Nearly Found (21 page)

W
E SAT ON THE FLOOR
of my living room in the half dark, passing Vince’s flask around the circle. When we’d gone back into the school to get our things and lock up the classroom, Vince had refilled his flask. In the closet, he’d found an empty glass bottle with a rubber stopper and he’d filled that too.

Jeremy took a pull from the flask, his face crinkling and his eyes watering behind his glasses like they were on fire. He passed it to Eric. Eric took a drink, coughing into his hand as he offered it to me. I stared at it, remembering the last time I’d felt intoxicated, tempted to dull the fear I was feeling, even for a little while. But I’d been useless that night, when I’d bumped into TJ at the rave—so drunk on the highs of the people around me, I hadn’t recognized TJ when I’d touched him. If I’d been clear-headed, maybe Kylie would still be alive. “No thanks,” I said, handing the flask back to Vince.

Vince offered the flask to Reece. He looked at me and passed.

“What was the deal between you and Emily?” Reece asked.

“The deal?” Vince traced his initials in the side of the flask. “It’s no secret that we started seeing each other back when she was still with TJ. I kept telling her she was too good for him.”

I bristled. “Why? Because TJ wasn’t Belle Green enough anymore? Was he just trailer trash to you?”

Vince scowled. “Don’t get your undies in a bunch. It wasn’t about the money. I mean . . . they were good for each other for a long time, even while he was living here in Sunny View. But after a while, he was just angry all the time. After he messed up his knee, I took him to three different doctors. They all said the same thing, no more football. They could do surgery and try to repair the ligament, but TJ’s uncle Billy wasn’t working and they didn’t have insurance. The trust fund Reggie had set up barely covered their expenses. Even if they could afford the surgery, TJ knew he’d never play again.”

Vince took a long thoughtful breath. “I hadn’t seen TJ that wrecked since his mom killed herself. He was mad at the whole fucking world, and I had a feeling he was taking some of it out on Emily. But she wouldn’t break it off. I think she was scared. She’d come over, sometimes just to talk, but mostly we’d mess around, and she never wanted anyone to know.”

He took a swig and winced. “So after she got out of jail, she called me, saying she missed me and she wanted me to come see her. I told her no. Too much had changed, you know? It’s like she was going to be grounded for the rest of her life. No prom, no homecoming, no basketball games. It wasn’t like we could really go out or anything.” He shook his head, thinking. “But then when we were sitting there in her yard, and she let Whelan in her room . . . I don’t know. Something just snapped. I hated that he was up there with her, and I wasn’t. So the next day I went, and she let me come up, and well . . .” He looked uncomfortably at each of our faces and then at the flask in his hand. “You all know what happened after that.”

We were quiet. It was hard to know what to say as Vince took another long pull from the flask.

Jeremy looked down at the floor and picked at the carpet, his blond bangs falling down to cover his glasses. “I owe you an apology, Vince. I was the one who told TJ that you and Emily were seeing each other behind his back. I was the one who took the picture of her kissing you.” His throat sounded thick, like he was holding back tears. “I didn’t like you, and I was angry, and I didn’t know TJ had been hurting her, or that he would—”

“I know, Fowler.” Vince cut him off, his words beginning to slur at the edges. “And I get why you did it. I was kind of an asshole to you, for like, you know . . . forever. But let’s not get all sappy and shit.” Vince’s lip twitched with a hint of a smile. “Fucking lightweight,” he muttered, shoving Jeremy in the shoulder. Jeremy smiled back with glassy eyes. I wondered how long it might take for the grain to burn out of their systems, or if I’d be stuck here babysitting them until morning.

I heaved a sigh. When I looked up, Eric was fiddling with the Rubik’s cube I’d left on the sofa.

“I still can’t believe my chem lab partner was really a cop,” he said. “That big, scary Oleksa kid is really that Alex guy you keep talking about, right?”

I nodded. It’s not like it was a secret anymore.

I looked at Vince and Jeremy, bent over with laughter on my living room floor. None of us felt like the same people we had been just a few weeks before. Or maybe we were, and we were only beginning to see each other from a different angle. “People can really surprise you sometimes.”

“Maybe I should get them something to eat,” Eric said, getting to his feet. “Mind if I raid your kitchen?”

“There’s some bread and peanut butter in the cabinet next to the stove. And some jelly in the fridge. Knock yourself out.”

I stood up, suddenly needing some air. Reece followed me outside. He propped his elbows on the porch rail, staring out at Sunny View. I shut the door and leaned against it, shivering from the cold. We were all tired, and scared.

We stood there, quiet, for a long time.

“I wasn’t going to Emily’s house to
be
with her,” Reece finally said.

I came behind him, wrapping my arms around his chest and burying my face in the warmth of his neck. “I know,” I said.

“Is that why you’re touching me now?” he asked softly without turning around. “For the same reason you touched Vince? To make sure I’m not lying?”

I squeezed him gently through the soft, worn cotton. “I don’t have to touch you. I know you’re not lying.”

His muscles tensed under my fingertips and he turned around, slowly. I slipped my hands under his shirt, and his skin rippled with goose bumps. I drew him to me and kissed him, tasting relief, feeling warm and drowsy and safe for the first time in weeks.

“Okay,” I said, looking into his eyes. “Vince told us he was with Emily between six and seven. You said she was gone when you showed up around seven thirty. Which means between seven and ten, someone talked her out of her window and into the woods, strangled her, cut off her foot, put the bracelet on the bed, took her body to the island, left her foot in your saddlebag, messed with your brakes, and scratched a message on your helmet. Why?”

It all boils down to motive.

“Every other time something bad happened, there was a note. A message. Maybe we missed something.”

Reece laced his hands around my waist.

I laid my cheek against his chest, exhaustion sucking the last of my energy as my eyes drifted up the street. So many bad things had happened. Too many. Like the dark void at the top of Sunny View Drive where the lights from Bui’s Market used to be. Like the empty place where Lonny’s car used to park in front of his trailer.

The fuzzy, tired feeling in my head began to clear. My heart quickened. Reece’s arms tightened around me.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, following the direction of my stare.

Lonny’s trailer. Bui’s Market. Bad things.

Things are already in motion
 . . .

Lonny’d been arrested for strangling a girl before we started getting the notes. Anh’s family’s market burned to the ground along with the security recordings. As far as I knew, Lonny had nothing to do with the poker club. And yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling that these crimes weren’t a coincidence.

I pulled out of Reece’s arms and threw open my trailer door. Inside, Vince and Jeremy were sprawled over the floor, taking turns draining the last of the grain from the glass bottle, the flask empty beside their feet. Eric sat on the sofa eating sandwiches, barely noticing as I blew past them to my room. I opened my backpack. Dug deep inside. Pulled out Lonny’s cell phone.

“That’s not the one I gave you. Where’d you get it?” Reece asked, closing the door behind us.

“It’s Lonny’s,” I said, scrolling through the photos of Adrienne’s dead body. Searching for numbers in the shape of her limbs. In the twigs she’d been dumped on. In things that weren’t there. Nothing. I tossed the phone onto my mattress, dragging my hands through my hair. I slumped to the floor. Reece eased down beside me. “There has to be a message. A number.”

Our eyes met.

A message. A number. On a cell phone.

Reece reached for the phone. He toggled through the menu to recent calls.

To the last number dialed.

A number far too long to be a phone number.

I scrambled for a scrap of paper and my chemistry book.

“9875236839892287.” Reece read the numbers aloud. It looked disturbingly similar in length to the number carved in Karl Miller’s bone. Reece watched over my shoulder as I tested different combinations, scratching out the ones that didn’t work.

Until they did.

Until the message was clear.

9-8-75-23-68-39-89-22-8-7

F O Re V Er Y Ac Ti O N

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction . . . Lonny wasn’t in the poker kids club, and someone was trying to frame him. So what did this have to do with him?

What if this wasn’t about the poker club after all.

There had to be something I wasn’t seeing . . . something I’d missed. Something the killer wanted me to see.

What if the fire wasn’t set to cover something up? What if the fire was set to reveal it?

I leaped to my feet. “Get the flashlights,” I told Reece as I pulled on my sweatshirt. “And get those three sobered up. We’re going to Bui’s.”

• • •

It was dark when we crossed Route 1, flashlights in our pockets and steam on our breath. Jeremy, Vince, and Eric reeked of grain alcohol, and I was grateful for the sobering chill in the air.

“Think we should call Anh?” Reece asked me. He looked over his shoulder. Behind him, Vince half carried Jeremy, making them both stumble. Eric took up the rear, tripping over a pothole.

“No!” Jeremy said. “You can’t call Anh. If she finds out I’ve been hanging with you and I didn’t tell her, she’ll be pissed! I hate when she’s pissed.” He’d had the talkies since we left my trailer, and all I wanted was for him to shut up. But he was right. Anh would be pissed. And at this point, why put her through more than she’d already been?

“Let’s see what’s there first,” I said. “If we find something, we can call her.”

“What exactly are we looking for, anyway?” Vince adjusted his grip on Jeremy, shifting to balance his weight.

I didn’t know exactly. Only that I’d know it if I saw it. Because if a message was there, it was intended for me.

Dull music pumped through the walls of Gentleman Jim’s and the tattoo parlor, where all the cars in the lot seemed to cluster. It had never been unusual to see a patrol car at Bui’s on a Sunday night, since they gave free coffee to the local police, but after Bui’s shut down, the patrol cars started parking at the 7-Eleven down the street.

This end of the lot was empty and dark. Reece and I peered around the side of the building. No looters. Probably because there was nothing left inside to steal. We walked undetected to the back door, where Bao’s office used to be. A section of yellow police tape brushed the ground. Low enough to be an invitation, or just a reasonable excuse if we got caught poking around. Reece stepped over it and popped the back door open with a quick hard jerk. The frame was damaged, the door only opening partway, forcing him to turn sideways to squeeze through.

I followed the glow of his flashlight. Debris shifted under my feet. Behind me, Vince whispered insults at Jeremy as they struggled to get over the tape. I turned to shush them, and almost jumped out of my skin. Eric stood behind me, his face strangely illuminated by the upturned light in his hands. His breath smelled strongly of peanut butter, and he looked clearheaded and alert. He grabbed my hand to steady me, and I braced for a rush of emotion. Some pile-on to the adrenaline already pumping through my veins, but it didn’t come. His hands were warmly bundled in gloves, making me wish I’d been careful enough to do the same.

Vince’s face crunched up as he squeezed through the door, widening the opening so he could pull Jeremy through it. Vince dropped him on the floor and clicked on his flashlight.

Jeremy shielded his eyes. “That hurts. I’m getting a headache. And I’m thirsty.”

“Don’t be such a pussy,” Vince said.

“Both of you, shut up!” I hissed at them. This building had already been searched and cleared. And trespassing wasn’t a felony. If we were quiet, no one would know we were here.

We took slow, cautious steps in the dark, broken glass crackling under our feet. The air was thick with the smell of burnt plastic and chemicals, our lights illuminating smoke-stains that climbed up the walls. The interior office door was gone, burned right off its hinges, and when I stepped through it, my heart broke for Anh’s family all over again. Reece cast his light low across the floor, throwing cautious rays over the remains of the store. Metal shelves stood empty, their contents melted away, except one that had been almost entirely destroyed. Here, the damage seemed much worse. I knew Bao’s store as well as I knew my own trailer. This shelf had contained first aid supplies—Band-Aids, ointments, and rubbing alcohol.

Rubbing alcohol. It was highly flammable. Harder to detect than most other accelerants. The hair on my neck stood on end. If this had been an accident, the point of origin would have been an electrical outlet, or an appliance—a coffeepot, a hot dog grill, or a microwave.

If someone wanted to leave a message that could survive a fire and the ensuing investigation, where would he leave it?

My feet tapped through shallow pools of dirty water as I continued down the aisle. Reece’s light illuminated the walk-in cooler at the end of the row. I peeled the door open and stepped into the refrigerated room. I flicked on my light. The air inside was marginally cooler and the floor was sticky and wet, glittering with glass shards.

I shined my light over the burst soda cans and broken juice bottles, the empty spaces on the shelves where cartons of beer and wine coolers had been looted after the fire. Not a single bottle was left intact.

Except one. It rolled across the floor, wobbling toward the far wall where I’d accidentally kicked it, and coming to rest against a pile of empty cans and broken glass. It was clear and perfect, and empty of liquid.