Off the Deep End (49)
“I knew it!” I squealed.
Mark jerked his hand out of mine and turned to me with a look of pure disgust in his eyes. “Are you serious right now? Like you actually care that much about being right? I can’t believe you.” He looked like there was a bad taste in his mouth that he wanted to spit out.
I grabbed his arm. “Oh my God, no. It’s not about that at all. It has nothing to do with being right. I’m excited because it means Isaac might still have a chance. We could save him.”
He didn’t look convinced. Just angry and disgusted with me.
“Mark, listen to me. Please, just hear me out. We know how things end with the Dog Snatcher. You keep acting like I don’t understand that, but I do. I always have. If the Dog Snatcher took Isaac, his chances of being found alive aren’t good, but if someone else has him, then they’re a different person with a totally different personality and makeup. We don’t know if they’re capable of murder. Maybe they just want attention. Or help? Who knows? But there’s a much greater chance of finding him alive if he’s with someone else.” I turned to Detective Hawkins. “Right? I mean, I know there aren’t any guarantees, and he’s still at a huge risk, but there’s got to be some truth to that, right?”
He gave Mark a reluctant nod. “Yes, I don’t want to give you false hope where there is none or even pretend that I have any idea how this will end, but this piece of information does change things. All I can tell you is what I’ve told you since the very beginning, and that’s that I will do everything within my power to bring your son home to you alive. That still stands.”
“But his odds are better if it’s not him, right?” I wouldn’t let it go. I couldn’t. I’d hold on to anything hinting at hope.
“Slightly.”
I smacked the table. “I’ll take it.”
Detective Hawkins looked back and forth between us, making sure we’d settled our dispute and weren’t going to launch into another one before he continued. “Things aren’t as cut and dried as we’d previously imagined, so we’re going to be looking in some different directions. Right now we have multiple working theories, and of course we’re going to continue pursuing all leads and information regarding the possibility that Isaac was taken by the Dog Snatcher. However, we are also going to be examining other possible copycat scenarios. We—”
“So, you’ll be really narrowing in on Jules then?” I interrupted. Finally. They should’ve been there this entire time.
He nodded slowly and spoke even slower like he was annoyed with how many times he’d had to reassure me of the same thing. “Yes, we are going to continue our examination of Jules and how she might be connected to Isaac’s disappearance. But”—he drew out the word and then sped up—“we’re also going to look at alternative options that we might not have looked at or taken as seriously before this. We—”
“Alternative options?” This time Mark was the one to interrupt him. “What do you mean you’re going to look at alternative options?” An angry edge still lined his tone.
“We’ve been looking at the threatening and bullying text messages that Isaac received as two separate and unconnected issues. That might not be the reality. It’s possible the two of them are more connected than we previously thought. We’re going to dig deeper into those messages with his peers at school and see what happens. We didn’t push too hard last time, but maybe if we exerted some pressure this time around, one of those kids might fold. It’s possible this could be a prank gone wrong.”
“A prank?” Mark guffawed. “What kind of kids would do something so sick and twisted?”
“The same kind that would send hateful messages to him,” I said.
Detective Hawkins nodded at me in agreement. “Teenagers are some of the most vicious groups of people on the planet, and if they cross the line into delusional thinking, which lots of them do . . .” He let out a whistle and shook his head. “Watch out.”
Mark and I looked at each other, trying to read what the other was thinking, but I couldn’t tell what was going through his head. All I saw was the same nervous energy and tension that had been there all morning. We quickly looked away from each other and back to Detective Hawkins.
“Did either of you follow the Slenderman case?” he asked next, taking me by surprise with the question.
I pointed to Mark. “I did, but he didn’t.”
“Got it.” He shifts his attention to Mark. “Two teenage girls were obsessed with the fictional character Slenderman to the point where they planned a slumber party and tried to murder one of their other friends in order to please him. Both of the girls had convinced themselves that he was real and that they’d win his favor if they did it. Crazy stuff. Both of them were only twelve, and they stabbed that poor girl nineteen times. She barely survived.”
“I do remember hearing something about that. It’s awful, but I’m not sure what it’s got to do with Isaac,” Mark said.
Detective Hawkins nodded. “That’s the thing with kids these days. All of that mess with Slenderman started online. It started as an online photography challenge. Can you believe that? Then, there was this entire online community that just grew and grew. It became like this huge urban myth. There was—still is—tons of fan fiction about Slenderman. All these kids and adults formed a community, and it was very real to them. Throw in a little mental illness and you’ve got yourself a very scary situation, which is exactly what it grew into.”