Layers Of Truth.



He sits her down and begins to relate to her his suspicions concerning Deputy Tyler Malloy. Slowly at first he draws her close with his theory that the white hat that Jennifer had made reference to could very well have been his. He hesitates for a moment to let Angela Watson gather her thoughts. Finally as though in complete acceptance she raises her eyes to meet his.
“There’s more that you not telling me isn’t there Daniel?”
He sits on the floor in front of her, and softly folds her hand into his own.
“Miss Watson- Angela. I saw her get into that truck. His truck. I know deep down inside of me, where I live and breath. Somehow he is responsible for this. And Jennifer is leading us to the truth. Is there anything odd that you may recall about any of his visits in the months following her disappearance?”
She rises from the sofa, her eyes slowly welling with tears. She walks to the window and stares out into the cold air. The rain is falling again. It always seems to rain here.
“There. There was one time. He came by and seemed to be strangely out of sorts. Its was particularly hot that day as I recall. I wasn’t feeling well but he insisted that he come inside to get a drink of cold water, and to visit with me for awhile. I went into the kitchen to get us some fresh lemonade, it was. Hot that day. As I recall.”
He comes up from behind her and puts his hand on her shoulder, he can see from the frosty reflection on the window pane in front of her, her tears were releasing.
“Miss Watson.”
“Funny. I never thought it all that odd until now. But when I came from the kitchen with our cold drinks he was standing in Jenny’s bedroom looking around the room, her bedding was messed up as well. Funny. No- Strange that I never recalled that until now.”
He puts his arm around her and slowly walks her back to the sofa and sits her down beside of Sharon Milner. He sits once again directly in front of her never releasing her hand.
“Angela Watson. I want you to listen to me. I am going to get to the bottom of this. And I WILL find out what happened to your daughter. Cherry Creek.Tyler Malloy.. The truck. The book. all of it is related Miss Watson. And we will find out how, all we have to do is follow Jennifer’s lead. And she’ll take us right to him.”
Angela Watson forces a smile to her face, as they try to console her tears.
“How can you be so sure Daniel? How do you know that she can lead you to the man that is responsible for this terrible thing?”
Now it is his turn to smile.
“Because Miss Watson. She was smart enough to bring me to you wasn’t she?”

Can You See Me Now?



Although according to her memories of that hot afternoon when Tyler Malloy came to visit, she hadn’t recalled seeing him carrying anything out when he left the Watson house that day. But even still they discuss the very real possibility that he may have already gotten his hands on the incriminating diary of Jennifer Watson and may have even destroyed it. Daniel Vickers on the other hand is not so convinced.
“No.” he tells them. “While its true I don’t know much about her. But from what I do know about your daughter is she wasn’t stupid.”
“So what are you thinking?”
“Well lets put things into perspective. Lets say she told him that she knew something bad about him, and that she wrote about it in the book. Well . Lets say for the sake of argument, that it was something that could get the good Deputy into some seriously hot water. So now that makes the book valuable. She wouldn’t put it someplace where just anyone could get their hands on it. She would put it someplace safe, someplace that only she would know about. Where she could get to it if need be.”
Angela Watson and Sharon Milner both now look confused at the prospect of a treasure hunt.
“So where do we look?”
He stands and begins to stretch. Angela Watson and Sharon Milner return to the coffee pot, where Sharon passes him a fresh cup.
“Well.” He tells them. “Lets look at the girl. The biggest clue has to be Jennifer herself.”
The two women are shaking their heads.
“Well think about it. What were her interests? Where did she like to go? What were some of her favorite hangouts? What did she like to do there? It Has to be somewhere outside of the house, someplace. The last place that anyone would think of looking.”
He leaves them to their own imaginations once again returning to the bedroom of his sister. It seemed he thought, that he’d come to most of his conclusions since he first entered the house in that very room. He stands once again in front of the book shelf slowly running his fingers across the face of each individual book.
“C’mon Jen.. Talk to me sweetie.. Where did you hide the book?”
He pulls the first book from the shelf and opens it to find nothing out of the ordinary. He closes the cover and returns it to the shelf, and pulls down another and opens it to the very same conclusion.
“Damnit. They’re just books.. No common thread. Just books. So what am I missing? What is the link?”
It is then that he notices something similar about the first book and the last. He leave the last book open and once again pulls the first from the shelf and opens the cover to the table of contents. There in the right hand corner he sees a light blue stamp that reads: Property Of The Pleasantville. Public Library.”
“Miss Watson?”


Books.



All in all, they pull twenty or so books off of Jennifer’s book shelf and out of the twenty, ten have the public library stamp on the inside near the table of contents.
“So where did she get these books if they belonged to the public library?”
Angela Watson recalls that one afternoon her daughter did show up with a pile of books but never said where she had gotten them. Only that she had been out all afternoon. Sharon Milner now raises her own deduction.
“Well obviously she got them from the library, so maybe we should pay them a visit in the morning.”
They discuss many different possibilities, the most likely being that she checked them out and never had the chance to return them, the theory being quickly squashed by the discovery of the word obsolete on the inside back cover of each book.
“Ok.” Sharon begins. “So we know that she at least spent some time at the library, which means someone there may have known her pretty well. So lets see if they can tell us how she happened upon these books.”
They all agree in conclusion that it’s the best place to start so they tell her that they will return to the Watson residence in the morning and together the three of them would go to the library. As they enter the Chevy she seems almost sad to Sharon Milner, and as Daniel puts the car into gear Angela Watson appears at the drivers side window, he rolls it down to see what she wants.
“Please Daniel.. I know this will seem odd to you. But I don’t think that I want to be alone now. See. It’s just that. When the two of you were here with me. I can almost feel. I. I. I don’t know.. Close to her I think. Could you possibly get your things from that dirty old motel and stay here with me tonight ? I really could use the company, and it wouldn’t be any bother.”
She gets into the car and accompanies them to the motel where Sharon Milner happily returns the keys to the creepy old desk clerk. Once safely back inside of the Chevy, she relates the story of their arrival to the ‘No Tell Motel.’ and the two new friends share a lighthearted laugh that is until a slightly agitated Daniel Vickers shows up at the drivers door.
“Danny what’s wrong?”
“My room got ransacked, they didn’t take anything, they just went through everything. I dunno its weird, nothing got destroyed either.”
“Maybe we should call the police?”
He enters the drivers side door of the Chevy and looks at both women.
“No. that isn’t an option. We would have to explain too much about why we are here. And deputy Fife already saw us with Miss Watson. Cops are naturally nosey anyways. No reason to raise suspicions. Besides how do we know that deputy Fife isn‘t the one that broke in trying to figure out who I was?. No. no police. Not yet. Not until we know for certain the good guys from the bad guys.”
Minutes later they are approaching the Watson residence and Daniel is pulling the Chevy into the driveway. They all return to the living room to resume their discussion of the missing diary. And as Angela Watson closes and locks her front door none of the three even notices as the black pick up truck slowly rolls to a stop across the street from the Watson residence and turns off its headlights.

~Scratch. A.B.T. copyright © 2008.~





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