Serial Hottie (35 page)

For the second Sunday in a row Michigan’s parks were free of any dead redheads, and it’s because Seth spent the night in jail. At least, that’s what Angela told me when she woke me up bright and early at eight that morning.

Last night, after we’d escaped our parents, we were up in my room trying to decide whether we should tell them about Seth attacking Travis, when two cop cars showed up at Seth’s house. We watched from my window as the cops took Seth away in handcuffs. His Aunt hugged him tightly before they put him in the back of the car. When the cops drove away, Ms. Wainwright followed in the Beemer. The car had not come back yet.

“But he told me yesterday that murderers would never go after people they know. Travis, he knows. And has reason to hate. If Seth were a killer, he wouldn’t be that stupid. He may have attacked Travis, but he isn’t the Slasher.”

“Who else could it be?” Angela said. “Last weekend Seth spent the night here with you and there was no murder. Last night he was taken to jail and once again, there was no murder.”

I had to admit, it looked bad.

“Ellie, we have to tell mom and dad. We have to call that detective.”

“No!” My heart was racing. Watching Seth get carted off last night was awful. I sat all night in my window, waiting for his aunt to bring him home. I couldn’t stand the thought of him being in jail. I knew he could take care of himself against the other criminals, but there was a part of him that was so vulnerable.

I just wanted him home where I knew he was safe. I needed to tell him I was sorry for getting mad yesterday and let him know I appreciated that he wanted to protect me, even if he did take it too far.

“He was only protecting me,” I said, frustrated. “That’s the only reason he went after Travis. I’m not going to blame him for the Saturday Night murders unless we have proof. Actual physical proof.”

I glanced at the house across the street, sitting there so empty and tempting, and sighed. “I have to know for sure.”

Angela watched me slip on my shoes. She followed me all the way across the street before asking, “What are you doing?”

“What are
we
doing?” I corrected her. “It’s a little thing called breaking and entering.”

“What? We can’t!”

“Why? It’s not like Seth’s never broken into my room. I have to at least try to figure it out. If he has any kind of proof over there, then I’ll accept that my boyfriend is a psycho killer and we’ll call that detective. I promise.”

“But you can’t just go breaking into people’s houses, Ellie. You could end up in jail, too.”

“I need closure,” I admitted desperately. “I still like him, okay? Angela, I like him a lot. If he killed those girls, then I need proof. I have to see it with my own eyes. I need something that’s going to make me stop liking him.”

A sinking feeling crept into my stomach just then. I stopped everything I was doing and looked into Angela’s eyes. “And if I do find proof that he killed those girls,” I whispered, pushing back nausea, “then I’m really going to need my big sister there to keep me from completely freaking out.”

Angela stared back at me, swallowing horrible thoughts of her own, and grabbed my hand. “Okay,” she said, sounding resolved. “Okay, lets do it.”

“Thanks.”

As it turned out, my first criminal act was surprisingly easy to accomplish, because Ms. Wainwright had left in such a hurry last night that she’d forgotten to lock the front door. “I wonder if we’ll get half the time, since we’re only entering and not actually breaking,” Angela said when we shut and locked the door behind us.

“Lets just hurry so that we don’t get caught, and then we won’t get any time.”

“So what are we looking for? Where do you think we should start looking?”

“His room,” I said automatically. “There’s a metal box under his bed I’ve been dying to look in. I saw it once when he had me pinned to his floor.”

I started to head up the stairs, but Angela was just standing in the middle of the room gaping at me. “Ellie,” she said slowly, her cheeks turning a light shade of pink. “I know the whole dating thing is really exciting, but I don’t know if you should be moving that fast. I mean, you only got your first kiss a couple weeks ago.”

“What do you think I was doing?” I gasped when I finally caught Angela’s meaning. “He’d kidnapped me and trapped me in his room. After I smashed his lamp in a million pieces and bruised his head with his alarm clock, he had to pin me to the floor to keep me from throwing anything else. We weren’t
doing
anything.”

“Oh. Good.” Angela followed me upstairs. “Because that would be really awkward if you guys did do something and he ends up in jail for life. You’d have to go on an episode of
Dr. Phil
to get normal again.”

“I need to go on
Dr. Phil
just because I live with you,” I argued as we walked into Seth’s bedroom. He’d cleaned up the sodas and Twizzlers from our game night and had my beanbag tucked neatly in the corner with his game chair.

“Kind of creepy in here, don’t you think?” Angela asked.

I looked around. “Looks like a normal room to me. Just really, really clean.”

“What do you think I mean by creepy?”

“Whatever. Just start looking for anything weird.”

I reached under his bed and pulled out the metal box. It was a small red toolbox and, unfortunately, it was locked. “Quick, there has to be a key somewhere. Look around for a tiny key. Check his dresser drawers or something.”

“I’m not looking through his underwear. He’s your boyfriend. You check the dresser.”

I rolled my eyes and started rummaging through his drawers. Two seconds later, I felt Angela hovering behind me. “Huh,” she said. “Boxer-briefs. Interesting. Wouldn’t have guessed that.”

“I thought you didn’t want to go through his underwear.”

“I’m not. You are.”

“There’s nothing here,” I said, closing the last drawer.

Angela picked up a bottle of cologne while I went to the nightstand. “This looks expensive,” she said, squirting some on her wrist.

“Could you at least try to be helpful?”

“Wow, this smells good. Does he always smell this good?”

Unfortunately.
“Nothing in the nightstand but his taser,” I said. I couldn’t help picking it up and pushing the button. Blue sparks sizzled. “I wonder how bad this thing hurts.”

“I dare you to try it.”

I held the taser out to Angela and pushed the button again. “Try it on you?”

“Funny. Put that thing down and lets see what he’s got in his closet.” Angela slid open the closet door and began looking at the hanging clothes. “Ooh, it’s too bad it hasn’t been cold out. I bet Seth looks gorgeous in this,” she said, pulling a dark brown suede jacket off its hanger.

When she tried it on I asked, “Are you even looking for evidence, or just snooping?”

“I wonder how much money he dropped on this wardrobe. I wish I had—wait.” Angela gasped. “What is
this
?”

There was something taped to the back of the closet. I shoved all the clothes aside and Angela let out a quiet shriek. “What is it? Some kind of shrine?”

“Don’t be stupid, idiot. Shrines need like candles and stuff.”

“What’s he doing with pictures of dead girls taped in his closet?” Angela asked.

“I’m more concerned about the girls up there who aren’t dead,” I whispered.

Until that moment I never actually believed Seth had anything to do with the Saturday Night Slasher. But we were looking at a collage of pictures, police reports, and post-it notes, all from the Slasher case. Heather Monroe, Olivia Harvey, Crystal Chambers, and the first victim, who’s name turned out to be Monica Stanley—they were all there, staring me right in the face with the pictures of three other girls who all fit the same profile.

“It’s not a shrine,” I whispered. “It’s research. He’s studying the case. Look how he has it all organized. It’s like he’s trying to solve it.”

“Are you kidding?” Angela asked, pointing at the picture of a girl named Jennifer McConnelly. “That is
not
solving it.
That
is a picture of his next victim.”

I tried not to believe her. “What about all this information, then? All the police reports. All the profiles of the people working on the case. Why would he have that?”

“He needs to know how close the cops are to catching him, obviously. You asked for proof. This is your proof. Give me my phone. I’m calling Detective Pierce.”

“No! It’s not enough. It can’t be him.”

Yeah, I was in complete denial. So what?

“Ellie, you promised. What more do you need? For him to come after you with a knife?”

“Pictures!” I gasped.

Angela was starting to get frustrated. “What do you think these are?” she yelled.

“No. I mean polaroids. The killer left polaroids of the victims behind, right? So they’d connect the murders? Well, don’t all killers like to take souvenirs? He’s taking pictures of them. If Seth is the killer, then he’ll have those pictures.”

“Hey, good thinking.”

“I’ve already checked the dresser and nightstand.” I looked around the perfectly tidy room and went back to Seth’s bed. “Help me lift his mattress.”

“Careful Ellie, do you really want to know what he keeps tucked between his mattresses?”

“Oh, shut up and lift.”

“Ellie, if he is really killing people, do you think he’d be dumb enough to keep the evidence between his mattresses? You have to get more creative than that.”

“And where do you suggest I look?” I snapped as I pushed my arm under his mattress. “The only place you seem to be looking is over my shoulder. Would you please help me?”

Angela sighed as if I were asking her to take my finals for me. “All right, fine.” With a look that suggested I was an idiot, Angela reached beneath the bed and pulled the toolbox into her lap. After examining the small lock she said, “It’s not much more than something you’d find on a suitcase. I’m sure we can pick it. Do you have a Bobbi pin?” She and I both snorted at the same time. “Sorry. I forgot who I was talking to.”

“Will this work?” I asked, handing her my keys with the pink Swiss Army knife keychain.

“Aw, this is so cute,” she cooed. “Where did you get this?”

“Seth gave it to me for my birthday.”

“Huh, that’s actually really sweet. Too bad we’re going to use his present to put him in jail.”

After a minute of fiddling with the lock, it clicked open. Angela started to lift the lid and my heart skipped a beat. “Wait,” I whispered.

Angela looked up at me. “Did you want to do it?”

“No! I—I—I can’t look. I don’t want to know what’s in there.”

“We have to look.”

“But what if it is him? I can’t handle it. You look. You look and then don’t tell me. If it’s him, I don’t want to know.”

“Ellie.” Angela’s voice turned sympathetic. “It’ll be okay. If it is him, then we’ve stopped a murderer from killing innocent girls. You’ll be safe again.” She smiled playfully. “I’ll be ungrounded on the weekends again.”

That made me smile. “Ah, the real reason you’re helping me.”

We both managed a short laugh and then Angel took a deep breath. “Here goes.”

I pinched my eyes shut and held my breath.

“Oh,” Angela whispered in awe. “Wow.”

“What!” My eyes flew open and Angela handed me the toolbox.

Inside the box was what was left of Seth’s parents. A handful of photographs, a matching set of wedding bands, a pair of eyeglasses, a lock of his mom’s hair—almost an exact match in color to mine.

“She was beautiful,” Angela said, staring at a picture of Seth’s mom.

I picked up a family picture and looked closely at Seth’s father. “So was he,” I said. Neither of us could raise our voices above a whisper. “It’s no wonder Seth is so…”

“Yummy?” Angela offered.

Seth was a nice mix of the two of them. He had his father’s eyes and his mother’s nose and smile. In the picture they were on a beach and a nine-year-old Seth was proudly showing off a sand castle like he didn’t have a care in the world. He had on a smile I’d never seen him wear. The picture hinted at just how much his parent’s deaths had changed him. My heart just about broke in half seeing them together.

When the front door slammed shut downstairs, I jumped so high the contents of the toolbox scattered.

“They’re home!” Angela hissed.

I frantically shoved everything back in the toolbox, while Angela took off Seth’s Jacket and fixed the clothes in his closet to cover up the wall.

“We can’t get out the window,” I told Angela. “We’re going to have to wait until Ms. Wainwright goes to her room or something, and then sneak out.”

“What about Seth?”

“He’s probably still in jail.”

Just then we heard Seth’s aunt say, “You want me to make you a sandwich or anything?”