The Misguided

Inescapable Past

Chapter 6- Inescapable Past

Social media stalking has never really been her specialty. But today, she was determined to find out exactly why he took the life of the poor, innocent girl- Rose Adams. And maybe, just maybe, she could infer why he wants to kill his next target, whoever it is.

Lilian made a Facebook account with a fake email. She has never been much of a social media person other than frequently using blogs to upload various posts. But she doesn't understand it; the point of sharing glamorous lives on the internet for people to see seemed like a stupid thing to do for her.

"Rose Adams," She typed into the people search bar, hoping she was some influencer with as much personal detail as possible. Lilian scrolled past a million profiles to find one with a profile picture of a young, blonde girl in her mid-twenties, charismatic blues with a touch of red lipstick. She scrolled through her photos to find a picture she had taken of Daniel's arrest files from a few days prior, zooming into her image. It was an exact match.

She clicked on her profile to discover the obvious; she had not posted since November 2010, days before Rose went missing. It was a photo of her by the harbour, holding hands with this man named Steve, whom she assumed was her boyfriend. She clicked on her boyfriend's page and tagged in the caption to discover a website dedicated to Rose in his biography. It's named find rose, created the time around her disappearance in hopes of obtaining at least her remains, unlikely in the form of life. The website was intricately designed, and Lilian could tell he put tremendous effort into it as someone who creates blogs herself.

The About page gave a summary of Rose's situation. It stated in header that Rose went missing shortly after she messaged the unknown user by the contact of "Delivery man," asking her to meet up. Lilian suddenly remembered the connection she saw her husband as on the burner phone; an imaginary magnet clicked within her mind. It mentioned her husband, Daniel, now by the name of Marc Aubert, admitting to her murder with the motive of her winning against his bet at the casino, losing 10 grand, and dumping her body into the ocean. But they firmly believed he was lying, etc., and the location of her corpse disposal was simply a cover-up for the actual site.

Lilian heard the rusty door chime behind her and suddenly turned around to find Daniel standing by the door frame with a darkened gaze. Lilian immediately shut off the computer, with a full-screen display picture of Rose and a court document. He's never home this early in the morning.

"Oh, hey," Lilian smiled, "You came home early today."

"What? You don't want me home?" Daniel said, treading towards Lilian slowly while she rolled back the chair to cling to the table. He finally came to a stop until he was 2 inches away from her, bent his back slightly to align their head levels- still emotionless.

"I see you've been researching, snooping around lately," Daniel said, pulling out the copper lock behind him. "Forgot to lock it ?"

"I was just trying to clean the attic, okay. I thought there would be junk in the box, so-"

"That's such a lame excuse," Daniel scoffed, " And yes if you are wondering, I did kill her. I had no choice; she was ruining the business- but it seems like you already knew."

Lilian was startled, unable to think of a response.

"What do you wanna do, arrest me again ?" His face approached closer to hers as she leaned away.

"No, that's not-"

Daniel sighed and sat on the bed frame. "listen. I'm doing this to keep our family afloat while you are unemployed." He clenched her arm while she let out a thrilling scream.

"Don't do anything stupid; report me or whatever. Stuff that you found out, or assume is true about me, keep it between us. And if you try to divorce me, I will tell the cops exactly what you did."

"What did I do?" Lilian tried to act confused, raising her eyebrows with a shrug.

" don't play innocent. You are just as bad, if not worse."

"What are you talking about?" Lilian laughed, "Go get some sleep. Your head isn't functioning; hallucinating things."

But Lilian knew exactly what she did, and it haunts her.

Midnight struck again, where a ring at the doorbell was followed by a letter interrupting the expression of her immense sorrow. She picked it up, but this time it felt heavier and bulkier.

She wiped away her tears while letting out a thrilling groan. She sternly rips open her package revealing the bolded letters written in red on the rigid cardstock, alongside a polished metal revolver tapped to the side. She began to find joy in opening these, but today she felt an overpowering sense of skepticism.

"Kill your husband."