Blur (Blur Trilogy) (26 page)

CHAPTER
FIFTY-FOUR

“You took the phones!” Daniel gasped.

“I wasn’t thinking. The
y
had m
y
prints on
’e
m. I freaked out.”

“Do
yo
u realize what
yo
u’ve done? You took evidence from a possible crime scen
e—n
ot to mention now
yo
u have in
yo
ur possession three phones that likel
y
belonged to girls who might ver
y
well have been murdered.”

“Yeah.” His voice was soft and low. “Like I said, I freaked out.”

K
yl
e was e
ye
ing the neighborhood. He saw a sedan turn onto their street and quickl
y
hid the phones in his car. “If we show
’e
m to Ronnie he’ll be able to tell us if one is his sister’s. Her charger will still be at their house, don’t
yo
u think? We can plug her phone in, turn it on, see if there are an
y
messages from people she might have been planning to meet at the lake.”

“K
yl
e,
yo
u’re not making an
y
sense. What then? What? Do we sneak into Mr. McKinne
y’
s house again and put them back in his closet? Besides, if he thought someone was in his house, he’s probabl
y
alread
y
checked to see if the phones are missing!”

“Don’t worr
y,
he would never call the cops. I mean, reall
y?
Tell them someone broke into his home and stole three cell phones that he took from dead girls?”

“But
yo
u’ve just implicated
yo
urself.”

“I did that when I touched the phones in the house.”

Daniel had no idea what to sa
y.

K
yl
e didn’t seem to either.

“I have to get to Rizzo’s,” he said finall
y.
“Don’t sa
y
an
yt
hing about this, oka
y?
”

“Are
yo
u kidding? Who would I tell?”

“We’ll talk after I’m off work and
yo
u’re done with football practice.”

Slightl
y
dazed, Daniel watched K
yl
e drive awa
y.

Unbelievable.

What were the
y
going to do now?

His head wasn’t in practice. There were too man
y
other things on his mind. Ever
yt
hing seemed to be both somehow coming together and unraveling at the same time.

There were three cell phones in Mr. McKinne
y’
s home.

All from girls.

And K
yl
e had taken them from the house.

How were the
y
going to get the sheriff’s department to look into Mr. McKinne
y
if K
yl
e had the phones?

Then another realization hit him: he hadn’t replaced the padlock in the hasp when he and K
yl
e fled the house. If Mr. McKinne
y
noticed that, he would know for sure that someone had been there.

After practice, Coach Jostens told the offensive team he was going to be gone tomorrow, but gave them drills to work on. “I’ll be here right after school for a few minutes in case
yo
u have an
y
questions before I take off. Don’t worr
y,
I’ll be back on Frida
y
for the game. I wouldn’t miss that for the world.”

When Daniel left the locker room, he called K
yl
e immediatel
y
and found that he was still at work. “I forgot I need to watch Michele tonight,” K
yl
e told him. “I can’t go over to Ronnie’s to see if he can identif
y
which phone was his sister’s.”

“Well, I know his mom wouldn’t be too excited to see me, so I can’t pick them up from
yo
u and take them over there b
y
m
ys
elf, even if I wanted to. Besides, if she found out we have Emil
y’
s phone, well, that could cause all sorts of misunderstandings.”

“No kidding.”

“I’ll text Ronnie. Ma
yb
e we can meet up tomorrow between classes. I’ll ask him to bring Emil
y’
s charger.”

“He’ll know we have her phone if
yo
u tell him to do that,” K
yl
e noted.

“I’ll just tell him we might have a lead. If we meet in the librar
y
the
y’
ll have copies of
ye
arbooks from the
ye
ars before we started attending her
e—w
ho knows, ma
yb
e even from the other schools in our conference. There might be something in them.”

“You’re impressing me now, budd
y.
I can tell
yo
u’ve been thinking about this.”

“M
y
mind wasn’t exactl
y
on practice this afternoon. Also,
yo
u know how cell phones evolve and change st
yl
es ever
y ye
ar or two? Well,
yo
u have the phones. Go online tonight, see if
yo
u can figure out, b
y
the shape of the charging inputs, the design, whatever, what
ye
ars the
y
came out. We’ll tr
y
to match the dates up with an
y
instances of girls who might have disappeared or died in the towns Mr. McKinne
y
used to teach in.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

After the
y
hung up, Daniel headed home and went online, searching for class rosters from the
ye
ars Mr. McKinne
y
was at the other high schools, then he looked for articles about other girls who might have disappeared.

He found that last
ye
ar, a girl from Roosevelt High had apparentl
y
killed herself with carbon monoxide poisoning b
y
running her car in her garage with the doors closed, and one girl from Coulee High was found dead from a drug overdose two
ye
ars ago.

Both had died on nights when Beldon High had awa
y
football games at the girls’ schools.

Daniel’s heart seemed to stop and somehow race forward at the same time.

Tell
yo
ur dad. You have to tell
yo
ur dad.

Reall
y?
And tell him what? You don’t have an
y
evidence the
y
were murdered. There’s no proof. It’s all circumstantial.

No, it wasn’t enough, not
ye
t.

But tomorrow when he met up with K
yl
e and Ronnie, he would find out more.

And then he would go to his dad with ever
yt
hing and tell him about the other girls. And what Mr. McKinne
y
had done to them.

CHAPTER
FIFTY-FIVE

Thursda
y.

Daniel woke up with a headache.

Severe headaches had preceded each of the other times Emil
y
had appeared to him. So alread
y
that was a bad sign for the da
y.

His dad had the morning off and was sleeping in.

Daniel rose, got dressed, and rounded up some breakfast.

Before heading to school, he texted Ronnie asking him to bring the charger. The
y
agreed to meet in the librar
y
between fifth and sixth hour.

Over the course of the morning, Daniel glimpsed Stac
y
twice at the far end of the hallwa
y,
but she avoided him. And based on what he’d told her the other night about losing touch with realit
y,
he wasn’t exactl
y
surprised.

Ronnie and K
yl
e were waiting for him in a quiet corner of the librar
y
behind an expansive row of bookshelves.

Daniel didn’t see the phones
ye
t and assumed K
yl
e was waiting until he’d gotten there before showing them to Ronnie.

He had no idea how Ronnie would respond when he saw them.

Since the
y
were in the librar
y,
he lowered his voice as he warned Ronnie not to get too upset right awa
y.

“About what?”

“We found something and we’re not sure exactl
y
what it means.”

“You wanted me to bring her phone charger. Is that what
yo
u found?” He sounded anxious, but also excited. “Did
yo
u find her phone?”

“We might have. I don’t know.” Daniel nodded for K
yl
e to show him the phones and, using a bandanna he’d brought with him so he wouldn’t leave more prints, he gingerl
y
drew them out of his backpack.

“
That’s hers.” Ronnie pointed to the older-model Samsung
Galax
y
in the pink case. “M
y
dad gave it to her when he upgraded.”

“Plug the charger into the wall,” Daniel said.

Ronnie found an outlet at one of the stud
y
desks nearb
y
and plugged the phone in.

The three of them watched, hardl
y
breathing, while it booted up.

The home screen became visible.

A photo of a golden retriever.

“Trevor,” Ronnie whispered.

No password prompt.

For a moment none of the bo
ys
spoke. Finall
y,
K
yl
e said, “Daniel, there’s no wa
y
he would have this phone if Emil
y
drowned b
y
accident.”

“I agree.”

“Who?” Ronnie asked urgentl
y.
“Who had it?”

“We’ll tell
yo
u later,” Daniel replied. “We nee
d—”

“Who? Tell me!”

“Shh. We’l
l—”

“Hang on.” Suddenl
y
Ronnie looked at them askance, his e
ye
s wide. “Wh
y
are there three phones?”

“We’re not sure,” Daniel told him honestl
y.
He didn’t want to handle Emil
y’
s phone, so, just as K
yl
e had done, he used the bandanna beneath his finger when he tapped the screen to check the most recent texts.

In addition to the messages from Emil
y’
s mom on the night she disappeared asking where she was, the last text message, received Frida
y
afternoon, read, “Meet me b
y
Wind
y
Pt 6:30. K
yl
e G.”

Both Daniel and Ronnie stared disbelievingl
y
at K
yl
e.

“You did it!” Ronnie gasped. Even though he was much smaller, he shoved K
yl
e hard against the wall.

“Eas
y.
” He held Ronnie back at arm’s length. “It wasn’t me. Check the number. Someone else sent it to lure her out there.”

“You could have used another phone.”

“Quiet.” Daniel took hold of Ronnie’s shoulders and pulled him awa
y
from K
yl
e. “Don’t make the librarian come over here. Hang on now. Let’s figure this out.”

Ronnie jerked awa
y
from Daniel but, at least for the moment, held back from going after K
yl
e, though he glared at him and looked like he was read
y
to go at him again an
y
moment.

It onl
y
took a second to verif
y
that the number wasn’t from K
yl
e’s phone. Daniel asked him, “Is there an
y
wa
y
Emil
y
would have known that the text wasn’t from
yo
u? I mean, she didn’t have
yo
ur actual number, did she?”

“No. No wa
y.
”

“Then somehow, whoever texted her knew she had a crush on
yo
u an
d—”

“She had a crush on
yo
u?” Ronnie snapped.

“It onl
y
means,” Daniel said, “that someone was able to use that to get her out to Wind
y
Point alone. It doesn’t mean it was K
yl
e.”

He scrolled through the texts and didn’t see an
y
others from that number. When he went to the incoming and outgoing calls, the number never came up.

“There’s one wa
y
to figure out whose number that is.” K
yl
e pulled out his cell. “Call it.”

CHAPTER
FIFTY-SIX

K
yl
e tapped in the number.

No one picked up.

No voicemail.

No surprise.

Whoever had sent the text could easil
y
have used a prepaid phone and destro
ye
d it, or ma
yb
e h
e—o
r sh
e—j
ust wasn’t answering it.

The three bo
ys
onl
y
had a couple minutes before the tard
y
bell would ring.

Ronnie had class on the other end of the building and had to leave, but told them to fill him in if the
y
found out an
yt
hing. He didn’t look convinced that K
yl
e was innocent, but apparentl
y
trusted Daniel enough to let things be for the time being.

Daniel and K
yl
e had class on this wing, so the
y
decided the
y
could spare another minute or two.

K
yl
e replaced the three phones in his backpack. “When I was looking up info on
’e
m I found that the
y’
re all prett
y
new, onl
y
from the last couple
ye
ars.”

“That fits with when the two girls died at those other schools.”

“So
yo
u found some girls who died?”

“Yeah. A girl in her car in her garage and an overdose. The first was a suicide. The
y
called the second one accidental.” Then he added, “Both of them died on nights when we had awa
y
football games at their schools.”

“Mr. McKinne
y
might ver
y
well have attended the games,” K
yl
e replied. “And if he did kill girls in those other towns, who would suspect him?” He gestured toward a nearb
y
bookshelf. “Come on. We need to see if there are an
y
pictures of those games.”

The two of them quickl
y
flipped through the librar
y’
s reference copies of Beldon High
ye
arbooks from the
ye
ars when the girls had died.

The
y
found photos from each of the football games.

In the picture that the school photographer had taken of the Roosevelt High game, Daniel recognized one of the cheerleaders as also being in the photo of the math club that Mr. McKinne
y
had led there, the photo he’d seen in his house.

She was in the background, walking right past Coach Jostens.

“That’s the girl who overdosed,” he said softl
y.

The tard
y
bell rang and the
y
both scooted out of the librar
y,
agreeing to touch base tonight as soon as the
y
could after Daniel’s football practice.

For the remainder of the school da
y,
Daniel wrestled with the headache, but it was making it harder and harder for him to concentrate.

He tried desperatel
y
to piece things together.

The football games.

Three dead girls.

Three phones in Mr. McKinne
y’
s closet.

He’s friends with Coach Jostens, plus he’s a teacher. Going to the games makes sense.

After school, Nicole met up with him while he was on his wa
y
to change for practice. She smiled warml
y
at him. “Thank
yo
u, Daniel.”

“For what?”

She looked at him curiousl
y.
“You know.”

“I’m sorr
y,
I . . .”

“The necklace, sill
y.
”

“What are
yo
u talking about?”

She reached down and untucked the necklace she had on.

It was the one that Emil
y
Jackson had been wearing in the photos at the funeral and on her grave, the necklace she’d pulled through her neck when she appeared to Daniel at the football game.

He could barel
y
get the words out. “Where did
yo
u get that?”

“It was in m
y
locker.”

“It’s not from me.”

“Of course it is.” Nicole unsnapped the clasp on the locket and flicked it open.

Inside was a picture of Daniel’s face, cut out from the newspaper article about last week’s game.

He stared at it.

“No . . . Nicole, that’s . . .”

“Are
yo
u sa
yi
ng someone else put
yo
ur picture in the locket and then gave it to me? Who would do that? It doesn’t make an
y
sense.”

Mr. McKinne
y.

He slid it through the ventilation holes at the top of her locker.

But wh
y
Nicole?

The dance. He was there at the punch table. He could have seen
yo
u talking with her, ma
yb
e even saw
yo
u two leave together. Teachers hear things too. Ma
yb
e he heard she likes
yo
u.

He knows.

He gave her Emil
y’
s necklace.

He’s setting
yo
u up for—

Mr. Reicher, the school principal, was striding down the hallwa
y
toward them.

“Something’s up, Nicole,” Daniel said. “I want
yo
u to go straight home.”

“What is it?” The confusion on her face descended into fear. “Is it something to do wit
h—”

Before she could finish, Principal Reicher arrived. “Daniel, ma
y
I speak with
yo
u, please?”

“Um, sure.” He turned to Nicole. “I’ll text
yo
u.”

“Oka
y.
”

Daniel had no idea what this was about, but expected the
y
would be going to the school office. However, the
y
headed to the bo
ys
’ locker room instead.

Inside, a bunch of gu
ys
were getting read
y
for football and cross-countr
y
practice and stared uncertainl
y
at their star quarterback entering with the school’s principal.

Both Daniel’s football coaches, Coach Warner and Coach Jostens, were waiting for him b
y
his locker.

And so was his dad.