Chapter 167 – Pretty Poisoned Novel Free Online by Elle Mitchell

Filed To Story: Pretty Poisoned Novel by Elle Mitchell

“Were the two of you close growing up?” she asks Blakely.

“No,” Blakely says. “We were four years apart and didn’t have much in common. After her accident, I tried to be there for her, though. We became close; she moved in with me when she started at Cal State, but we were still so different, and…after you lose someone, you start to wonder what you could have done differently. I wish I’d been more understanding and supportive of her social media. Maybe she never would have started with the podcast stuff, and she’d just be in her room, reading weird shit.”

“It wasn’t even that weird,” I say.

“Let’s go back to the accident…” the reporter prompts.

They go back to high school—the letters, the bullying, and the kidnapping. They talk about my alternative school, how I changed while I was there, and what I was like when I returned to my old high school.

That part isn’t hard to listen to. It doesn’t even feel like it was the same lifetime anymore.

Then, they jump to when I left for the concert and didn’t come home. They try to lay out a timeline of what happened, starting with my relationship with Luca and speculate on what happened behind closed doors.

“Who’s that?” I ask when they show a clip of a girl with her face blurred, claiming she was with us in Seattle and Portland, that we were very close, and could tell then that the relationship was violent.

“I have no fucking idea,” River says.

“Probably some girl Eli picked up who just wanted to feel included,” Hazel says. “Maybe they offered her money, but she didn’t have anything worth saying. Besides, if we’re all dead, it’s not like we can speak up and say she’s wrong.”

They interview a couple of others who claimed to have been close to the band in personal or professional capacities before discussing when the news broke about Heidi and Blakely’s trip to Denver.

“That was a sad day for me,” Blakely said. “I knew as soon as I saw her that she was gone…I knew I’d wasted my time. I was so angry, and again, I wish I hadn’t been.”

“We were worried about her but embarrassed as a family,” my dad says. “She put us under scrutiny in our community and at our jobs, too, with her behavior. Our reaction was warranted at the time.”

“Mmm…I don’t know about that,” Luca says.

“Sounds fucking gross to me, honestly,” Hazel says. “Sorry, Teagan.”

“It’s okay.”

They move on, and another individual I don’t recognize comes across the screen. His face is also blurred for his protection.

“I’m a driver in Albuquerque,” the man says. “I drove who I now know to be Teagan, River, and Hazel to one of the Gods of Tomorrow concerts.”

“It’s fucking Carl!” Hazel shouts. “How did they get fucking Carl on this? What the fuck?”

“Oh my god, it is,” I say.

“Who’s Carl?” River asks.

“The Uber driver Hazel threatened with a knife,” I answer.

He talks about how he could tell something was wrong and that I had been drugged and forced to be there. He says he wished he’d called the police, but he believed Luca when he told him he’d kill him.

“Luca De Rossi threatened your life?” the interviewer asks.

“I didn’t know that’s who it was at the time, but yes,” Carl says. “He recited my address and told me something very bad would happen to me if I ever mentioned this to anyone. I was afraid for my children.”

“Yeah, you’re talking now, though, aren’t you, Carl?” Luca says.

“He was a chatty mother fucker,” Hazel says.

Everyone laughs but Declan, who instead tilts my chin upward and kisses me lightly on the lips, smiling sadly. I’m sure he’s thinking about what really made me so sick in that car. But we’re good at playing our game now, and we play a lot.

They move on to Dallas, where they speculate that Luca or Declan killed Heidi’s sister, then to my time in jail and the mental institution.

Even that doesn’t bother me much.

But then they bring up Sebastian and how relieved they were to see that I’d met someone who seemed so nice and so normal when I’d had such difficulties reintegrating after my time at Rancho San Flores.

They have photos of us together at the wedding—even a short video of us dancing and kissing. I wasn’t prepared to see that.

I bite down on my lip as my eyes start to water.

“Aww, Teagan,” River says.

“It’s okay,” I lie, choking on the words. “I’m okay. It’s kind of nice to see his face, actually.”

Declan laces his fingers between mine and squeezes my hand. We never talk about him, but I wonder if it’s nice for him, too.

Next, they show pictures of the hotel room—the crime scene—and speculate on what happened there.

“They’d been arguing because she was going to move to the other side of the country, but other than that, nothing ever seemed off. They went back to their room sometime after eleven that night, and she was smiling. They looked happy,” Blakely says.

“So, you were the last one to talk to your sister?”

“I was. I was the last one to talk to her, and it was totally normal,” Blakely says. “Better than normal, even. It made me hopeful that maybe we could be friends again, but we never got the chance.”

“No murder weapon was ever found, nor was your sister’s body, and Sebastian was never seen again, correct?”

“That’s right,” Blakely says. “But we know what happened to my sister, and we know who did it.”

“But there is a bit of mystery around it, too, isn’t there?”

“We don’t want to encourage the conspiracy theories,” my mom says. “Those people have made enough of a mess of our lives already.”

“But there was another man’s blood found at the scene, correct?”

“Yes, but—” my mom starts.

“Take a look at this,” the interviewer says.

The screen fades to a grainy surveillance video from the hotel bar where Declan found me the night before. His hat obscures most of his bearded face—no one would ever guess that this was him.

“Look how happy she is to see you,” Hazel says to Declan.

“I never thought I was going to see him again.”

“What do you make of this?” she asks. “Because a lot of people believe the man Teagan is kissing in this video is Declan De Rossi. They appear to know each other; she embraces him as soon as he sits down. There are some people who think Declan came back and killed Teagan because of what she knew along with her new boyfriend.”

Blake shakes her head. “Yeah, but I’ve met Declan De Rossi in person. I’ve spoken to him face-to-face—it’s not him. And if he did kill her, why did he wait until the next night? Why is he hugging her here, and why do they leave together? Why isn’t she scared…or angry at him for what he did?”

“If you look at the full video, Teagan talks to the bartender like she knows him, too. It’s just how she was,” Austin says.

“But you all described Teagan as shy.”

“No,” my mom says. “Not shy—withdrawn. She wasn’t like everyone else, but she knew how to get what she wanted.”

“Anyway, maybe she did know that guy,” Blakely says. “I don’t know what she did all day when we first got there. Plus, Sebastian was lying about who he was and how they met, too. If he’s just an innocent victim, why would he do that?”

The interview segues to a clip about Sebastian Torres, who claimed to be a surgeon in Southern California. They later found out he had been employed by Rancho San Flores while I was there and stopped showing up for work after I left.

The HR director from the hospital describes Sebastian as respectful and a hard worker with a good sense of humor, but after he stopped coming to work, they realized he’d given them a false identity and never cashed any of his checks.

On paper, Sebastian doesn’t exist. No one seems to know him, and he hasn’t been seen since.

“I think they started a relationship while she was in the hospital, and he became obsessed. I don’t know why she chose to lie about who he was or how they met—I guess because it was inappropriate. Maybe she thought he was still working at the hospital and was worried about him getting fired,” Blakely says.

“She was lonely,” my mom adds. “She talked about that a lot—about how lonely she was. She said she missed being touched and that everyone thought she was a freak. I think she just didn’t want to be alone.”

“Maybe he was one of Declan’s followers, and that’s how he became obsessed with Teagan—I don’t know. It could be why he didn’t want to let her go. But my sister is dead, and Sebastian, or whatever his real name is, killed her. That’s what I do know. The other blood in the room was probably his because, knowing Teagan, she probably fought until the bitter end.”

“There’s another theory,” the interviewer says. “That the male blood found in the room belongs to the guy she met at the bar the night before—that maybe he came back, and that’s what started the fight, and Sebastian killed them both.”

“The reason we aren’t so quick to believe that is that no one else went missing or was reported missing in or around the area at that time. I mean, he looks like a normal enough guy. If he’s missing, why isn’t anyone looking for him? Why wasn’t there a hotel room that no one checked out of that still had this guy’s stuff in it?” Austin asks.

“One last question: Obviously, because of her association with the De Rossis, there has been a lot of talk and speculation about what happened, but what do you want people to know about Teagan’s case?”

“I want the conspiracy theories to stop,” Blakely says. “I want The Church of Tomorrow to stop posting photos and stories online claiming they’ve seen Declan and Teagan alive. I want them to stop using her image because she had a family, and it hurts us. Teagan isn’t a god. She’s a murder victim.”

My parents nod in agreement.

“And I want police to find this man,” my mom says. “Someone knows who he is or was and where he is now. I want him caught.”

“We’re healing as best we can,” my sister says. “We celebrated her birthday together last year and buried a little box of memories at Teagan’s favorite beach. But we want him caught so he can’t do this to another family.”

The baby starts to cry, and Austin passes her back to Blakely.

“I hope for all of your sakes that day comes,” the interviewer says. “And do you want to introduce your little one?”

“Yes,” Blakely says. “This is my daughter, Evelyn—she’s eight months old. Evelyn was Teagan’s middle name, so we named her after her.”

“Aww, Teagan, that’s so nice.”

“Yeah, it is,” I say, tears streaming down my face. “It’s really nice.”

The interviewer thanks them all for being there, wishes them well, and the credits roll.

I’ve come full circle now—from true crime junkie to true crime victim. I wonder how often these shows have gotten it wrong the way they did with me.

“Are you okay, angel?” Luca asks.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re sobbing, baby. Are you sure?” He gets up and crosses the room to me, wrapping me in a hug. “It’s okay. You’re a mystery now—you’re immortal. It was pretty cool, actually.”

“No, I know. I really am okay. It was nice to see them—and they seem happy like I said. The baby is cute, too.”

“Do you miss them more now?” River asks.

I shake my head. “No. I don’t really miss them. I miss the idea of them—if things could have been different. But I have a family who loves me. I’m happy.”

“Well, what do you want to do today?” Declan asks. “Do you want to go out? We can do whatever you want—if you just want to be alone, that’s okay, too.”

“Can we all go out on the boat?” I ask. “And bring a lot of alcohol?”

“Of course,” he says.

“You and Riv can show us those backstrokes you’ve been working on,” Luca says.

We all go to our rooms to change and get packed before piling into the SUV and driving down to the docks. After we find a place to drop anchor for the day and relax, I finally get Declan alone, cornering him beside the beer cooler.

“Declan?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think Sebastian watched it?”

“Probably,” he says. “I’d be surprised if he didn’t, wouldn’t you?”

“And the book…it was just sitting there? You haven’t seen him?”

“No, honey, I haven’t. I would tell you if I did—I promise. It looks like he found us, though.”

“Do you think we’ll ever see him again?”

“I don’t know, baby. It’d be nice.”

“Yeah, it would.”

He opens a beer and hands it to me. “What else do you need, kitten?” he asks.

“Nothing,” I tell him. “I’m okay. Um, actually…do you know when his birthday is?”

“No, I’m sorry, baby. I don’t.”

“Yeah, okay. Thanks.” After kissing him, I return to my spot, stretched out across the back of the boat between Luca’s legs. I try to smile because I am better than just okay—I am happy. No one gets everything they want, and I have so much to be grateful for.

I used to think I was incapable of love, but the truth was I just hadn’t met anyone yet who was capable of loving every part of me—that I could show myself to. Now, I’ve done it over and over again.

After a couple of drinks, I show him my backstroke.

And Declan makes River put on a life jacket because she still can’t swim.

We stay out until the sun sets, and when we get home, I take that annotated copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray to my room, flip through it, and let myself miss him. Hazel prints out a picture of the baby for me, and when I get tired, I crawl into Luca’s bed.

“Hey, wifey,” he says, wrapping his arms around me.

“Hi, baby.”

He presses a kiss to my lips and closes his eyes, instantly falling asleep.

And I’m okay. I haven’t hurt anyone, and I’ve only really wanted to a couple of times. Most days, my mangled insides feel whole. I have a place and a purpose, and I’m free. I’ll never have to be alone, and the world has color again. We got away with it, and we’ll never get caught—not even by Death—for a very, very long time.

And that is fucking poetry.

—-THE END

---