“Whatever walked there, walked alone.”
Jason Sanborn raised the lights and paused to survey the faces around the table. They looked confused, but also interested. He moved to his seat as Kelly passed sheaves of paper around the conference table, saving the last for the silent man at its head.
“The following transcript is the last journal entry of Professor Gabriel Kennedy, Head of Behavioral Sciences at the University of Southern California. It was found on June 19, 2003 by the Pennsylvania State Police, and entered as evidence in the official state report.”
Each person studied the paper before them.
NOTE: The enclosed memo is for Entertainment Network Management only.
June 19, 2003—03:35 AM
The search for Jessica and Warren was halted fifteen minutes ago on my orders. Sarah Newman and John Kowalski were the only two students to return from the third floor. Pete Halliburton and Francis Dial are here with me in the ballroom. At this point, I must note that Pete is angry and close to becoming violent since I ordered everyone out of the house. He only calmed down when Jessica arrived at the bottom floor, terrified but very much alive.
Three witnesses reported that Warren was pulled into the third floor wall, but as a rational man, I cannot accept this version of events. I checked the plaster underneath the wallpaper and found it to be sound. I admit to chills when I found his glasses and class ring at the wooden baseboard, at the very spot where this event is said to have occurred. And there was something else that I shoved in my coat pocket before any of my students could see it. At first, the small pieces of metal confounded me. But when I examined them outside later, they looked like fillings, quite possibly from Warren’s teeth. Could this be clinical mass hysteria? Regardless of what I think, this house — or my students’ perception of it — has become dangerous to the point that we must leave. We will return with qualified people to search for my student. I will make an entry once we have left Summer Place.
As I write this, I have learned that until further evidence is recovered, I am to be held for questioning in Philadelphia. Members of the constabulary are not buying my students’ story and they look at me as if I was a roach that crawled out of their kitchen cabinets. I feel horrified. The longer they look at me in that way, the longer it will take to find out what really happened to Warren. I will leave my notebook on the table in the ballroom so that my students may find it. If the worst happens, I trust them to take it back to the university.
“The second page of the memo is of most importance,” Kelly said. She found she couldn’t even face the people around the room now. Instead she focused on the large window.
The man at the head of the table watched Kelly’s back for a moment, and then looked at his people around the table. His left brow rose. They were interested in the strange tale Kelly had related to them. He watched them as they read the addendum to the memo.
Addendum to memo for network eyes only—
Note: Pennsylvania State Police Sergeant Andrew Monahan recovered the notebook inside the ballroom that had been left by Kennedy the night before. After the last entry by Professor Kennedy, and scribbled on the lower half of the same page, was a cryptic note that has since proven not to be in Kennedy’s handwriting. The same message was written on the wall where the student vanished. The message had not been there when the police conducted their search, but was discovered after the house had been vacated and taped off for the night. In effect, someone had written the passage and the wall graffiti while the police were still present but posted outside the house. It is worthy of note that Kennedy was under observation by two state troopers at that time. Two days later, the Pennsylvania State Crime Lab examined the substance used to write both entries and declared it “an unknown material.”
A facsimile of the entry depicted in Kennedy’s journal was obtained by a network contact inside the Pennsylvania judicial system. (name withheld for security purposes)
The message written in the journal and on the wall was:
THEY ARE MINE
PART ONE
THE PITCH
ONE
Kelly Delaphoy waited for her presentation, and the accompanying memo, to set in like rainwater soaking into dry, barren earth. It was exactly what she thought of their minds: barren. She continued watching their faces. Maybe her words, along with those of the former anchorman, would sink in slowly, or maybe the tale would just run off like rainwater against hardpan soil. She hoped it would spark thought and planning, but knew their unimaginative minds only saw dollar signs in everything they considered — which, she noted with reluctance, was why they were all in the positions they were in.
“As you can see in the folders before you, I was sent a copy of the investigation by a network contact at the Pennsylvania State Police. It was verified by a court clerk who filed several injunctions after rulings in the Kennedy case.”
The men and women sat around the large conference table and eyed the beautiful young woman with suspicion as she stood smiling an arrogant smile. Only her producer, Jason Sanborn, pretended to read the package she had painstakingly pieced together and placed before them, although he knew the contents almost as well as Kelly did.
“I assume you know that possessing this report is a criminal offense, since the case hasn’t been closed yet.”
Kelly looked straight into the eyes of Lionel Peterson, who sat motionless at the head of the table. She refused to rise to the challenge of a remark laid out like bait to a starving fish. Peterson thought she feared him, or was at the very least intimidated, as he intimidated so many others in this room. However, she had the hottest show on the network and was personally responsible for bringing in countless millions of advertising dollars. The smug president of the UBC entertainment division was helpless to do anything about her small legal transgressions unless she was caught by the authorities, and that would never happen. She eyed Peterson, which she knew irritated him to no end. The thought that the former stock analyst, with his slicked back black hair and his Armani suit, could make her cower in fear was almost laughable to her. He had the reputation of being a shark, and everyone at the network from Los Angeles to corporate in New York knew he was after only one thing: the position of network president. There was only one thing standing in Lionel’s way, and that was the seventy-two-year-old chairman and CEO.
“It’s nothing I haven’t done fifty times for this show, as far back as when we were a mere half-hour throwaway on basic cable in Cincinnati. I never use these types of items in our case studies, so no one is ever the wiser. And you have never once questioned my research, as long as the advertising money comes in.” She continued to challenge Peterson, staring directly at him. “Should I have also not accepted the notebook and police entries?”
“Okay, let’s put the legalities aside for the moment.” Jason stood and moved to the small refrigerator, removed a bottle of sparkling water and then returned to the conference table. “Did you get a chance to talk with this Harvard educated—” he leaned over and looked at his notes for show as he opened the bottle, “Professor Kennedy?”
For the first time in a production meeting of this nature, Kelly lowered her head, looking defeated just minutes into the expected confrontation. She would corner Jason later about embarrassing her with his question.
“He won’t see me. He wants nothing to do with us,” Kelly finally said.