Invisible Killer

Chapter 2

The very next morning, Rachelle was asleep when she was woken up by an annoying sound. She rolled out of bed, approached the window, and sawTroy laying down the horn in his truck. She shook her head as she rolled her eyes and began to get dressed. While she started to get ready for the day, there was a knock at the front door. Rachelle's mom heard the knock and opened the door.
"Oh hi, Lyndsay," greeted Mrs. Truman.
"Good morning, Mrs. Truman. I'm here to pick up Rachelle," responded Lyndsay with politeness.
"Okay..." Rachelle's mother turned around to face the staircase. "Rachelle! Lyndsay's here!"
"I'll be down in a minute!" called out Rachelle from her bedroom. Mrs. Truman turned back to Lyndsay and smiled. "I hope that you have a great day," she encouraged.
"Thank you!"
A few seconds later, Rachelle scurried down the stairs and met up with Lyndsay at the front door. The girls smiled as soon as they came face-to-face with each other. "Are you ready?" asked Lyndsay.
"Of course," answered Rachelle. She grabbed her bag, slung it over her shoulder, and started to walk out the door. Once Mrs. Truman saw Rachelle move her hair, she discovered the mark on her daughter's neck.
"Is that a hickie?" freaked Mrs. Truman as she pulled her daughter back into the doorway.
"No, mom. It's a bruise. I fell off of the bed in the middle of the night, and my neck hit the bed frame," Rachelle corrected her mother's interpretation.
"Oh, okay honey." Mrs. Truman quickly became concerned with suspicious motives towards her daugher's remark.
"Anyway, bye mom. We need to get to school before we're late." Rachelle hugged her mom and shut the front door on her way out. Her and Lyndsay climbed into the back of the truck, and the whole gang headed off to school.
"What took you so long, Rachelle?" asked Ryan.
"She was probably too scared to leave her bedroom because she thought that Zack was going to kill her," Troy joked sarcastically.
"He is out to get me. Therefore, he won't stop until I'm dead," said Rachelle.
"You're just being paranoid."
"Paranoid!" Rachelle became disgusted and punched Troy in the upper forearm.
"Do you really have to hit me?" snarled Troy with a smirk.
"What makes you think that I did it? I mean, you could just be paranoid." Rachelle snitched her eyebrows with a sly smile. Troy huffed as he rolled his eyes and paid attention back to the road. Rachelle crossed her arms and directed her attention out the window. Ryan and Lyndsay looked at each other and sighed with misfortune.
Before they knew it, the gang arrived at school. Troy parked the truck and everybody slid out. Rachelle started to walk into the building until Lyndsay stopped her. Lyndsay reached into her bag and pulled out a scarf. She took the scarf and wrapped it around Rachelle's neck.
"There you go. That way, nobody will be able to see your bruises," mentioned Lyndsay as the scarf covered Rachelle's neck. Rachelle thanked Lyndsay, and the gang headed into the school building.
"Hey, Rachelle! You do realize that winter isn't for a couple of months, don't you? What are you all bundled up for?" said a random student as the gang walked through the front doors.
"Just ignore him," Lyndsay whispered into Rachelle's ear. "He's just being a butt head."
"Don't worry, I'm not paying any attention to him," responded Rachelle. Rachelle walked over to her locker. She opened it up, grabbed her books, and closed her locker. As soon as she shut the door to her locker, the end of the scarf immediately got caught on the inside. Without realizing the scarf was hooked, Rachelle began to move and the scarf was unraveled. The scarf came loose from her neck, and the entire school saw the bruises.
"Oh my God! Is that a hickie?" cried Larry Havens with a joke.
"No! It's a 'none of your business'!" grunted Rachelle.
"What happened? Did you get beaten up? I thought that you were a tough little girl?"
"Look!" Rachelle quickly became agitated. "I just happen to wake up and see this. I don't know anything about this," she hissed, pointing to her neck.
"Oh I see," began Larry. He raised an eyebrow, crossed his arms, and displayed a smirk on his face with sarcasm. "It's because Troy had beaten you up, didn't he?" Larry faced Troy. "Geese, Troy! Why would you beat up an innocent girl?"
"He did not beat me up!" cried Rachelle with even more agitation.
"I did not beat her up!" Troy joined in.
"Okay! Well you might want to be more careful then...," snarled Larry as he began to walk away. Rachelle rolled her eyes, shoved the scarf into Lyndsay's chest, and walked into the classroom. She stepped into the doorway and took a seat at the back. Lyndsay and Ryan entered the room and joined Rachelle. Lyndsay sat on one side of Rachelle, and Ryan sat on the other side. A few minutes later, their history teacher finally arrived.
She sat her bag down in her chair and began the class. "Good morning, students! For our lesson today, we will be discussing about the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln," the teacher spoke.
Their teacher began the discussion until Lyndsay received a notification on her Apple Watch. "Guys...," she began. Rachelle and Ryan looked at Lyndsay. "There's been a robbery just a few minutes ago."
"Where?" asked Ryan. As him and Lyndsay began to whisper to each other, the the teacher reluctantly grabbed their attention.
"Lyndsay!" she grunted. The voice startled Lyndsay as she snapped her head to the front of the class. Lyndsay froze with fright as her heart stopped beating. Rachelle, becoming slightly embarrassed, sighed in despair. Ryan felt sorry for Rachelle and held onto her arm. She felt Ryan's hand, turned towards him, and smiled.
"Is there something that you would like to share with the rest of the class?" the teacher asked Lyndsay.
"No ma'am," Lyndsay replied with guilt.
"That's what I thought." The teacher began to get back on the topic until she saw Rachelle's neck. "Oh my God, Rachelle! What happened to your neck?" she freaked.
Rachelle immediately froze with embarrassment. "Let's just say that I woke up like this," she muttered.
"Did somebody hurt you?" the teacher worried.
"No ma'am."
"Are you going to be okay?"
"Yes ma'am."
The teacher nodded her head in agreement and began to speak to the class again. As she spoke, the whole class stared at Rachelle. Rachelle sighed and threw her head down on the desk. Lyndsay and Ryan, rubbing Rachelle's back, looked at each other with dismay.
As soon as the class was over, everybody was dismissed. The class ran 45 minutes, and the students were walking out into the hallway. Rachelle and her two friends were the last ones out of the door. As she stepped into the hallway, everybody around immediately began to laugh. They were pointing at her and chuckling hysterically. Luckily for Rachelle, she didn't care one bit; she ignored them and headed for her locker.
"Are you alright, Ray?" asked Lyndsay when Rachelle opened the door to her locker.
"I'm fine," answered Rachelle in a mumble. Lyndsay sighed and placed her back up against the available wall of lockers. "Don't let them get to you."
"I don't really care. If they want to act like that, I'll let them," said Rachelle. Lyndsay and Ryan stared at Rachelle as she rummaged around her locker.
While they were being occupied, a window in the skylight slowly opened. The window pane was removed, and a gun came through. The bullet end was pointing down on Rachelle, ready to fire. Troy immediately witnessed the gun from a distance. As soon as the gun fired at Rachelle, Troy scurried towards her.
"Rachelle!" he cried as he pushed her out of the way. The bullet was fired, and the gun suddenly disappeared. Rachelle landed on the floor a couple doors down from her locker with Troy on top of her.
"What was that for?" she hissed at him.
"I wasn't fixing to let you get shot!" Troy hissed right back at her.
"Oh sure I was...like I'm going to believe that." Troy didn't reply. He just rolled his eyes in disgust. Troy saw the used bullet lying on the white tile. He picked it up and showed it to Rachelle.
"Would you believe me if you saw this?" he snarled.
"Maybe...I bet that it came from you," Rachelle hissed again.
"Seriously!"
As they were bickering amongst themselves, Lyndsay discovered that the skylight window was still open.
"Rachelle...," Lyndsay began. Troy and Rachelle stopped arguing. "It couldn't have been Troy."
"Don't you think about covering for him," said Rachelle.
"I'm not. Look up," Lyndsay pointed at the skylight. "A window at the skylight has been opened." Ryan, Troy, and Rachelle all looked up at the ceiling and saw the open window.
"Who opened it?" asked Rachelle.
"Let's go check it out," suggested Ryan. Everybody else agreed and headed up to the roof. They began to look around until one of them found a bullet. It was laying next to the opened window upon the skylight.
"Hey guys," said Ryan as he picked up the bullet. Everybody else rushed over to his direction. "Rachelle, someone did try to shoot you. See?" He showed her the bullet.
"Oh wow," mumbled Rachelle.
"I told you," Troy snarled sarcastically. Lyndsay grabbed the bullet from Ryan's hands and took a look at it. "This is a number four birdshot round type of bullet," she informed. "It's cooperative with a Remington Model 31 type of shotgun."
"Well we found the bullet, so where'sthe shotgun?" asked Troy.
"The attacker must have took it with them," said Rachelle. "Duh..."
"And one of the bullets must have fell out of the barrel of the weapon," said Ryan. The gang quickly became silent and shrugged their shoulders.
"In the meantime," began Lyndsay as she dug in her bag. "Let's place the bullet in an evidence bag." With a pair of plastic gloves on, she carefully slid the piece of evidence down into the bag.
"So now what?" wondered Ryan. The school bell rang for the next class period.
"Right now, we need to head back down to class. Then, we'll check out that robbery after school," said Lyndsay. Everybody agreed by nodding their heads and proceeded to their class.
As soon as the bell rang at 3:00 p.m., the gang rushed out to the truck. They climbed in, buckled their seatbelts, and were ready to go.
"So where was the robbery at?" asked Ryan.
"It occurred at this place called 'Scheel's'. It's on Pine Lake Road," answered Lyndsay.
"What kind of store is that?" wondered Rachelle.
"Yeah. I've never heard of that before," Ryan added. Him, Rachelle, and Troy gave Lyndsay confused looks.
"Hmm," smirked Lyndsay with a raised eyebrow. "I guess that there's only one way t find out." She looked at Troy and winked. "Hit it Troy!" Troy flashed her a thumbs up, pulled the gear into drive, and they headed into town.
As soon as they arrived at the location, they realized that the store was a crime scene. They parked the car, slid out onto the concrete, and saw an ambulance and a few policemen. Their eyes bulged up, and their mouths slightly dropped open. "What happened?" mumbled Lyndsay. Her and her friends suddenly saw two paramedics moving a loaded gurney from the store to the back of the ambulance.
"Is that a dead body?"said Lyndsay, pointing towards the moving gurney.
"I'm guessing that someone had probably got shot," said Troy.
"Well of course. What else would be on that loaded gurney? Pillows covered with a bed sheet?"
Troy rolled his eyes towards Lyndsay's sarcastic remark. "Well, duh. That's what we're here for," remarked Rachelle. Troy rolled his eyes again and headed to the scene of the crime. Rachelle looked at Lyndsay, and they she their shoulders. Rachelle sighed and followed Troy. Lyndsay began to follow her friends until Ryan stopped her.
Ryan placed a hand on Lyndsay's shoulder. "It turns out that Scheel's is a hunting supply store," he pointed out.
"Wow!" Lyndsay sarcastically remarked. "What gave you the idea? The display of shot guns in the front window?"
"You already knew that, didn't you?" asked Ryan with a gloomy tone.
"Yep..." Lyndsay saw the glum look on his face. "Come on..." Her and Ryan walked over to the group to investigate.
Lyndsay saw the two cops talking to each other, exchanging information. "Excuse me, officer. What happened here?" she asked politely as she approached them.
"There was a robbery inside the store last night," answered the cop. Lyndsay and her friends became shocked. They all looked at each other and looked back at the police offer. "Apparently, the robber walked into the store, armed. He entered the store with a knife in his hand. He demanded a shotgun and shot the cashier dead."
"What type of shotgun was it that got stolen?" asked Lyndsay.
"It was...," the officer began as he flipped through his notepad. "A Remington M 31, it's very priceless."
"That was the one that was used to try to kill you," Ryan reminded Rachelle.
"The burglar also stole all of the money from the cash register. Finally he shot the cashier, Ashley Cruise, in order to make sure that she didn't report the robbery," the officer added.
"Were you guys able to get a good look at the burglar?" asked Lyndsay with hope.
"No, but there's actually a customer who witnessed the whole thing. Her name is Madeline White, and she's right over there." The officer directed the gang to the witness who was sitting at the back of another ambulance vehicle. She's had a white blanket around her to calm herself down from the incident.
"Excuse me? Madeline White?" asked Lyndsay as her and her friends approached the witness. Madeline White wore a dark and light blue flannel shirt with a pair of ripped jeans. She wore a pair of black flats and had a floral tattoo wrapped around her right wrist. She was a woman who looked about 25. Her hair was a beach blonde shade with dark brown roots. Along with her hair, she had sparkling hazel eyes and wore dark eye makeup with a sharp red lip color. When she noticed a group of people approach her, she rose up her head and softly smile. "Yes?" she answered politely.
"Hi! My name is Lyndsay Schafer," greeted Lyndsay as she shook Madeline's hand. "This is Rachelle Truman, Troy James, and Ryan Jones. We're here to ask you a few questions regarding the burgular."
"Okay...what do you need to know?" replied Madeline.
"All we need to know is: What did the burgular look like? Like in physical descriptions, if you can remember?" Lyndsay pulled out her notepad, ready to write down the details.
"Let me think...," Madeline began as she tried to recall the burgular. "He had a light shade of blonde hair and light blue eyes. You can definitely tell that his hair wasn't well groomed. He had on a light blue T-shirt and wore jeans with white sneakers."
"Okay...," began Lyndsay while bullet pointing the details. "Did he have any distinguishing features?"
"I believe he wore a big, defined, sterling silver, studded earring in both ears. He also had a well-built body type with broad muscular arms. He even had a detailed six pack," answered Madeline.
Lyndsay looked at her notes with a soft grin. She reached into her bag and pulled out her tablet. Logging onto criminalprofiling.com, she transferred her notes into the required fields and searched for the suspect. After it took a few seconds to load, the final results were immediately pulled up.
"I got it!" cheered Lyndsay. "Did he look like this?" she showed the profile picture to Ms. White.
Madeline took a glance at the image and her eyes popped. "Actually, yes. That's him. That was the one who robbed the store," she informed. Lyndsay pulled away the tablet and looked at her friends with a devious smile. "It looks like that we've found our suspect," she snarled enviously. Lyndsay grabbed Madeline's hand and shook it. "Thank you for your cooperation, Ms. White. Have a great day!"she expressed.
Lyndsay looked at her friends. "Let's go get this maniac," she muttered. Tha gang climbed into the truck and buckled their seatbelts. Before they headed off, Lyndsay's friends wanted to know who the suspect was.
"Who's the suspect?" asked Troy as he turned around to face Lyndsay in the back seat.
"His name is Bruce Kenzington. Apparently based on his profile, he's different from the other kind of suspects we're used to handling," said Lyndsay.
"Why do you say that?" asked Rachelle.
"Well I mean, look at this," said Lyndsay. She slid her glasses onto her nose from her head. "He's a 25 year-old high school dropout who's quite violent and rebellious." She placed the tablet in the middle so that everybody could see. "According to his profile, his mother was killed by a drunk driver at the age of 34. With his father not being emotionally stable, he committed suicide at the age of 38. When he turned 18, Bruce took up smoking to relieve the depression from the loss of his parents. At 19 years-old, his twin sisters found out about his smoking habit and tried to convince him to quit. He lost control of his temper and shot them dead, which cause him to spend four years in prison. When he turned 23, he had a couple of DUI's which led him to spending a year in rehab. He was released from rehab on his 24th birthday and just spends his current days at home."
"Wow!...," huffed Rachelle as she leaned back in her seats. "It sounds like he's just emotionally unstable as his father was."
"Yeah...," agreed Lyndsay with a deep breath. "But the good news is that he lives here in town. His house is on 315 North Western Street."
"Well let's go get this dirt bag!" suggested Troy. He put the gear in drive, and the gang headed to the household of Bruce Kenzington.
As soon as they arrived at Bruce's house with the police in tow, the gang slid out of the truck. They approached the front door and knocked for the suspect's attention. When Bruce opened the door, he was surprised to see police officers in the background.
"Can I help you?" he asked nervously.
"Bruce Kenzington?" asked Lyndsay.
"Yes?"
"You're under arrest..."
The police officers walked up to him, turned him around, and began to cuff him. "Wait a minute...what for?" Bruce demanded in surprise.
The cop turned him to face the kids as the other pulled out his notepad. "Let's see...," the cop began as he flipped open the notepad. "For the Scheel's robbery on Pine Lake Road, the murder of 20 year-old cashier Ashley Cruise, and the attempted murder of Rachelle Truman."
"What?" cried Bruce.
"Let's go..." The officers dragged him to the police car, opened the door, and shoved him into the back seat.
"Officer, I'm innocent I tell you" Bruce tried to plead the cop.
"That's what they all say," hissed the officer as he slammed the door shut. He walked over to the teens. "We're going to take him downtown for questioning if you kids want to follow us there."
"It sounds good," said Lyndsay.
The cop climbed into the cop car, turned on the siren with the lights, and they headed to the county jail. Lyndsay and her friends climbed back into the truck. Troy started his vehicle, and the gang followed the police towards downtown.