Free The Watcher in the Wall by Owen Laukkanen

and Adam DeLong, the third victim, Frey talks about how she just wants to prove to Earl that she’ll go ahead and actually do it.”
    Windermere eyed him over the printouts. “So who the heck is Earl?”
    “No idea,” Mathers said. “But whoever he is, it sure sounds like he and Frey have some unresolved issues.”
    < 27 >
    In the end, it wasn’t the blade that Sarah chose, when she decided to do it right.
    Gruber was watching her through the hole again, after dinner, a weeknight. She’d been quiet on the walk home from school, even quieterthan usual. She’d picked at her dinner, excused herself fast, disappeared down the hall.
    Gruber did the dishes and went to his room, pushed the painting aside, eager to watch her some more. It had been five or six months that he’d been peering at her through that hole, a half year’s worth of secret glimpses. It felt good, an addiction, the only thing that really mattered. Gruber lived for these moments, for the stirrings they built inside him, the electric urges.
    Sarah was kind of boring tonight. She lay on her bed for a long time, staring up at the ceiling. Sometimes she stood and paced around the bedroom. Dug under her bed for a magazine and flipped through the pages, her face a blank mask.
    He grew frustrated, then bored. Left her alone and went to watch TV in the living room for a while, game shows with his mother,
Jeopardy!
and
Wheel of Fortune.
Sarah stayed in her room. He didn’t know how she could stand to be in there for so long.
    When he checked on her, it was dark, and Earl had disappeared for the night. Their mother had retreated to her bedroom, closed her door. Gruber’s homework was finished. He had nothing to do. He hoped Sarah would be more interesting this time around.
    She had the bottle out, was the first thing he noticed. It wasn’t the same bottle obviously; she’d been sneaking them in with an increasing frequency as the months wore on. This bottle was filled with brown liquid, Jim Beam, like Earl drank. She was about halfway through it, and it was the first time Gruber had seen it.
    It was the first time he’d seen the rope, too. Yellow rope, like the kind the guy across the trailer park used to tie up his poor dog. Rough,plasticky stuff, the kind that burned through your skin if you held on too tight while playing tug-of-war, or whatever. The rope was about an inch thick. Sarah was fiddling with it, tying some kind of complicated knot.
    She wasn’t crying, but she didn’t exactly seem happy, either. Her face was still blank, her eyes almost lifeless. Like she was through being the lion at the zoo. Like she was a robot carrying out some mechanical task. She finished the knot and held it up to examine it. Gruber recognized it. He’d seen it in Western movies, cowboys and Indians. A hangman’s noose.
    Holding the other end of the rope, she brought it to her closet. Shoved her clothes to the side, the blouses and dresses and sweaters, until there was only a bare stretch of dull metal dowel. She examined it for a moment. Then she started to loop the rope around its length.
    He watched her, the thrill starting deep in his belly and radiating outward. This was serious, he knew. This was something far more dangerous than the game with the razor. He wondered if she would really do it, how far she would go.
    But he could see from her face that she was finished playing games. She was beyond that point; she was determined. He had convinced her. The only question was whether he would let her go ahead with it.
    Gruber was breathing heavy, feverish, sweat blearing his glasses. He knew his stepsister would die if he didn’t do something. Knew it was wrong to watch and do nothing. Couldn’t turn away. Couldn’t move.
    She was in the closet now. She was almost ready. He watched her take a deep breath, survey the little bedroom. Her eyes scanned the window, the mirror, the bed. And then they landed on the hole in the wall.
    Gruber froze. Held his breath as