Captured in Death, page 28
“So where would they meet?” Kenzie asked. “Where is Saul going to set up a meeting?”
It was an impossible question to answer, and they both knew it.
“I think we need to go,” Zachary said, looking around.
Kenzie knew that look. If she didn’t get on board, he would end up leaving without her, off chasing a possible lead.
“Okay,” she agreed. She looked at Campbell. “There’s no point in us sticking around here. I don’t think there’s anything to find.”
“No,” he agreed. “I don’t know how much longer I’ll be here. Probably just long enough to get a couple of cups of coffee onboard. Maybe then I’ll know what to do next.” He rubbed his forehead, undoubtedly feeling the same fatigue that Kenzie herself felt after being woken up in the middle of the night and thrown into an emergency situation. “Might call in the feds. They have more resources. Might be able to do some things with technology that we can’t.”
“On TV, they can turn someone’s phone back on remotely,” Kenzie contributed.
“Yea. Maybe they’ll be able to do that,” Campbell said tiredly. But he didn’t sound very hopeful. Maybe, like so many of the other things that law enforcement was seen doing on TV, that was just another wave of the magic wand, like always being able to identify the origin of the trace soil left in the tread of someone’s shoes. “Thanks for coming by. And for what you were able to squeeze out of Emily.” Campbell nodded to Kenzie. “Hopefully, it will turn out to be useful in the long run.”
He had, apparently, given up on the short run. When Kenzie thought about Rhys, she wanted to cry. He had been so brave, finding ways to bury clues in his messages to Emily and sneak additional ones to her, despite his challenges and a murderer hanging over him, rapidly going off the rails.
They said goodbye to Campbell and left before the coffee arrived. Kenzie regretted that part. She really could use a boost. But she knew that if she didn’t leave with Zachary, he would go rogue. And she didn’t want to be left behind trying to catch up with him while he ran off trying to save the world by himself.
Again.
They walked out to the car in silence. Zachary took the wheel, looking aside at Kenzie.
“Are you okay?”
“No, not really. You?”
He shrugged and grunted. No words were really needed. Kenzie understood. He pulled away from the curb. Kenzie had no idea where they were going. Maybe just to drive around aimlessly while they spitballed ideas.
“Do you think she’s still in Burlington?” Zachary asked.
Kenzie thought about it. She had asked more than once, but Emily had never answered, other than to tell her that she didn’t need to know. Kenzie closed her eyes, but that didn’t help. She reviewed the string of texts on her phone.
“No.”
“No, you don’t think she’s in Burlington?”
“No. If she was in Burlington, she probably would have been okay with telling me that. She was far enough away that even if I wanted to get to her, it would take a couple of hours to get there. Even if we could get a location on her phone and knew where she was, she had a cushion of a couple of hours.”
“But here, she doesn’t,” Zachary pointed out the obvious.
“Exactly. If she’s in Roxboro and we go looking for her… we could get there in a few minutes.”
“Especially if we have her phone location.”
“But we don’t, and she knows that,” Kenzie tried to follow all of the clues to their conclusion. “So she must be somewhere we could find her just by what we know about her.”
Zachary nodded. He had apparently followed this chain of logic as well, and that was why he’d wanted to get away from the Salter house. Emily wasn’t there. But she was somewhere close by. And she was getting ready to act. That was why she had shut off her phone. She was no longer looking for help.
“She is somewhere we know about.” Kenzie considered it. “Home or the school. Or wherever the gang hangs out. But I never got where that is from Campbell or Emily. Is it like in the old books and movies? Do they have a specific territory? A clubhouse or home base?”
“I don’t think it would be with the gang. Emily already knows that the other gang members will listen to Saul and let him get away with whatever he wants. They’ve let him get away with ripping them off; why would she trust them to protect her interests when they haven’t protected their own?”
“Maybe now that people know what he’s been doing, they’ll stand up to him. Or Emily thinks they will.”
Zachary shook his head again. And Kenzie trusted him. He had good instincts. If Zachary didn’t think that Emily would go to the gang, if he was that sure of himself, he was probably right. He knew human behavior. He could read people.
“So, home or the school. Or somewhere else?” Kenzie asked.
“I think home is too dangerous. I don’t think she would agree to meet him there. Not where he could get close to her mother. Home is her safe space. Her den. Her cocoon. When she witnessed Mercer’s murder and was in shock, she went home to sleep. Not the place you would take someone who was a threat to you and your family.”
“So the school.” Kenzie looked at the time. “Her friends won’t be there yet. But if he is an hour or two away at his cabin then, by the time he gets here, some of the early birds will be starting to show up at the school. Not her friends, maybe, but some of the staff. Early morning clubs. Orchestra practice.”
“He’ll want to meet somewhere away from people. She’ll want to meet somewhere close to people.”
Kenzie nodded, thinking about it. The only place they had met with Emily had been at the bus stop across from the school, next to the convenience store. But Emily couldn’t meet with Saul there. It was out in the open, where everyone would see. He couldn’t bring Rhys there at gunpoint. He would never agree.
Would he have Rhys with him? Or would he leave Rhys stashed somewhere?
“Behind the school?” Kenzie suggested. “In the parking lot?”
“Not bad,” Zachary admitted. “But still out in the open. Even in an isolated corner, he won’t be able to ensure that no one sees them. As a cop, he’ll want to make sure there is a way in and a way out, and that they can’t be observed while he is there.”
“Somewhere inside the school.”
“Yeah.”
“It won’t be unlocked yet,” Kenzie objected.
“It will be soon. At least a couple of the doors. And Saul has ways of opening locked doors, so that isn’t a limitation. He knows how vulnerable a door is, even if it is locked. Pick it or kick it.”
“Right. Okay. Inside, then. Where does Emily feel safe inside the school?”
They drove in silence for a while, both of them considering the matter.
61
By the time they got to the highway, the stars had faded and the sky was brightening. Rhys was rarely up in time to see the sunrise. Would it be the last one he ever saw?
The bad cop concerned him even more now. He had been worried during the drive to the cabin, wondering how he would survive the ordeal. The cop had grabbed him and handled him like he was just a doll and not a real person. He was rough and wanted to show Rhys he was in charge. The least little thing that Rhys did that didn’t comply with his instructions or expectations resulted in a smack or a threat. But it wasn’t like he’d gotten beaten up. He’d still been okay when he got to the cabin. Scared, but in one piece.
He wasn’t sure how far they were going to make it in the car. The coke affected bad cop’s driving. He was fast and reckless, and honking horns followed them everywhere they went. A couple of times, he even tapped someone’s bumper when they didn’t get out of the way fast enough, and they took one guy’s side mirror off when bad cop skimmed past with only inches between the two cars. Rhys hung on to the door and the emergency brake and tried not to cry out every time it looked like they would end up in an accident.
The whole time, the cop kept up a running monologue, like he had been doing while pacing at the cabin. Rhys didn’t know whether he was talking to Rhys, to himself, or to someone else he saw or heard in his head. He railed at the drivers, about Em, about Mercer, the gangbanger he had killed. He yelled about his boss and the other cops he worked with. And Kenzie, too. How she was wrong about everything and didn’t have any idea what was going on and he’d heard that she had made mistakes on other autopsies.
They were headed back into Roxboro. Rhys still had the phone. The cop hadn’t thought to take it away from him when they had started back toward the city. Rhys had casually slid it into his pants pocket, and bad cop had been so amped up, angry, and distracted that his eyes had slid right over Rhys without any indication that he had seen Rhys pocket it.
The cop had been mad when Emily had shut off her phone. He wanted to be in control, and the fact that he could no longer communicate with Emily at all had him frantic. He threw things across the cabin, making Rhys duck and flinch. As much as he tried to show no reaction to anything that bad cop did, he couldn’t control his body. The cop kept insisting that Rhys message Emily again to make her turn the phone on, and Rhys kept showing him the User Offline message on the screen. He thought the cop was going to throw the phone across the room. Then he would have no way to communicate if Emily decided to turn her phone back on or if he were somewhere the cop couldn’t see him for a minute. He could message someone else for help.
Then they had to go outside to see if they could get a better signal and get a message to send from there.
Rhys knew what had happened. He knew that Emily had shut off her phone after her last message. But the cop didn’t want to listen to anything Rhys had to say or to take the time to figure it out. Rhys knew that more messages and going outside or even to the highway would not make any difference.
Em was so strong. Tiring of the cop’s threats, she had just told him where she would be, and then turned off her phone. There were no more negotiations. Emily was done. The cop could curse and complain as much as he liked, throw as many things as he wanted, but none of that would change anything. He could crash the car, flip it over, and wreck half a dozen cars on the highway, and it wouldn’t change anything. Emily was out of touch and the only way to talk to her was to go where she was. That was what bad cop had wanted all along anyway, wasn’t it?
They nearly sideswiped a semi, making Rhys let out an inadvertent yelp. The cop swore and swerved and gave the other driver the finger and kept driving with his pedal to the metal like he was some Indy racer. Rhys knew they were never going to make it. The stupid, stoned cop would kill them both before they could even make it back to Roxboro.
But somehow, they did it. They got back into the city, and the cop even slowed down once he hit the city streets and did not swear and gesture as much. Maybe the initial kick of the cocaine was wearing off, or he had exhausted enough of his fury, or was now thinking about meeting Emily and what he would say and do to her when that happened.
Rhys touched the phone in his pocket. He wanted to look at their messages again, to see whether Emily had understood everything he had told her. But he already had the whole conversation in his head. He was sure they had understood each other, despite bad cop’s determination to control everything.
There were a few cars in the parking lot at the school. Not a lot, but people were starting to arrive to prep for classes, have a coffee, or attend one of the early-morning clubs. Emily had enjoyed her early-morning activities before she and Mercer had become friends. She’d been part of a different crowd then, and Rhys had seen her more often. He didn’t like the kids she hung out with now, staying on the outskirts of school society when she wasn’t hanging out with Mercer and the gang.
She used to get up early in the morning. Now, she was rarely up by the time school started. Sometimes, she got there in the morning and sometimes not before noon. He missed the way things used to be. It was Mercer’s fault that she had changed so much. And now Mercer was gone, but things wouldn’t go back to how they used to be.
Bad cop pulled his car into one of the slots that was supposed to be reserved for staff members. Rhys didn’t suppose it mattered. Was someone going to give him a ticket? Have it towed? What difference would that make now?
62
Zachary and Kenzie didn’t find Emily so much as a result of careful deduction and logic, narrowing down where she would be based on everything they knew about her and what the chances were that she would make certain choices. Instead, they walked through the school, avoiding anyone else and trying doors to see what was unlocked. They stuck to the quieter areas of the school, especially the basement, assuming that for a clandestine meeting, they would prefer a location away from the busy hallways. The early-morning enrichment clubs had started up, and they tried to avoid the kids who were there early and to look like they belonged there and knew where they were going.
Kenzie found a door unlocked and swung it open, only to find a small group of students gathered in a circle, talking.
“Oh, sorry,” Kenzie said, ready to close it again. Then she stopped.
A couple of faces looked familiar. She gave herself another second or two to remember them before withdrawing. She jerked her head to invite Zachary to follow her, and when they were both in the room, they shut the door again.
“Um, this is the drama club,” a high-pitched, nasally voice told them. “I don’t know who you are, but this is our room. Talk to Mr. Jefferson.”
Kenzie looked carefully at each one of them. Then she returned her gaze to Graham. The one who had told her that he could produce a much more realistic picture of a corpse than the one Emily had taken. Even though the one that Emily had taken had, in fact, been an actual corpse.
“Hey,” she said. “You remember me?”
Graham’s eyes slid toward a closed door on the other side of the room before looking back at Kenzie.
“You can’t be here,” he said. “Like Chantelle said, we have the room booked.”
The girl who had told them that already nodded, a superior, challenging look on her face.
“Is she here?” Kenzie asked.
“I’m right here,” Chantelle said in a huff.
“Not you.” Kenzie looked back at Graham. “Emily.”
“You know where it is,” bad cop growled at Rhys, giving him a shove forward with the barrel of the gun.
Rhys didn’t think it was a good idea for him to still have the gun out when he was in the middle of the school. There weren’t a lot of kids there yet, but it wouldn’t be long before the hallways were full and they were in danger of being accidentally shot by the jumped-up cop.
“Hurry it up,” the cop told him. “Don’t make this difficult. The more trouble you cause me, the worse things are going to be for your friend.”
Rhys looked back at the cop, nodding, letting him see that Rhys was complying with his instructions. But rather than speeding up, he slowed very slightly. The cop might think he could force Emily and Rhys to do whatever he wanted to, but Rhys still had some control over the situation. The cop couldn’t force him to go any faster, even if he did have a gun. How would shooting Rhys help him at this point? He would lose his guide and have to find his way to Emily’s meeting place. While dealing with a school on lockdown.
“The theater,” bad cop repeated. “You know where it is. And if you try to lead me in another direction, I can look it up on the floor plan or ask someone else. I don’t need you.”
If he didn’t need Rhys, then why didn’t he let him go?
He continued to walk slowly along, looking in the other open classroom doors. Wondering if he would run into any teachers along the way or anyone else he knew. He didn’t like walking through the school when it was so quiet. It was creepy.
They reached the stairs and Rhys indicated that they had to go down. The cop didn’t seem to like the idea, but he looked at the signs and saw a placard for the theater, so he nodded and Rhys started down the stairs ahead of him.
They could hear other activity. The orchestra was practicing. There were shouted instructions and grunts from the direction of the gymnasium. The early-morning programming was in full swing.
The phone in Rhys’s pocket started chirping. He pulled it out to check to see what was happening, then remembered that the cop was watching. He might not want the man to see the message or messages on the phone and tried to shove it back down before the cop could realize what was going on.
“What is it?” bad cop said sharply.
Rhys shrugged and kept going. Bad cop closed in on him when he reached the bottom of the stairs, grabbing him by the shoulder and shoving the barrel of the gun into his ribs with a smack that was bound to leave a bruise. Rhys gasped and held his side.
“Let me see. Give it to me.”
The phone had been silent since Emily had shut off her phone. The incoming messages could only mean one thing… she was back online again. And if she was online, she could see his location. She had requested to track his live location through the messaging app in one of the last messages they had exchanged. Bad cop, pacing and arguing with himself, breaking down and going off the rails, had not seen the message request, and Rhys had quickly deleted it from the message thread as soon as he had granted permission.
So Emily knew that he was in the school now.
Rhys wrapped his hand around the phone and didn’t give it to the cop.
Bad cop didn’t spend any time arguing about it. He grabbed Rhys’s arm and then pried Rhys’s fingers away. He was strong. As tightly as Rhys tried to hold on to it, he couldn’t prevent the cop from stealing it. Bad cop looked at the screen and gave a bark of laughter. He handed it back to Rhys.
“Tell her good riddance!”
Rhys looked down at the message on the screen.
Im so sorry Rhys its the only way I can end it
