Mystery: The Card Counter: (Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Suspense Thriller Mystery) (13 page)

“First of all, young lady,” I started, “I don’t have any spies at your college, but now that I see you’re keeping secrets from me, I might have to change that policy. Now answer the question: How long have you been seeing this Melvin fellow?”

“About six months,” Cassie finally answered.

I took a deep breath and then moved on to a more relevant question that I think Flo was dying for me to ask. “How did you know Melvin was here?”

Cassie knew that, regardless of what she said, someone was going to get in trouble. She took a deep breath and just went with the truth. “Melvin did.”

I had to expect this. It was only a matter of time before the players got restless and tried to reach out to friends, family, and especially any girlfriends for someone to talk to, or whatever. I shook that thought out of my mind and turned my attention back to Flo. “I thought we took all of their cell phones?”

“We did,” Flo answered. “And I had all the phones in their room turned off.”

“He called me from another room, one that wasn’t booked for the players,” Cassie answered. She knew how upset I could get when I was missing a certain detail to what was going on.

I stood up and walked Flo to the other side of the lobby. “Bring Melvin down here right now.”

Flo could tell how angry I was getting, and it wasn’t for the reason she assumed. As much as I didn’t like the idea of my daughter dating a jock, I was more concerned about keeping people alive. Something Melvin hadn’t considered when he reached out to talk to his girlfriend and gave away the location of his hideout on an open line. By the time Flo came downstairs with Melvin, I had completely lost my temper. I grabbed the kid by the collar of his shirt and slammed him against the nearest wall. “Do you have any idea what kind of danger you put yourself and your teammates in by calling her?”

Melvin could tell how infuriated I was and didn’t fight back. “No, sir.”

“Well, let me give you the 411 on what the fuck is going on out there!” I said as I slammed him into the wall again. “There is someone out there trying to kill you! This person is so angry that he is torturing all of his victims before stabbing them in the back a few dozen times! Almost half a dozen people have died in the last three days, and whatever you guys did to piss this person off, our suspect is determined to make sure you and everyone you care about suffers for it!”

At this point Cassie came running over to step between us. “Dad! Stop it!”

I wasn’t in the mood to listen to whatever she had to say. I grabbed Melvin by the arm and dragged him into an empty conference room. Cassie and Flo followed and I signaled Flo to close the door so we could have a little privacy. “People are dying out there, Melvin, and it was because of something that your team or a portion thereof did to someone.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Melvin answered. I could tell he was lying but decided to dial back the anger just for a short time.

“I’m talking about this,” I pulled the email out of my coat, opened it and laid it down on the table in front of him. “This email and over 30 like it were sent to Wally Bennett before he was murdered. This person is angry about something that you guys did. What was it?”

“If this is about what I think it is ...” Melvin started. “I want you to know I had nothing to do with it. It happened a year before I joined the team. I was in high school when this occurred, but it’s the only thing I can imagine you’d be talking about, from what I’ve heard.”

I hadn’t thought of that. I took a deep sigh of relief as I suddenly realized that rookies were likely not involved, but it was still too risky to send them home. “What incident are you talking about?”

“I heard from a few players that there was a party that got a little too out of control,” Melvin answered. “That some of the players forced some frat girls to do things they were not exactly consensual about.”

I knew exactly where Melvin was going with this. Chances are the victim likely never filed a police report about the assault. Officer Jones wasn’t going to find it, but there might be a reason for that. I took out my cell phone and called her as soon as the thought popped into my head. “Jones, this is Walker.”

“What can I do for you, detective?” she asked. 

“I need you to expand your search,” I answered. “I still want you to stay in that same year we discussed, but I want you to include all suicides that occurred on campus that year as well. Place special emphasis on any that took place within a fraternity house of any kind. If any student died that year, I want to know about it.”

“I’m on it,” Jones acknowledged.

My gut told me that Cassie and Melvin were safe, but this killer was getting so out of control I couldn’t take the chance. Not with my own daughter. “Cassie, I hate to say this but now that you’re here ... you’re here to stay until the crisis is over.”

“What?” Cassie said, a look of shock on her face.

“And don’t think you’ll be bunking with lover boy here, either,” I continued as I turned back to Flo. “She’ll be crashing with you.”

“Understood,” Flo said without hesitation.

I could see the anger and embarrassment in Cassie’s face, but at the moment I was actually being nice to her, and I needed to let her know that. “That is unless you two would rather spend the night in jail for interfering with a police investigation?”

“No,” Cassie replied.

“No, sir,” Melvin said, adding the hint of respect.

“Good.” I paused for a moment and decided to approach this from another angle. I grabbed a chair and pulled it very close to where Melvin was sitting and took a seat. “Do you like her?”

“I love her, sir,” he replied.

I resisted the urge to slap the punk in the head and instead remained focused on what I was doing. “If that’s true, are you willing to do whatever it takes to help me?”

“Yes, sir,” Melvin answered.

“Someone told you a little about what happened last year,” I repeated to him before going in for the kill. “I want a name. Who told you this?” Melvin knew exactly what I was asking for. I wanted him to abandon team loyalty in order to help me find the person I was looking for. He was very reluctant, so I pressed harder. “Melvin, people are dying out there, and the more information I have about what happened, the easier it will be for me to find this person and end this.”

Melvin was still hesitant, but I could tell he knew something. “Give me a fucking name!!!” I slammed my fist so hard on the table that the vibration from my anger made both Melvin and Cassie shudder with fear.

“Wally,” Melvin finally said. “Wally was the big man on campus. He didn’t care what he did because he always thought he would get away with it. He was the all star quarterback, so he walked around like he was bullet proof or something.”

“Wally is dead,” I reminded him. “I would prefer a name of someone who can actually give me some more answers and details about what Wally did.”

Melvin could tell by the look on my face that I was in no mood for games. “I would talk to Cody Miller.” The young man quickly answered. “He and Wally were best friends and there isn’t anything that Wally did that Cody wouldn’t know about.”

“Flo, where is Cody Miller right now?” I asked my partner.

“Room 215,” she answered.

“Stay with them,” I told her as I got up from my seat and left the conference room. I strolled over to the elevator and moved up to the second floor. I had asked for them to get a higher floor, but considering how many rooms we needed, this was the probably best option as we pretty much took up every room on the entire floor. The idea of guarding more than one floor would have been a nightmare. Still, I didn’t like having the people we protected so close to the ground either. I walked into the hallway. There were some uniforms watching the hallways and I flashed my badge to ease their minds. “Which way is 215?”

“This way, sir,” the officer said as he pointed me in the right direction.

I strolled up to the door and knocked. After about a minute I knocked again. “This is the police, please open the door.” I stood there and waited again for a minute. There was still no answer. Considering how my weekend had been going, I really wasn’t in the mood to wait. I called one of the officers over. “Do you have a key for this room?”

“No, sir,” the officer replied. “Usually they just open the door whenever we check up on them.”

My leg was still aching from all the doors I’d kicked down at the Bennett house the night before so I was in no mood to do it again. I turned to the officer, who looked about half my age. “Kick the door down, please.” I stepped aside and waited for the young man to kick the door, which he did with quite a bit of gusto, eager to please the detective and make a name for himself, I assumed. Once the door was open, I drew my sidearm and stormed into the room, ready for anything. There really wasn’t anything to prepare myself for. The room was empty. “Where the hell are the occupants of this room?” I barked to the officer.

“I’m not sure, sir.” he answered.

I jumped on my cell and dialed my partner. “Flo, there’s no one in Room 215. I need you to bring Melvin and Cassie up here and do an immediate head count. I think some of our players have snuck out.”

I wasn’t sure how many of them were gone, but when Flo did her usual spot check, there were four players missing. Cody Miller just happened to be one of them. I wasn’t impressed by this turn of events, especially considering how close I was to getting to the truth. Just when it had seemed like I was taking steps to getting closer to the answer, life threw me a curve and made things that much more difficult to accomplish.

I wanted to speak to someone, and of course that just happened to occur on the same day a handful of players got super bored and decided to go out on the town for a few kicks. They were not taking the threat seriously enough, but they were just college kids. I doubted that they’d taken anything seriously during the course of their lives.

I walked up to Flo, who gave me a spare radio to keep in quick contact with her and the other officers. “The boys were seen sneaking out by other players, less than an hour ago. It looks like they were going to hit the mall and do a little shopping, find something to bring back to the hotel to keep them occupied because they were bored.” She didn’t sound impressed with the excuse either.

“Sounds like a lame excuse just to get out,” I countered. I had hoped that was the truth because being in a crowded mall was a lot safer. As long as they didn’t hit a bar where someone could drag them off for a killing, that would have to do for now. I paused for a moment to digest the information Flo had just given me. “Right now, Westgate is the closest mall. It’s only a few blocks away. If they were honest about going there, they could have walked from here. I’m going to take this kid here and go find them.”

“Want me to go with you?” Flo asked.

I did, but at the moment the one person who I trusted most had to be left behind where the rest of the players and now my daughter were being stashed, for their safety. “I need you to stay here and make sure no one else sneaks off.”

“Sorry about that,” Flo replied. “I was a little distracted and someone took advantage of that.”

“There are a lot of kids here, it was bound to happen,” I replied. I turned to the kid that ad kicked the door open for me. I could tell by the look in his eyes that he was eager to make things up for letting those kids sneak out. “You’re with me. Let’s take a little stroll.”

As expected, the officer was more than eager to help out in any way he could. “Yes, sir,” he said as he grabbed his coat and followed me down the hall to the elevator to leave.

We left the second floor and did a quick sweep of the lobby before leaving the hotel and walking towards the mall. I didn’t blame the kids for getting a little restless, but they hadn’t come face to face with the madness we were dealing with. That made it tougher for them to take what was going on as seriously as we were.

We’d also been withholding information from the public, so that didn’t help our cause when trying to convince college kids to stay put and just watch television all day. Some of them were bound to get restless and make a run for it. I was just hoping they had more patience than this. Kids these days didn’t, and I couldn’t wait to beat the shit out of them when I got my hands on those spoiled and cocky pricks, or at least make them think that that was my plan, scare some sense into them.

We were less than a block from the mall when the officer who was with me patted my shoulder and pointed across the street. “That pub is a local hangout for students from the university. I wouldn’t be surprised if the boys stopped in there to throw back a few longnecks.”

“That makes more sense than the bullshit about going to get monopoly at the friggin’ mall.” I crossed the street and waved for the officer to stand back. I checked my cell phone and consulted some pictures Flo had texted me a few minutes ago of the four boys that managed to sneak out. “They’ll run the minute they see your uniform so you stay here and make sure no one makes a run for it. I’ll take a look inside and see if they’re still in there.”

“Yes sir,” the young officer replied as he took a position near the door.

I walked into the pub and it was pretty much what I’d expected based on what that young officer had told me. The place also had banners, jerseys, and other memorabilia based on the university’s glory days when they were a national champion and whatnot. Definitely the place you’d want to hang out if you were a member of the team. The place was pretty much empty considering how early it was. I walked up to the bar, but scanned most of the place and there was absolutely no trace of the players I was looking for, none whatsoever. Since there was no trace of the boys, I parked myself at the bar. “I’ll take a double Jack Daniels on the rocks.”

“Coming right up,” the bartender answered.

When my drink came over, I wasn’t sure if it was the case getting to me or the fact that my oldest daughter was dating one of the players, but it didn’t matter. I just took a nice good sip of the whiskey and took a long deep breath to ease my nerves. Two sips later and my drink was gone. I motioned to the bartender. “I’ll have another.”