3.

It was seven thirty in the morning when Ellie found the finger in her mailbox. That sort of thing would wake you up faster than any cup of coffee could. Luckily there were police officers on the street who witnessed her almost faint. Before she could, someone caught her and a police officer had obviously seen the finger that was in her mailbox because he was motioning for other people to come and check it out. They were trying to talk to her but her eyes could not focus so she couldn’t read their lips. They got her back to her house and she guessed that someone figured out that she was deaf, because they handed her a pad and paper with the words, ‘Are you okay? Do you want to go to the hospital?’ Written in big clear letters.

Ellie shook her head no. Her hands were still shaking and she felt sick. That’s when people started writing down a lot of questions. Was there somebody that wanted to hurt her? Had she seen anything strange going on around her house recently? Was there anything missing? No, no, and no.

‘I have security cameras,’ She wrote down. None of the investigators there knew how to sign, so she knew that she was going to have to resort to this irritating way of communicating.

“Can you show us?” One of the men mouthed. She could tell that he was shouting by the way that his lips moved, as if that was going to make Ellie somehow be able to hear what he was saying. She nodded, forced herself to steady her hands and stop crying, and motioned for them to follow her to the computer room. She pulled up the footage for them and let them have at it before she went back to the living room and curled up in a ball on the couch.

Time passed by like it was on fast-forward, and then she was brought back to reality when a man that she had not seen before knelt down in front of the couch. He was a respectable distance away from her, unlike the other men who had been so close to her when they spoke that they made it hard for Ellie to breathe. He had these eyes that were calculating like a fox, but also warm and inviting like a cup of hot chocolate. He gave her a slight smile that wasn’t forced, more sympathetic, like he understood how jarring it was to find a random appendage in your mailbox.

He signed to her, ‘Hi, Miss Briarwood. My name is Jack. I am a Special Investigator with the FBI. I heard that you had quite the fright this morning.’ He was slower than a native signer, but she appreciated him knowing it enough to actually talk to her. Ellie pushed herself up. ‘Are you doing okay? Are you sure that you don’t want to go to the hospital?’

‘I’m sure,’ She signed back.

Jack nodded. ‘Okay, just wanted to make sure. Is it okay if I ask you some questions? I’m sure the other detectives have already asked you, but I just got here and I would like to hear what happened from you.’

‘Go ahead,’

‘Alright, did you know the victim of the murder last night?’

‘No. I don’t know anyone in this neighborhood. None of them really try to communicate with me,’

Jack wrote that down before he continued, ‘Is there anyone that you can think of that might have some sort of vendetta against you? Made any enemies, I know that you are an author, but I don’t think you would have made any enemies that way, right?’

‘I can’t think of anyone that wants to hurt me.’ Ellie signed back. She was a little shocked that Jack knew that she was an author, but then she remembered that one of her books hit the New York Times bestseller list two days ago, so anyone who barely stepped into a bookstore would vaguely recognize her name. She bit her lip, hoping that this wasn’t some psychopath that had read her most recent book and got inspired by the actions of the serial killer in the book. She decided that even though it was an absurd idea, she should tell Jack because any idea was better than none at all.

‘What are you thinking?’ Jack signed.

‘I was thinking that he may have read my most recent book, it’s a fictionalized account of something that happened to me when I was a child. The finger in the mailbox, I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it until now—’

‘Miss Briarwood, I am sorry to ask you but can you please slow down. You’re signing too fast.’

Ellie nodded and then repeated herself, telling Jack about her books and how she mainly wrote thrillers and mysteries. Jack started writing stuff down and asked if she had copies of her books on hand. Ellie nodded and handed him three of her most recent that were on one of her bookshelves, he thanked her and told her that she should think about staying somewhere else for the night before he left. He was probably right, staying somewhere away from the killer would be a good idea, but Ellie kept catastrophizing in her mind. Thinking that the killer could follow her and since a hotel would not have as much security as her house, they might find a way to get into her room and she would become the next victim.

She ended up deciding that she was going to stay here and just triple check all of her doors. It was half past noon by the time the investigators left, Jack told her that he was going to make sure that someone was posted next to her house at all time. She thanked him, feeling a little bit better. She ended up opening a bottle of cabernet early in order to calm her nerves a little bit. She kept thinking about that finger.

Who’s was it?

Was it the victim’s of last night’s stabbing?

Why would someone put a finger in her mailbox?

These were all questions that she kept asking herself. She started staring at a particular point on the wall, out of her periphery she could see a bunch of news vans coming up the street so they could get the latest scoop. At some point, she found herself going to her typewriter. Even though she had a computer, this was what she wrote all of her rough drafts on before she edited it and typed it. She wasn’t really sure what she was going to write, but she needed the distraction. She needed an escape from this moment. So, she started:

...Missing or murdered white woman syndrome has a particular stench. Pungent, bitter, but also sickly sweet. Irina could smell it in the air as she looked down at the crime scene. It was just a matter of seconds that the sharks that were the press started circling, making her job that much harder.

...

The words started flowing over her. She kept feeding pieces of paper into the typewriter and just writing more and more. By the time she stopped, she realized she was going to have to go to the store to get some more paper.

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