You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone (7 page)

CHAPTER SIX

 

H
eading down the sidewalk by the school, Roger McAfee took out his cell phone. The rain had stopped, and it was getting dark already. The streetlights were on. He noticed that the cop cars were all gone.

Earlier, they'd questioned him—for about a half hour. He'd told them that Damon Shuler had grossly exaggerated the behavior of some of the students in his classes. Roger maintained that he kept the students in line. And, yes, he was friendly with the jocks. Wasn't everyone?

Shuler was the one with the problems. Just one look at the way the kid acted with all his nervous tics and anyone could have figured out he had psychiatric issues. Something like this was bound to happen sooner or later.

He didn't tell the police, but something Damon had said in his webcast still bothered him.
You didn't come back to high school to educate anybody,
he'd ranted—for everyone to hear.
You came back for another shot of being popular . . .

The truth was Roger had never been very popular in high school. But when he'd started teaching at Queen Anne High, he'd found it incredibly easy to get the cool kids to admire him. All he had to do was crack a few jokes during classes and cut some football players a little slack as far as their assignments and test scores were concerned. Then he was their buddy. And it wasn't just the guys either. Twenty-five years ago, when he was their age, no girl looked at him twice. But now he had his pick among them. They all had crushes on him—from the most popular cheerleaders to those Jane-Austen-reading, under-the-radar pretty girls.

This was especially gratifying for Roger, whose ex-wife, after four years of marriage, had sneeringly called him “pathetic” when he'd run into her while shopping in Pacific Place a few weeks back. He was forty-two, in debt, and with few friends his own age. He lived in a small, overpriced, scantily furnished one-bedroom apartment in a new building in Queen Anne. Though he taught English lit, he'd long ago lost whatever passion he'd had for reading the classics. So, yes, maybe all that made him kind of pathetic.

But at the high school, he was like a rock star.

That snotty little son of a bitch Damon Shuler had indeed tapped into a little truth. Roger was enjoying his popularity at the school. What was wrong with that? The people who mattered weren't going to believe the ranting and ravings of some insane kid who was about to kill his mother and himself.

Roger told himself he was okay. He'd just come from a meeting with Dunmore, whom the kid had
really
raked over the coals. So Dunmore wasn't about to point any fingers. They'd already been through this before, earlier in the month, when he, Dunmore, and Shuler's parents had a “principal's office” conference regarding how Damon got kicked around. “It doesn't happen on my watch,” he'd assured them. “During my class, if some of the kids start in with the name-calling, I always nip it in the bud. I think Damon might be exaggerating.”

He'd stuck to the same story with Dunmore just a few minutes ago—pretty much a carbon copy of what he'd told the police. Dunmore hadn't pressed it much beyond that.

Heading toward his car, he focused on his smart phone. His thumbs rapidly moved over the little keypad:

He hit Send, and then shoved his phone into the pocket of his Queen Anne High School Windbreaker—which was identical to the one the coach always wore at their football games. Approaching his Mustang, Roger took out his keys. From this distance, he couldn't quite see where the car had been scratched last month. But as he got closer, there it was. He still hadn't gotten it fixed. The car detail place wanted $460 to make the scratch disappear. He couldn't afford that right now. At least no one had vandalized the car again, not since he'd stopped parking in the teachers' lot.

Roger opened the door and climbed inside. He slid the key into the ignition, but didn't turn it. With a sigh, he sat back and stared out the rain-beaded windshield.

The cops had asked him if Damon Shuler had ever threatened him—or if he'd received any anonymous threats recently. Roger had told them no, and insisted he was very well-liked by the students. He'd didn't think to tell them about the unidentified douche bag who had keyed his car. He'd never associated the incident with Shuler. He'd figured the squirrelly kid would never have had the nerve to do anything like that. But then, until a couple of hours ago, he didn't think Shuler would have been capable of killing his mother and himself in that spectacle of carnage half the school had just witnessed.

Could Shuler have been the one who scratched his Mustang? Did the kid even know what kind of car he drove?

Suddenly someone tapped on the window—right by his ear. Roger sat up with a start. He swiveled toward the door and saw KC Cunningham smirking on the other side of the glass. KC lived with her divorced mother only a few blocks from the school. She'd gone home and changed from her rain-soaked cheerleading uniform to a pair of jeans and a purple sweater. Her close-cropped, blond hair was dry now.

Roger rolled down his window. “You scared the crap out of me,” he said, catching his breath. “Talk about a fucked-up day . . .”

She nodded. “So you said in your email. How did the meeting go with Dunmore? Or should I say
Done-Nothing
?” She let out a little laugh. “Hey, it was pretty funny when the Freakazoid went on about that on the webcast. And then—
boom!
I mean, W-T-F. I still can't believe it—”

“The meeting went fine,” Roger said, cutting her off. He reached over and unlocked the passenger door. “Hurry up and get in before someone sees you talking to me.”

With a sigh, KC rolled her eyes and then flounced around the front of the car to the passenger side.

KC was one of those popular girls who had a crush on him. It was more than a crush now. For Roger, it was a fantasy fulfilled. He was screwing a pretty cheerleader. They'd been secretly meeting for the last three weeks. Her mother was clueless, too busy working—and dating some guy KC didn't like. The sex with KC was pretty fantastic. But he really felt the age difference between them when they were together. Plus she could be a real chatterbox about the most inane things. Sometimes Roger had to bite his lip to keep from telling her to shut the hell up. But then he reminded himself that he was banging a cheerleader, and he suddenly felt better about the whole thing.

KC opened the door and plopped down on the passenger seat. He could tell she was pissed off about something. She let out another sigh and folded her arms. “Are you even going to ask me how it went with the police? Y'know, you're not the only one they talked to. They grilled me for, like, almost a half hour. I'm not sure if that was even legal—questioning someone my age without a parent or a lawyer.” She glanced in the rearview mirror and fussed with her hair. “I mean, like it's not my fault he killed his mother and himself . . .”

“So what exactly did you tell the police?” he asked, staring out the windshield—watching for anyone who might spot the two of them sitting in his car together.

“I told them that I used to tease him a little, that's all,” she answered.

Tease him a little?
She was relentless. On social media, she was constantly ridiculing Damon. At school, KC and Reed practically had a whole routine worked out. He'd start in on Damon, and then KC would pretend to rush to his defense: “Don't make fun of my boyfriend! Damon's my stud. We're lovers. I want to spend eternity with him. But first, we're going to get married, and have little freakazoid babies . . .”

Sometimes, it got to be too much—even for Roger. Last week, after he told her to settle down, KC later sulked about it in private: “You yelled at me in front of the whole class . . .”

He shifted around in his seat. “Did you tell the police you teased him in
my
class?”

She frowned at him. “No. I just said I teased him in general. I didn't even mention you. So don't worry. God!”

“I'm just asking,” he muttered.

“Maybe I should go home,” she said, shaking her head. “I mean, I've been sitting in this car for, like, three minutes, and you haven't even kissed me yet.”

He leaned over and kissed her on the mouth.

KC pulled away first, but kept a hand on his thigh. “Hey, you know what the police asked me? Talk about creepy. They asked if Damon Shuler ever threatened me.”

“They asked me the same thing,” Roger murmured. He wondered if they'd made the exact same inquiries of everyone Shuler had mentioned in his webcast.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone across the street. He realized it was the school nurse, Rachel Porter. “Shit,” he whispered. “Get down!”

“What?”

“For God's sake, get down!” He put his hand on top of KC's head and started pushing her down toward the floor.

“Hey, watch it!” she whined, half resisting.

Roger figured she knew the drill. This wasn't the first time she'd had to duck down and hide on the floor of the Mustang. They couldn't afford to take any chances. He glanced at the school nurse across the street. She didn't seem to notice him—at least, not yet.

KC's hand was still on his thigh. Crouched down on the passenger floor, she said something. It didn't make sense. It sounded like she'd said, “Let's dish under the dash.”

“What?” he asked, reaching for the key in the ignition.

“I said,” she announced more clearly, “what's all this under the—”

Roger heard a strange click as he turned the key. A tongue of fire shot out from under the steering wheel. KC shrieked in horror.

The blast tore through the car, engulfing it in flames. Roger McAfee's prize Mustang leapt up from the pavement and then came crashing down. The mangled, fiery vehicle toppled over on its side. Acrid, black smoke billowed from the inferno.

The explosion broke windows and set off alarms in the cars parked nearby.

It would be several hours before the police determined there were two bodies in the car, both burnt beyond recognition. They knew one of the corpses was Damon Shuler's English teacher.

It would take another day for them to figure out that the second charred body belonged to KC Cunningham.

For some students in Mr. McAfee's second-period English lit class, it must have seemed rather ironic that KC and Damon had died on the same day. They'd often heard the impish cheerleader say that she wanted to spend eternity with Damon Shuler.

It appeared as if she'd gotten her wish.

CHAPTER SEVEN

 

“I
don't know why the hell they flew me out to Lopez,” Luke said on the other end of the phone line. He'd just arrived home—apparently to a swarm of reporters outside his town house. He sounded exhausted and overwrought. “The whole trip was futile. There was hardly anything left to identify. Everything was in ashes. They couldn't even find their bodies . . .”

Andrea heard Luke's voice crack, and he started sobbing. Her heart ached for him.

She sat in the living room of her Ballard apartment, looking out the picture window that had been cracked weeks before. She wished she could be there with Luke right now.

Yet earlier, before he'd left with the police for Lopez Island, Andrea had told him she and Spencer would move out of his town house that afternoon. Luke didn't seem to understand at first—until she'd explained. This was going to be all over the news—and he was a public figure. He'd have reporters following his every move. His divorce from Evelyn still hadn't gone through. People wouldn't understand why he was already living with another woman and her nephew. The media would almost certainly make a big deal out of it. “I just don't want them taking potshots at you—or
us—
not right now,” Andrea had told him.

“Fine,” he'd murmured, shaking his head in bewilderment. “But
right now
, I don't give a damn what people say. I—I'd really like to see you when I come through the front door tonight. But if you can't be there, okay then . . .”

“It's just temporary,” she'd said. “And I really think it's for the best, honey.”

What Andrea hadn't told him was that she and Spencer had been through something like this with the press years before. She didn't want anyone resurrecting it tonight.

That afternoon, when they'd gotten back to Luke's, she'd told Spencer they'd be staying in their place in Ballard for a while. They'd packed enough clothes and things for the next few days—and managed to get out of there before the first TV news van pulled up. “Don't you feel like a rat deserting him this way?” Spencer had asked her as they'd driven to Ballard.

“Yes,” she'd admitted. But she was doing it to protect the three of them.

Andrea kept telling herself that as they settled back into their old apartment. She found they'd left behind three pairs of shoes on the stairs, the sight of which was somehow reassuring. It made up for the fact that her plants in front were dying, the place smelled musty, and water came out of the taps tinged with rust.

The six o'clock news started with Damon's very public suicide-matricide. They also showed a horde of reporters outside Luke's town house, awaiting the prizewinning playwright's return from Lopez Island.

For Andrea, seeing that media frenzy made her glad she and Spencer had gotten out of there. But she still hated every minute she was away from Luke.

Before the newscast was over, the anchors announced a “breaking story” about another car explosion—this time, near Queen Anne High School. They said the car belonged to a teacher at the school, but couldn't yet confirm if anyone had been inside the car when the blast occurred.

Luke's fears about Damon killing some innocent people in addition to his mother and himself seemed to be coming true.

Andrea listened to him crying on the other end of the line.

“Did you—did you eat anything, honey?” she asked, feeling helpless—and useless.

“Not yet,” he replied, his voice gravelly and strained. “I'm not really hungry.”

She got to her feet and moved to the window. “You should eat. There's leftover spaghetti sauce in the fridge from the other night. You can heat it up and boil some noodles. Or you can make sort of a poor man's pizza by spreading it over some flatbread, and sprinkling on some Parmesan—”

“Andrea, I'm not hungry,” he interrupted. “And you don't have to mother me. I just called to hear your voice.”

She sighed. “Oh, Luke, I'm so sorry I'm not there. I feel awful . . .”

“No, you were right,” he murmured. “The reporters are still hovering outside, trying to peek in the windows at me. On my way from the car to the front door, one of them kept hammering away at me, asking who the ‘other woman' was that Damon had referred to in the webcast. So it's good you guys are not here. It was a smart call on your part. In fact, I think it might be wise for us not to see each other for a while.”

Her heart sank. “For a while?”

“I'm talking just a few days—until the press decides that they're tired of me.”

She didn't say anything. Her reflection in the darkened window frowned back at her.

“Andrea, this was your idea, remember?”

She heard him blow his nose. Then he got back on the line. “How's Spencer?”

“Still a little shaken up, but okay,” she answered. “He's in his room on his computer—looking for updates.”

“So should I cook this poor man's pizza in the microwave or the oven?”

She smiled. “In the oven—at four twenty-five for about ten minutes . . .”

After she hung up, Andrea stared out the living room window for a few more moments. There wasn't a single reporter in sight, just darkness—and her own scared reflection. Still, she couldn't help thinking someone was out there, watching her.

Weeks ago, she'd been pretty sure Evelyn had paid someone to stalk and harass them. But Evelyn was dead. Who could be out there tonight—and why?

“That's over with,” she told herself. “Stop worrying. . .”

Maybe she felt vulnerable, or maybe it was just a case of old habits dying hard, but Andrea reached over and pulled shut the drapes.

 

 

Sitting on the stairs near the front door, Andrea slipped on her brown suede loafers. “Spencer!” she called. “Shake a leg, Spence! You're going to be late!”

They'd both checked online, and it looked as if the high school was having a regular schedule today. Andrea was going to drive him.

She was amazed they'd gotten through the night without any calls. And there weren't any reporters or gawkers outside their apartment. Obviously, the press were still in the dark about her and Luke—for now. She couldn't help feeling as if they were living on borrowed time as far as that was concerned.

Luke usually slept until almost nine o'clock, and she would wait until then to call him. She wondered if he'd slept at all. She'd tossed and turned most of the night. In just over a month, she'd become very accustomed to sleeping with him. Everything about yesterday—and last night—was strange.

She heard Spencer barreling down the stairs from the bedroom level—and then down the stairs to the front door. He plopped down on a step above her, unloaded his books, and started to put on his black Chuck Taylor high-tops. “They still haven't identified the second person in the Mustang with McAfee,” he said. “The chat online is that it's probably a student . . .”

He tied his laces, and they headed outside—to the chilly, overcast morning. As they hurried toward her parking spot, Andrea opened her purse and started hunting for her keys.

But Spencer suddenly stopped dead. “Oh, shit,” he said under his breath.

Andrea frowned at him. “What is it?”

Wordlessly he nodded toward her car.

Andrea stared at her red VW Beetle—and the new, thin, silvery scratch that ran across the passenger door.

It wasn't over with after all.