Chapter 7

Shirley watched completely stunned by his reaction. She saw her son's face turn from disbelief to such pain that she cried out. "What? Oh my god, what's wrong?"

As if her words finally freed him from a nightmare, she watched him buckle and fall to his knees his arms instinctively wrapping around himself as if to hold himself together. "I killed her." He said barely above a whisper.

Shirley instinctively went to Keith and falling to her knees besides him wrapped him in her loving embrace. She could feel his body shaking uncontrollably. "It's alright honey. I promise you, everything will be alright." She spoke words of comfort without knowing what was truly wrong.

"No, nothing will ever be right again." Keith's answer dissolved into a sob that Shirley felt overtake his entire body. "Oh god it just can't be true."

Tears flowed freely down his face while he kept repeating over and over again, 'I killed her. It's all my fault'.

Tears were streaming down Shirley's face in reaction to her son's emotional outburst. Keith had never been one for tears. He'd barely cried when his father died at least not in front of her and he'd never cried when he'd hurt himself as a child. He'd just bite his lip and, tears swimming in his eyes, tell her that he'd be alright.

What did the card say? Whatever it was it had devastated Keith but she didn't want to let go long enough to find out. He needed her love and support now more than she needed to see what was in that note. She noticed that he was no longer saying anything but the tears still flowed silently down his face. He just rocked back and forth, shaking like he was freezing.

"Mom?" Laurie peeked her head out of the other room and stopped in her tracks stunned by the tableau that greeted her.

"Laurie, don't let the others in here. But, I need your help." Shirley instructed her eyes frantic with worry.

Laurie turned around and told Danny, "Stay in here or so help me I'll tell mom that you broke Grandma's vase. And, keep Chris and Tracy busy."

At Danny's wide-eyed nod of agreement, Laurie walked out into the other room and closed the door firmly behind her.

"What do you want me to do?" Laurie asked as she approached her mom and brother tentatively.

"Grab that blanket and bring it here. He's in shock." Shirley needed to see what was in that note. As Laurie approached and draped the blanket around Keith's shoulders, Shirley let go long enough to anchor the warmth around his still wildly shaking body.

Laurie fell to her knees beside her brother and accepted his weight when Shirley gently handed him over. She could feel the waves of utter devastation rolling off of him. She soon had tears of sympathy rolling down her face.

Shirley quickly picked up the note and walked a short way away to read it.

My love,

I have taken care of our little problem. She will never come between us again. I've made sure of that.

Her lifeless body is at the bottom of a ravine along Highway 1 in Oregon. The witch died screaming and her spell has been broken.

Now, it's just the two of us again. Soon, my love, our years of waiting to be together will be over.

Crazy for you,

Juliet

Shirley could not believe what she saw with her own eyes. This was no overzealous fan. This was a stalker plain and simple; a deranged stalker. Her son had serious trouble and who knew how long he'd been hiding it.

Shirley looked over to see Laurie watching her with wide tear-filled eyes. She continued to murmur her support to Keith, but she watched her mother closely.

Shirley walked back to Keith and Laurie and gently put her hands on her son's face. She forced him to look at her but his eyes were unfocused as he was lost in his own private hell. The vacant look frightened her more than anything in her life before. "Keith, look at me. Keith!" She practically shouted his name the last time.

As his swimming eyes finally focused on her face she continued, "This is not your fault. Do you hear me? This is not your fault. This girl is sick. This may not even be true. But no matter what, this is not your fault."

"It is. It's all my fault. Anne is dead and I killed her." Keith said truly believing it.

Laurie looked on in stunned disbelief. She still had no idea what the note said but could not believe that Keith was blaming himself for Anne's death. How did he know Anne was dead?

"Keith we need to take this to the police. They can find out if it's true. Maybe it's not true. Please, honey, don't blame yourself for something that may not even be true." Shirley begged.

"Oh, God, mom. How can I live with myself?" Keith asked not really hearing her.

Shirley continued to try to get Keith to really hear what she was saying. Her legs were cramping but she didn't move. She continued to hold him and tell him that he was not to blame.

He finally calmed down enough for Shirley to get him to stand up and move to a chair. "Laurie, get me some water."

Laurie quickly went to a pitcher, poured a glass of water and handed it to her mother. Her mother handed her the note and motioned her to take it away. Laurie read it while she took it to her makeup case and shut it inside. She finally understood why her brother had been so devastated. Were there really people in this world who were as sick as the writer of that note appeared to be?

"Mom, I'll take the kids back to the hotel through the other door and send Reuben in here. He'll want to go with you when you go to the police." Laurie said quietly hoping to not disturb Keith who it appeared was finally accepting his mother's comfort.

"Thank you, honey." Shirley smiled sadly at her daughter who had been such a big help. Laurie made sure her mother knew where she'd put the note and then quietly left the room.

Within a few minutes, Reuben entered the room tentatively. At first glance, it looked like Keith was sitting calmly in a chair sipping from a glass of water. When Reuben looked more closely, he noticed that Shirley had to hold the glass steady as shivers continued to rack Keith's frame. He was no longer crying, but he looked utterly devastated.

"Shirley?" Reuben didn't want to intrude, but he needed to know what he was dealing with. Laurie had tried to fill him in, but the other kids had been present and she'd only said that Keith's 'flower fan' had left him a note with some bad news.

"Will you be alright, honey?" Shirley asked Keith as he nodded vaguely and pulling the blanket close around him slouched down in the chair. "I'll just be over here talking to Reuben."

"Shirley, what is going on?" Reuben asked astounded at the changes in Keith. A short time ago he'd been charming their fans with his smiles and spellbinding voice. Now he looked like a man with the weight of the world crushing down on him.

"Reuben, remember that fan I asked you to check up on?" At Reuben's nod, Shirley continued, "Well, she struck again tonight. That's the normal arrangement of flowers that Keith's received for the past month on the last show of every one of our stops."

Reuben followed Shirley's hand gesture to find a beautiful arrangement of white flowers with pinkish purple accents. He didn't know what they were called, but he thought they were quite pretty. "He's upset because he got another bouquet of flowers?" Reuben asked confused.

"No, it's the note that came with them that has him devastated." She went over to Laurie's make-up bag and pulled it out to hand it to him. Reuben read in stunned silence.

"Any chance its true?" Reuben asked.

"Maybe. But, I sure hope not. I don't know if Keith could handle that." Shirley watched her son closely as he sat with his eyes closed trying to make himself as small as possible.

"Well, we need to take this to the police. After talking to Keith about Anne the other night, they will sure be interested in this." Reuben said as he brought the note up between them.

"I know, but I don't know if Keith will be able to talk to them." Shirley said.

"I'll go." Keith said with his eyes still closed surprising both him Mom and his Manager. "I need to find out if it's true."

"Keith, are you sure?" Shirley asked

Keith opened his eyes and looked directly at his Mom with conviction in his eyes, "Yes, I'm sure. If this is my fault, I have to know."

"Keith, even if it's true, it is NOT your fault." Shirley said again.

"You can say that as many times as you want, Mom. I won't believe you." Keith said as he stood up and let the blanket fall. "I'll just go change so that we can go to the police station. You may want to call ahead so that Detective Anderson is there."

Well, Keith was certainly thinking very clearly if he remembered the Detective from the other night.

"Alright, honey. I'll change too and we can leave in 15 minutes, alright?" Shirley agreed.

"I'll call the precinct." Reuben offered as they both headed out of the room.

xoxo

Laurie had just put the younger kids to bed and was standing at the window looking out over the city. She wasn't seeing the winking lights and the moving traffic, her minds eye was replaying the scene in the dressing room. As she relived the moments that she held Keith in her arms, she could feel again the utter devastation that had been rolling off of him in waves. As she relived the pain, tears began to fall down her cheeks again.

Behind her, Danny walked over to stand right beside her. He noticed her tears and became quite concerned. "What's wrong, Laurie?"

"Oh, Danny. You scared me." Laurie said as she quickly tried to wipe the tears away.

"Sorry. I thought I made plenty of noise. You were miles away, though. Where were you?" Danny asked.

"That's silly. I was right here." Laurie said trying to cover.

"Laurie, I'm not a baby. I can handle whatever it is that's wrong. Tell me." When Laurie didn't say anything right away he continued, "You look like you could use the comfort of sharing your troubles."

Man, sometimes Danny sounded like a 40 year old. "Danny, really it's nothing." Laurie belied her words by having to wipe fresh tears from her cheeks.

"It has to do with Keith, doesn't it? It's his crazy fan isn't it?" Danny said hoping that if he brought the subject up she may be more willing to talk about it.

"Did you eavesdrop on us earlier tonight?" Laurie accused.

"No, honest. I didn't. But I did see Keith on his knees on the floor with Mom holding him before you closed the door behind you. What happened?" Danny told her.

"Danny, Mom would kill me if she knew we were talking about this." Laurie turned away and sat down on the couch.

"Then we won't tell her." Danny said logically as he sat down next to her. "Come on Laurie, he's my brother too. I have a right to know what's going on."

"Alright, but only because I'm going crazy sitting here not knowing what's happening." Laurie reluctantly agreed.

"That may not have been the best choice of words." Danny thought about the salutation on each of Keith's fan's letters.

Danny's comments caused Laurie to look at him more shrewdly. "What do you know that I don't?"

"You first." Danny said reverting to his own age. "Then I'll tell you what I know."

"Alright, Keith got a note tonight that said Anne was dead. It was written in such a way that it made it sound like the person writing the note had actually had a hand in killing Anne." Laurie realized that what she said may sound too frightening for a 13 year old so she lightened it with, "But, we don't even know if she's really dead or not."

"If the note is from who I think it is, then she's dead alright." Danny said contemplatively.

"What do you know, Danny Partridge?" Laurie suspected that Danny knew much more than she did and here she'd been trying to protect him from the ugly truth.

"Well, first you have to promise me that you won't say anything to Keith and maybe not even Mom." Danny bargained for his innocence.

"You know I won't promise either one of those things." When Danny looked like he was going to clam up, Laurie continued, "spill it or I'll make sure they both know that you know something."

After contemplating his options, Danny finally decided to tell Laurie what he knew.

"Well, it's like this, I've been watching Keith pretty closely since he started showing up on the cover of all those fan magazines." Danny admitted.

"You mean you've been spying on him and invading his privacy?" Laurie clarified.

"That's not the best spin, but it has some basis in reality." Danny smiled wryly in recognition of Laurie's assessment.

He continued quickly when it looked like Laurie was going to scold him. "He's been getting letters from this fan who's labeled herself Juliet for more than 2 years now."

"What? You're kidding. How come no one else knows about them?" Laurie asked shocked.

"He always read them in his room and, instead of passing them on to Reuben, he threw all of them away. I liberated them from the landfill." Danny smiled smugly.

"Alright, what did these liberated letters say?" Laurie decided against arguing Danny's version of his spying.

"They started out like most of Keith's fan letters." At Laurie's raised eyebrows questioning how Danny knew what Keith's fan mail said, Danny continued quickly, "She started out declaring her love for him and pointed out how much they had in common. She'd dissect all of Keith's songs and point out how they pertained to the two of them and their love for each other. It was all quite nauseating."

"What else?" Laurie prodded. This was truly amazing to her.

"Well, as time went by, it was obvious that she wasn't just a normal fan, but truly obsessed. Keith was all she thought about day or night. She would ramble on about what their future together would be like." Danny shared some of the highlights from some of the stranger letters.

"I wonder why Keith threw them away instead of telling someone." Laurie wondered if something couldn't have been done if Keith had just told someone.

"Why would he tell someone that he had a fan? He has thousands if not millions." Danny pointed out.

"Yeah, but she wasn't, isn't normal." Laurie pointed out.

"How was Keith supposed to know that? Besides, most of the letters were postmarked from Europe." Danny just remembered that important piece of information.

"So, why didn't Reuben know about her? All the fan mail goes to his office." Laurie suddenly remembered.

"No, this girl knew our address. They all came directly to the house." Danny told her.

"How? Our address is not public knowledge. You'd have to be a local to know where we lived." Laurie frowned.

"Yeah, I'd thought of that too. Do you suppose we know who she is?" Danny asked finally concerned.

"Oh, man, I hope not. Besides it's pretty obvious that this girl is sick. We'd know if someone that demented was living around us, right?" Laurie looked at Danny for confirmation.

"Right." They both would have taken comfort in that thought if they'd thought it was true.

"You know I kept all of the letters. Do you suppose the police will want to see them?" Danny asked.

"I would think so. We'll have to talk to Mom when she gets back. They've been gone a long time. I sure hope everything is ok. That Keith is ok." Laurie said looking at the clock again.

"He's fine. Mom's with him. She wouldn't let anything bad happen to him." Danny said.

Laurie smiled to herself to see her brother revert back to his true age. He still had blind faith in their Mom's ability to protect them from the big, bad world. Too bad Laurie didn't believe that any more. She'd have felt much better.

"Well, it looks like they won't be back for quite some time. Why don't you go back to bed and get some sleep. I'll wake you when they get here." Laurie offered.

"I guess." Danny stood up and headed toward the bedroom before turning around, "Laurie, everything's going to be alright, isn't it?"

"I don't know Danny, but I sure hope so." Laurie couldn't lie.

xoxo

The three of them were sitting back in the same interrogation room from the night before. Keith stared at the table, his arms wrapped tightly around himself holding his jean jacket close even though the room was quite warm. Keith barely responded when Reuben or Shirley tried talking to him. Eventually they stopped trying to draw him out and the three of them sat in silence until the door opened to admit Detective Anderson and another detective who they had not met before.

"Hello, again. I understand you have some new information for us." Detective Anderson said as he took a chair across the table from them.

"Yes, my son received this note with a bouquet of flowers after the show tonight." Shirley said as she handed over the paper.

The detective took out his pen to unfold the page of paper so as not to get his finger prints on it. He suspected that several other people had already touched it and it likely didn't hold any real leads for them, but it was part of his training.

As he read the note he couldn't stop his eyebrows from rising. "Well, this certainly is interesting to say the least."

"If it's true, then this is all my fault." Keith said.

"Keith, how many times do I have to tell you that's not true." Shirley said exasperated at her son's refusal to listen to her.

"Why do you think it's your fault?" The detective asked.

"Because it's true." Keith said guiltily. He had yet to raise his eyes from the table.

"Keith stop that. It is not your fault." Shirley said again hoping that one of these times Keith would actually hear her and believe her. "Detective, could you please set my son straight?"

"I can't do that." Though he still hadn't raised his head, Anderson noticed Keith's sad smile of acceptance at his comment. He continued with, "Not yet anyway. I don't know what's going on yet. Care to fill me in?"

"Since the start of our tour, Keith's been getting a bouquet of flowers from a fan who calls herself Juliet. They come on the last show of each venue. Though Keith tried keeping it from me, I knew that the flowers were from the same person each time. She's been following us since the second week of June." Shirley told the story because Keith did not seem so inclined.

Detective Anderson watched Keith closely but did not respond to Shirley's comments.

"Detective, my son is very popular with the female population. He gets thousands of fan letters ever week. How do we find out who this girl is?" Shirley continued trying to help, but the Detective was starting to realize that he needed to hear the story from Keith and that wasn't likely to happen with his mother present. He'd noticed Keith casting furtive glances her way as if he knew she was way off base, but had no plans to correct her. There were likely things he didn't want his mother to hear.

"Mrs. Partridge, could I speak to you and Mr. Kincaid outside for a minute?" The detective asked as he rose from his chair.

"Yes, I suppose so." Shirley said and followed him out of the room with Reuben right behind her.

"Mrs. Partridge, I'm starting to suspect that Keith doesn't want you to hear the truth. He's hardly said anything since I came in and he won't look at anyone." Detective Anderson got right to the point.

"Yes, but he hasn't been able to really look at me since he read the note." Shirley confirmed.

"Would you mind if I spoke to him alone?" The detective asked hoping she would agree.

"I don't know. He's still very upset." Shirley hadn't wanted to leave Keith alone in the room much less have him questioned without her present.

"What if I allow you to watch us from the other side of the mirror? You'll be able to hear everything that's said, but Keith won't know you're there. It may make him feel less vulnerable." The detective was very convincing.

"I suppose that would be alright." Shirley answered tentatively.

"Bob, please show them to the observation area and make them comfortable. I'll give you a few minutes to get settled then go back in and talk to Keith." Detective Anderson assured them. When Shirley hesitated again, he continued, "You'll only be a few steps away if he needs you. Please, let me try to get him to open up. I think he's afraid that what he has to say may hurt you."

"Come on, Shirley. Let's let the Detective do his job. Keith needs to get this out and he hasn't been able to do that yet." Reuben put his hand on Shirley's arm and steered her towards the door just down the hall. Shirley allowed him to lead her away reluctantly.

The detective walked down the hall to a vending machine and purchased a coke to take back into the interrogation room. He hoped if he came bearing gifts Keith might actually look at him.

"Hey, Keith, I'm back and I brought you something to drink. Coke alright?" The detective said as he walked in, set the bottle down on the table and took the chair across from Keith.

Keith looked at the closed door but did not look at the detective, "Where's my Mom?"

"I asked her if I could have some time alone with you. She very reluctantly agreed." The detective chuckled at his own joke. Keith simply nodded.

"So, do you want to tell me what you know about this 'Juliet'?" The detective started with an open ended question.

"Do I have a choice?" Keith said as he grabbed the bottle and took a swig to help wet his dry throat.

"Of course you do. Keith, you're not in any trouble here. You know that, right?" The detective assured him.

"If you call getting someone killed not being in trouble, then I guess you're right." Keith said as he pushed the bottle away from him. It wasn't sitting very well in his stomach. "Juliet has been writing to me for more than 2 years and I even suspected that she was capable of hurting someone. She told me as much. Does that sound like someone who couldn't have stopped this?"

Keith finally looked at the detective and Anderson was shocked to see the haunted look in the young man's eyes. This kid truly believed he was responsible for his girlfriend's death.