10/26

Salutations my dear friend,

I have been reduced to a sobbing mess. What have I done? My Grace is gone. I cannot believe it. My mind knows this to be true. But my heart. My traitorous heart refuses to believe my Grace is truly gone. How could I let the beast hurt her? The weight of what he has done is finally hitting me. For hours, I have paced the floor, letting my anger fuel my sleep-deprived body into taking one step after another as I try to erase the image of her with another man. It would not go away!

I am a failure. My weak attempt to calm the beast has failed.

No longer can I deny it...Grace is dead. She will soon be food for the worms. I can hear the beast growling inside me, victorious as she seemed the only way to calm him. His venomous tongue is licking away at my black soul. He is egging me on. She betrayed us. She deserved to die. Oh how I wish I could silence him.

Perhaps Grace and I could have worked past this misunderstanding? Perhaps that man was forcing himself upon her. The beast laughed at this thought for no woman would moan in ecstasy if she were being attacked. And Grace had moaned quite a few times. I had to finally agree with the beast just to stop him from taunting me any longer.

Still, my heart hurts. If only I could pull the disloyal muscle from my body. I would do it in a second.

My heart is about to explode. What is happening, my dear friend? What is wrong with me? Oh, how I wish I could undo last night. Is this regret? Please forgive me for the tears that stain your pages. I cannot stop them from flowing. If only I could drown myself in them...I would. I would do anything to escape the beast. Anything.

Yours until death, O

Lucy stared at the short cursive letters she now associated with O. His writing looked a bit different than usual-- almost frenzied. She recalled a magazine article she'd read about emotions having the ability to change a person's handwriting. Lucy wondered if O's handwriting changed when the beast wasn't tormenting him.

She could almost imagine O writing this entry, his nose running, his cheeks wet, and his breathing labored. She'd been so engrossed in this entry that she jumped when her cell phone rang.

"Lucy goosey, where are you?"

"Dillon?" Lucy looked at her watch. Jake had just left to go bowling with his friends.

"What are you doing while your boyfriend is bowling tonight?" Dillon asked.

Lucy could hear loud music through the phone. "Where are you at?"

"Hypnotic. You want to join us?" Dillon said loudly, attempting to be heard over the music.

"Us?"

"Me and some friends. C'mon Lucy goosey...you know you want to. If you don't, you'll be home alone."

"I don't really go to clubs these days," Lucy responded. The truth was she didn't go to clubs at all. She didn't trust herself to be around that much alcohol.

"C'mon, Lucy. I'm here so you'll be fine."

"You don't sound so fine right now," Lucy muttered.

"I'm just happy! Come get me or I'll be here all night. I'm at Hypnotic."

"I'm not your babysitter, Dillon."

"No, but you're my friend, right? Aren't we friends?"

Lucy sighed. "Of course we're friends."

"Then, come get me. I need a friend to talk to."

"I thought you said you were happy?" Lucy asked at Dillon's sad tone. "Should I call Donna?"

"No! She'll make a big deal out of nothing. Besides, I'll be happy once you get here." Before she could get a word in edge-wise, he shouted, "I'll be waiting for you!"

Lucy tried to call him back but he didn't answer. She cursed because he knew she couldn't drive over there.

"I should just let him wait. I don't have time for these dumb games." Lucy put the journal away and a twinge of guilt hit her. She thought of Harry's warning about O looking for his journal.

Lucy tried to shrug off her worries. If O was truly looking for his journal, wouldn't he have come searching for it by now? She let that thought console her as she grabbed her phone to text Jake that she'd be out of the house for a few hours.

Thirty minutes later, she found herself out of dress code at Hypnotic in her black jeans and Minnie Mouse top. She walked past the bouncer who shook his head in laughter as she explained, "I'm here for a friend."

As she made her way through the crowd of people, a tall man bumped into her. Lucy could feel the cold liquid of the two drinks he held in his hands, spill onto her hair and down her back.

"Sorry about that," the man slurred. "Can I make it up with a drink?"

Lucy scowled at the drunk man before making her way to the bathroom to dry herself off.

"Great. Now I smell like beer," Lucy said sarcastically.

She grabbed some paper towels and blotted her hair and shirt as the air dryer was out of order. She did the best she could but the smell of alcohol didn't escape her. She could smell it on herself and it bothered her. She exited the woman's bathroom, determined to let Dillon fend for himself. She was going to take a cab home.

"Lucy!" a familiar voice shouted her name. "You came!"

Lucy looked to her left to see Dillon waving his arms in the air. She didn't smile at him in return. Instead, she scowled and walked towards the exit. Dillon pushed himself through the dancing people and grabbed her arm.

"Where are you going?"

She slapped his hand away. "Home!"

"I need to talk to you!" Dillon yelled as he dragged her to a corner of the club that wasn't so loud.

Once they were in a quieter spot, Lucy pulled her arm out of his grasp. "Dillon, this better be important."

"Are you mad?" Dillon asked, surprised.

"Well, I'm definitely not happy."

"What happened? Why do you smell like-"

"Beer?" Lucy finished for him, "Maybe because some guy just spilled his drink on me. Having to be the victim of a Budweiser waterfall isn't exactly my idea of a good evening, Dillon. Why did you call me out here?"

"I'm sorry. I should've just dealt with things on my own. I shouldn't have bugged you. Especially since your boyfriend doesn't like me."

Lucy rolled her eyes. "Well it's too late for that now. What's wrong?"

"I just wanted someone to talk to."

"I thought you were here with friends. You can't talk to them?"

"They're drinking."

Lucy stayed quiet. She wanted to ask him why he just didn't make sober friends and didn't visit places serving alcohol, but decided to keep quiet.

"I was just feeling bad about my family and stuff. I was thinking of my brother. That's all."

Lucy remembered Dillon's brother was the victim O killed at the gas station.

"I'm sorry Dillon."

He shrugged. "It's okay. I just don't want to be alone. You know?"

She understood not wanting to be alone. She felt alone most of the time with Jake out of town. Lucy frowned. She hadn't really thought about it before. Maybe that's why she'd been so consumed with the journal? She had even broken into a stranger's house and stole a picture.

"Picture!" Lucy said aloud as she remembered leaving it behind at Dillon's loft.

"Picture?" Dillon repeated.

"Sorry, I just remembered I left a picture at your loft. Did you happen to see it?"

Dillon's brow furrowed as he looked down and asked, "You were the one who left that picture?"

"Yes, can I have it next time we meet?"

"I think I might have seen it. I'm not sure where it's at now," he answered, his eyes not quite meeting hers.

"Crap," Lucy whispered. "Well, if you find it let me know."

Dillon gave a weak smile and nodded.

Across the room, the flashing lights of the club were hurting his eyes.

"I'm getting too old for this crap," Detective Holden Lahr muttered as the bartender gave him another strange look.

Holden frowned as he turned away from the tattooed woman who had given him his drink and looked into the crowd of sweaty bodies as they danced to some techno song he didn't recognize.

The beer he had been pretending to drink for the past fifteen minutes was getting warm and he still hadn't seen Dillon Sheffield. He had stopped by Dillon's loft earlier only to find out from a neighbor that he wasn't there.

"He won't be home tonight either," his neighbor, a woman wearing too much black leather and lipstick, told him.

"And how do you know that?" Holden had responded wryly.

She rolled her eyes and answered, "He's going to be at Hypnotic. He's almost always there on Wednesday nights."

Holden wasn't surprised Dillon liked to hang out at a club during his free time. However, it did surprise him that Dillon was a recovering alcoholic that had no problem being in a place that served so many alcoholic beverages.

Holden really wanted to question Dillon Sheffield. If it meant exposing his ears to music that he considered noise pollution...so be it.

He looked around the club to see a face he didn't expect.

"Lucy Hanson...what are you doing here?" Holden smirked as he spotted who Lucy was with. He stood up and put his beer on the bar.

As he made his way closer to the two of them, Dillon looked up. As soon as Dillon saw him, he said something to Lucy and quickly moved away from her. Holden wasn't going to let Dillon get away from him. He began following him through the gyrating bodies, shoving people only when he really needed to. Suddenly, the lights turned off completely with the exception of blue strobe lights. Holden couldn't see anyone, much less Dillon.

"Detective Lahr?" Lucy shouted behind him. He turned around and laughed at her Minnie Mouse shirt before giving up on finding Dillon.

Fifteen minutes later, Lucy was in front of her home, courtesy of Detective Lahr, "Thanks. It's much faster to travel with you than by bus."

"So, do you always cheat on your boyfriend with Dillon or is it just when he's not around?" Holden asked, gripping the steering wheel.

"Excuse me?" Lucy asked, clearly offended.

Holden shrugged. "I'm just trying to figure out what kind of woman you are, Lucy."

"The 'none of your business kind.' How dare you say something like that to me," Lucy sneered as she grabbed her purse and opened her door.

"You should make better decisions. You smell like booze. I thought you were trying to stay sober."

Lucy didn't have a reply. Instead, she just slammed the door with an ungrateful sounding, "Thanks."

She stormed up her driveway, cursing men in general as she made her way into her home. She quickly ran upstairs to take a shower before Jake returned home from bowling. She dressed herself in some warm-ups and was just done drying her hair when she heard her doorbell ring.

She wasn't expecting anyone. She walked to the living room and peered out the peep hole. No one was there. She walked to her kitchen, turning on all of the lights in the house, when she heard a tapping noise coming from the study. Lucy stilled, wondering what the noise could be. She held her cellphone as she walked towards the study. She quickly pushed open the door and saw no one.

"I'm losing it," Lucy whispered as she looked around.

Her eyes fell on her desk and she thought of Harry's words, "That if the owner of that diary really felt it was important...he would come looking for it."

"No." Lucy shook her head. "It can't be." She pulled out her cellphone and called Jake to make herself feel better but his phone was off. It went straight to voicemail.

Lucy walked back to the kitchen and noticed that the lights she had just turned on, were now off. "What the hell?" Lucy quickly dialed 911, too afraid to move from outside the doorway of the study.

Once the emergency operator answered, Lucy whispered, "I think someone is in my house with me."

The dispatcher asked for address and Lucy was about to answer when she heard the crashing sound of glass breaking coming from the study. She screamed and looked in from the doorway to see a large brick near the now broken window. She stepped forward, ignoring the dispatcher that was asking her if she was alright.

Lucy looked down, a keening sound coming from her throat.

Attached to the brick was a note, written in a familiar cursive handwriting were the words, "I found you."