"Oh my God!" cried Lyndsay as her and Ryan arrived at the Truman household. She immediately rushed over to her best friend being carried out on the gurney. "Rachelle!..." Lyndsay began to tear up.
At the hospital, Lyndsay was sitting on a bench outside Rachelle's room with Ryan next to her. She was crying her eyes out.
"This is it! Rachelle is a goner!" she cried as she threw her head into the palms of her hands.
"It's okay, Lyndsay. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. She's a survivor; she will make it through this," said Ryan, comforting Lyndsay as he was rubbing her back.
"Ryan, you're not getting it. She was lying unconscious, and she's lost so much blood...again!... She's in a coma. Usually when people are in a coma, they don't survive. That's what had happened to my uncle when I was only 13 years-old."
"What happened?"
"He worked at the bank here in town. One day, he got shot during a robbery. The bullet went into his rib cage, and he went into a coma. The next day, we got the call saying that he had passed away." Lyndsay cried even more.
"But it's different with Rachelle. She had survived all of the other incidents," comforted Ryan again.
"Those other incidents don't matter right now, you idiot! What matters at the moment is if she's going to wake up," Lyndsay cried out with sympathy. "Rachelle's gone!...I've lost my best friend!"
Lyndsay threw her head into Ryan's rib cage and clenched his shirt.
"Please tell me that Rachelle's alright...," said a woman's voice in the background.
Lyndsay perked up and saw Rachelle's parents. "Mr. and Mrs. Truman...," she mumbled. She rose up from the chair and ran into their possession. "I am so sorry..." Lyndsay hugged Rachelle's mother.
"I can't believe that we left her alone. We shouldn't have done that," whimpered Mrs. Truman, depressed.
"It was our anniversary, honey," said Mr. Truman.
"And that's suppose to make it alright to leave her alone when there was clearly someone trying to murder her?"
Everybody bowed their heads down in misery.
Mrs. Truman suddenly began to sob. "I'm going to lose my baby!" she cried as she threw herself into her husband's arms.
"I'm going to lose my best friend!" cried Lyndsay as she threw her head back down into the palms of her hands.
Ryan moved closer to Lyndsay and comforted her by rubbing her back. Troy looked into Rachelle's room-through the door-saw how miserable she was, and began to feel guilty. He suddenly started to tear up.
"This is all my fault...," he began. Everybody else perked up. "She means everything to me, and now she's going to die because of me." He backed up against the wall, slid down to the floor, and crossed his legs. He moaned with depression.
Lyndsay and Ryan looked at each other with sympathy, rose up from their seats, and approached Troy. Lyndsay sat down beside Troy, and Ryan sat down beside Lyndsay. Lyndsay grabbed Troy's left hand with her right hand. Ryan's right hand grabbed Lyndsay's left hand. Troy perked up when he felt someone grab his hand.
"Let us pray...," suggested Lyndsay with a smile and a soft tone of her voice.
Troy softly smiled. They bowed her heads in complete silence and began to pray. Rachelle's parents sat down in the two available chairs, grabbed each other's hands, and prayed with the kids.
Later into the night, around 11:00p.m., Rachelle began to relive the horrifying event with Veronica Dixon. She experienced a part with a gun being shot and the bullet coming at her. She suddenly woke up from her coma, groaning with fright. She kept grunting and couldn't say anything with a device down her throat. She was frantically freaking out.
Lyndsay heard Rachelle wake up. Her and everybody else perked up from their praying process. "Rachelle!" cried Lyndsay.
She immediately got up from the floor and scurried into the room. Rachelle's parents went to go grab the doctor. Troy was confused, so he didn't move.
Lyndsay approached the bed. She grabbed Rachelle's arm and pushed them down in order to calm her down. "Rachelle! Rachelle!...," she snapped, trying to keep Rachelle relaxed.
Ryan approached the other side of the bed and grabbed Rachelle's other arm. The doctor entered the room with Rachelle's parents in tow. He then proceeded to remove the device from Rachelle's mouth so that she could speak.
A few seconds later, the device was out. The doctor then exited the room, and everybody gathered around Rachelle. Lyndsay held Rachelle's hand and began to tear up again, only with happiness this time.
"Lyndsay, why are you crying?" Rachelle worried. She then slightly felt a little rage. "Did Troy hurt you again? Where is he?"
"Troy doesn't have anything to do with it," said Lyndsay.
Rachelle raised an eyebrow.
"I'm crying, because you're alive. We all prayed that you'd make it through this, and our prayer was answered," Lyndsay continued. Rachelle and Lyndsay hugged each other with tears running down their faces. Rachelle's parents approached the bed, and Ryan stepped back. The girls released their hug, and Lyndsay stepped away.
Rachelle saw her parents and began to tear up. "Mom? Dad?...," she mumbled.
"Oh honey!" squealed Mrs. Truman. Her and her husband clenched their daughter in a big bear hug.
A couple seconds later, they released their daughter from their possession.
"We are so sorry for leaving you home all alone...," Mark apologized to his daughter.
"Especially since we knew that someone was out to kill you," his wife added.
"It's okay, guys. Like Ryan said earlier, I'm a survivor," said Rachelle. She hugged her parents one more time. They then backed away to let Rachelle speak to her friends again.
"Do you remember anything from what had happened?" asked Lyndsay.
Rachelle was concentrating to try to remember. "I was just asleep, and I heard someone breaking into the house...," she began. "When I heard the sound of a gun clicking, I tried to call Troy on the landline. The next thing that I knew, the line was cut off. The intruder entered the room and began to attack. She shot my cellphone out of my hand."
Rachelle saw that her palm was bandaged up.
"She tried to shoot again, but I threw my lamp at her. I attempted to escape until I was whacked in the back of the head. Unfortunately, I was beginning to black out from all of the blood that I was losing. I do remember grabbing the gun from underneath the couch and taking a shot. I was completely out after that," Rachelle finished.
"Did you recognize the intruder?" asked Lyndsay, confused.
"No."
"Who was it?" asked Ryan.
"Her name was Veronica Dixon. She was one of Zack's cousins."
Ryan and Lyndsay looked at each other with surprise.
"She had definitely fit all of the characteristics. She had the blonde hair, blue eyes, a full face of makeup, and a white-tip manicure. She was indeed left-handed based on how she held the gun. Based on how she fought me, she was definitely a black belt in karate," said Rachelle.
"If it was Veronica Dixon who was trying to kill you, then how do the profiles of, 'Vanessa Dickinson', 'Valerie Doyle', and 'Vicie Duncan' fall into place?" Lyndsay thought.
"They were all Veronica. She used all of those aliases to stay hidden and secretly try to murder me."
Ryan and Lyndsay were confused.
"She created those profiles to use as her aliases. That's why none of those existed. In other words, Veronica was 'Vanessa Dicinson', 'Vickie Duncan', and 'Valerie Doyle' the whole time," Rachelle continued.
"But that 'Valerie Doyle' really does exist. She really is a cop down at the prison and a part-time paramedic," reminded Lyndsay.
"Don't you remember, Lyndsay?" said Ryan. "Officer Doyle was out with her husband the night that Rachelle was hurt. She actually showed us the proof."
Lyndsay raised an eyebrow. "But I don't understand..."
"Veronica must have impersonated her while she was off police duty," mentioned Rachelle.
"In other words, Veronica stole Officer Doyle's uniform. She shot Bruce Kenzington in his cell and stuck you with that Ketamine drug," Ryan told Lyndsay.
Lyndsay's mouth dropped. "So that means that Veronica was Vanessa who made you trip on her skateboard and fracture your ankle," she said to Rachelle.
Rachelle nodded her head in agreement.
"And she was Vickie who administered an overdose on your pain medication and made you chug a bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide...," Ryan added.
Rachelle nodded her head again. "Which caused me to have a seizure."
"Veronica was also the one who suffocated you with Chloroform while she was undercover as Vickie."
Rachelle continued to nod her head in agreement.
"Veronica also impersonated Valerie Doyle in order to kill Mr. Kenzington and make me lose my mind with that Ketamine drug," Lyndsay added.
"Yep...," Rachelle agreed "It was all Veronica Dixon. She was behind everything that had happened."
"But the good news is that she's dead now. We won't have to worry about her anymore."
"Wait a minute...," began Ryan. The girls gave him their full attention. "If Veronica was behind all of this, then how do Danica Bradford, Bruce Kenzington, Andrea Jensen, and Trevor Kent fall into place? I mean, how were all of them involved?"
"They were all basically pons to help cover Veronica's tracks," said Rachelle.
Ryan raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"Veronica paid Bruce to purchase the Hydrogen Peroxide so that the receipt would trace back to him. She wanted the cops to arrest him to cover herself up. She convinced him to work for her and get arrested in order to help her move on with her plan. With Danica, Veronica used a random address from somewhere in town, hoping it would keep us occupied with Danica and not worry about the 'Vanessa' alias. With Andrea, Veronica just needed to use someone else's computer to do her Ketamine research. She didn't care whose she used, she just didn't want to use her own," Rachelle fully explained.
"How come her fingerprints weren't pulled up from the keyboard, though?" Ryan continued to wonder.
"She wore a pair of gloves. You can't collect any fingerprints from an object if the3 person wore a pair of gloves."
"Of course...," Lyndsay muttered, rolling her eyes with sarcasm.
"So then, how is Danica Bradford involved in the case?" Ryan continued with the questions.
"Veronica needed an address to keep us occupied with a whole other situation. She must have created that fake profile for Vanessa Dickinson and used a random address," answered Rachelle.
"Danica's address?"
"Yep. She wanted us to arrest someone that we thought would have really been the real 'Vanessa Dickinson,' so that we wouldn't be digging deeper."
Ryan was nodding his head as he understood. "Okay...my next question is: how does Trevor Kent fall into the situation then?"
"Apparently, Trevor happens to be Veronica's boyfriend. She probably paid him to purchase the Diethyl Ether and the Ketamine substance."
"Wow..." Ryan was surprised as he raised his eyebrows.
"Yep..." Rachelle nodded her head in discouragement. "It was Veronica Dixon all along. She was behind everything that had happened to me."
Lyndsay and Ryan tilted their heads to the side, looking at Rachelle.
"It was actually Zack who wanted me dead all along. He escaped from prison to hunt me down and kill me himself. The cops saw him making a run for it and shot him dead. I guess that Veronica was going to visit Zack at the jail and saw the cops shoot him. That's when she saw the picture of me in his hands with, 'Kill Rachelle Truman' written on it and decided to fulfill Zack's 'destiny'," Rachelle fully explained.
Lyndsay shook her head, thinking it was a bizarre scheme of Veronica.
"Veronica was the one who threw that knife at my front door with that threatening note," Rachelle continued.
"But I thought that that knife belonged to Zack? I mean, it had his initials on it, and it was Estrogen brand," said Ryan.
"It was his, but Veronica used it to make it look like he was really the one coming after me."
Ryan raised an eyebrow and scratched his head in confusion.
"I guess to make it look like that Zack faked his death in order to come after me in secret," Rachelle added.
Ryan nodded his head and bit his bottom lip.
"Anyway, she was the one who tried to shoot me at school," Rachelle kept on.
"So does that mean that she was the one who stole that gun from that hunting supplies store and injured that cashier?" Lyndsay wonddered.
"Well, Veronica paid Bruce Kenzington to do that, remember?"
"But why Bruce? Like, how come she just didn't do it herself?" asked Ryan.
The girls rolled their eyes. Lyndsay threw her hands up as she shook her head. "Really, Ryan?" she hissed.
"What?"
"Veronica wanted to stay out of sight, so that it wouldn't have been that easy to catch her. In other words, she needed a pon: Bruce Kenzington," said Rachelle.
"Yeah, because there's no way that he would've done all that for free if she explained it to him," Lyndsay agreed.
Rachelle barely held up her pointer finger. "Which is why she paid him...until everything was becoming suspicious and Veronica shot him."
"Wait a minute...," began Ryan, scrunching up his nose in confusion. "Veronica shot Bruce? I thought that it was Valerie Doyle who shot hm?"
"No, you idiot!" Lyndsay snapped as she slapped him across the shoulder. "It was Veronica impersonating Officer Valerie Doyle in order to cover up her tracks."
"Oh okay..." Ryan nodded his head with a joke.
"Are you with us now?" Lyndsay had a slightly high-pitched voice.
"Of course!..."
"It's about time..." Lyndsay turned her attention back to Rachelle. "You may continue...," she insisted, smiling as she tried to calm herself down.
"Veronica was mainly behind every incident. She was the one who sat my backyard pool on fire and the one who shot that bowling ball out of the cannon and jammed me into a tree with poison ivy. She was the one who made me fracture my ankle by tripping on a random skateboard and the one who administered that overdose on my pain medication for my ankle. She was the one who made me chug a bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide which gave me a seizure," Rachelle explained. She then pointed to Lyndsay. "She was the one responsible for injuring that construction worker and stealing that bulldozer to run you down," she added.
Lyndsay gasped. "So that means that she was also the one who shot me with that dart injected with the Ketamine substance."
"Exactly...just like how she was the one who suffocated me with Chloroform and sat the hospital on fire."
"Okay...all of that is making sense to me. Now my next question is, why did she attack me? Like, why did she come after me, too?"
Rachelle partially bit her bottom lip. "I'm guessing that when she was following us around, Veronica realized that you knew too much. She discovered that you were close to finding the killer, and she wanted to keep you quiet while she completed the 'to-do' list--killing me."
"Oh yeah...," muttered Lyndsay.
Rachelle nodded her head in slight discouragement.
Ryan placed his thumb and pointer finger up to his chin, thinking. "Okay...," he began.
"The girls looked at Ryan.
"I understand what she did to Lyndsay, but why did she choose to use the Ketamine drug? I mean, why didn't she just take a simpler route?" Ryan finished.
The girls rolled their eyes with a sigh as they looked at each other with unpleasant emotions.
"Oh my God...," sighed Lyndsay as she threw her head down into the palm of her hand.
"Ryan, Ketamine is recognized as a strong amnesia drug where it causes its victims to not remember anything within the last couple of hours. Criminals use the drug on their victims to mainly make them unable to recall what had just happened to them. Basically, Veronica shot Lyndsay with that dart in order to make her weak and to forget about the case," Rachelle explained.
"At least the drug didn't cause me to lose my entire memory," Lyndsay joked around.
"She would have had to use something stronger than Ketamine in order for her to be able to do that."
Lyndsay half smiled. "I'm just so glad that you're safe and that all of this is behind us." She placed a hand on Rachelle's shoulder.
Ryan approached the other side of Lyndsay and placed a hand on her back shoulder blade with a gentle smile. "See, Lyndsay? I told you that you wouldn't lose your best friend."
Lyndsay displayed a huge friendly smile and wrapped her arms around the necks of her best friends. She pulled the two of them into a group hug.
A few seconds later, they released the hug when they heard a knock outside Rachelle's hospital room. Troy entered the doorway.
"Hi...," Troy greeted, shaking through his words.
Everyone looked at him in complete silence.
"Troy...," Rachelle silently mumbled.
Lyndsay released a breath. "Well...I guess that we'll all leave so you two can have some privacy," she suggested.
Her and Ryan then exited out into the hallway. Troy and Rachelle were left in the room to talk things out.
"Hi...Rachelle...," mumbled Troy, shakingly.
"Do you believe me now!" Rachelle screamed with her eyes filling up with tears.
Troy tilted his head to the side as he rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. He had his other hand placed down in his pocket.
Rachelle had tears running down her cheeks. "Do you believe me now that someone was trying to kill me?"
"Rachelle, I...," Troy muttered.
"Do you even know how I feel right now? Does it even matter to you?"
"Rachelle, please..." Troy presented his opened palms forwarded.
"Oh don't you, 'Rachelle, please' me. You weren't there for me at all; you didn't even care how I felt. Troy, you basically left me stranded."
"Rachelle..." Troy moved closer to the bed.
"What kind of friend does that?" Rachelle was sniffling. "Troy...I was scared. I was hurting. I was in desperate need of help, and you weren't there. You were completely ignoring my requests for your assistance. You left me heartbroken."
"Are you going to let me talk now?"
"What could you possibly have to-?"
Troy slightly raised his voice. "Rachelle!"
The room immediately got silent.
"Just listen, okay?..." Troy requested.
Rachelle let out a deep breath. "Huh...proceed..."
"First of all, I did believe that someone was trying to kill you..."
Rachelle became flabbergasted. "Oh sure...," she snarled sarcastically. "Sure you did..."
"It's true!"
"Well if you did, then why weren't you helping us find the killer? Huh?"
Troy became silent.
"Are you even wanting to still be a part of our group? Do you still care about us? Huh? Tell me-why did you try your best to ignore us when you clearly knew that I could possibly die? Were you secretly working with Veronica? Huh?" Rachelle continued. She raised her voice and had a vein popping out of her neck.
Troy bulged up his eyes in disgust. "No, of course not! Why would you think that?"
"Then why were you acting like a total idiot? Why wouldn't you help us find the killer, especially when I was close to dieing?"
Troy was shaking his fists and was becoming really annoyed. "Because I love you!...," he screamed.
Everyone, who were listening out in the hallway, became shocked. They looked at each other with their mouths dropped open.
Rachelle's mouth dropped. She froze in shock and didn't have any words.
"What?...," she began to sniffle. Her eyes were filling up with tears.
Troy moved to the side of the bed. "I knew that someone was trying to kill you, but I didn't want to believe it. I didn't want to get involved, because of the consequences. I didn't want to believe it, because of how much I love you. I was afraid that if I believed it, with my love for you, I knew that I would actually lose you. I didn't want to believe it, because I was scared that you would really die. I was afraid to lose you and didn't want to be any part of it," he explained.
Troy grabbed Rachelle's hand and got down on one knee. "I love you, Rachelle Lynn Truman, and I'm deeply sorry for everything that has happened. I'm also sorry for the ways that I've been acting towards all of this," he finished.
Rachelle's eyes began to fill with more tears as she looked down on Troy with a smile of sympathy.
"Troy...," she sniffled.
Troy stood up, placed his hands on Rachelle's cheeks, and kissed her on the lips. Everybody from out in the hallway cheered for joy when they saw Troy and Rachelle kiss. Rachelle and Troy immediately quit once they saw everybody barging into the room cheering.
"It's about time, man...," Ryan supported as he knuckle punched Troy.
Lyndsay scurried over to the bed and hugged her best friend's neck. "Eeek! I'm so happy!" she squealed, jumping up and down.
Lyndsay turned around and kissed Ryan with surprise. Ryan froze with shock, and his heart stopped beating. Everybody looked at them with surprise. Lyndsay's heart stopped beating and didn't say another word.
Ryan softly smiled, pulled her into his rib cage, and gave her a long kiss in return. Everybody cheered for joy. Then they released the kiss and held each other's hand with smiles. They held their clenched hands and cheered for joy. Troy moved to the other side of Rachelle's bed and held her left hand.
Rachelle grabbed Lyndsay's free hand with her right hand. "Congratulations!..."
"Congratulations to you guys, too," Lyndsay replied, smiling with generosity.
"Yeah man...," Ryan told Troy. "It's about time that you told her how you really felt," he added as he wrapped his arm around Lyndsay's neck.
Troy shrugged his shoulders with slight embarrassment.
"Wait a minute...," began Rachelle, slightly confused. "You guys knew all along?"
"Of course!" cheered Lyndsay.
"Yeah, he told us while you were still in that coma," Ryan agreed.
Rachelle slightly lowered her eyebrows. She turned her attention to Troy. "You told them about your feelings toward me before you told me?"
Troy pulled back the corner of his mouth with slight guilt. "Maybe...," he mumbled.
Rachelle took a few seconds to think. She softly smiled again. "So you really do love me?"
"Well of course. I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it."
Rachelle began to tear up a little more and sniffled. She grabbed the collar of Troy's shirt and pulled him into her personal space with a smooch. Everyone else threw their hands up in the air and cheered with excitement.
They kissed for a moment and slowly released it. Troy immediately became happy. Ryan walked over to him and patted him on the back.
"Congratulations, man!" said Ryan. Him and Troy knuckle punch each other again. "Now, you better hang on to her." He winked at Troy.
"Well duh...she's the only one for me" said Troy. Him and Ryan high-fived each other. Troy smiled at Rachelle until he heard someone letting out a sarcastic cough. He turned and saw Mr. Truma staring at him with his arms crossed.
"Mr. James?...," snarled Rachelle's father.
"Daddy...," mumbled Rachelle.
"It's okay, Rachelle. I need to speak to him anyway," said Troy. He released Rachelle's hand and approached Mr. Truman.
"I love your daughter, Mr. Truman. I've had my eyes on her ever since I met her. She's my very best friend, and I love her. I understand that she's your only daughter, and I respect that. With your approval, I promise to never hurt her. I promise to take care of her, assist to her every needs, support her, watch over her, respect her, love her, and never let her down. If you don't accept, then I promise to never get too close to her. I won't speak to her, and I'll even walk out that door right now if you want me to," Troy explained.
Everyone else gasped. Lyndsay and Rachelle's mouths dropped.
"Whether you approve of us being together or not, I will acknowledge your decision," he added as he held up his hand in respect. "I truly promise to respect whatever you decide."
Mr. Truman didn't express any emotions. "Well Mr. James...there's only one thing that I have to say to you...," he began.
Everybody's hearts immediately stopped beating with surprise. Mr Truman looked at Rachelle and winked. He then placed a hand on Troy's shoulder.
"Welcome to the family, son!" cheered Mr. Truman as he threw his arm out. Everyone cheered for joy. Troy smiled with appreciation and shook Mr. Truman's hand.
" Thank you so much, sir. I promise to always respect Rachelle and to never let her get hurt," said Troy.
"I appreciate your love towards my daughter. Plus..." Mr. Truman then whispers into Troy's ear. "You're the only guy that I trust to be in a relationship with my only daughter."
"Thank you!..."
Troy and Mark Truan gave each other a "bro" hug. Everybody clapped and cheered for appreciation.
Mark and Troy released the hug. Troy walked over to Rachelle, placed his hands upon her cheeks, and delivered a long-lasting kiss. "I love you, Rachelle," he mumbled.
"I love you too, Troy," mumbled Rachelle with a soft smile.
They kissed again.
"Okay guys..," began Rachelle's mother. She pulled out her cellphone and opened up the camera. "Gather around Rachelle for a group picture."
Rachelle slowly leaned up and sat on the bed. Troy held her hand and sat halfway on the bed on the left side of Rachelle. Lyndsay stood on Rachelle's right side and leaned in. Ryan stood next to Lyndsay and leaned in.
"Okay everybody, say 'cheese'," said Mrs. Truman.
"Cheese!" said the teens as they flashed smiles of pearly whites.
Mrs. Truman then snapped the picture of all of them together.
YOU ARE READING
Invisible Killer
Mystery / ThrillerStrange things have been happening in Lincoln, Nebraska; Stranger things have been happening to Rachelle Truman, unexplainable things. When the gang finds out that Zack Allen dies in prison, they begin to wonder if his spirit has come back to haunt...
