Private Witnesses

Marlo

The silver locket gleamed in his palm. My mother’s face was trapped inside that tiny piece of silver, smiling out at a world that had tried its best to break me and the man holding it the ruthless captain of the Monash hockey team, the campus tyrant who bled people for sport had pulled it from the freezing black depths of Port Phillip Bay three years ago.

He hadn't stolen it. He had rescued it.

"Take it," Jarrah whispered. His voice wasn't harsh now; it was dangerously soft, wrapping around me like a heavy wool blanket soaked in ice water.

My fingers were shaking so violently I could barely move them. I reached out, my skin brushing against his palm. The heat radiating off him was overwhelming, contrasting sharply with the freezing terror gripping my chest. I snatched the locket from his hand, clutching it tightly against my chest as if it were a shield.

"Why?" I choked out, the word tearing past my dry lips. "Why would you do this? Why are you watching me?"

"Because no one else was," Jarrah answered instantly, his amber eyes locking onto mine with a terrifying, absolute intensity. "Your parents are gone. The woman you called an aunt was selling you out to the highest bidder before you even knew how to spell your own name. If I hadn't watched you, Marlo you wouldn't have survived the week."

My head spun. Every foundation I had ever built every painful memory of poverty, of scraping by, of believing Siobhan was my only safe harbor in a cruel world was crumbling into dust.

I looked back down at the open box resting on the floorboards. The stack of thick, aged parchment paper stared back at me, taunting me with its neat, obsessive piles.

Driven by a morbid, sickening compulsion, I reached out and pulled another letter from the bundle. My eyes tore across the sharp, black ink.

November 4th. Last year. I remembered that day. It was the Tuesday I had stayed late in the university library studying for my forensic psychology midterm, wearing my oversized emerald green cable knit sweater and my hair pulled back in a messy clip. As I read the lines, my emotions went mine anymore.

She sat at table four in the west wing of the library for four hours today. She drank two cups of black coffee, chewing on her thumbnail whenever she got stuck on a criminal profiling case study. She wore that green sweater the one with the small tear on the left cuff. She thinks she's safe under those bright lights. She didn't know I was sitting three rows behind her, reading the exact same textbook, making sure no one dared to look her way.

A wave of absolute, bone chilling panic crashed over me. This wasn't just an odd diary. This wasn't a crush. This was clinical, terrifying surveillance. For nearly ten years since the night my house burned down when I was ten years old every single detail of my existence had been cataloged, analyzed, and stored away by the monster sitting inches from me.

He knew my schedules. He knew my clothes. He knew my quietest habits, my hidden sorrows, the exact way I chewed my thumb when I was stressed. I hadn't been invisible at Monash University. I had been trapped inside a cage built of invisible bars, with a predator watching my every move from the shadows.

"You're sick," I whispered, tears spilling over my lashes as I stared up at him. "You're out of your mind."

"Maybe I am," Jarrah murmured, not flinching away from the accusation. He shifted slightly, his massive frame caging me in completely against the edge of the desk. "Or maybe I'm the only sane person in a city full of liars. You read about your aunt. You saw what she is. Now look at the rest of the box, Marlo. See how long I’ve been keeping you safe from her."

"I don't want to see anything else!" I cried, scrambling back until my shoulders hit the wood paneling of the desk. "Let me go! I want to leave!"

"You can't leave," Jarrah said, his tone instantly shifting from velvet to unyielding steel. "Not yet."

Before I could scream, before I could push past his heavy chest and bolt for the main doors of the estate, a sound froze the blood in my veins.

Thud.

It was a heavy, deliberate sound. Footsteps.

They weren't coming from the secret tunnel behind us. They were echoing down the private, high end hallway on the other side of the study’s main doors. Someone was inside the mansion.

My eyes widened in pure terror. I looked up at Jarrah, expecting him to look surprised, or angry, or panicked.

Instead, a dark, dangerous smirk slowly spread across his severe jawline. His eyes flashed with a lethal, calculated light.

"Looks like our guest has arrived early," Jarrah whispered, his gaze locking onto the heavy doors as a loud, metallic knock echoed through the quiet study.

Jarrah didn't move. He didn't even look at me. He simply stared at the door as though he had been waiting for this exact moment. Then his hand slowly reached for the gun hidden beneath his jacket. "Jarrah" I whispered, as he finally looked at me and the smile disappeared from his face. "Stay behind me." The door handle suddenly turned then a familiar voice came from the other side. "Marlo?"

I knew that voice, it was Siobhan but she wasn't alone, a man's deep voice spoke beside her. "Open the door, Jarrah." "Who is that?" He didn't answer. Instead, he stepped closer to me and whispered four words that made my entire body go numb.

"That's your father's killer.”