Columbine Basement Tapes Novels & Stories

Why me, Bailey. I have always loved you and I will never do this to you or even my worst enemy. Collins visited two days later bringing gifts for the girls. He and Jace had been quite busy with the investigation. After he was done playing with the babies. He pulled me aside, out of ear sight. “We found something.” He handed me a flash drive. “What is this?” “Security footage from the Karev Hall—unedited. Someone tampered with it before it reached us the first time.”

It was a war room. In the center of the room stood a massive corkboard labeled: ISABELLA VANCE – LAST SEEN: 02:14 AM. “What is this?” I breathed, walking toward a stack of folders on the desk. I opened the top one. It wasn’t filled with love letters. It was filled with autopsy reports of the “other” girls from that college night, medical transcripts of the Blue Eclipse drug, and grainier-than-usual photos of Isabella. My eyes scanned the handwritten notes in the margins—Zander’s sharp, aggressive script.

“He didn’t just architect it. He was there to make sure the blood was spilled.” “I told you,” Elias whispered, his voice cracking like dry parchment. “I don’t know the names, but I know the evil when I see it. I kept this second tape hidden even from myself. It was too much to carry alone.” The screen jumped, showing a different angle of a desolate warehouse district. The timestamp in the corner confirmed the date had haunted their families, January 15th, 2009.

"Later." "Should we start the briefing?" Mitch asked. "We can't do a briefing without her. She's the one with the information," Diana said. "I'm back," Tess walked in. "Let's start the briefing." "I taped cameras and bugs in his living room and the bedroom. Here are the pictures of the documents from his safe," she dropped her phone. "Share them amongst yourselves and see find anything useful." "What about the treasure?" Caleb asked with excitement. "I'm sorry?" "Yesterday, you told me that you found treasure."

The tape player let out a low, mechanical hiss as the voice of Doctor Evelyn Reed paused for a brief second. Inside the freezing stone basement beneath the caretaker’s cottage, the air was so cold that every breath Noah took came out as a white cloud. The single beam of Julian’s silver flashlight cut through the dark, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air above the open safe. Caleb stood completely frozen, his large hand resting on the heavy iron rim of the trapdoor above. Marcus leaned against the cold stone wall, his jaw tight and eyes fixed on the small black cassette spinning slowly behind the clear plastic window of the player.

Inside lay a small black USB flash drive and a thick stack of printed documents bound by a heavy steel clip. I sat back down. The leather of my chair groaned under my weight. My heart beat slow and hard against my ribs—a steady, warning thud—as I plugged the flash drive into the side of my laptop. A single folder opened on the monitor. Three video files. I clicked the first one: GALA_HALLWAY_1042PM.mp4. The footage was grainy but clear, captured by a silent dome camera mounted high on the marble corridor leading away from the Ashbourne Grand Ballroom.

I knew exactly what it contained but I still tapped on the arrow and once it had downloaded, I tapped on the play option and my brows cracked as I watched. The clips were clearly CCTV records and compiled together for me to see when Raymond drove through the path to the basement. He was inside the car so there was no way anyone would see Melissa inside with him. The second one was when he returned holding two plastic bags. And the third part had me walking through the same path, with the gun boldly gripped in my fist. I paused the video and zoomed. My facial expression was enough to evict me. I had the brutal glance of someone who was ready to kill.

I homed in on Lilian’s apartment, the site of Isabella’s frame. The police report said there were no security videos from the building’s cameras, a convenient presumption several hours before and after Lilian’s estimated time of death. That was suspicious — modern apartments like Lilian’s had multiple systems. I broke into the building’s server, typing rapidly, breaking through firewalls. In the bowels of the archives, I found traces of deleted files, time stamps from the hours that disappeared. The footage hadn’t been corrupted; it had been intentionally wiped.

“Good, and while this plan is taking form, can you not ruin it by losing your shit?” I bowed my head. “I can do that…” He gave me a long stare and then he walked away. I was still there, loading a clip, when one of my men came in with a laptop. “Boss,” he said, holding it out to me. “The footage from the security tapes. We managed to salvage enough. Thought you’d want to see this personally.” I took the laptop, set it on a nearby table, and pressed play. It started with the living room. Six holding hands with Arabella, pulling her along. They ran down the hall. The camera switched to the hallway. She looked over her shoulder; they shared a look before walking into her room.

The plastic casing cracked, tape unspooling in tangled ribbons across the floor. I gasped, hands flying to her mouth. "He said there are other copies, let's wipe them out!" We scrambled into action, scouring the apartment for any remaining tapes. One by one, we wrecked them beyond repair until a pile of mangled cassettes lay strewn across the floor. Then Trent grabbed Enzo's laptop, yanking out the hard drive and bashing the components to bits with a lamp. Finally, surrounded by destruction, the three of us stood catching our breath.