One Step Ahead Audrey Walker (best books for 8th graders TXT) 📖

“You are the one who needs help,” the voice said. “You are the one tied up, not me.”

“Okay,” Robin said. “Then why don’t you come out and help me? I promise I won’t be scared.”

The voice became silent, and Robin took another breath to steady herself.

“Who are you?” she asked again. “Can you at least tell me your name?”

“I want to kill,” the voice said. “I don’t know why, but I want to kill. I just want to kill!”

Robin screamed as a face shot toward her, ghostly pale and hauntingly handsome. She crawled back on her hands as the face laughed manically.

“I want to kill,” the face said. Robin shuddered as the face started to morph and begin to look like hers. No, it couldn’t be. It couldn’t be.

“Robin!” She heard someone shouting at her. “Wake up. It’s time to go.”

Robin slowly got up, still shaking from the fear. She looked around the small cell she had been put in and turned and looked at Kyle. He was looking away, his body language aloof and distant.

“It wasn't me, Kyle,” she said softly. “I promise you. It wasn’t me.”

“Don’t,” he said. “Not anymore, Robin. Just give up. You should have given up ages ago. I am sorry I didn’t help you in time. I am sorry I didn’t help before you became all this.”

“How could you not believe me?” she whispered.

“There is evidence,” he said. “Evidence you can’t dispute. I want to believe you, but I can’t. We found everything, Robin. I can’t deny this any longer. There is just too much evidence.”

Robin’s mouth went dry, and she just felt numb. Kyle pulled her handcuffs and guided her toward the interrogation room where the Captain was waiting.

“Would you like something to eat?” he asked. “Something to drink?”

“I would like you to believe me,” she whispered.

For a minute, silence reigned in the room, and then the Captain sighed. He looked as if he aged years since the last time she saw him.

“We found the knife in a corner in the basement,” he said. “With your fingerprints on it and the blood of the victim. It matches the murder weapon we had been looking for. We found the drug you used to sedate the women in your apartment. It was a very discreet little thing. Hard to pick up in a normal tox screen. Not unless you knew what you were looking for.”

“You honestly think it was me, don’t you?” Robin whispered.

“We don’t want to,” he said. “You know we all care for you. We all just want to protect you. I assure you, I am looking into every detail of this case. But the evidence. There is so much of it; I don’t know how to believe you.”

“We also found the tattooing equipment used to tattoo the lily post-mortem,” Kyle said.

“You think as a police officer I would leave the evidence so plainly? Did you find the notes? The hidden messages? Why would I leave those messages if I was doing it? And leave them to me? Why would I draw attention to myself?” Robin asked. She felt weirdly numb right now. She almost didn’t care what happened to her. How could these people not see what was in front of them? The apparent flaws in this great spiderweb that surrounded her.

“But you weren't the one doing the murders,” James said. “It was alternate personality. Your other side wanted you to be saved. It wanted to be found out. That’s why it left you these notes so that you would realize it existed. You just wanted the monster inside you gone. We talked to a lot of psychiatrists. It’s possible. Normally a split personality forms to protect the main personality, but there have been cases where it’s actually indirectly harming it, mainly because of unresolved trauma. Whatever the Butcher did to you, it triggered something inside you. The gaps in your memory, think about it. They were times when your alternate personality took over. You remember using the ring to free yourself, but where did you get it? So many parts of your memories that you didn’t understand. You told me all of them, remember? There were blackouts. You are obsessed with the basement’s dark corner because that is where you would look, and your new personality would take over. You were right. You weren’t alone in the basement; there was another version of you with you.”

Robin didn’t reply. Her mind was racing right now. She just knew she wasn’t the killer, but it didn’t matter. None of it mattered. She knew that her protests would be wasted. They won’t even listen to her. They were convinced Robin was the killer. But she knew she was innocent. The murderer was still out there somewhere, laughing to himself. And she was going to find him. She didn’t know how or even when, but she was going to find him.

“You won’t say anything?” the Captain asked. “Just answer our questions. Tell us about the Butcher. Why didn’t you tell me you were keeping tabs on him? I looked in your files, too. You never had a sure location so that you couldn’t arrest him, but you had ideas. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Robin didn’t reply.

“Tell us about the first murder then,” he said. “The warehouse, where you got that big killer. It was a case that put you on the papers. Where did you find Laura? Where were you that night anyway?”

Robin didn’t reply.

“Where were you when all of these murders occurred?” he asked. “Can you give me an alibi? Any alibi? It would set you free. If you can give me one alibi –”

“There are none,” Kyle said. “Are there?”

Robin didn’t reply. There was no need for her to respond. She was mentally far away from all of this. Her mind was thinking of only one person; the Executioner.

Chapter Eighteen

“It has been two weeks, Robin,” the Captain said. “You haven’t said