Fade (2 page)

outside in the cold to start up Ethel.

Ethel is Janie"s 1977 Nova. She bought the car from Stu Gardner, who

has been dating Janie"s best friend, Carrie Brandt, for two years. Stu"s a

mechanic. He babied Ethel from the time he was thirteen years old, and

Janie respects the tradition. The car roars to life. Janie pats the dashboard appreciatively. Ethel hums.

Cabel and Janie arrive separately at the police station. They park in

different locations. They enter the building using different doors. And

they don"t meet again until Janie gets to Captain"s office. It"s important

that nobody sees them together until the drug case with Shay Wilder"s

father is closed, or else their duties with this new assignment could be

compromised.

It"s because Janie and Cabel work undercover as narcs at Fieldridge

High School. Janie"s discovering there are a lot of weird things that

happen at her school. More than she could have ever imagined.

Cabel"s already sitting there with Captain when Janie walks in. He hands

out cups of coffee for the three of them. He stirs Janie"s with a stir stick

after having prepared it just the way she likes it: three creams, three

sugars.

She needs the calories.

Because of all the dreams.

She"s finally getting some padding and muscle back on her bones, after

the last big thing.

Janie sits before she"s ordered to sit.

“Nice to see you, Hannagan. You look better than the last time I saw

you,” remarks Captain in a gruff voice.

“Glad to see you too, sir,” Janie says to the woman, Captain Fran Komisky. “You don"t look so bad yourself, if I may say so.” She hides a

smile.

Captain raises an eyebrow. “You two are going to piss me off today, I

can just feel it,” she says. She runs her fingers through her short bronze

hair, and adjusts her skirt. “Anything to report, Strumheller?”

“Not really, sir,” Cabel says to her. “Just the usual schmoozing. Making

the rounds. Trying to get a better picture of what some of the teachers

and students are like outside the classroom.”

Captain turns to Janie. “Anything from the dreams, Hannagan?”

“Nothing useful,” Janie says. She feels bad.

Captain nods. “As I expected. This is going to be a tough one.”

“Sir, if I may ask…,” Janie begins.

“You want to know what"s going on.” Captain rises abruptly, closes the

door to her office, and returns to her desk, a serious look on her face.

“Last March, our Crimebusters Underground Quick Cash school program received a phone call on the Fieldridge High School line. You"ve heard of that program, right? All the schools in the area participate. Each school has its own line, so Crimebusters knows which

school the complaint is from.”

Cabel nods. “Students can earn a reward—fifty bucks, I think—if they

report a crime directly related to schools. That"s how we were tipped off

about the drug parties on the Hill, Janers.”

Janie nods. She"s heard of it too. Has the hotline-number magnet on her

refrigerator like everybody else in Fieldridge. “Hey, fifty bucks is fifty

bucks. It"s a smart program.”

Captain continues. “Anyway. The caller didn"t actually say much of

anything. It"s very distant sounding—almost as if she dialed but didn"t

put the phone to her mouth. It"s only about a five-second call before the

caller hangs up. Here"s the recording of it. Tell me what you hear.”

Captain presses a button on a machine behind her. Cabel and Janie strain

to make out the garbled words. The voice sounds very far away and

music pounds behind it.

Janie furrows her brow and leans forward. Cabel shakes his head,

puzzled. “Could you play it again?”

“I"ll play it a few more times. Concentrate on the background noise, too.

There are other people talking in the distance.” Captain plays the short

message several times more. She slows the tape and speeds it up, then

reduces the background noise. Finally she reduces the voice of the caller

until only the background noise remains.

“Anything, either of you?” Captain asks.

“It"s impossible to understand a single word the caller"s saying,”

Cabel

says. “Nobody"s screaming, nobody sounds upset. I heard laughter in the

background. The music sounds like Mos Def. Janie?”

“I hear a guy"s voice in the background saying „Mister"

something.”

Captain nods. “I hear that too, Janie. That"s the only word I can make

out in the entire call.

“We didn"t think much of this call—didn"t spend time on it. There was

no information, no complaint, no report of a crime. But then in November, there was another call to Crimebusters Underground. And

when I heard this one, I remembered the call you just heard. Listen.”

Captain plays the new call. It"s a woman"s slurred voice, giggling uncontrollably and saying,
“I want my Quick Cash!

Fieldridge…High.

Fucking teachers…fucking students. Omigod—this can’t—oops!”

More

giggles and then the call ends abruptly. Captain plays it for them a few

times more.

“Wow,” Janie says.

Captain looks from Janie to Cabel. “Anything jump out at you?”

Cabel squints. “Fucking teachers, fucking students? Is that a slam on

Fieldridge teachers and students, or is it, you know, literal?”

“The music in the background is similar to the first recording,”

Janie

says.

“Right, Janie. That"s what made me think of the first call when this one

came in. And yes, Cabe, we"re taking it literally until, and unless, we"re

proven wrong. This call gave us enough information to do something

with it. My hunch, from what little we have here, is that Fieldridge High

may have a sexual predator hiding in their hallways.”

“Can"t you find out who made the calls and ask them what"s going on?”

Janie asks.

“Well, that would be breaking the law, Janie. The whole purpose of

Crimebusters Underground is that the calls are anonymous, to protect the

person reporting the crime, and they must remain that way. The callers

are assigned a code name by which their individual tip is identified.

Later, they can use that code name to check on the case and claim their

reward if they have managed to give Crimebusters Underground a

usable lead.”

“That makes sense,” Janie says sheepishly.

“What have you done so far, Captain?” Cabel asks. “And,” he says more

cautiously, “what are you hoping we can do?” His voice, for the first

time, sounds edgy. Janie glances sidelong at him with mild surprise. She

didn"t expect to see him so uncomfortable about an assignment.

“We"ve done complete background checks on all the teachers. Everyone

comes up squeaky clean. And now we"re stuck. Cabe, Janie, this is why

I had you at the all-nighter. I"m looking for any information you can give me about Fieldridge teachers who might be sexual predators in their

spare time. Are you up for the challenge? This one could be a bit dangerous. Hannagan, chances are, the predator is male. If we can

determine who we"re after, we may need to use you as bait so we can

nail him. Think about it and get back to me on how you feel about it. If

you don"t want to do this assignment, you"re off the hook. No pressure.”

Cabel sits up, even more concerned. “Bait? You"re going to put her out

there for the creep to prey on?”

“Only if she wants to.”

“No way,” Cabel says. “Janie, no. It"s too dangerous.”

Janie blinks and glares at Cabel. “Mom? Is that you?” She laughs nervously, not enjoying the confrontation. “What do you mean it"s too

dangerous?”

Captain interjects. “We"ll have your back at all times, Janie. Besides, we

don"t know what"s going on yet. It may be nothing. I"m hoping you can

get at least some of the information we need through dreams.”

Cabel shakes his head at Janie. “I don"t like this.”

Janie raises an eyebrow. “Right. Only you are allowed to do something

dangerous. Jeez, Cabe. It"s really not your decision.”

Cabel looks at Captain for help.

Captain pointedly ignores him and looks at Janie.

“I don"t need to think about it, sir. Count me in,” Janie says.

“Good.”

Cabel frowns.

Captain spends the next thirty minutes coaching them on the art of

obtaining information. It"s a refresher course for Cabel, who"s been a

narc for a year now (although Janie knows better than to call him that)

and was responsible for the most recent Fieldridge drug bust of Shay

Wilder"s father, who had a gold mine of cocaine hidden on his boat. It

was Janie who figured out the location of the cake when Mr. Wilder fell

asleep in jail. She and Cabel make a good team.

And Captain knows it.

It"s why she puts up with their shit—now and then.

Captain reiterates the assignment and encourages the two seniors to keep

plugging away. “If we are dealing with a sexual predator, we need to

nail the bastard before he hurts another Fieldridge student.”

“Yes, sir,” Janie says.

Cabel folds his arms over his chest and shakes his head, defeated.

Finally says, “Yes, sir.”

Captain nods and rises from her chair. Instinctively Cabel and Janie rise

too. The meeting is over. But before they leave the office, Captain says,

“Janie? I need to speak with you alone. Cabe, you may go.”

Cabe doesn"t hesitate. He"s gone, without so much as a glance at Janie.

Janie can"t help puzzling over why Cabel"s acting like he is. Captain walks to a file cabinet and pulls out several thick files. Janie stands in silence. Watching.

Wondering.

Captain still scares her some.

Because Janie"s pretty new at this.

Finally, Captain returns to the desk with the stack of files and loose

papers. Puts them in a box. Sits down. Looks at Janie.

“New topic. This is classified,” Captain says. “You get what that means?”

Janie nods.

“Not even Cabe, right? You understand?”

Janie nods somberly. “Yes, sir,” she adds.

Captain studies Janie for a moment, and then shoves the stack of files

and papers toward Janie. “The reports. Twenty-two years worth of reports and notes. Written by Martha Stubin.”

Janie"s eyes grow wide. Fill with tears, despite her attempt to hold them

back.

“You knew her, didn"t you,” Captain says, almost accusingly.

“Why

didn"t you mention it? You had to know I"d do a full background check

on you.”

Janie doesn"t know the answer Captain wants to hear. She only knows

her own reasons. She hesitates, but then speaks. “Miss Stubin is…was…the only person who understood this—this stupid dream curse,

and I didn"t even know it until after she died,” she says. She looks down

at her lap. “I"m so bummed that I didn"t have a chance to talk to her

about it. And now all I have of her is an occasional cameo when she

decides to show up in someone"s dream, to show me how to do things.”

Janie swallows the lump in her throat. “She hasn"t been around lately.”

Captain Komisky is rarely at a loss for words. But she"s showing signs

of it now.

Finally she says, “Martha never mentioned you. She was searching.

Hard. For her replacement. There were others like her, years ago, but

they are gone now too. She must have only discovered you recently.”

Janie nods. “I fell into one of her dreams at the nursing home. She talked

to me in her dream, but I didn"t understand that it was different with

her—that she was testing me, teaching me. Not until after she died.”

Then Captain says, “I think the only reason she lived as long as she did

was because she was determined to find the next catcher. You.”

There is a moment of warmth in the room.

And then it is back to business.

Captain clears her throat loudly and says, “Well. I expect there"s some

interesting stuff in here. Some of it might be tough. Take a month or so

to read through it.

And if you find anything you don"t understand or are worried about,

you"ll come talk to me. Is that clear?”

Janie looks at her. She has no idea what to expect from the files. But she

does know what Captain expects to hear. “Sir, yes, sir,” she says. With a

confidence she doesn"t feel.

Captain straightens the papers on her desk, indicating that the meeting is

over. Janie stands up abruptly and takes the stack of files. “Thank you,

sir,” Janie says, and heads out the door.

She doesn"t see Captain Fran Komisky watching her go, thoughtfully

tapping her chin with a pen, after Janie closes the door behind her.

Janie drives home, happy to see the few rays of sunshine forcing their

way through the gray clouds on this cold January afternoon. But she"s

feeling an ominous presence emanating from the pile of materials Captain gave her, and an unsettled feeling about Cabel"s strange reaction

to the assignment. She stops at her house, makes quick eye contact with

her mother, and dumps the literature on her bed. She"ll deal with it later.

But now, she"s dying to spend her last vacation day with Cabel. Before they have to go back to the real world of school. And pretend they"re not in love.

4:11 p.m.

Janie sprints through the yards, taking a different path to Cabel"s this

time. She can"t be seen by anyone connected to her high school. But the

good thing is that almost nobody who matters at Fieldridge High lives