Beauty in the Ashes

“It’s definitely worth a shot,” I grinned, excitement filling me.

I knew it might be impossible to ever get Caelan to open up to me. If this worked, I may finally know what had destroyed him.

???

Shopping with Daphne proved to be one of the most exhausting experiences of my life.

I did have fun though.

She was always so bubbly, but she could have her serious moments too. After today, I counted her as a friend.

Sitting down my bags, I gave Brutus a small kiss on his head, and then dove for the laptop I had left on the kitchen counter. Some serious investigation was about to happen.

No amount of excitement over my new clothes and lingerie—lingerie I had no idea who I thought I was going to wear it for—could keep me from my desire to search Caelan’s name in the hopes of information.

I typed his name into the search engine, hoping I spelled it right, and waited for it to load.

Almost immediately a news article popped up.

I didn’t bother reading the tagline. I just clicked on it. It was an article about some high school, local to where we were now, and the football team. Skimming the article, I came across Caelan’s name highlighted. Apparently he was the quarterback. I didn’t know what the heck a quarterback did. I was not a sports person. Scrolling further down, I found a picture of the team. In the front, kneeling on the ground with his helmet in his hand was Caelan. His hair was even lighter than it was now. He was smiled widely in the image. There was a cockiness in the way he held himself. He was more muscular in the photo and a little heavier that he was now. Even in the picture, his eyes were piercing.

I pressed the back button, searching for anything else.

I stopped, an icy shiver making the hairs on my back stand on end when I read the headline.

Gregory Family Murders—One Survivor.

Swallowing down the sudden lump in my throat, I clicked on it.

I was immediately assaulted with a picture of a family—Caelan’s family.

They looked so happy. The guy in the picture, a teenage Caelan, looked nothing like the man I knew. His smile was genuine and he had his arm wrapped around a girl that had to be his sister they looked so much alike. With a gasp, I realized she was the girl in many of his paintings.

I forced my eyes away from him and his sister to look at his parents. They looked kind and so in love. His mother looked like she could have been a movie star with blonde hair that matched her children’s. Caelan had the exact shade of blue eyes that she had. His father had light brown hair and a proud narrow nose that he’d given his son, along with the same jaw and small dimple in their chin.

I couldn’t help but look back at his sister. Her golden hair was long, falling over her shoulders. Her smile was big and her blue eyes sparkled with happiness and excitement.

It killed me looking at Caelan’s image and noting the differences in the man I knew now.

His eyes were cloudy and he certainly didn’t smile like that—so carefree and content. His hair hung limply in his eyes now, not styled back like in the picture. Even his skin tone was different now. While in the picture he glowed with a tan like he’d recently been to the beach, he was now so pale that he resembled a vampire…he kind of acted like one too.

The guy I saw staring back at me from the computer screen didn’t seem anything like the one I knew.

While old Caelan glowed with warmth and light, new Caelan was dull and gloomy.

Scrolling past the picture, I began to read the article, and was quickly overcome with horror.

Eighteen-year-old Caelan Gregory walked in on what first appeared to be a home invasion only to discover his family murdered. Despite the fact that he was found covered in blood, he was unharmed and has been removed from the suspect list. Marcia, Paul, and Cayla Gregory all sustained multiple stab wounds.

I paused in my reading, stunned to have stumbled across the name I had been searching for.

Cayla Gregory.

His sister.

The vibrant, joyful, smiling girl in the photograph had had her life cut tragically short in such a gruesome way. No wonder he cried her name in his sleep and painted her picture repeatedly.

Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to continue.