Chapter 9: The Game Begins

To prove he wasn’t making it up, Derek took me to his house to show me the evidence.

"The main reason I thought the package was from you is that the person put it straight in my house."

At the time, he was living at the hospital with his daughter, so he’d given me a set of keys to check on things.

"If it were me, why wouldn’t I just hand it to you? Only I could’ve left something like that."

The sender claimed he’d seen, from a distance, two figures pushing Rachel off the building. He never went to the police—said he wasn’t sure. Recently, he met a psychic at a county fair who warned him a vengeful spirit was after him. He started dreaming of Rachel, night after night, her ghost demanding his life.

So he mailed the package to Derek, using the reunion as an excuse to watch everyone’s reaction and flush out the killer.

After reading it, I sneered:

"And you actually buy this stuff? A psychic and ghost stories?"

"You don’t?"

Seeing Derek’s dumbfounded face, I realized my worries were pointless—he was too gullible, too desperate for closure.

"Never mind whether he saw anything. Anybody who listens to a fortune teller about ghosts isn’t thinking straight. I know you miss Rachel, but we gotta stick to the facts."

He looked lost. "But that person said he’d be watching and told me to wait for his next message."

My heart skipped a beat. So that’s it—everyone playing their part, the game moving on.

Luckily, I was too nervous to give myself away. But with these two fools, I probably didn’t need to worry.

I just hoped Jason hadn’t slipped up. I’d call him when I got home, just to be sure.

But before I could, Jason called me first, voice tight and breathless.