I Know What You're Thinking

Chapter 16

I sit in silence, staring at the women's eyes baring into my soul from the screen. Even in a photo, she still looks ready to kill you in about 30 different ways before even batting an eyelid.

And she knew my father.

I wince. As much as I wasn't hoping it would, everything here is leading back to him. To Dad. He wouldn't try to kill me would he? Try to throw me off the cliff in a bus filled with other teenagers. 

He wouldn't. I'm sure.

But if someone was forcing him to? That's more of a grey area.

I take a deep breath. I print a picture of Diana and replace the sketch on my board with it. A piece of string connecting her to Dad, and then, reluctantly, I add a picture of my mum. Surely she has nothing to do with this, but this web has her trapped in it too.

I guess all I can do for now is research as much about my tail as possible. While not alerting Mum to any suspicious behaviours. Oh and also not completely failing school.

I shove the board out of the way, turning to my laptop instead. I search everywhere on the internet I can think of and have access to for her. A Facebook account that gets updated irregularly with seemingly dry posts about family, holidays and friends along with the yearly onslaught of happy birthday messages.

Whoever she is - she sure does have a lot of friends. I scroll through her photos lazily, before my eye catches on a man in a photo, only his arm and tiny bit of his back visible in the image. No face. I zoom in before I find my attention drawn to the reflection in the window behind them.

The man is tall, he is wearing fully black clothes. At first, I think he's a security guard, though that idea is quickly discounted by the actual security member in the corner, wearing a much more official uniform.

A small sliver of silver causes me zooming in on the mans back pocket. What? I pull back from the screen and shake my head, before peering at the item again. The light positioned behind him causes it to glimmer.

A knife.

Not just a regular knife. It's huge. Like one you would find in an industrial kitchen, not even at your house. WHAT ON EARTH is this man doing with the biggest knife I have ever seen, just chilling in his back pocket. I shudder, before finally noticing the small arrow positioned on the very right hand side of the photo. I click it and watch the photo switch to the second one.

This time, the man is more visible. I still can't see his face but I can see more of the knife. He's further towards the back of the room, and its obvious Diana didn't really examine these photos before posting them. Odd. I zoom in on the knife again.

"No." I say, my breathy voice breaking the silence. "No no no no no." I mutter. The edge of the knife has an odd red tinge to it. A deep red liquid staining it from the tip to as far down the blade as I can see. It isn't obvious, but it's there. 

I scour the image again, desperate for some other possibility of what it could be. The fluid that looks more like blood than blood ever has. I take deep breaths, before I finally spy a small, splatter of red in the very corner of the image. 

Without further inspection, it could easily be some spilled wine. I frown, but of course, give it further inspection. 

"Crap." I whisper, because i've just seen, at the very edge of the splatter of deep red, the start of a full head of brown hair, it's strands soaked in red and bunched together. I slam my laptop lid shut, but not before taking a look at the caption of the image.

'Work Christmas Party!'

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I make a beeline for the library immediately at lunch. Finding the most secluded corner possible. It was even harder to focus on this mornings classes than normal. On top of the onslaught of what feels like every teenager on the planets thoughts, my mind won't stop running over everything thats happened.