I stood there in shock, staring at the contents on the floor. My hands were shaking and a gasp fell from my lips as I dropped to my knees. Pain erupted from them as I knelt on the hardwood floor, but that was the least of my concerns.
I picked up one of the pictures, it wasn't her full body, none of them were. No, this picture was of the side of her face and collarbone. The other pictures were different parts of her body, her arm, or her leg. Her skin was ghostly pale, torn up and covered in dried blood. What I could see of her lips were blue, a side effect of being drowned in freezing waters.
I dropped the picture and wrapped my arms around myself. It was all coming back.
I've never known death closely before Karley, never been to a funeral or seen the devastation a family faces when their loved one was gone, until that day.
I remember it now like it was yesterday. Going into Karley's room to tell her about something, and forgetting whatever it was almost instantly when I discovered my sister wasn't in her room. It was too early for her to be downstairs, so my thought was that she had snuck out without telling me. I texted her a few times, and of course, she never answered.
I only started to get really suspicious when it was around 8 am, and she never came back. Little did I know she had taken her last breaths at around midnight that morning.
The police came at noon, by then the house was in hysterics. We were trying to figure out where she went. We had called all of her friends to ask where she was, but no one had a clue. By the time the police came to the door we knew, or at least I did.
When they told us she was gone, the house that once buzzed with worry and frustrated calls went still. There was an all-consuming silence, like the one before a storm. It seemed that even the birds had stopped chirping at that moment, the house had stopped creaking and everyone had stopped breathing.
Then it came.
The cries of my mother echoed through the house as she fell to her knees much as I had now. There was this feeling that came, it was … horrible. Grief.
Now, as I knelt on the floor that feeling had returned once more, just as strong as it had that morning. It was an intense type of despair, it crawled under my skin and racked through me tearing me apart from the inside out. You begin to drown in an endless pool of anguish, you feel like your suffocating when really you're breathing just fine. Suffocating, not breathing at all would be a gift because every breath of crisp air you take is an everlasting reminder that it's real. That you're alive, and they're not, that a life without them is the life you're now living. My heart was beating erratically and my breathing came out in pants as the tears began to fall. Fat droplets of salty tears clouded my vision, and I was thankful for it, I didn't want to see in that moment. I didn't want to hear or think. I didn't want to feel, but I did, I felt it all.
I don't know how long I spent kneeling on the floor, I was in some sort of daze. I just knelt there for what felt like an eternity, staring at my hands because I was too afraid to look up at it, at her.
The sound of hysterical crying brought me out of my trance, and as it did, the feeling of anguish, despair and grief turned to a feeling of all-consuming rage.
I stood on shaking legs and walked out of the room towards the crying, I passed Connor on the way out of the room, he looked as bad as I felt. Sometimes I forgot that he and Karley were best friends, in moments like these I forgot that he was also grieving and today only made it worse.
I walked into my parents' bedroom and found them holding each other. My dad held my mom while she cried and screamed. They broke apart when I came into the room.
Back in paradise, before Karley died, things were… different. My parents were energetic, charismatic and funny. My dad was always joking about something and my mom would laugh no matter how lame the joke really was. They took us out for walks and cheered at Karley's soccer games. I used to look at them and feel overwhelming warmth and love, but now as I looked at them, it felt like I was staring at a pair of strangers. They weren't the same and that only made loving them worse.
"What were you doing? How could you not realize that someone was in your house, and in your daughter's room!?" I was so angry at them, not only for this but for the past two years they've put me through. I tried not to hold it against them, I knew they were struggling but at some point holding in your resentment just doesn't work. I knew I'd explode eventually, and I guess the time had come.
"Annie, your mom and I-"
"What. What excuse could you possibly have now! I leave for a few hours and someone gets into the house without you knowing? In her room without you knowing?"
"You don't get to be mad at us Annie, it's been hard for-"
"Hard? You know nothing about hard. For the past two years, I've had to deal with Karley's death by myself! I talked to the police, I went to her funeral, and I took care of myself alone! Without you! You just faded into the background and forgot you had another daughter that needed you! You made me go to the funeral alone! You weren't here, not for one minute!" I was screaming at the top of my lungs now, it was just too much, all of it.
All the anger and resentment I had towards them for letting me fend for myself was coming back. All the pain I felt from not having Karley around to go on walks with me and talk about the future, it was all overflowing. I knew my parents were struggling, but so was I.
When I finished speaking it was quiet, they never said anything. They just looked at me.
I felt regret, despite everything, I shouldn't have exploded like that.
Karley would be so disappointed.
That thought snapped me out of my anger, it felt like someone had thrown a bucket of cold water on me. And In my clarity, I saw my parents, truly saw them. Their regret, their grief, their anguish, but most of all the hurt. I hurt them.
"Annie, the cops are here" Connor appeared in the doorway, his hair was a mess from him running his hands through it, it was a habit he had when he was distressed.
I whirled around, I never called the cops, I didn't want the cops involved because that would interfere with my plans to catch the person myself. The cops' involvement would make it way harder for me to investigate. And despite my better judgment, the part of me that knew Connor cared about me and would never purposefully hurt me told me that he hadn't called the police knowing it would be a setback. That part of me told me he called because he cared and his intentions were pure.
I walked out of my parents' room and down the stairs. The door was open and two police officers stood at the doorway.
One of them was a shorter man, he was sort of...round? He had his hands behind his back as he looked around, he rocked from his heel to toe and back again. The other man was much taller than he was, he was leaner too.
They looked up when they saw Connor and I walking down the stairs. When we were in front of them, the taller one of the pair spoke.
"So, what seems to be the problem?"
-----------------
It had been hours since the police arrived, and they still hadn't left. Karley's room was being treated as a crime scene and my parents were still being questioned. All of that was relatively fine, I suppose it was standard procedure, the only worries I had were the pictures. Once they had gone over everything in the room they would probably take it all with them, her belongings and the pictures. That would be a problem
I had stepped out of the house for some fresh air. Connor was consoling my mom while my dad was being questioned again.
I just needed to get away for a moment and clear my head. I never really got a moment to process everything that had just happened without all the emotions flooding in. I needed to think rationally, the time for mourning would come later.
Karley's murderer was in my house, in her room, maybe even in my room. They probably took something or left something behind. My thoughts were whirling, and the thought had occurred to me, everything that had happened today might just be a good thing. Getting the stuff in that room back from the police was probably going to be hard, but I've never been so close.
I was thinking of ways I could get back the items when my phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out and almost dropped my phone after reading the message. It was from an unknown number and right away I knew it was from Karley's murderer, the person that haunted me for years, the hooded figure in her window.
"Never took you as the snitching type, Annie."
I was going to kill that bastard.