Ms. Merrill,
Whores. Prostitutes. Sinners. You think they deserved to live? Gaskins may have died in the chair but his seeds of death were planted in this hot, sandy land. Do you think those seeds didn’t take root? That they failed to thrive? That they don’t want a piece of their ancestor’s reward? Be careful who you write about. Be careful what side of history you’re on.
X
Shay,
Do you believe in fate? That history can be redeemed? That’s what is happening now. Life is coming full circle. Generations solving the sins of the past. Thank you for shedding light on this story. I suggest you not hit publish yet. This isn’t the end of the tale.
X
“I didn’t know what to make of the first two,” she says. “I sent them to my editor and he told me to make you aware, but you’ve tried your damnedest to avoid me. But the one that arrived this morning crossed the line.” She hands it over. It’s postmarked from the day before, still from Myrtle Beach. It’s a black and white image of two girls in old-style bikinis posing on the beach.
Shay,
Gaskins hunted by the light of the moon, by the feel of his loins, by the rage in his heart. He took what he wanted and that urge consumes me, too. This isn’t a warning. It’s a promise. Save me a spot on the front page.
X
“So a copycat? Or a wannabe killer?” I ask, ignoring the ill feeling in my stomach. “Did you tell my mom?”
She shakes her head. “Not yet.”
“She gets a lot of fan mail. Good, bad, and creepy. This obviously falls into creepy, but maybe a bit more specific than the others. She was going to talk to her agent about the ones at the store, but I don’t think any of them were this bad.” But I wonder if I’d paid that much attention. After a while it starts to blur together. I would have noticed this though, right?
“Should we go to the police?” she asks.
“Probably—at least before the party tonight. Maybe have an officer onsite.”
She stands, brushing the sand off her backside. She offers me a hand to get out of my low to the ground chair. I take it and stand, the animosity I felt toward her when I first saw her today vanishes. She’s now caught up in this because of me and my mom. “Let me go change and we can go to the police station together.”
We walk together to the trailer and taped to the aluminum door is a yellow flower and a note that simply says, “Good Luck Tonight!”
“That’s sweet,” she says.
I remove the flower and note and open the door. She follows me in and I leave them on the table. “You can wait out here. I’ll do a quick change behind the curtain.”
I pull the curtain across the opening and I hear easily on the other side. “That whole thing at the bar last night was crazy. You don’t think the guy that said all that stuff to you could be writing these letters, do you? He seems to have a problem with women.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “The guys said he’s just a jerk and always has been. I’d never met him before and didn’t really get a creeper vibe off of him. Just an asshole vibe.”
She snorts. “We should probably tell the police about him, though.”
“Good idea.” I change into a T-shirt and shorts. I’m sticky from the sunscreen but a shower will have to wait. I open the curtain and see her looking at a photo of me and all the guys on the beach from last summer. Ivy took it and sent to me while I was at school.
“They seem like good friends.”
“They are.”
“And Avery’s in the group?”
I shake my head. “No, not really. I mean, I think they’ve known him forever but they don’t hang with him much. I just met him this summer.”
“Oh, okay. He’s been helpful with a lot of the myths of Donald Gaskins. He’s super into it. Of course in a place like this it’s not hard to find people willing to talk. Most of it’s irrelevant.” She picks up the good luck note and studies it. Her lips turn down in a frown and she reaches in her pocket and retrieves the postcards. She holds them up to one another.
“What?”
“This lettering…it looks kind of similar.”