Ripper (2 page)

God, I hoped it wasn’t my father who had done it. My stomach felt sick, but I tried to keep it together. “I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

Mrs. Taylor took a second. When she spoke again, she was quieter, more sympathetic. “Of course, you didn’t, Kelsey. I don’t blame you. I’m sorry if I made it sound like I did. I know how your father raised you. It’s a testament to who you are that you aren’t like him.”

I wasn’t so sure of that. I was a lot more like my dad than I wanted to admit. “How do you know so much about me?”

She sat back down and looked quite motherly. “I work with someone who knows you. When I told her my problem and how the police won’t help, she said you would. She said you were the best.”

I only knew one person who she could possibly be talking about. “You work at Olivia’s school.”

She smiled at the sound of Liv’s name. That wasn’t surprising. Most people who knew Olivia Carey brightened at the thought of her. I, on the other hand, was going to kick her ass. “Yes, she’s such a nice young woman. She hadn’t joined the school when Joanne was there, but I look forward to Nancy getting her for English next year. She works late sometimes and I talk to her while I clean her room.”

“What did the police say?” I asked, though I was pretty sure I knew what they had told the freaked-out mom.

Helen’s face twisted and I knew she was pissed as hell at the police. “They said she’d probably run off with a boy. They said it happens all the time. They took a report, but that was all they were willing to do.”

And it was all they would do for the daughter of a janitor. In my experience, justice was for the people in Highland Park. The police had bigger problems to deal with than chasing down some poor co-ed who by all statistics likely had simply run off with a boy.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked because she had me. I would do the job because if I didn’t, I would be adding Joanne Taylor’s sunny face to the rotating players in my nightmares.

“I want you to do what you do best.” Mrs. Taylor opened her purse and took out an envelope. She laid it on the desk. “I want you to hunt my daughter.”

Chapter Two

I let my mind drift as I drove along 183. At this time in the afternoon, it was a fairly easy thing to do. In another hour or so it would be a suicidal prospect as the entire freeway would be moving at breakneck speeds with little distance between cars. That was driving in DFW during rush hour. Now, in the early afternoon, driving through Irving to Dallas was peaceful. If you live in the DFW area, you get used to driving. Some people might think that a thirty-minute drive was a big deal, but I did it at least four or five times a week and every time my mind drifted despite my best efforts. I could have the radio on or off. I could try to play mind games to keep my brain away from dangerous places, but nothing worked. I’d tried audiobooks once, listening to the last Harry Potter as I drove around the Metroplex in my old Jeep, but I had to back up and listen to the same chapter four times so I gave up. My mind wandered.

Now I let it drift to revenge fantasies. It was far better than the usual horror movies that played out in my brain. I was going to kill Olivia Carey and become the villain I always knew I could be. I imagined the throngs of weeping students at her memorial. They would leave little teddy bears at the sight of her horrible murder, which would occur wherever I happened to find her at that freaky school she worked at. If she was in her classroom, then that was my killing ground. Same thing with the cafeteria or the library. I wouldn’t discriminate.

Nor would I let a thing like love get in my way.

I loved Olivia Carey. I’ve often thought that life would have been easier had I been born a lesbian. It was one of the universe’s wicked mistakes that I needed a penis to make me happy sexually because in all other ways, Liv was the girl for me. I don’t know how normal friendships work. I never had a real friend before Olivia, so I don’t know if the intense bond we share exists between other girlfriends. Liv and I hadn’t bonded over pedicures and crushes over boys. We bonded because she saved my life. I don’t mean that in a “how would I get through without you” way. I mean that in a “stop the bleeding and convince me not to ever try that again” way.

Did that really give her the right to fuck with my life? I knew she thought I was wasting my talents on police reports and catching cheating hubbies. She thought I should put my skills to use helping the helpless and shit. She’d watched one too many superhero flicks. I wasn’t that girl no matter how much she wanted it to be true. I would help Helen Taylor because she’d gotten through a chink in my armor and I felt a responsibility to her, but I would be fixing that fissure as soon as possible. Liv needed to understand that if I decided she was my weakness, I might have to dump her ass. She could find a more suitable friend and I would be happy alone without anyone’s expectations to live up to.

“Fuck.” I banged my hand against the steering wheel as I took the exit and then I winced because that hurt. I was smart enough to know that I was never going to kick Liv out. I could bitch and moan all I liked about being a loner, but I needed her. The thought of a world without Liv left me cold. I even tried to get along with her deadbeat boyfriend, Scott, and I hated him with a passion. I dreaded the day I had to stand beside her as her maid of honor while she threw away her life on that idiot because she was way too loyal to her college love. Sometimes I thought Liv collected people the way others collected stray dogs though, I should point out, she collects those, too. Once a person got into Liv’s circle, she would never kick you out no matter how bad your taste in music or how surly your outlook on life was. Sadly, that last bit could be me or Scott.

Like I said, I’m honest with myself.

It was almost four o’clock when I pulled into the parking lot of the Montrose School for Special Children. I wondered if it bothered the students to be considered “special.” I was sure the outside world heard that moniker and assumed special needs. These kids had special needs, but they had nothing to do with what you normally associated with the term. These were the children of supernatural citizens. The teachers here knew how to handle teen werewolves when the moon was full. They had classes to teach young witches how to control their power.

I hopped out of the Jeep, noting that Liv’s little hybrid was still in the half full parking lot. The school went from kindergarten through high school. It was a small school, but they had lots of afterschool activities. At this hour, it would mostly be the high school kids left attending their Spanish club meetings or the mandatory “Dealing with Demons” seminar they held twice a year.

“Hey, Kelsey,” I heard someone say.

I glanced over and saw a young werewolf walking toward her car carrying a stack of books that I was surprised she could see over. Ellen Yardley was a student of Liv’s and I ran over to grab a couple of those books hindering her sight.

“Thanks.” She was a lovely seventeen-year-old who would graduate in the spring. “It’s not the weight that bothers me, but boy, are those things unwieldy.”

I laughed as she opened her trunk. “Is your teacher trying to kill you?”

We dumped the books in the trunk. “No, it’s a book drive. It’s my service project. I’m collecting books for a big sale. All the seniors have booths and we’re donating the proceeds to the homeless.”

“That’s great, Ellen.” My high school had been more about keggers and pot than helping the public. I wondered if Ellen knew those same people she was helping would likely kill her if they knew the truth about her. That was the world I’d grown up in. I kind of liked Ellen’s more. “I think y’all are doing some good work.”

“Well, I’m glad you think so because I expect to see you there buying stuff,” the teen replied with a saucy smile. She hopped in her old sedan. “See you later!”

I walked back to the building, trying to ignore the lump in my throat. I waved at some of the teachers heading out. They were supernaturals, too. They accepted me and most of them knew my background. They were just people trying to live their lives and do the best they could for their kids. I hated my father so much in that moment I had to shove the emotion down or I was sure the look on my face would scare the kids.

I opened the door and walked down the hall to Liv’s room and decided to think about another emotion. I always felt it when I walked these halls and people called out cheery greetings. It was acceptance and sometimes it felt awfully close to redemption.

Nope, I was still gonna kill her. She was making me tear up and I couldn’t accept that. I’m not the kind of girl who cries.

I threw open the door, and Liv was sitting at her desk grading papers. She looked up with a sunny smile that immediately turned wary.

“Okay,” she said in her most patient voice. “Maybe I shouldn’t have talked to Helen but…”

My eyes narrowed. “No buts, Liv. You sold me out.”

She snorted and rolled her brown eyes. “You’re such a drama queen. It’s one little case. You know you need something of substance. You can’t spend your whole life hiding from the world.”

“No, I can’t hide from anyone if you keep giving away my hiding spot,” I pointed out. She was tapping her foot, the three-inch heeled shoes making a rhythm of judgment on the tiled floor. “Damn it, Liv, I’m not a missing persons expert.”

Her eyes softened and she smiled. “Yes, you are. You’re an everything expert when it comes to this. You have amazing instincts, Kels. You just don’t trust them anymore. You have to stop punishing yourself.”

Sitting against the edge of her desk, I crossed my arms defensively. “It seems like you’re the one punishing me.”

“Again with the overdrama. You’re worse than my students.” She sighed and rested her chin in the palm of her hand. “She needs you.”

“And what if I can’t find her daughter?” I gave up on the angry approach. I couldn’t keep it up with her.

She leaned beside me, letting our shoulders touch. We sat like that when one of us needed comfort. “Then you’ll at least have tried and Helen will know someone gave a damn. I’m not asking you to succeed, Kelsey. I’m asking you to try.”

“Fine.” How was I supposed to say no to that?

Liv gave me a hug. “Excellent. Now that we have that out of the way, I can move on to the freakier news.” Her pretty face twisted into a rueful grimace. “I’m moving to public school as soon as possible.”

“But you love this school.” She was the one lying because I happened to know this was her dream job.

“Yeah, well, at public school you don’t get memos like the one I got today.” She handed an important looking piece of paper my way. It was meant to catch the eye, printed on bright yellow paper so no one could possibly miss it. “That memo informs all teachers that no matter your chosen method of birth control, you should also begin using a condom.”

“And you’re getting this advice from the principal, why?”

“Because we have a fertility god in third grade this year who came into his powers over the summer,” she said with a playful frown. “Apparently being around the little sucker makes you ovulate. Mary, the third grade teacher, is already two months along.”

I tried to place the name, but all I could see was a fifty-year-old with a sweet smile. That couldn’t be her. “But school’s only been in session for two months.”

“Yup. That’s the point. It gets worse. Mary swears she went through menopause five years ago. Does Costco sell condoms? I’m making Scott put two of those babies on if he wants to touch me.”

“Be really safe, go for three.” I sighed because the day was getting away from me. I’d already gone over all the information the super-organized Helen Taylor had left me. I had a list of all of Joanne’s contacts and every bit of information her mom could think of. I had her driver’s license number and her social security number. I had the names of her roommate, her RA in the dorm, and a schedule of her classes. The first thing I’d done was search some of the social networking sights for any sign of her.

You would be surprised how often kids hide things from their parents that it would be so simple for them to discover if they checked their kid’s Facebook status. No luck with Joanne though. Her Instagram page hadn’t been updated since the week before and then all the smiling pic told me was she’d been studying for a Biology quiz. I needed to go and talk to her roommate. I wished I could say that Liv was wrong and I didn’t have any instincts, but something was telling me that the police were wrong.

Joanne Taylor was in trouble and waiting until tomorrow to get started wasn’t in my nature. Now that I was on the case, I had to get going.

“All right,” I said, pushing myself off the desk. “I need to get over to the SMU campus.”

Liv smiled, seemingly excited at the prospect of my working something more interesting than a rear-end collision. “Do you want some company? I can play Watson to your Holmes.”

I shook my head at the thought. “Sure. Come along and make sure I don’t spook the co-eds. I’m gonna run to the bathroom and then I’ll be good to go.”

Liv pulled her shoulder-length auburn hair out of its sedate ponytail. “I have to call Scott and then I’ll be ready.”