Forces Beyond The Grave

10.5

"Mr and Mrs Johnson?" 

Kaila's parents turned around as Jay walked down the hall towards them, and upon his arrival was met with a sharp slap, courtesy of Mrs Johnson. Sergeant Casey watched with a sigh as Jay's shock rendered him speechless. Mrs Johnson glared through Jay, her eyes red with rage and exhaustion from the crying she'd been doing probably since Casey had called them about Kaila's body being found. 

"She was here. You were the one who told us she was alive, we trusted you to protect her." She forced out with a sob, walking passed Jay as Mr Johnson shook his head. 

"I'm so sorry." 

"No, I-" 

"This is not on you Jay." He gave Jay an assuring nod as he quickly strode after his wife. 

As comforting as the words were meant to be, Jay couldn't help but understand exactly where Mrs Johnson was coming from. 

He sighed as Casey walked over to him. "Tough crowd." 

"Can you blame them? She's right." 

The two turned to watch through the observation window as the doctor pushed Kaila's body back into the wall. 

"Jay, you weren't responsible for Kaila. You certainly weren't responsible for her death." 

"I know. But I can't imagine how hard it must be to lose your daughter twice." He watched Mr Johnson comfort Mrs Johnson at the end of the hall, only turning back to Casey after hearing him speak. 

"Have you told Lennox yet?" 

"Yeah, she knows. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to," 

"It's alright. She deserved to know." 

"Yeah." 

"How'd she take it?" 

"Oh you know...she's tough. But Kaila was her best friend, she's devastated." 

"I bet - that girl's been through enough, now this. What kind of animal would do this to a young girl and then just dump her on the street like trash?" 

Against all the fibers in his body, Jay kept quiet. The last thing he wanted was to tell Casey the truth, but he was having trouble figuring out how exactly the team was going to navigate the inconsistencies they were bound to encounter, the first of which being time of death, and how Kaila's body was so well preserved after being dead for so long. Perhaps all this magic business didn't make complete sense to him, but he was hoping that Evelyn had enough respect for Kaila to cast some sort of spell that made it seem as though everything about her death would be normal. Well, as normal as the death of a nineteen year old could be. 

"What did they say? About her death?" He enquired. 

"Not sure, as far as they can tell she's been dead no more than forty-eight hours, but they don't know what caused it yet, nothing stands out as being wrong with her, but we'll know more when the Doc does his preliminary report, I told him you'd be the one to call when he's ready to release it, is that okay?" 

"Yeah, fine with me." 

"Good. Listen, maybe I should handle her parents for now, but I want you to run point on the investigation." 

"Me?" 

"You did your best the first time around, you'll do it this time around too." 

"Right. Sure."