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Thank you to @Lola.Lallas who DM'ed me the raccoon photo above. She also made this into a sticker.  So creative!

Chapter 11: Sock

There was blood on the carpet and Chad's designer sunglasses broken on the floor.

I had one shoe on and my other foot was catching the breeze in an orange sock.

This day was not going well. I swear nothing good begins on a Monday...

My thoughts were on Arturo. I wished he was safe. Now that we knew the jersey belonged to him, whose to say the blood wasn't? Please, please be ok.

The phone rang.

I had no understanding of why this was happening. Arturo and I had never met. Why would his jersey be in my room? Who put it here and why?

"Please pick up," my sister whispered next to me.

We were huddled around Luke's phone. Chad, Austin, Luke, Flora and myself. Each ring sent us into a deeper silence.

The tension was building. Riiiing.

"Don't go to voicemail..." Austin muttered.

"Ssh!" Chad hushed us.

We all leaned in. There was a moment's silence as we waited. The phone was either going to voicemail or someone was picking it up.

...

...

"Yo, yo, YOOOOOO!"

Art's loud voice blared out through the speakerphone. It momentarily shocked us.

"How's it going boss?" Art yelled out into the deafening silence.

We all looked at Luke. Boss?!

Luke ignored our looks and brought the phone closer, "You ok, Art?"

Sounds like he is.

"Nah, I'm not! I know I p*ssed you off at the mall and I want to apologize. I'm glad you saw my texts and called me back, man-"

"But you're ok?" Luke confirmed for the second time. He clearly hadn't paid attention to any of Art's texts. "No one has come up to you or taken anything from you?"

"Why? Is someone setting me set up?"

"Just check your basketball kit and call me back." Luke hung up, having no patience for this guy. He looked at us, "So he's fine."

A collective sigh escaped our lips.

Chad commented, "Anyone else forget how annoying that kid is?"

"At least he's alive."

Chad shrugged, "Meh."

There was some commotion as everyone collected themselves. The stress of the last few minutes had been too intense. Art's alive and he's well. That was priority #1 (except on Chad's list).

I tapped my fingers against my chin and thought out loud, "I hate to bring this up but if that isn't Art's blood, then whose is it?"

Silence.

We were back to square one.

"Maybe it's not blood," Flora pointed out, "Has anyone checked? It could be ketchup."

"You can't pay me to check that," Austin said, backing the hell away from my bloody bedroom door.

We were about to start pointing fingers at each other, when the sound of the front door slamming shut made us silent. Someone was inside the house.  

And we were all up here, so who was down there?

Maybe Austin had left the door open and a very strong wind slammed it shut. Or maybe it was the culprit back for more...

"What's the point of birthing children when they won't help with the groceries!" my mother's voice screeched through the house.

I exhaled a sigh of relief and walked to the banisters, not realizing that everyone followed. My mother was lugging two plastic bags from the door to the kitchen. She was in her suit after a long day at work.

When she saw the three boys with us upstairs, her expression turned to shock.

"Three handsome devils," she admired, "If only my daughter told me she was having guests over, I would've dressed up a bit more. How embarrassing."

Luke responded first, walking down the stairs to greet her, "Hey Mrs Ripley."

"Pst! Luke, what are you doing?" I hissed.

We had a murder mystery to solve up here!

"I'm being polite to your mum," he hissed back.

Ah yes, boyfriend priorities. Chad and Austin hopped to it and followed suit, though Chad was a little wary to approach my mum. He wasn't used to her yet.

"We'll help you with your groceries," Luke offered, taking the heavy bags out of her hands.

Bottles clanked against each other and Austin peered into the bags. There was a lot of alcohol.

"Throwing a party, Mrs R?!" he asked.

I think she called it 'groceries'.

"I'm replenishing the pantry," she answered, ignoring the faces Flora and I pulled. "By the way, there's a very old lady standing outside the house. I don't know if she needs some help or if she's-"

"Gloria!" Austin almost slapped himself for forgetting. "I have to go!"

"But we have a..." I didn't want to say the words in front of my mum.

"A what?" my mum zoned in on us suspiciously.

The boys immediately grabbed her bags and used them as an excuse to flee.  They escaped to the kitchen.

"Cheese!" I heard Austin exclaim as he saw a block of cheddar between the prosecco and the rosé.

"Millie Ripley, answer me now. What do you have and what are you hiding from me?" my mum gripped my wrist, showing me that she was not going to let this – or me – go until she got answers.

"Is someone sick? Have you committed a crime? Are you pregnant? Did you get an ab-"

"OK, this is escalating!" I gasped, "Mum, please don't freak out but there is a bloody basketball jersey hanging on my doorknob."

"So you're having sex?"

"What?! No! Why would you say that?!"

"In my day, a sock on the door meant people were, you know, getting frisky."

I may have just died of embarrassment. I know the boys were listening in on this.

"And you thought a bloody jersey is how we say it now?!" I exclaimed.

She answered simply, "Kids these days. A lot of you are twisted."

Glad to see how much faith some adults have in our generation.

"Mum," Flora intervened, calming things down since she was the favored child, "I think you should come see this."

Nooooooooo!

Flora led our mum up the staircase. She set her handbag and keys on the kitchen table and followed Flora upstairs. The boys had all stayed quieter than a mouse...

But they heard mum's reaction loud and clear:

"What is this perverted atrocity?! Goodness gracious!"

"That's a posh reaction," Austin commented on his way to the front door, "Hey Gloria, would you mind coming inside? Looks like we're staying and we'll need another adult in this situation."

My hands were in my hair, aghast by what was happening. Luke wrapped his arms around my waist from behind, comfortingly.

We both watched Gloria enter the house, confused and asking Austin if he was alright.

Luke rubbed my arms to relax me and I exhaled, feeling calmer again.

"You should go upstairs and check on your family," Luke advised, "We haven't heard anything since her first reaction."

"You're right," I nodded and had to tell my legs to move before they actually listened.

My mum confronted me the moment I arrived at the top of the stairs, "What is your game plan?  Hmm? Do you know who did this? What kind of sick games are you involved in? Have you been bullying someone? Is this their retaliation?"

"Mum, so many questions. Uh... Wait, no! Don't touch the jersey. I need to take photos first as evidence," I exclaimed, reaching out to stop my mum from picking it up.

"No, young lady, the first thing we need to do is call the police," she corrected me, but she stepped away from the jersey and let me take photos.

My sister also took some. I saw her choosing filters and asked, "Please don't post this on social."

"But it's great content."

"Don't," Luke ordered, walking up the stairs.

His opinion ended the debate and Flora put her phone away.

"Can you guys spread out and start looking for clues? There must be spatters of blood somewhere and clues to where this came from," my mum asked us, interrupting her own conversation with the police to get us moving.

With her voice in the background, asking to speak to an officer, I said, "We should split up. Some of us should stay on this floor to look for blood traces or any misplaced items and others should go around the house, trying to see how this person entered."

"Good idea," Chad agreed, "But can I sit out for this round? I'm getting tired after all this drama and work."

"You're coming with me," Luke answered, "We'll check out the garden and windows."

"Thanks," I said and tried to lead the charge, "Let's go!"

"Uh Millie?" Austin pointed out, holding something in his hand, "You forgot your shoe."

**

So, my mum reported the crime and that's when she learnt that the police station already had a file open on me.

She couldn't find out what was in the file, but it was basically my statement – of the threatening letters, the "$1 hooker inside" spray painted on our house and the stolen necklace.

The police advised us to send in the pictures of the bloody jersey and they would add it to the report.

Meanwhile, the rest of us were scouring the house for clues like we were in an episode of Scooby Doo.

I'd look under the bed and find Austin looking under it on the other side.

I'd look into the bathroom and find Flora searching the.... Oh no, wait, she was just putting on makeup.

"Can you, like, leave?" she exclaimed, with mascara in one hand.

"Sorry," I quickly shut the bathroom door.

We were downstairs and some delicious smell was wafting out of the kitchen. Somehow, Gloria found actual food in our fridge and was cooking something for us all...

This detective work was exhausting.

I threw open a window and saw Chad walking round the side of the house. He was grumpily looking at the shrubbery on one side and windows on another. Then he tripped over a garden gnome and cursed it.

"What is this troll doing at your house, Millie?! That hat is so pointy it can stab someone! And it's smiling at me like it's going to kill me. We've all seen Chucky!"

Luke appeared from the other side, having heard the complaining. He saw me and smiled.

I smiled back and leaned out the window to give him a kiss on the cheek.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Chad screamed louder than anything I've ever heard. He paused to breathe... and continued, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"Has the gnome killed him?" I asked.

"AH!" Chad's last gasp.

Luke and I both stared at him as if he'd lost his mind. The window directly above us opened and my sister's head peered out from the second floor.

Austin came running down the stairs and barged into the living room, squeezing beside me to peer out the window. "What?!"

Chad's face was as shocked as if he'd seen a ghost.

Suddenly, my sister screamed. Another, ear splitting screech.

We all looked up at her now, confused why she was screaming. We must look like some out-of-tune choir. Who was going to sing out next?

"What is it?" Austin called out, the curiosity eating him up.

"I know what Chad is seeing," my sister answered, speaking like an oracle, "Because I see it too."

"About the jersey?" I asked, feeling my heart race in my chest.

She nodded, "It wasn't ketchup. It's real blood." 

*End of chapter*

Not really...

My heart thumped one hundred miles a minute.  Real.  Blood.  She said real blood.

And then she disappeared.  

Seriously, my sister was gone.  

She'd fainted.  We heard a thud.  I wanted to run upstairs to help her but my own legs wouldn't move.  None of us could move.

It's well known that my sister gets queasy around blood and needles.  Which means she must've seen....

My head turned to look at the shrubbery in our unkempt yard.  I didn't want to look.  I didn't want to see what they had seen.  How can you un-see?

But I had to get this moment over with.  One of the worst moments in my memory.  I looked at the crispy, dead leaves and the shrubbery and...

There she was.  Blood stained on the grass around her.  

"Oh my god!"  I cried out, my hand covering my mouth, "A raccoon!"

A poor little animal was lying on the grass, motionless.  

Austin was beside me in the living room, with the window open in front of us.  He rested his hand on my shoulder to comfort us both.  He was equally shocked. 

And then he said, "This may not be the right time to say this, but, that's not a raccoon.  That's a cat."

"Austin," Luke gave him a warning look.

"I thought she should know the truth.  It's obviously a cat."

"Why would a raccoon be the go-to animal?" Chad asked, emerging from his statue state.

"It's a cat?" I asked, the tears coming to my eyes. 

A/N: This chapter was extra long just to make sure it didn't end on a cliffhanger.  

It's a very sad chapter ending, so please remember that this is fiction.  I avoided a detailed description of the scene.  I know Wattpad stories have a lot of gory plotlines, but I am not diving into that genre.  So who do you think is responsible for the bloody jersey?  

I posted on Instagram before I published this chapter, so I'm guessing most early readers here are friends on Instagram?  My account is @NatalieInACorner if you want those early updates! 

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