6 Entry #6: Newspaper

"Do you know the exact day when Angel went missing?" I whispered to Nick, scared of the possibility that someone else might hear our conversation.

"Yes," Nick replied while he put his things inside his bag. "That was during our third summative exam, that’s why I remember the exact date. She's an honor student, so we thought it was strange that she didn't show up."

"The exact date?"

He looked up at the ceiling and tried to think but then shook his head. "I don’t remember."

“Psst…" someone from the class hissed.

I stopped myself from rolling my eyes when I learned it was Carmela, the one who took pleasure in teasing me with Nick.

"Just wake me up when you two are already dating," Carmela teased.

The other girls started teasing us too, but deep inside, they wanted to kill me. They were probably cursing me, the transferee, for stealing away their crush.

"No way!" I denied. "Him? Is the world ending?" I purposely exaggerated to point out nothing was going on between us.

Nick, on the other hand, smirked at what I said.

"Let's move to the library," he said.

As suggested, we went to the farthest corner of the library. Somewhere safe to discuss.

I took out the diary from my bag and opened it. I wanted to read it alone but didn’t have the guts to. I felt like it was not the diary I was opening but Angel's grave. Which was creepy. So I decided not to read it on my own.

Nick held my hand to stop me from unlocking the diary.

"Isn't this a violation of Angel's privacy?"

I shove his hand away. "What do you mean violation? If opening this diary could lead us to the truth about her death, then this is the right thing to do."

After spacing out for a few seconds, he gave his consent. I opened the diary and read a random entry.

“September 26, 20XX. He asked me for a date on October 3, but we have an exam. What should I do?”

‘Someone asked Angel on a date. Who could it be?’

"Wait!" Nick blurted out. "October 3? That's our exam day. October 3 and 4. She never showed up for the exam, and we never saw her again."

‘So, possibly, that was when Angel went missing. October 3.’

"Did she have a boyfriend?"

Nick shook his head. "I don’t think she had a boyfriend. But many guys were interested in her, so it's not unusual that people would ask her out."

I browsed the diary entries looking for clues as to who possibly invited her on a date. None of the entries led to a name.

I closed the diary and locked it. "We have to find out who she went out with on October 3. Maybe that would lead us to something."

"But that's impossible! Angel wasn't the type of student to go out on a date and ditch her exams."

"Then why didn't she show up that day?"

I had a strong gut feeling that something had happened to Angel that day. That was why she couldn't show up to school. That was why she disappeared.

I glanced at Nick. He couldn't take the possibility that Angel probably went on a date with someone. Jealous grump...

"Come with me to our house. We might find something in the storage room."

Nick raked his hair with his fingers and groaned in frustration.

“Jasmine, can you tell me again why I am helping you in your investigation-like activities?”

Placing my hands on my waist, I lifted my eyebrows at him. "Because you liked Angel?"

He spat at me his dagger-sharp eyes.

"And this is not investigation-like, Nick. This is a real investigation."

He shook his head in mistrust as if I was a kid who told him about an alien I met.

Nick came to our house as planned. The fear of the paranormal left my body and was replaced by extreme curiosity.

The torturous rummaging in the dusty storage room began again. This time, I came prepared. Nick and I wore gloves and face masks.

I found a paper bag that contained lots of exam papers owned by Angel. They mostly had perfect scores in them. Some had 2-3 mistakes.

I got envious. I wished I could ace my tests as she did. I was always in the middle, enough to get the passing mark.

I was about to set it aside, but a different type of paper caught my eye. It was a special piece of paper with hearts on it.

I took it, and when I realized it was a love letter for Angel, I called Nick.

"Nick, look here!"

He was coughing hard when he went near me. I handed the letter to him, and he read the fancy cursive writings aloud.

"I hope to see you there. Love, S.T." He read the signature at the end.

Then he looked at me. "Who is S.T.?"

I shrugged. "I have no idea."

"Come here, I also found something," he informed me.

I folded the letter and placed it inside my pocket. We might need it.

Nick led me in front of a box that had lots of newspapers. This was the same box I saw when I came here with Rox.

Nick picked up one newspaper and read it. "February 14, 20XX." He looked at me and said, "That's four years ago."

He continued reading the news. "A student from St. Mark University, named Almira Cruz, was found dead inside a box."

‘Four years ago? A student from SMU?’

"It's a bit similar to Angel's case," Nick thought. "And it's quite interesting why old newspapers are stored here."

He was right. And who stored these here? Was it Angel? Or another family member?

I read the whole article over and over again because it boggled me. I found another common factor.

"Look, this is getting really creepy. It says here," I referred to the article, "that Almira was also in a box inside Garossa's Factory. And, one more thing, it was declared a suicide case because among her things was a suicide note."

I looked at Nick. "Am I the only one seeing the fact that the two cases are almost identical?"

"Jas, I guess you don't know because you're new to the city, but Garossa Paper Factory is actually a place where crimes are discovered. It's also called a corpse bin. Dead bodies are usually thrown out there."

‘Are the similarities just pure coincidence, then? I was hoping that was the case. Because if not, this entails that the girls were killed by the same person. And in the worst scenario, this could be a serial murder.’

I inspected every newspaper in the box. Every single one of them was about Almira.

‘But why are these here? Who gathered them? Angel?’

I took my phone and searched on the internet: Dead girl found in Garossa factory.

While most of the relevant results were about Angel, I saw a few links about Almira. At the bottom of the results was a link about someone else.

“My god, Nick!" I exclaimed. "There's another similar case! It's from two years ago."

He immediately took my phone to read what I found.

“January 23, 20XX. Ruby Sicaro went missing after leaving a suicide letter."

Nick stared at me, terrified. I think he finally realized that I was not bluffing about Angel's case.

"How come I didn’t know about this? I'm already a student of SMU two years ago," he said in confusion.

"She's still missing until now. If my guess is right, and that these three cases are somehow connected, it's possible that Ruby, too, is already dead."

Nick gave me a newspaper. My chest did a somersault when I saw it was a local newspaper, and it was about Ruby.

‘Did Angel investigate the two cases? And then she ended up like them?’

"This is creepy. So creepy. This is becoming darker than I initially thought."

"This happened three times in SMU," Nick muttered as if he needed confirmation to be able to believe it.

I nodded my head at him. "That only means one thing. The killer is in the school."