Author Bio: I like to read fiction books. I love reading. I like swimming, and playing outside.
Blurb: Abi Dunbar just lost her best friend and is determined to find the person that killed her.
It is nine on a Thursday and I have just finished my homework when the doorbell rings. In my head, I am thinking who could that be.
As I walk to the door my mom yells down the stairs, “Can you get that Abi?”
As I yell back the doorbell rings again more persistent this time.
As I run toward the door I yell, “Coming.”
I open the door and there is a short, kind of plump looking police officer in his late thirties or early forties standing there.
He says, “ Abi Dunbar, you are under arrest for the murder of Emily Peterson.”
He seems completely oblivious to my cries of outrage.
As his words register in my mind I freeze, and start screaming.
My mom comes rushing down the stairs to me and asks, “ Is there a problem officer?”
He replies, “Yes, there is. Your daughter is under arrest for the murder of Emily Peterson.”
She starts to say that I was home all night but the officer cuts her off in a rude way and says that as I was the last person to see her alive that means I’m the number one suspect.
With that, he pulls me out the door and into the police car. I don’t remember the five-minute ride to the station. When we get to the station I got snapped back to reality as I had just been zapped with lightning. I am told that I have to go in a white room so blinding it felt as though I had been looking directly at the sun. Five minutes later a tall sharp looking women comes in with a handheld recorder. She sits down opposite me.
She says in a soft voice for such a fierce looking woman “Please state your full name, age, and address for me.”
Normally I am a shy person but now my body is so full of adrenalin so I say, “ My name is Abi Dunbar, I’m 16, and I live on 129 Israel Head road in Ogunquit, Maine,” In quite a loud voice.
“Can you tell me why you are here?”
I shake my head and say that I have no idea why I’m here.
****
When I get out of the room my mom is waiting for me outside. She pulls me into a tight hug and whispers into my hair how sorry she is. When she says that, all the tears that I have been holding back all night, come spilling out in one big wave of emotion I can’t control.
She takes me home and puts me in the living room on our huge dark gray couch. She makes me a huge mug of steaming cocoa covered in fresh whipped cream that has a hint of peppermint. She used to do this when I was a kid and woke up screaming for my dad who died after a long, hard battle with cancer when I was two. This makes me feel a little better. But I still have an ache in my heart, knowing I’ll be waking up in the night for a long time. When my eyes finally shut, I drift off into a peaceful sleep.
I wake up to my mom gently shaking me. She looks at me with the same sad eyes she had looked at me with right after my dad died. After I get up she makes me a breakfast of huge, round, warm pancakes with lots of syrup. A few minutes after she leaves for work someone rings the doorbell.
When I get to the door and open it, a girl that I thought went to my school, is standing there. She says that her name is Emma Young and that we had some classes together. She has heard about Emily.
After we talk for a little bit she tells me the real reason she is here. It is that for a little over a month she has been getting some odd letters with no return address on them. She says that inside were very detailed pictures of different murders that were going to happen. At first, she thought it was some kids playing a mean prank on her, but when the murders actually started happening she got really scared. She was the only one who could help the police, but did she not want to get to them because then she could get arrested. She knows that if she finds the person that is sending her the letters she will find a killer. They are so detailed only someone who knew what was going to happen could have sent them.
She shows me some of the pictures she has with her. All of the pictures are horrible and gory ways to die. Some show people who were shot, others that were cut with a knife and had bled to death. All of them happened sometime over the past year and a half. Some made the news but those were the ones of the famous millionaires who had been killed.
****
The next day Emma and I go down to the ocean off the path by my house. As we were walking she trips and falls on something. When she gets up we see that she tripped over a knife handle sticking out of the ground. Carefully, so we don’t get fingerprints on it, we pick it up and take it back to my house.
After we call the police they say they will be there in 15 minutes. They get there, see the knife, and dust it for prints. When they find one full print and put it through their system, they find it belongs to someone named Cole Damron. As they say this I realize I know that name. It takes me a minute, but then I remember I had Math with him in school.
When we go to see if he is at his house we find the door locked and all the lights off. We walk back to my house and stay there the rest of the afternoon thinking about how we can get both of our names cleared.
Then it comes to us, we can catch the killer on our own. So we put together a plan. We will meet at my house each night and go out looking for him with the help of the pictures that Emma had. When we find him we will take him back to the police.
We soon find that this is going to be harder than we thought it was going to be. We keep looking and talking about who he might kill next. When my mom comes home it is obvious that the police have called her. She says that we can not have anything to do with this investigation on hers and polices’ orders. Emma and I share a knowing look that plainly says that we are going to take part in the investigation.
****
When she gets to my house the next day, we decide that we will go to the Nubble lighthouse. We think that since most of the murders have happened around there we might be able to find some clue of where he has gone. When we get there, there are a lot of people out, as it is on a nice day. One of the best we have had in months.
We take the ferry across the water to get to the island that the lighthouse is on. Once on the ferry, I think I catch a glimpse of Cole, but then I think that it might be my mind playing tricks on me. Then I think I see him again. This time I think that he might be here for real and it isn’t my mind playing tricks on me. When I tell Emma this she walks calmly over to where I thought I had seen him. She stands there not saying anything just looking like she is staring blankly at the ocean and not looking for a killer.
When she comes back to me she says that it is definitely him, not just someone who looked like him. When we get off the boat we lose him in the dozens of people on the island. As soon as everybody gets off the boat the tour guide stats by saying that his name is Jamie Nelson and that the tour of the island will last 45 minutes to an hour. We see that Cole is in our group.
When we get to the end of the tour, Jamie asked the group, “What year was the lighthouse made it?”
Cole and Emma are the only two that raise their hands.
Jamie picks Cole and he answers, “It was built in 1879 by the government.”
After that, we have 20 minutes to ourselves. Emma and I go into the gift shop and we each get some snacks and water.
When I get back from paying I see Cole again.
I walk over and said, “Hi.”
He turns and runs.
Seeing him coming towards her, Emma yells, “Ahh!”
She sees that it is him and pulls her phone out and says, “I’m going to call the police.”
He gets up and sprints toward the dock and the ferry.
As she is calling the police he gets to his feet and sprints to the boat and leaps onto it as it is pulling out of the dock.
We have to wait 10 minutes till the next ferry comes, and we can get back to the other side. By the time we get over there he is gone, and no one has seen which way he went.
"What do we do next?" I asked.
"I don't know," she replied. "We don't even know where he's staying."
"Well, then that needs to be the first thing we do."
"Okay, where do we start?"
When we get back to my house, we go to all the houses around my house and Emma's to see if anybody has seen someone that looked like Cole. No one has.
When we get home my mom has all kinds of questions.
"Where have you been?" she asks suspiciously.
"Nowhere," I respond. "We went to a lighthouse."
The last thing I need is her asking too many questions and figuring out what we are trying to do.
****
The next day we go back to the lighthouse, but this time we go at night so we get to see the lights lit up. When we get on the ferry we see Cole is on it with us.
When we get to the lighthouse we walk over to him and ask, “Can we stand with you?”
He says, “Yes.”
When I go to the bathroom I call the police and say, “We found Cole. We need you to get down to the Nubble lighthouse.”
They say, “We will be there in half an hour.”
I go out to wait with Emma and Cole.
When the police get here they look like regular people, not officers. When they come over to talk to me Cole doesn’t notice.
"What's your name, kid?"
“Cole.” He replies.
They yell, “Freeze! And put your hands up!”
At first, he tries to run away, but they yell after him, “Even if you get to the ferry there are officers on the other side.”
When he stops running he does as they tell him to do, and they arrest him on the spot.
The following day I get called down to the station. When I get there I am told that Cole wants to speak to me.
When I go down to the interrogation room he sees me and starts yelling something I can’t hear.
When I go into the room he says in a rush, “I’m sorry I killed your friend Emily, I did it for attention and I now see that I could have gotten it other ways.”
Before I leave the station the police officer who came to my house on the night Emily died says he is very sorry I had to go through all of this and he hopes I never have to again.
And with that, I leave the way I did the first day. Holding back tears as I go out to find Emma and my mom waiting for me with outstretched arms. I run to them, crying. Crying that it is all over. No more worrying as I fall asleep that I will get up the next day and get dragged down to the station again. Crying because even though this is over I have still lost my only best friend, and at the same time I got a new one too.