My Uncle Locked Away My Roommate's Medical File When She Vanished — But When They Broke My Blind Cane, The Unsealed Safe Exposed The Supernatural Truth
Just as the silence threatened to stretch into an unbearable chasm, the office door burst open. Julian Kincaid Jr. stood there, chest heaving, his face flushed with a fury that seemed to shake the very antique fixtures on the wall.
“What is going on here?” he bellowed, his voice raw. “My father just called. He said… he said I’m implicated in a death investigation!”
He stormed toward Arthur, his eyes blazing. He looked like a cornered animal, not a cold-blooded killer. But then, I reminded myself, some of the best actors were the most convincing.
“You told me to harass her!” Julian Jr. accused, pointing a trembling finger at me, then at Arthur. “You told me to break her spirit!”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, thrusting it at Clara. “Look! Look at these messages from him!”
Clara took the phone, her eyes narrowing as she scrolled. The screen glowed, illuminating a series of text exchanges.
“Julian,” Arthur started, his voice a strangled gasp. “Please, son, you don’t understand the full…”
“Don’t call me son!” Julian Jr. snarled, cutting him off. “My father said he’s pulling my college fund if I don’t get to the bottom of this. He told me *you* were supposed to handle it quietly!”
Clara held the phone up, reading aloud from the screen. “‘Track captain, I need you to exert pressure on Maya Gable. She is a distraction. Break her spirit or break her cane if necessary. Ensure she leaves campus before the Autumn Equinox.'”
The words hung in the air, a devastating indictment. My breath hitched. *Break her cane.* He had specifically instructed Julian Jr. to do it. The silver ash, the key, all of it had been inside. He knew.
I felt a cold, calculating anger. Arthur hadn’t just covered up a murder; he had actively used an unwitting Julian Jr. as a pawn, a blunt instrument to remove me from the campus. He wanted me gone before I could open the safe. Before I could reveal Alice’s death.
“The Autumn Equinox?” Clara questioned, her gaze piercing Arthur. “What does that have to do with anything, Arthur?”
Arthur, utterly defeated, sank into his large leather desk chair. He buried his face in his hands. “It’s all ruined,” he mumbled, his voice thick with despair. “It’s all ruined now.”
Julian Jr. stared at me, then back at Arthur. His face was a mixture of shock and betrayal. “You used me,” he whispered, a tremor in his voice. “You made me the bad guy. I never touched Alice. I barely knew her!”
He turned to me, his eyes wide. “I swear, Maya. I have no idea about any of this. My dad just said to keep you away from the East Wing, to make you uncomfortable. Arthur said it would preserve the school’s reputation if you didn’t dig too deep into an old… a ‘tragic accident.'”
A ‘tragic accident.’ That’s what Arthur had told Julian Sr., and Julian Sr. had in turn relayed to his son. It was a perfect chain of plausible deniability, a web woven to keep the Kincaids’ hands clean while manipulating Julian Jr. into doing Arthur’s dirty work.
My initial belief about Julian Jr. being a murderer began to waver, just slightly. He seemed genuinely horrified, truly unaware of the depth of the deception. Arthur, on the other hand, just looked utterly broken, like a man who had been fighting a losing battle for a very long time.
More Stories
+ There are no comments
Add yours