin got in. "Still think he's not the killer?"

I was positive he wasn't.