The Calling Of Quinn Taylor

Chapter Nineteen

The second I open the door, I’m welcomed with frustrated yells of my parents, telling me how much they’re disappointed in me. It doesn’t last long because Dad has to go to work and Mom’s anger can’t sustain longer than five minutes and she gives in on telling me where Dad hid my phone. 
“You have mail,” she says, handing me an envelope. 
Mail? Who would send me something that isn’t a college? 
I bring it to my room and tear it open, pulling the folded notebook paper that sits inside. What the hell is this? 
Quinn, 
See, if this letter got delivered then I’m dead. Ha, that was probably read in a mysterious, dramatic way, wasn’t it? I’ve always wanted to do that; go out with a bang, you know? Anyways. 
Times have gone by where I’ve seen the way my brother looks at you… in the halls, in class He hasn’t looked at anyone like that since like ever. I always tell him to get a girlfriend but he always says he’s waiting for the right girl to sweep him off his feet. (Well he doesn’t say it that way, but you know what I mean.) 
And sorry. I got distracted again. 
Coincidentally, I hope he gets you and I hope you find it in your heart to give him a chance because he’s the sweetest guy you’ll ever meet. 
(Yesterday, I witnessed him smiling when he saw you in the hall.) Anyways, I picked you because of this. I picked you because I don’t really know you that well and you won’t judge me for what I did. 
Drastically more important, what I didn’t do. 
I want you to know Joseph Milgram isn’t the man everyone thinks he is. I was pulled out of class to go to the guidance office and I he dragged me into that enclosed room and raped me. On multiple occasions. He hurt me, he did things I can’t ever forgive him for. He drugged me and I woke up in his own house before… and his wife was right upstairs. 
Damnit, he didn’t let me tell anyone because if I did, he said he was going to kill everyone I love. He would find a way to hurt them and I couldn’t let that happen. 
I knew better. I knew that if I told someone, they wouldn’t get hurt. I would. And his suffering is worth the death. 
Today, if you’re reading this, I told someone. 
So please, Quinn. Read in between the lines. 
I trust you to do this.
I trust you to protect the ones I love.

Maeve Kingston

   

What.
    The.
    Actual.
    Shit.
***
    “Wesley!” I cry. “What do I do? Do I take it to the police-- do I-” I shouldn’t even be calling him. After what just happened, I don’t deserve his help. I didn’t give him a chance. He needed help and I didn’t provide it. 
    “I’ll come over,” he says. “Let me read it and we’ll figure out what to do.” 
    And so I wait. I wait, freaking out with the letter grasped between my fingers. 
    Why me? Why choose me? Is it because she thought of me as the valedictorian and therefore I’m smart or is it because for some weird reason she trusts me over anyone else? She could’ve picked Riley. She could’ve picked Mia. Hell, she could’ve pcked Jessie, Keller, or even Wes. 
    But she chose me. She didn’t even know me. 
    “Hey,” Wes’s voice says as he enters my room. I shakingly hand him the letter. 
    He looks at me for a moment then shifts his eyes to the letter. 
    My head pound with disturbing thoughts. 
    She’s dead… but it seems like she’s still here; like she’s managed to prove to us that death can’t hold her… that her spirit is too strong to be kept in the grave. 
    Wes falls speechless and his face runs pale. A single, salty tear dribbles down his cheek. 
    “She-” he croaks. “This doesn’t seem like her.” 
    What does he mean? She wrote it, mailed it to me before she died, and here it is! There’s no denying she wrote it.
    “There’s just… something off,” he says, sitting on my bed. He wipes his tear away. 
    I grab the letter. 
    He knows Maeve; he knows how she speaks, how she acts, he knows her. And if he says something’s off, then I guess it is.
    I examine the letter.
    “What do you mean?” I ask.
    “The words,” he says. “Like coincidentally, drastically… the way she used strange words in front of commas; that’s not like her.” He leans in close and peers at the words over my shoulder. “See, look. ‘Today, if you’re reading this,’ She was gonna’ major in literature. She wrote all the time. She wouldn’t write something that just seems so… out of place.”
    I mean, sure. Yeah, I get it-- the sentences seem odd, like they’re not meant to be. It’s almost like… like she was trying to tell me something. 
    Read in between the lines. 
    There’s something here. This isn’t just a letter. She picked me because I’m smart, not just because she didn’t know me. She believed she saw something in me. She believed I could solve her riddle. 
    “Wait,” I say, dragging my finger down the letter. 
    What is this? 
    I look down the paper, finding the first letter of each paragraph. 
No.
Impossible. 
S
T
A
C
Y
D
I
D
I
T 
    “Who’s Stacy?” I ask, standing up. The name rings a bell, but who? Who did I remember call someone Stacy? Think. Think.
    Chief Larsen. She called Mrs. Milgram Stacy. 
    Mrs. Milgram is Stacy.
    I show Wes the puzzle and he stares at me in awe until a smile creeps on his lips. Why is he smiling? This is serious! We need to go to the police! 
    “She was smart,” he says. “She wanted to go out with a bang… that’s why she left it as a puzzle.” 
    He’s right. Maeve Kingston left her death a mystery, waiting for us to solve her murder. She left clues, left us searching. She knew she was going to die. But… if she knew it was Stacy, why didn’t she go to the police? Why write a death letter instead of saving her own life? 
    There’s something more. There has to be. 
    But for now, all we have is this. 
    So we go to the station and beg for Larsen. She needs to see this and she needs to see it now. 
    “What’s this?” she asks, snatching the paper from my hands. We’re in another interrogation room to keep our conversations private. 
    “Look,” I say, leaning over the table. I point at the letters that spell Stacy’s name. 
    “This doesn’t make sense,” she says. “Why would she write a note? She could’ve come to me.” 
    Exactly what I was thinking. 
    Wes stays quiet, allowing me to speak. 
    “For now, you need to get Mrs. Milgram!” I shout. 
    “Look,” she says, slipping the letter into an evidence bag. “The pictures were in Joseph’s couch in his office. We need something more than a letter to arrest her… we need evidence. This could pass as a coincidence and you know that just as well I do.”
    “Bullshit,” Wes says, bringing his head up. My head flashes his direction. I didn’t think he’d be able to speak during like this… he always falls silent. “Why are you protecting her?” 
    “Wes,” I say, trying my best to calm him down. He can’t keep acting like this… he can’t keep getting these sudden aggression urges. 
    It’s the drugs. He’ll get better. Everything will soon subside. 
    “I would do something if I could,” she insists, standing up in her chair. “But there’s not enough evidence.” 
    This is absurd. Stacy killed Maeve! They’ve got it all wrong! 
    Milgram should be accused on only one murder and the rape of Maeve Kingston. He didn’t kill her though. He only killed Brandon and he killed him because of me. 
    But why did Stacy Milgram kill Maeve?
    Shouldn’t Larsen be asking that?
    Unless…
    Unless she knows. 
    Unless she knows why.