
Following the funeral Adam’s mother asked that Caitlyn come over to the house and go through some of Adams things. She was aware that Adam really cared for Caitlyn and wanted her to go through some of the photos and memorably that Adam adorned his room with over the years. When Caitlyn entered Adam’s room she was greeted with cold chills running down her arms and back. She remembered better days spent with Adam as captured in some of the photographs on his desk and walls; but there was strangeness to Adam’s room too. Something always bothered her about Adam; something that ultimately lead to them breaking up. She couldn’t put a finger on it, it was just a gut feeling and intuition that she felt around him after a while that she couldn’t shake.
As she made her way around the room she browsed over the photographs and memories to find herself standing in front of his closet. There was his varsity jacket hanging there in front of her. She remembered him draping it around her in better times. She took it off from the hanger and held it. While doing so, a strange light caught her eye from the back of the closet. She pulled the light bulb chain to turn on the closet light and explore the light streaming from a crack in the back closet paneling. She pushed on the paneling to reveal a small door to another storage closet behind the main closet. She stepped in and was immediately shocked at what she found. There all around her on four sides of walls in this small closet were photographs of her with Adam, her with Jason, and her with Steven and multiple photos of her studying in her room, walking to class, talking with friends, and sitting on the pier by herself. She gasped! “Oh my. This is terrible! How could I have been so blind!” There all around her was a freaky shrine of sorts of her. On the floor she spotted a black box. She leaned down and opened it. Inside were photographs of Adam with Steven as younger men in middle school. They were best friends, she recalled Adam saying once. She shuffled through the photographs to find more photos of her and Steven. They began getting more and more disturbing. There were photographs of she and Steven kissing, holding hands and having dinner together. It was extremely inappropriate. Adam had been spying on them since the very beginning of their relationship, spying to the point of stalking. It was an awful realization. Caitlyn swallowed slowly completely taken back by what she found. “Oh no, could Adam be responsible for Steven’s death?” She said under breath and began to cry in long deep hard sobs. Her hands were shaking as she thumbed through the photographs of her undressed in her bedroom. She began crying as she held photographs of her and Steven together. The tears fell down her cheeks and she could barely see. The tears were so frequent her vision became blurred as she made her way to the bottom of the box. Then suddenly panic shot through her entire being. Her hands feverishly shook as she lifted the chain that once contained Steven’s pendant. She knew it well, it was one-of-a-kind that she designed herself with the local jeweler. She couldn’t breathe, She was shaking so badly she dropped the box of photos sending them scattered all over the floor as she turned around and ran out of the closet, room and house. They had been broken up for over 10 months, she shouted out, “No! How can this be possible? How could he do something like this? Why, why, why?”
She ran straight to the local authorities and reported what she had seen. She couldn’t believe what was happening. She could not believe that one person could become so disoriented to do something this terrible. She could not believe that the reality of the situation is that Adam was so obsessed with her he could behave like this, and possibly have killed Steven. Things began coming into focus, bad things, her mind was spinning. She thought to herself, “Could Adam have been responsible for her Dad’s business failing? The spec house that he built that was destroyed by fire? The lumber yard being ransacked and robbed?” She felt completely sick as she told the police about the photographs that she saw and the possible implications upon Adam. The most disturbing photographs were those of her in her bedroom studying and changing her clothes; and those of her and Steven kissing and holding each other. Adam was spying on her the entire time, taking pictures of her with his cell phone. She recalled how her computer files had been stolen and her email accounts were hacked. Her identity had been jeopardized and her parent’s credit cards used by perpetrators. “All of these incidents, could the truly have been Adam’s doing?” She questioned everything aloud as she sat there in the police department filing her claims.
She knew in her heart that Steven’s fall and disappearance was no accident. She just knew that Adam must have grabbed his arm and took him with him when Adam tried to push him into the channel. It was a nightmare coming to fruition. She clutched Steven’s chain in her hands and held it to her chest whispering to herself, “Why did Adam have this? Where is my beloved Steven. What does this mean?” She continued to cry.
Caitlyn headed over to see Jason and tell him what she found. Steven sat there in complete shock and silence for a few minutes when he finally spoke up. “Caitlyn, that makes sense. The dreams I’ve been having always involve shouting, but I wasn’t sure what it was. I did recall seeing them fall into the water, and I did hear some of the fighting, but I don’t know exactly what happened. I’m guessing Adam probably fell because Steven grabbed him, sending them both over the ledge. They must have struggled on the pier for a while before falling into the channel as I was trying to get around the lighthouse on the south side over to them on the north side. I only caught the final end when they were both going over into the water. Adam landed on top of Steven over the rocks. That is probably what saved Adam and allowed him to swim to the north shore channel walls.” Jason began tearing up. “I am so sorry Caitlyn. It all happened so fast and it was all so confusing, I must have blocked it out of memory. Really Caitlyn, I never wanted to hurt you, and I especially never wanted anything this terrible to happen.”
Later that evening the police investigated Adam’s room and met again with Caitlyn, Jason and Sami to draw the best conclusion they could based on the evidence and photographs. There was no proof of what Adam’s role was in Steven’s disappearance, but there was definitely foul play and motive based on the evidence of Adam’s stalking and psychoanalysis. The police found copies of all of Caitlyn’s hard drive computer files, emails and passwords. Adam had indeed been stalking her terrible for years actually, including the time they were dating. He was obsessed with her to the point of no turning back. The police collected what they could for evidence and placed the photographs back in the box of her and Steven for her safe keeping.

No comments:
Post a Comment