Shadow Hills

by Anastasia Hopcus

  “No. It was foggy. I couldn’t see much at all.” I thought of the fake snow forming stick figure skeletons on the guys.

  “What about sounds? Did you hear anything?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “Did you know Mr. Carr well?”

  “Not really. He was my swim teacher, but I didn’t have any contact with him outside of class.” Silent singing and lying did not go hand in hand. It felt like I was trying to pat my head and rub my belly at the same time. Except a hundred times harder.

  “Did you notice him acting strange in class? Did you see him get into arguments with anyone?”

  “I thought the doctors decided he had an aneurysm. Do the police not believe that?”

  Bradbury looked flustered; he clearly hadn’t expected a student to question him. “It’s not that—I was just wondering if you had seen him display any signs of head pain. Maybe the night of the dance?”

  I started the song over again in my mind as I tried to decide whether or not to say anything about Mrs. Carr. Brody thought it was a waste of our time to look into her, but it wouldn’t hurt to have the cops check it out just in case he was wrong.

  “Well, I did notice Mr. and Mrs. Carr arguing at the dance at one point. Could that have caused an aneurysm?”

  “That’s not really my area of expertise. But I can certainly run it by someone from the medical staff.”

  Chief Bradbury scribbled something in the notebook, then handed me a business card. “This has the number for my direct line. Please call me if you remember anything more.”

  “Thanks.” I dropped the card into my purse. Once I was out of the ISS room, I felt a million times better. I’d made it through the interview, and I was almost positive I hadn’t been mind read. If he’d been able to pick up on my jumbled thoughts, he’d have kept me there a lot longer.

  I was halfway to the SAC when I heard footsteps behind me in the courtyard. I turned around, expecting to see Brody. Instead, I came toe-to-toe with Trent.

  “Hey, Goldilocks, where you going in such a hurry?” He brushed a piece of long hair out of his eyes, and something on his finger flashed in the sun. A large rectangular ring inlaid with a green striped stone.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Trent was wearing a ring just like the one in my vision. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it earlier. That was the ring he’d been wearing the first time he cornered me, gripping my hand so hard I couldn’t get away. Could Trent possibly be the one who had killed Mr. Carr?

  It was hard to believe. Trent was incredibly creepy, but he didn’t seem off-his-rocker psychotic. And he didn’t strike me as the type to put himself in any kind of danger. I couldn’t see Trent attacking Mr. Carr unless he had some self-serving reason for it. Or unless Mr. Carr was the one who initiated the confrontation … I looked at Trent with narrowed eyes. Was he the guy I’d seen with Mrs. Carr? Trent was small, but taller than me and slender, with dark blond hair that could easily be mistaken for light brown. I’d thought the guy was older than Trent, but how much of that was just a presumption that he was Mrs. Carr’s age? Mystery Man had been wearing a leather jacket that might make someone Trent’s size look bigger.

  The whole idea seemed crazy, but I also wouldn’t put it past Trent to have an affair with Mr. Carr’s wife. On the other hand, there was the detail of his ring not being cracked. Maybe my vision wasn’t a revelation of a past event. Maybe it was a warning, a glimpse into the future. What if that hadn’t been Mr. Carr in my vision? What if it was going to be Zach?

  “Cat got your tongue?” Trent raised an eyebrow, and I snapped my gaping mouth shut.

  “I have to meet someone.” I turned and started walking quickly back to the ISS room.

  “The hospital is in the opposite direction!” Trent called after me.

  I ignored him and kept going. I needed to find Brody to tell him about my new suspect. Luckily, I caught sight of him just as he was coming out of the building.

  “Hey! How was your inter—”

  I grabbed Brody tightly by the upper arm and pulled him behind one of the redbrick walls that hid the campus Dumpsters from view.

  “Jesus! What’s up with you?” He rubbed his biceps tenderly. “You’ve got quite a grip for a small person.”

  “I think it’s Trent.” I disregarded the “small” comment, which would’ve annoyed me at any other point in time.

  “You think what is Trent?” Brody shook his head in confusion.

  “I think Trent is the person sleeping with Mrs. Carr—and I also think he might have been the one who attacked Zach. His build and coloring are very similar to the guy I saw in your house, and he knows that Zach is in the hospital. I haven’t said anything about it, have you?”

  “No, but Trent could have found out some other way. They are related.”

  “But they hate each other, and their dads don’t seem real fond of each other either.”

  “Yeah, but Trent was at the dance. I saw him. How could he have done it?”

  “It would have been easy for him to leave the dance for a few minutes without being noticed.”

  “Do you have any other reason to suspect him?” Brody was still unconvinced. If I told him my graveyard vision story, he would just think I was crazier. I’d have to lie. Again.

  “I recognized Trent’s ring. I think maybe the guy with Mrs. Carr had the same one.” I hadn’t seen the guy’s hands, so there was a chance he had been wearing it.

  “You mean that flashy thing Trent always wears? The malachite ring?” Brody caught my look. “It’s a green striped stone.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded.

  “Okay. I’ll follow Trent around, see if he does anything suspicious. But you have to promise not to get yourself hurt in the meantime. I can just imagine what Zach would do to me if I got his new girlfriend killed.”

  I felt a fluttering in my heart at Brody’s statement. Girlfriend. I was Zach’s girlfriend. Of course, the “killed” part wasn’t so great, but we would just have to make sure that didn’t happen.

  Letting Brody do all the Trent stalking should have freed me up to study in the library, but all I seemed to be capable of doing was staring blankly at my French book, lost in thoughts of the Banished, Trent, and Brody. My life keeps getting more and more confusing.

  Had Athena been involved in this stuff? It was pretty obvious that she’d been a daughter of Hekate and that she’d wanted to come to Devenish to find out more about Shadow Hills and Rebekah Sampson. But what did her bracelet have to do with anything? It didn’t look like the one pictured in the file—it certainly wasn’t copper. And I couldn’t imagine that Athena would have met a scary energy-sucking guy like Damon Gates and not put something about him in her journal.

  She probably never knew that BVs existed.

  Still, it was strange that the guy Mrs. Carr was having an affair with had had Athena’s bracelet in his possession at some point. With Mr. Carr, it made sense: I’d asked him to look for it, and if my interpretation of his note in the file was correct, he’d been concerned that the bracelet meant the Banished had an interest in me.

  But why would the Mystery Man have had it? None of the BVs were poor. If he’d wanted to give Mrs. Carr a Tiffany’s ID bracelet, he could’ve ordered it on the Internet. Then again, if you already had one, why pay for another? An infinity symbol could be a romantic thing, and it wasn’t like the guy had any sort of scruples.

  I let out an unconscious grunt of frustration, eliciting glares from two girls who apparently were having some luck with the whole reading-their-textbooks thing. At least, they were until I started making my animal-kingdom noises.

  I stood up and shoved my books into my bag before heading over to the cafeteria. I was too antsy to be sitting in the library. Adriana was already at our table with her typical lunch of raw veggies and low-fat yogurt, which today sounded about as appealing to me as anything. My stomach was in knots, wondering what was going on with Brody and Trent. Sitting on the sid
elines was harder than I’d imagined.

  “Hey.” I plopped my bag down, and the lunch table shuddered under the weight of it.

  Adriana frowned at me. “Don’t tell me that bag is filled with textbooks.”

  “I needed something to do. To take my mind off things for a while. I’m all grieved out right now.”

  “Tell me about it. I had my police meeting earlier, and I spent the last hour on the phone with my mom trying to convince her that I’m not in imminent danger of catching some kind of airborne aneurysm virus.” Adriana crunched loudly on a slightly anemic carrot stick. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m upset about Mr. Carr, but it’s not like we were best friends—I didn’t even have a class with him. And now I’m supposed to be walking around crying like my grandparents just died. I can’t imagine what it costs the administration to have that psychologist on call for a whole week.”

  I thought of what my parents had paid my shrink, and that had been for an hour.

  “A ton of money,” I said. “But their lawyers are probably telling them they need to do it so the parents don’t get sue happy.” I stole a piece of broccoli and took a bite. “It makes sense that they would want to have all their bases covered.”

  “Are you girls talking baseball again?” Brody sat next to Adriana, about as close as he could get without actually sitting in her lap.

  “God, Brody. Ever heard of personal space?” Adriana scooted to the far edge of the bench seat.

  “Shhh. We can’t talk like that in front of Phe, sweetcakes.” Brody winked.

  “You are so gross.” Adriana stood up. “I’m going to get something to drink. I need to wash the taste of bile from my mouth.”

  I cocked an eyebrow at Brody as Adriana headed off to join the rapidly expanding lunch line.

  “Sweetcakes?”

  “I had to get her out of here so I could tell you what happened,” Brody explained. “Trent did some very strange stuff when I was following him.”

  “Like what?” My heart was already going a mile a minute.

  “He set off the sirens on all the police cars parked in the teachers’ lot, and when everyone went rushing out to see what had happened, he snuck into the ISS room.”

  “Really?” I leaned in closer. “What did he do?”

  “Well, that’s what I’m not sure of.” Brody cracked his knuckles. “I couldn’t exactly follow him. It was totally deserted in there, and he definitely would have noticed me. But I did tail him after he came back out, and he went straight to his locker and stashed his backpack. It was all very furtive.”

  “We’ve got to see what’s in that backpack.” I chewed on my lips. “But how are we going to break into Trent’s locker without him noticing?”

  “Why are you breaking into Trent’s locker?” Adriana set a can of Diet Coke on the table.

  “He stole the answers to our comparative government test,” Brody jumped in, answering for me. “If I don’t get my hands on them, I am going to majorly flunk that class.”

  “I can probably help you with that.” Adriana gave a little shrug.

  “But you’re not even in that class.” Not that I was either, but hopefully Adriana didn’t pay enough attention to my classes to notice that.

  “No.” She rolled her eyes. “But I can distract Trent so Brody can break into his locker.”

  “You’d really do that?” I asked. Adriana did have a rebellious streak, but she also seemed to have a bit of a crush on Trent. Or so I had thought, but maybe my radar was off these days, because she sure was eager to help Brody.

  Or maybe she was just eager to flirt with Trent, I thought a little later as I stood guard in the courtyard, watching the two of them through the cafeteria window. Adriana had her head thrown back in what I could only guess was fake laughter since I had never heard a remotely funny comment pass Trent’s lips. After she recovered from her fit of faux giggles, she laid a hand on his forearm and leaned in so close I half expected them to kiss.

  “What could she possibly see in that tool?”

  Brody’s voice made me jump, and I spun around to find him standing right behind me.

  “Maybe he doesn’t sneak up on people.” I glared.

  “Yeah, well, some lookout you are, letting people sneak up on you.”

  “I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on Trent,” I pointed out, but the sight of a bright red official police folder in his hands made me abandon my argument.

  “I haven’t opened it yet,” Brody said, noticing my expression. “Mrs. Carr is making funeral arrangements right now, so we can go back to the house and look at it if you want.”

  “Yes.” I started off without a second thought.

  “Wait. Don’t we need to get Adriana away from him?” Brody asked. “If we’re right, Trent could be a killer.”

  Instantly, I felt guilty. I was in such a hurry to save my boyfriend that I was totally ready to overlook my friend’s safety.

  “We can offer to walk her to her next class on our way to the library,” I said.

  “Okay, but isn’t that kind of a public place to be investigating sealed police files?” Brody said, then stuck the file into his backpack and zipped it closed.

  “That’s why we’re going to take it to your house. We’re just telling Adriana we’re going to the library.”

  I went back into the cafeteria and headed over to the flirtatious couple. Brody followed me, a scowl on his face.

  “Oh, hey! It’s Brody and Phe!” Adriana said in mock surprise. “What are you doing here?”

  “As far as I know the cafeteria is free reign at lunchtime.” Brody crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you have a problem with that?” He glared at Trent.

  “I don’t think I’m the one with the problem.” Trent tossed his long hair out of his eyes.

  “Adriana, don’t you have chemistry now?” I broke in. “’Cause Brody and I are walking that way, and I thought you might like to come with us.” I gave her my best hint-hint, nudge-nudge look.

  “I guess so.” She shrugged.

  “Good. Well, I want to get to the library before next period starts, so we better go.” I avoided making eye contact with Trent. If he was already suspicious of me, this performance certainly wasn’t helping matters.

  “That must be my cue to exit.” Trent’s stare was burning through my skin. I could only hope he wasn’t an advanced mind reader like the police. “I’ll call you about Saturday,” he told Adriana.

  I took that as my cue to start walking quickly in the opposite direction. I couldn’t get out from under his watchful gaze fast enough. Brody and Adriana trailed after me.

  “What about Saturday?” Brody asked as soon as we were out of earshot. “You’re not going out with that slime, are you?”

  “Hey, you’re the one who wanted me to flirt with him,” Adriana shot back.

  “No, I distinctly remember saying ‘distract’—flirting was never mentioned.”

  “What are you, my dad?” She rolled her eyes.

  “No. If I was, you might have learned some self-control.”

  I could already tell this was not the way for Brody to get what he wanted.

  “Excuse me?” Adriana stopped in her tracks. “You’re one to talk about self-control, Mr. I’d-rather-get-stoned-than-be-a-productive-member-of-society.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I momentarily forgot that you’re the Queen of Productivity. The Empress of Charitable Deeds.” Brody smirked. “Bravo on all that shopping. Thank God you’re around to keep those boutique owners fed and off the streets.”

  “I think I can get to class just fine on my own.” Adriana’s honey-brown eyes flashed gold in the midday sun as she turned and stormed off ahead of us.

  “Great.” I shook my head. “I’m so glad we made sure Adriana was okay.”

  “Oh, whatever. She’s fine. That girl has Teflon-coated Kevlar feelings.” Brody kicked a rock out of his path as we continued on to his house.

  I had a feeling Adriana wasn’t as i
mpenetrable as Brody thought, but I decided to leave it alone. Relationship drama could wait. Right now we needed to find out what was so important that Trent would risk stealing it from the police.

  Once Brody had checked the house and locked the doors, we sat down at his kitchen table to look at our findings.

  “You want to do the honors?” Brody nodded at the red folder. I shook my head no. I had done a lot of not-so-legal things in the last two weeks, but this was the first time I really felt like I was involved in something that could land me in jail.

  “Guess it’s up to me then.” Brody undid the brad closure at the top of the envelope and slid out four eight-by-ten glossy pictures.

  “Oh, my God,” I breathed.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Each sharply detailed photo was shot at a different angle, but they all showed the same thing: the handprints seared into Mr. Carr’s head. They were just as I remembered, except for one important detail my brain had left out—the thumb marks were right under his eyes. The only way Mr. Carr could have made those prints himself was if in the moment of pain he had crossed his arms in front of him, left hand to right cheek, right hand to left cheek. It was clear that someone else was facing Mr. Carr when they burned him.

  “Looks like this lets the steam out of Zach’s theory about self-inflicted wounds,” Brody finally said. He exhaled slowly. “I know I was the one who suspected Mr. Carr had been killed—but I don’t think I truly believed it until now.”

  I nodded. The conclusion was pretty inescapable. The marks looked even worse than they had in person. The bright wash of light from the flash had lit up every charred black smudge in the red viscous residue left by the hands that had murdered Mr. Carr.

  “Does that look like the back of a ring to you?” I pointed out a spot on one of the hand imprints. At the bottom of the middle finger, there was a slightly deeper, very raw-looking wound.

  “You mean that thing that’s sort of like a crescent moon with the pointy ends cut off?”

  “Yeah.” It was on the right hand, the correct finger, but maybe I was just seeing what I wanted to see.