Chapter 159 – An Eye on the Inside – Silver Brooks

The plan to reunite Perri and Jin with the rest of the gang went off without a hitch. Well, mostly… Me, Perri, and a few of our other girlfriends had a meeting at Sam’s place early on Sunday morning. This was a laidback breakfast get-together where we could talk about things in a relaxed setting.

Perri was upset over losing the vote, but conceded in the end. She accepted that it was probably best to keep the group together with only a few months of school left. With so many senior girls graduating, including Sam and Perri themselves, there was a chance for a permanent split if Perri continued acting out on her own.

So Perri begrudgingly gave in and made peace with Sam. Sam’s sister Ash still wanted the two of them to duke it out, saying that it was the only way things could be truly settled. Unsurprisingly, Ash also had a bit of a ‘troubled-girl’ phase back when she was our age. Perri was greatly interested in her so Ash gave us a long-winded tale about her days in high school.

Perri felt the need to brag about her own fighting skills. She told everyone, and I mean everyone, about how she so boldly stood up to the Killing Cat. I had to slap my palm into my face upon hearing her retelling of the story. She left out all the details about the ‘spirit of Malorie’ and what Holly said to her.

Rather, Perri explained how Jin was unfairly jumped and how she had to step in to valiantly fend off the Killing Cat. This led to Jin trying to defend herself by saying that it was actually her who scared off the Killing Cat. After all, the Killing Cat was leaving just as she was getting off the ground and preparing to retaliate.

No one believed them. When I was asked about the event in question I simply played dumb as Jin and Perri continued to argue. That could’ve gone worse. Fortunately I learned a thing or two from watching Holly’s deception tactics firsthand. After breakfast the group separated without any follow up questions about our supposed run-in with the Killing Cat.

I explained everything to Holly over the phone and she shared my sentiment. She also complimented me on handling everything by myself. I couldn’t accept that compliment. It was the Killing Cat that really scared Perri straight. All I did was help Holly facilitate things.

Speaking of which, Holly immediately recruited me for her next mission. It took an annoying amount of convincing to get my mother’s permission to go out for a second time in the same day. My dad was the one that tipped the scales in my favor. He was grateful that I was rebounding from the abduction attempt so readily and felt like I shouldn’t be locked away as a result.

Thus, when Alyssa came to pick me up, my mom warned me multiple times about arriving back on time. She wasn’t familiar with Alyssa which made her even more nervous. Alyssa took the time to introduce herself as ‘Holly Hayfield’s best friend’, which was more than a little dubious. Holly herself would probably say she had no specific best friend at the moment.

It worked out in the end. My mother was a lot less concerned about me going with Alyssa when Alyssa told her that Holly would be joining us. As easy as that, we were able to set off for Autumn Eden without any further questions. I was surprised to learn that Holly wasn’t there when we arrived in the main operations room.

“You haven’t picked up Holly yet?” I asked Alyssa as I walked in.

Alyssa sat down at one of the computers in the research area of the room.

“Holly’s on bike today. She rented one of those electric ones from the service at the park. She doesn’t need a ride from me.”

“I got the impression that she was already here when she called me earlier.”

“She was. She left for an intelligence gathering mission.”

“Intelligence gathering…?”

“She went to Sarah Rivera’s home in another disguise. She’s trying to gather more information on Sarah before she goes in for the kill.”

Holly was moving between goals faster than I expected. While we were taking off our disguises on Friday night I asked her about her plans for Sarah Rivera. She wasn’t very talkative. She said that she was still debating the specifics herself. She mentioned before that she wanted to steer her targets towards the police. Was that her current plan?

I walked over to where Alyssa was sitting and flipped through some of the papers on the desk. The papers were printouts containing information on Sarah Rivera’s home. At the top of the stack was a satellite image of the neighborhood she lived in, as well as a few street view pictures just in front of her house. There was even a floor plan image from the website of the house’s previous seller.

“She’s going to kill her?” I asked.

Alyssa gave me an unusually mystified look.

“Killing is what the Killing Cat does, yes.” Alyssa said. “Why wouldn’t she? Sarah Rivera is on her list.”

“Did Holly ever tell you that she wants to do things differently? Did she talk about delivering her enemies into police custody?”

Alyssa looked down at the papers I was fiddling with and thought about it sincerely.

“Hmm… I think she did mention something along those lines…” Alyssa said. “But I just assumed that she was speaking her mind freely. I don’t know if she actually meant it.”

“I think she meant it.” I said. “Think about it like this. Ms. Sampson has been under police pressure for a long time now. If one of her former accomplices were to go against her…”

“Do you think they would?” Alyssa asked. “The stakes are too high for their entire conspiracy group. It’s bigger than any individual member. Besides, considering what they did to Malorie, I think they deserve the Killing Cat’s knife instead.”

And here I was just beginning to believe that Alyssa was a somewhat normal, good girl. Her opinion wasn’t wholly unexpected, given that she was actively helping the Killing Cat. I just hoped that she’d see the value in taking down Ms. Sampson at the same time. If Sarah Rivera sang to the police then it would be two birds with one stone.

I was pulled out of my thoughts when I heard a high-pitched ringing noise in the distance.

“Do you hear that?” I asked Alyssa.

“Hear what…?” Alyssa asked.

“It sounds like there’s something going on in the hallway. I’ll go take a look.”

“Okay.” Alyssa said. “I’ll clean up this desk while you’re gone. Things in the research area have been getting a little messy and disorganized…”

I left the room to search for the source of the odd sound. As I walked down that hall I was more certain that it was a whistle sound. Eventually I turned one of the corners and found Helga talking to someone. The girl had dark red hair, thick black glasses, a nose piercing, and was wearing delivery clothing.

This delivery girl was clutching a brown package with both hands. She let the whistle drop out of her mouth when she saw me.

“Oh hey… So there are more people in this decrepit old place.” The girl said. “I have a delivery of five bags of bubblegum purchased online. There’s no proper recipient name. It just has the address for this half-demolished building and says ‘To the Crazy Old Fortune-Teller Lady’. Is that one of you?”

Helga huffed angrily with her hands on her hips.

“I’m telling you for the final time that I didn’t order anything! So stop blowing your obnoxious whistle! And I don’t go by ‘Crazy Old Fortune-Teller Lady’! Whoever sent you is playing a prank!”

“It may be a gift.” The delivery girl suggested. “Anyways, can you sign for it so I can get back to my delivery route…? I’ve got a schedule to beat or I’ll get yelled at by my boss again.”

Helga thought about it for a moment before letting her hands fall from her hips with a sigh of defeat.

“Fine… I guess… Maybe it was sent from a former follower of mine… Free gum, I guess… Where do I sign for it?” Helga asked.

The delivery girl pulled a pen out of her shirt pocket and offered it to Helga. Helga reached out for the delivery girl’s pen, but I stopped her. I took Helga by the arm and pointed at the delivery girl. The delivery girl smirked deviously.

“Helga.” I said flatly. “This isn’t some poor delivery girl that got lost and confused. This is Holly being mischievous.”

“What?!” Helga shouted.

Holly burst out laughing and dropped the box she was carrying. She laughed so hard that she fell down to her knees, wrapping her arms around her abdominal region.

“Five full minutes, Helga!” Holly said between bursts of hysterical laughter. “Five full minutes of you not recognizing who the hell I was! Ahaha! I wish I had this on camera! That was great!”

“You little demon!” Helga shouted angrily. “I never should’ve let you have a room here! I can’t believe you…! You…!”

Helga turned around and stormed off angrily.

“Wait!” Holly called out while still crying with laughter. “Don’t you want some bubblegum!”

Helga didn’t respond and simply continued marching off. I helped Holly back up from the ground. She picked up her box and opened it to show me its contents. It really did contain multiple bags of gum. She was prepared for this joke.

“I’ll give some to Helga when she cools down.” Holly said. “Let’s head to the operations room. There’s a lot we need to discuss.”

Holly went to go get changed before meeting us in the main room. When Holly returned she sat down at one of the computers. I took a seat beside her. Alyssa sat on the other side of Holly. Holly opened up a desktop application that I was unfamiliar with.

“Behold…” She said theatrically.

An image appeared in the application’s display window. Not an image, but a video stream! This video stream seemed random at first. It was just a black-and-white video of a living room area with nothing else going on. It looked like something out of a candid camera show or amateur prank video. Then I realized.

“This is Sarah’s house, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Bingo.” Holly confirmed.

“But… How…?”

Holly turned away from the laptop screen to wave her finger at me teasingly.

“You of all people should be familiar with this.” Holly said. “I mean, you had my Nyx doll for so long before it ran out of juice.”

It took me a moment of silent stupor to piece things together. Holly’s earlier delivery girl disguise was the thing that gave it away.

“So you managed to convince Sarah that you were a delivery girl dropping off some sort of gift, the same way you were teasing Helga earlier?” I asked. “I’ve got to say, I’m surprised that she took the bait.”

“It was packaged like a gift from a loyal subscriber to her news blog. She didn’t ask me any questions and just quietly accepted the package. It may not be her first time receiving a gift like that. That works out well for us.”

I turned back to the video stream to look around Sarah’s living room. The doll was nestled into one of her living room chairs. We had a pretty good view of the entire area. It was a messy room with dirty dishes left aside, clothes lying randomly on the furniture, and papers strewn about the place.

“It looks like she doesn’t get many visitors.” Alyssa noted.

I shook my head in disbelief.

“I still can’t believe this actually worked. Like, where the hell do you even buy this sort of thing? What is this application? Don’t tell me you made this yourself…”

“It’s actually just a type of baby monitor. It’s a video camera and microphone in the form of a generic bear doll.” Holly explained. “You can buy one on basically any major online retailor or electronics store. The software is a download from the company’s website. They cost a bit of money since this type uses cellular data instead of a wifi connection.”

“You set up a subscription just for this?” I asked.

“It’s fine. I don’t plan to be subscribed for long.”

“When are you going after Sarah?” I asked.

“Tonight.” Holly said. “I’ve already got a good sense of the layout of her place by now and it looks like she isn’t expecting any visitors. I got a good look at the door’s lock while I was there. It should be well within the range of my modest lockpicking skills. As long as nothing changes…”

“Isn’t this a little soon?” I asked in surprise. “I thought you planned on doing things differently?”

Holly looked between me and the live video feed.

“She’s all alone and not suspecting anything. This may be the best chance that I get. She seems already suspicious of the Killing Cat. I don’t want her to have enough time to change the locks on her doors or install cameras or something. Now is the best time to strike.”

“What about the police?” I asked. “Didn’t you want the police to handle things from now on?”

“I did, but I’m not sure how realistic that idea was.”

“If it works it could bring down Ms. Sampson along with Sarah!”

“I’m not saying the idea doesn’t have merit. I’m just saying that I’m not sure I could manufacture a situation where Sarah willingly cooperates with the police.” She said.

Holly pulled away from the computer screen and spun around in her chair absentmindedly.

“Besides, I’ve tried something like that before and it backfired.” Holly said. “That… That was a really depressing moment for me. I risked a lot and gained nothing but trouble.”

“What…? When?” I asked.

“Ms. Logan…” Alyssa asked curiously.

Holly stopped spinning in her chair and nodded solemnly.

“Ms. Logan.” Holly confirmed. “The entire point of killing her and throwing information about her past into the air was so that the police’s searchlight would be cast down on Ms. Sampson and Ms. Hoffman. My hope was that the already regretful Ms. Hoffman would crack under police pressure and reveal everything when the police came knocking at her door.”

“But…?” I asked when Holly stopped her explanation.

“She killed herself.” Holly said. “Instead of telling everyone the truth. Instead of admitting her faults, she chose the coward’s way out of that situation. There was absolutely no reason to commit suicide when working with the police would’ve been so much easier for her. I doubt they would’ve punished her harshly if she had just cooperated.”

“Sarah Rivera seems too mentally stable to do something like that.”

“Maybe, but looks can be deceiving. Ms. Hoffman chose to die rather than confess her shameful past and she didn’t even have a direct hand in the murder. There’s no telling what Sarah might do.”

“So you aren’t even going to try?” I asked. “You’re going to end up killing them all?”

Holly stared at me in a long, intense silence. I wondered if she was getting annoyed with my line of questioning, but when she stared up at the ceiling I got the impression that she was still thinking it over. She brought her hand to her mouth and bit her fingernails anxiously.

“I don’t know.” She said flatly. “I truly and honestly don’t know the best course of action. I’d hate to say that I’ve been winging it as the Killing Cat, but my final plan for the members of the conspiracy hasn’t been decided. I wanted a way for the full truth to be made public. I wanted them to confess, from the very start. It’s just not that easy.”

I bit my lip.

“I can tell that this is eating away at you so I’ll stop pestering you about it.” I said.

Holly shook her head.

“No, it’s fine. It’s a reasonable question. I was the one who mentioned that I wanted to change things in the first place. It’s just that I don’t know if it’ll work. It’s hard to separate my drive for justice for Malorie from my drive for vengeance. It’s good to have someone that makes me think about these things.”

“You’ll have to decide soon.” Alyssa said. “If you’re going after her tonight then you don’t have much time.”

Holly went back to watching the video stream. Sarah Rivera was just now walking back into her living room. She gave the camera-doll a brief glance before picking up the TV remote and flipping through channels. In this perspective she looked incredibly normal, like anyone else who might get off work and relax by watching television.

“She seems so plain.” I noted.

“She does.” Alyssa agreed. “But that plain woman was instrumental in covering up Malorie’s murder in the beginning stages. We can’t let her get away with it.”

Holly stood up out of her chair.

“I’ve come to a decision. Alyssa, help me brew some poisons and get my gear together. I’m going out tonight.”