Deadly Hallows (The Dead Ringer Series Book 1) Read online

  The sound of the front door opening startled me out of my thoughts.

  “Casey?” my mom yelled, her voice sounding strained with worry. I heard the front door slam as she rushed into the living room, most likely following the sound of the TV. “Oh, thank God,” she murmured, coming toward me and leaning down to kiss my forehead and stroke my hair. “I was so worried. I heard about this murder business at work and the only thing I was told about the victim was that she was a young female with blonde hair.” I didn’t bother asking how she knew the hair color of the victim. She worked with Mrs. Dawson, the wife of our town’s police chief, and the president of the unofficial club for the town gossipers.

  “I’m fine. I came straight home after school so you’d know I was okay,” I told her, feeling comforted by her presence. “They just released the victim’s name.”

  “Who was it?” she questioned slowly, sitting on the couch next to me.

  “Sophie Peters,” I spoke, our eyes meeting. “She was only fifteen.”

  My mom’s blue eyes clouded over, and she looked like she had just seen a ghost. Her hands began shaking so I wrapped an arm around her waist and hugged her to me, resting my head on her shoulder.

  “What’s wrong, Mom? Did you know her?”

  “No, not at all,” she replied hurriedly. She let out a deep sigh, and wrapped her arm around my shoulder. Leaning her head on mine, she mumbled, “It’s just so sad to think about what her parents must be feeling right now. She was so young. No parent should outlive their child.”

  I closed my eyes tightly, picturing a grieving set of parents, and her older brother, all huddled together in tears. I had only met them briefly, but it was hard to imagine seeing Mason without Sophie. I would see them together in school, and they seemed inseparable. I couldn’t even imagine the pain Mason and his family were feeling. The only death I had experienced personally was when my cat, Scooter, had died of old age when I was eight. My heart ached for this family that I barely knew because my small loss was nothing compared to losing a sibling, or a daughter.

  I felt a sob shake my mom’s body, an indication that she was crying even though I was unable to see her face.

  “Mom? Are you okay?” I questioned. I hadn’t seen my mother cry before, and it seemed odd for her to cry over someone she didn’t know. Maybe the news had affected her in more ways than I thought.

  She sniffled, hugging my body tighter to hers. “I just keep thinking, what if it had been you?”

  A few more sobs rocked through her body as her words filled my mind, along with the haunting image of Sophie’s face that was almost identical to mine. We looked so similar; too similar. What if it wasn’t meant to be Sophie? What if it was meant to be me?

  What if?

  Chapter 2

  Long Lost Twins

  I leaned forward, trying to block out the conversation next to me so I could hear the information Mr. Miller was teaching us. Of course, I was just as interested in finding out about the details of Sophie’s murder as everyone else in town, but I also needed to pass this upcoming math test. There’s a time and place for everything, and sitting in math class during a review for our upcoming test was not the right time nor place to talk about a murder.

  “The weirdest thing is that she was our age,” whispered Molly, a petite Asian girl who sat at my table. Her hair was cut short into a neat pixy style, but just long enough to fall into her eyes, a fact that I noticed regularly from how often she swiped at her bangs.

  “I know. It’s crazy. My mom put our house on a six o’clock curfew until the murderer is caught,” replied Brad, a guy whose strength surpassed his intelligence. Luckily for me, since he sat next to me, I had the pleasure of trying to block his prying eyes during any tests. Which was probably why he felt like he was able to chat instead of pay attention to the review. He would just try to cheat off of me anyway.

  Molly widened her eyes. “Six? My parents want me home every day as soon as school is out. My dad even made an agreement with my piano teacher to come to my house for lessons instead of the other way around.”

  Brad scoffed. “Parents.”

  Finally answering my prayers, Mr. Miller turned around from scribbling down the definition of Mean Value Theorem on the board, and squinted his eyes at our table. “Ms. Evers and Mr. Thomas, please save any conversations for outside of the classroom. I know you, Mr. Thomas, could benefit from listening to this review.” Everyone in the class turned to look at Brad, who hung his head low until Mr. Miller turned back to face the front of the room and began talking again.

  Despite the subtle diss to his grade, Brad still didn’t get the memo to stop talking. Instead, he leaned across the table to Molly and said, “That dead girl, what was her name again?”

  “Sophie,” Molly answered slowly, obviously shocked at how he had referred to Sophie as ‘that dead girl.’

  I wasn’t surprised. Brad lacked a few things; brain cells and common sense being just two. Apparently empathy was another thing to add to the list.

  Brad grunted in response to Molly and nodded. “Yeah, Sophie. She was really hot. I bet that had something to do with her murder.”

  I shook my head at his idiocy. I couldn’t stop the words from coming out of my mouth as I said, “Wow, Brad, you should be put on the case. That’s some promising m.o. you got there.”

  “It’s not an m.o., it’s just a guess,” he retorted, obviously unaware that m.o. stood for modus operandi, and was what a serial killer typically clung to. They looked for similarities, the appearance, dress, or sometimes a job according to the crime shows I watched with my mom, who had now put a ban on them until the police figured out who killed Sophie.

  I was unable to reply, because just as my mouth opened, Molly leaned forward and slapped the table. “You look like Sophie! I didn’t realize it until now, but you two look like you could be long lost twins or something!”

  Suddenly, thanks to Molly’s outburst, the whole class turned to stare at me. I watched as their eyes widened at the realization before they began to murmur, and then suddenly everyone began talking loudly. I heard my name and Sophie’s name coming from all directions.

  Standing at the front of the classroom, Mr. Miller sighed heavily, and peered at me from above his wide-rimmed glasses. After a moment of staring in my direction, probably assessing my resemblance to Sophie like everyone else was, he clapped his hands loudly in an attempt to get the class’ attention back.

  “Class, please quiet down!” he bellowed, managing to get a few people quiet, but others continued talking, now openly speaking about Sophie, her death, and who the murderer could be.

  “I bet it’s someone creepy, like the lady who owns the antique store!” yelled one of my classmates.

  “Yeah, right,” Molly replied loudly in the direction that the accusation had come from. “Ms. Ward is in her eighties and can barely see or hear. If anything, she’s the least likely person to be out murdering young girls in the woods at night.”

  I sat in silence, watching Mr. Miller as he stared around the classroom looking lost. He had grown up in this town, and knew well enough that things like this didn’t happen here. As a veteran teacher he knew it was a lost cause to try to regain control. He was nice, relatively handsome for a middle aged man, and he was also a pretty good teacher—making it possible for me to even remotely understand math made him a miracle worker. That’s why I felt bad for him at this moment.

  The kids didn’t respect him, and why would they? Most of them didn’t respect their friends. In this town there was a constant stream of gossip and drama. There was no right to privacy, and everything you did was out in the open. I hated it. I did my best to stay under the radar, and I had done a pretty good job. To most of my peers I probably looked like a loner because I only had one close friend, Mindy Cartwright, who would move between me and a more popular crowd. I was quiet, but not shy. I just preferred to be invisible, and to stay home while Mindy went out on the weekends with her other frien
ds.

  I would rather get lost in a book than get lost drunkenly trying to find my way home at night.

  “Listen,” Mr. Miller cried. The outburst had gathered the attention of everyone in the room, and now everyone was shifting uncomfortably, worried about what he had to say. “Stop talking about Sophie Peters, and whoever you think killed her. Not only is it rude to speak ill of the dead, but for you to accuse Ms. Ward at a time like this without evidence is just unacceptable,” he said, glancing toward someone in the back of the room, but all of us were trying not to move and attract his attention. “Everyone is looking for someone to blame, and you have no right to point fingers at anyone. That’s the police’s job, and trust me, they will be watching more closely as they are investigating the murder, but that doesn’t get rid of the fact that you all have to watch out for yourselves.”

  The bell rang overhead, instantly relieving the tension in the room as everyone rushed to leave. I was the first to exit, after roughly shoving my books into my backpack and bending a few of the pages out of place. Mindy always hated when I did that, she said it ruined the books and I should take better care of them, but getting out of class as fast as possible was more important to me. Especially since I had a free period next and I planned on spending it in the library. I wanted to find out everything I could about who Sophie was, and who could have wanted to harm her. She had helped me once, and I decided to help her even if it was too late. I could still see what I could find out about her life and give whatever I found to the police to assist them with the case. I also couldn’t help but be slightly intrigued by our resemblance.

  I sprinted to my seldom used locker. Everyone was assigned one, but most just carried their books in their backpacks since we switched off every day between our eight classes. With only four classes a day, and each class every other day, I tended to forget the material I needed at home and would inevitably fall behind. So I kept spare supplies in my locker. I never thought I’d be using an empty composition notebook to keep information on a girl I had only met once.

  As I quickly collected what I needed I heard Mindy’s unmistakable laugh emanate through the hall. She’d be busy with her other friends, unless she noticed me. We’d been best friends growing up, and had managed to stay close through the last few years in high school, but gradually I could feel her pulling away as it got closer to senior year. I just didn’t want the same friends she had, and it was causing a rift between us. Though as far as I was concerned, it was the natural way of life, some friends you lose, and others stuck with you through everything. Maybe Mindy would surprise me and stick around a little longer, but I doubted it because when Katie left over the summer Mindy stopped calling.

  It didn’t bother me as much as it would others, though. Mindy and I didn’t agree on a lot of things, and the amount of alone time we needed was one of them. I shoved the composition notebook into my bag along with a few extra pencils; I always managed to lose them during the day. When I turned to head to the library, Mindy and I caught each other’s gaze. She offered a curt smile before turning back to her more popular friends. I chuckled when I noticed her skirt was partially tucked into her underwear. A friend would say something, but from her blow off I knew we weren’t friends anymore.

  The library was a short walk away, which was good because if I was late again I’d be written up. Soon I’d be surrounded by books, an internet connection, and away from people.

  “Hello, Mrs. Prince.” I had to check in with the librarian, Mrs. Prince, so she wouldn’t report my absence to the office and have someone call my mom to say I had cut school when I was sitting in the corner of the library reading. My mom had called the school to say if they looked for the students before calling parents they’d be less likely to start an amber alert, and then hung up. Since then Mrs. Prince likes to make sure where I am. I guess she got in trouble for it otherwise she wouldn’t care whether I showed up or not.

  “Hi, Casey, nice to see you again. You know the rules. Enjoy your free period.” She sighed, as though she had been forced to talk to me. She seemed too busy twirling her graying hair around her fingers while she dove deep into the newest release of an erotica writer who held little interest for me. I preferred mysteries, something about trying to figure out who did it made the book so much more exciting than figuring out when the main characters would get laid. Though if I figured out who did the crime, typically a murder, halfway through the novel, it was officially crossed off my best readers list. To me, a reader should be kept wondering if they were right until the very end.

  Unfortunately, life wasn’t like a mystery novel. The unforeseeable atrocities were rarely solved, most murders went cold unless there was a witness, and in Sophie’s case I didn’t see a witness coming forward. Everyone would be pointing fingers, as my classmate had done to Ms. Ward this morning. Though I couldn’t shake the feeling that Sophie’s death wasn’t an accident, or at least it wasn’t the end. Something about it left a horrid taste in my mouth, and not only because she died so young, but that we did look a lot alike; a little too much alike.

  I couldn’t place my finger on it, but I knew something was awry other than the murder. I didn’t have much to go on so it would take some snooping to figure out enough about Sophie to start making a connection—even then I may never figure out if it was just a coincidence that we looked so similar, or if it was something else.

  I logged into Mindy’s Facebook, suddenly thankful that she was too lazy to respond to messages herself and would ask me to answer them when we hung out. I knew her passwords for every social media site she had, even her email. If I was hurt that she dropped me, I could easily make her life horrible with what I knew or by just simply locking her out of her accounts. Luckily for her, I wasn’t that mean. I just wouldn’t accept her apology when she realized she needed me for something and would pretend to make amends.

  Once Mindy’s Facebook loaded I was able to see most of the profiles of everyone in our school. She had friended everyone in our small school, maybe even in our town. To me it was a little extensive because she didn’t speak to half of them, but right now it worked in my favor. I remembered how excited she was when Sophie accepted the friend request because she was “one step closer to her hot older brother.” I had to agree with her, Mason was attractive. His green eyes reminded me of our town in the summer time, his charismatic smile made me blush when he directed it at me, and he was new in town, which had every girl, even the ones in relationships, swooning over him.

  I sifted through Sophie’s information. She had Mason listed as a brother, along with her mom, who had a Facebook as well. My parents didn’t have Facebook pages. They had grown up without using social media and could live without it. I held some of their sentiments. This generation was too involved with technology. It didn’t leave much time for face to face interactions but it allowed me to get to know someone who was dead and couldn’t talk to me anymore.

  I jotted down her basic information, including her birthday, which she had kept the year off of so I didn’t know her exact age. I’d have to find that another way, maybe another social media site. Although before I could, I was caught.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” a deep, displeasured male voice sounded from behind me. I cringed. I didn’t need to turn around to figure out who it was. Mason had caught me looking into his sister, and I wasn’t going to tell him that I was trying to figure out why she was killed. He’d never believe me.

  Chapter 3

  Caught Red Handed

  My body tensed as I stared into Mason’s forest green eyes. His stare remained accusatory as I shifted uncomfortably in the plastic chair. I bit my lower lip and averted my gaze away as the reality sank in that I’d been caught snooping through the Facebook profile of a dead girl; his recently murdered little sister, to be exact. I knew I should have done this somewhere other than the library. I could have waited until I got home, but I was worried that it would upset my mother. She was so torn up after the new
s broadcast that had identified Sophie that I didn’t want to make it worse. I also never considered the fact that Mason might actually show up to school just two days after his sister’s lifeless body was discovered in the woods. Didn’t he want to take a few days off so he could be with his family, and reminisce about old memories of him and his only sibling instead of being whispered about in the hallways, and offered shallow condolences from classmates who barely knew him or Sophie?

  If I was in his situation, I would have tried adamantly to avoid this place like the plague for as long as possible. Especially knowing that everyone would be talking about what had happened to my little sister, as if her death was the hottest gossip rather than the tragedy that it was. I’m sure he would be, or even already had been, bombarded with questions, speculations, or even rumors. I’d already heard a few that were whispered in hushed tones in the hallways, and I was sure that if I had heard them, then he had too. Some centered around the idea that she was murdered by her own family members; her parents, or even Mason himself. I shuddered at the thought. I didn’t know him that well, but I couldn’t believe he had killed his own sister. I didn’t like my brother all the time, but I couldn’t imagine ever killing him, no matter how angry he made me. I had seen Mason and Sophie together the very first time I met them, and they seemed close.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he repeated, raising an eyebrow at me.

  I noticed a growl of annoyance as he spoke. Which was similar to how my brother addressed me whenever I pushed his buttons, and it usually meant he was at his wits’ end. How the hell am I going to talk myself out of this one? Seriously, of all of the people who could have caught me, why did it have to be Mason? I wish I was actually invisible instead of just socially imperceptible, maybe then he wouldn’t have seen me meddling.