Capri Coleman was a normal girl, getting ready to graduate college when her life fell apart. Her close friend died in a mysterious fire, she learns that her family's death from years ago might not be what she always thought, and she is thrown into t...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
An older man who worked at the library was helping us. He placed two large books down on the table. "You said the Isaiah Merchant family, right?"
"Right." Sam nodded.
"I got every scrap of local history I could find," he stated, flipping the book open.
Dean rejoined us then, sitting on the edge of the tabletop as he flipped to the pages of a book about guns. I'm not even joking. He glanced up at me then with an expectant look.
I stepped between his legs, my back to his chest.
"So are you three crime buffs?" the librarian asked.
Dean set the book he had down. "Kind of." He nodded, arms winding around me until his hands rested on the tops of my thighs. "Why do you ask?"
"Well..." He held up a newspaper from 1912. Father Slaughters Family, Kills Self, the headline he pointed to read.
"Yes. Yeah, that sounds about right."
"The whole family was killed?" I asked.
"It said that Isiah slits his kid's throats, then his wife's, then himself. Now he was a barber by trade. Used a straight razor," the librarian explained.
"Why'd he do it?" Sam asked.
The man flipped the paper open to read the rest of the article. "Uh, 'people who knew him, described Isaiah to have a stern and harsh temperament. Controlled his family with an iron fist. Wife, two sons, adopted daughter.'" His eyes skimmed down. "Uh, yeah, yeah. There were rumors that the wife was going to take the kids and leave. Which, of course, you know in that day and age... So instead, old man Isaiah gave them all a shave." He made a slicing motion across his neck, chuckling a little.
Dean forced a chuckle. "Does it say what happened to the bodies?"
"Just says that they were all cremated."
"Is there anything else?" I asked.
"Uh, yeah. Right here. I found a picture of the family." He flipped open another book, turning it so we could see.
The same portrait of the family sat on the page as the one we burned.
"Hey, could we get a copy of this, please?" Sam asked.
⛦⛦⛦
"I'm telling you, man. I'm sure of it," Sam said as we sat at the small white table in our motel room. "In the painting, the dad's looking down. In this one, the dad's looking out." He slid the paper across the table.
Dean sat forward, one arm still around my hip as he reached for the paper with his opposite hand.
"Something about it does look off," I said, tracing the hem of the gray t-shirt he wore.
