Endangered

by Lamar Giles

  The children giggle, but Taylor’s right. We’ve got things to discuss. I tell the kids, “We’ll do this again. I promise.”

  You promise? Really, Panda? Where’s that coming from?

  If anyone else finds my sudden commitment to the Durham siblings strange, they don’t let on. Taylor nudges me into his room, where two twin beds are pushed against opposite walls. There are no chairs, so I sit on the bed with the Spider-Man comforter.

  He sits opposite me. “Now, who’s trying to kill me?”

  Perhaps I’m getting good at telling the story, like a veteran teacher delivering a patented lecture. By the numbers. I’m not stammering through the sordid history of me and my Admirer, like I did with my parents. Not feeling the need to justify, like for the cops. Not desperately trying to sell an idea, like I was with Quinn Beck. I’m telling Taylor a cautionary tale, a warning of what’s happened and what could happen. It is what it is.

  He nods a lot, doesn’t interrupt. He was always a good listener. It’s one of the things I liked most about him back then.

  When I finish, he says, “I thought Coach Bottin killed Keachin. And the guy who hit Mei is locked up, too. That means your guy set them up. How’s he pull something like that off?”

  I consider his question. Not the logistics of how the Admirer could engineer a murder, a hit-and-run, frame two people, and only arouse my suspicions—that’s been troubling me long before he asked. I’m taken by his lack of condescension. Mostly everyone I’ve told has treated me like I escaped from the mental ward when I float my theory. Taylor’s assuming I have an explanation.

  He’s wrong. The vote of confidence is nice, though.

  “I’m not sure. If I find his real identity, everything falls into place, I think. That’s the problem.”

  “I get it. You’re not calling him the Admirer for fun. You got any thoughts on who it could be?”

  “He goes to Portside. I’m almost certain of that.”

  “Okay, a boy at Portside. That’s only half the school. What else you got?”

  “He’s incredible with a camera.” I hand over my phone so he can see Dante and View from Heaven. “My first thought was Marcos Dahmer . . .”

  “But he doesn’t have the tech skills you’ve been looking into.” Taylor swipes several times, looking at all the photos I’ve received from the Admirer. When he winces, I know he’s seen Keachin’s crime scene photo.

  “Right,” I say, “you told me Brock’s a techie, which was news to me.”

  “He wants Zuckerberg’s money. That’s all.”

  “I went to see him.”

  Taylor meets my eyes. “And?”

  “Even if he’s got the skills, nothing about him screams photographer.”

  Taylor refocuses on the photos in his hand. “Yeah. All this is a little too detail oriented for him. He’s more of a sexting-pictures-of-his-junk kind of guy.”

  He keeps going through my phone, pauses on a photo and stays there awhile.

  I say, “Do you see something?”

  “Not really, it’s just . . .” He trails off.

  “What?”

  “How’d your Admirer get my driver’s license photo?”

  “Your—? Let me see.”

  He gives the phone back, displaying the photo of his face taken under harsh lights, a DMV trademark. How did I miss this?

  I’ve seen Ocie’s driver’s license. She’s often flashed it as a badge of dishonor since she doesn’t have a car. That’s why the picture I got on my phone before her accident was familiar. I was too amped up to see it then.

  The plain shot of Keachin before she turned up dead . . . a driver’s license photo, too?

  How would the Admirer get those? None of this makes sense.

  Except the one thing.

  I swipe back to Dante. “This picture was among the first he sent me. He was proud of it. Showing off. I think it means something.”

  “The photography stuff is your world. I’ll take your word for it.”

  “He’s all about the double meaning and slick talk.” His “Panda in a blender” riddle and the pretentious names for his photos gnaw at me. “Dante’s Inferno. You remember reading it in freshman English?”

  “I recall the Wikipedia page. Sorta.”

  “Okay, slacker. Dante pretty much walked through the circles of hell and watched people get punished for their sins. There was all kinds of torment, but the fire was reserved for really bad people in the lowest circles.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “Coach Bottin’s house burned down.” I tap my screen. “Maybe the Admirer was punishing him.”

  “For what?”

  “Getting with Keachin. A lot of people had a thing for her, right? What if my Admirer had it worse than most? What if he found out about her and Coach way before me, and did this?”

  He frowns. “Do you know for sure that’s Bottin’s house in the picture?”

  “No. But I’m going to find out.”

  A small, boxy TV sits on the dresser. I motion to it. “That thing get cable?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Do you mind turning it to CNN or some other news channel? Make sure the volume’s real loud.”

  He looks skeptical, but complies, turns the volume up.

  Dialing the number I recently added to my contacts, I wait for someone in the Preserve rental office to pick up.

  “Thank you for calling Preserve, Nature’s Home. This is Renn, how can I help you?”

  “Yes, this is Patricia Parker from channel nine news,” I say, only extra fast and twangy with an exaggerated Southern accent—Yaaayesss, thisisPatriciaParkerofchannelninenews. “I’m doing a quick follow-up fact check on a quote we got from one of the property managers in your complex. Is it true that Mr. Bottin’s apartment has yet to be vacated?”

  “Lord, am I ever going to hear the end of that pervert?”

  “That’s a yes then, sir?”

  “He’s paid up through the end of the month. Even then I gotta wait ten days before I can put his filthy things on the street. It’s like the state wants his pervert germs making my other tenants uncomfortable. And who’s going to have to clean it all up? Me. I’ve got half a mind to—”

  “Thank you, sir!” I end the call.

  Taylor’s ogling me like a tentacle’s curling out of my ear. “That was impressive.”

  “Thanks. Don’t go trying to take credit for it.” I honed those skills long after me and him. “I’m going to check out his place tomorrow. Try to find anything that ties him to Dante. At least that gives me a direct link to him and the Admirer.”

  “Us.”

  “’Cuse me?”

  “It gives us a link. Don’t look at me like that. It’s my neck on the chopping block, right?”

  He’s got a point. “Fine. I’ll text you as soon as I’m done to let you know what I find, then—”

  “I’m going with you.”

  “Oh no, you’re not.”

  “You said your Admirer goes to Portside.”

  “Probably.”

  “So if he’s really trying to kill me, skipping school is like self-defense.”

  “It’s more like bullshit. You think I’m still off the rails. I don’t need you to protect me.”

  “News flash, Daniels, it’s not all about you. Wanna know something? Keachin was never mean to me. I know she could be an asshole, but sometimes she was cool. She shouldn’t be dead right now. If the person who hurt her is really what you say, if he hurt Mei, too, and you—Gray!—are taking him down, I want in. If I have to sit in front of your house tomorrow, I will. It’s going to be hard for you to sneak out if your parents see me.”

  “Who says I have to sneak?”

  “You, with the way you keep checking the time on your phone. I got them Sherlock skills, too.”

  Hardly. He’s right, though. It is getting late.

  Standing, contemplating, I say, “Text me tomorrow and we’ll go from there.”

&nb
sp; “You all right getting home?”

  “I’m not the one with the target on my back.” I’m only half joking. Then I say, “Be careful.”

  “You should tell him that. I’m not some girl.”

  “He’s not some boy. With what he does, he’s something else altogether.”

  Taylor walks me past the couch where Jaiden is already asleep and Aaliyah isn’t far behind.

  We tiptoe to the door and into the hall. There’s nothing else to say, but it feels weird leaving him. The weirdness makes me angry. At Taylor. At Ocie. Of course, at the Admirer.

  “Stay alive, please. Everybody’s seen me with you, I don’t need any more heat for something that’s not my fault.”

  He huffs, “No wonder you attract such charming dudes.”

  This snark feels right. Normal.

  “Thank you.” I touch his arm and take the stairs. That’s enough for one night.

  CHAPTER 37

  THE NEXT MORNING I’M THROUGH THE door like thirty seconds after my parents leave for work. I pick Taylor up at his place, and we make the drive to Coach Bottin’s. We park on the street, a block away from Preserve.

  “Let’s go. Try to look like we belong here.”

  He falls in line, moving quickly, casually. We walk the lot for several hundred feet.

  Taylor notices the security panels at each door. “You don’t have a pass code, do you?”

  “I don’t.”

  At Bottin’s building, I approach the door and press the plastic buttons mounted beside each unit number. I detect faint buzzing from inside the building with each push and fight the increasing anxiety when I don’t get an answer. The longer we’re standing still, the more memorable and suspicious we become. I get lucky on the fifth try.

  “Yeah,” some guy I plan to never see says through the intercom.

  “This is FedEx.” I check the number of the last unresponsive condo I buzzed. “I’ve got a delivery for unit 204; the order says I can leave it at their door, but I don’t think they meant this door. I don’t want to have to take it back if I can help it, because it’s marked urgent, and—”

  There’s an angry buzz from the other side of the security door and a loud ca-clunk of a lock releasing. Taylor grabs the handle and we let the oblivious neighbor in 205 get back to his day.

  “I can’t believe the crap you do works,” he says.

  “Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe, too. Good thing we weren’t coming to kill whoever’s in 204.”

  “At least the guy in 205 could buzz the cops in afterward.”

  Coach Bottin’s apartment is on the third floor. Aside from the sound of hushed TV voices flitting from other apartments, the floor feels abandoned. Great. If taking too long to get buzzed in was suspicious, what comes next will definitely get cops called should we get caught.

  “Watch my back.” I crouch in front of Bottin’s door, pull my lock pick set from my jacket pocket.

  Taylor’s face droops. He turns away, watching the stairs and other doors on the hall, tapping his thigh in a nervous rhythm. He whispers, “How’d you learn to use lock picks?”

  “YouTube is a second-story man’s best friend.”

  “A what?”

  “If we’re going to do this more often, you gotta learn the lingo.”

  A deadbolt is the only lock on the door. Tougher than padlocks, but not as tough as the average homeowner likes to think they are. My tension rod goes in first, then I work the pins with my C-Rake. A quick flick of the rake—like swiping a debit card through the reader on a gas pump—will sometimes be enough.

  This isn’t one of those times.

  I give up on the rake and opt for my short hook, which requires a more delicate (time-consuming) touch than my previous tool. Deep breaths are necessary to keep a stressed hand tremor at bay.

  Taylor says, “Are you trying to get someone to call SWAT on us? Hurry up!”

  “Don’t rush me. You asked to come.”

  “I didn’t think we’d be doing this. If I acted like you, I would’ve been locked up a long time ago. Must be nice on the other side.”

  That makes me pause, only for a moment. He’s right on one thing. I need to hurry.

  The next three minutes feel like three years. Aborting the mission is starting to look like an option when—

  CLICK.

  There’s give, the tension rod turns. I never get tired of that feeling.

  We step inside, and I close the door gently, reapplying the locks. I ask, “The other side of what?”

  He plays dumb amnesiac. I remind him, “You said ‘must be nice on the other side.’ The other side of what?”

  His annoyance is unhidden. “The other side of getting away with stuff. You’re a girl, and you look”—he shrugs—“you don’t look like me.”

  “You mean I don’t look black enough.” Ghostly echoes of elementary school teasing haunt me.

  He rolls his eyes. “I mean no one assumes you’re a criminal, even though you really are. For me, it’s the opposite.”

  “Oh, boo-hoo! Guess what, you just broke in with me. You’re a criminal now. Leave if you want, but don’t go full a-hole over something I have no control over because you’re scared. I’m scared, too. We’re in, so look around.”

  He does. “Someone’s been here.”

  Drawers and kitchen cabinets are open, revealing mismatched drinking glasses and dinner plates. Furniture’s shifted wrong, the couch is at an odd angle from the wall. Blotchy residue powders the TV screen, and the counter, and the glass door leading to a balcony. Fingerprint dust.

  I say, “The cops are building their case. Let’s not leave any extra prints, in case they come back. That’s how smart criminals do it.” My lock picks go in my right pocket; I pull a balled-up pair of latex gloves from my left.

  Taylor gives me the stink eye.

  “What? You didn’t bring any?” I let him stew before I pass him the extra pair I always keep on me.

  “What are we looking for?” he asks.

  “Maybe a photo album. He might have pictures of himself in his old place. I can see if it looks like Dante. Speaking of pictures . . .” I brought along my trusty point-and-shoot, give it to him. “Photograph the whole room. The memory card’s big, so take a thousand shots if you have to. I want to examine everything when I get home.”

  “Question.”

  “The shutter release is on the top right.”

  “That’s not my question. Why are you just now trying to track this guy down?”

  “He hurt Ocie and ruined my life.”

  “Before that. You did some poking, but you didn’t think to use all your secret agent skills to find this guy’s identity sooner?”

  “I got sidetracked. I haven’t been myself.”

  “Which self? You’re like three people.”

  What’s he want to hear? That I liked the game at first? I thought the Admirer was someone like me, someone I’d been looking for without knowing it. I’m feeling a certain nostalgia for working alone.

  “Let’s get this done. I’ll be in the back.”

  Taylor gravitates toward glass and metal shelves in the corner of the living room, home to a few books, but mostly an extensive DVD and CD collection. I move into the back rooms. A bathroom, home office, and the bedroom. I shudder, thinking of Keachin making this same walk with different intentions.

  The man smell in the bedroom lingers though the place feels long vacated. A mix of overly sweet deodorant and a laundry hamper that’s decaying in his absence. The silk bed linen is a coiled mess, the fitted sheet snatched from the mattress, exposing a full third of yellowed pillow top padding. The dresser is like the kitchen, drawers extended and picked through. The closet door is open. I shift a few dangling golf shirts aside, but find nothing of interest hidden behind them. No safe. No secret perv dungeon.

  The shelf above the closet rods are full of neatly folded towels, and jeans, and novelty tees featuring familiar characters on the creased shirt faces.
Darth Vader. Wolverine. Superman’s S in primary colors.

  The comic tees would’ve seemed cute and quirky if not for Bottin having youthful tastes in more than his clothes.

  On the closet floor, a few more shirts lie scattered. More cartoony kids’ stuff, except for a faded Portside Pirates shirt and an AGG Tech shirt that’s stained with what might be grape juice.

  I take several shots of everything with my phone before moving on to the office.

  Black fingerprint powder is more prevalent here, dusting his keyboard and monitor. There was a rectangular impression in the carpet where a PC tower probably sat. Makes sense that the police took it. Probably checking for kiddie porn, or something else that could help stack the charges against him.

  In here, Coach’s Star Wars fetish is on full blast. Framed poster art from the original trilogy occupy three of the walls. Above the desk is an image made to look like an oil painting. Luke Skywalker, both hands over his head, wielding a light saber that’s more lightning than the neon glow sticks I’ve always associated with this franchise. Kneeling at Luke’s hip, almost in worship, is the princess, far sexier than I recall her being in the film. In the background, Darth Vader’s helmet, large and looming like a black sun. There’s a tiny gold plaque in the bottom right corner of the frame that reads:

  Star Wars

  Released ’77

  On the next wall, a poster for The Empire Strikes Back, released in ’80. Then Return of the Jedi, released in ’83.

  Next to the Jedi poster, there’s a wall calendar featuring a girl that looks my age—though the calendar logo identifies her as a “College Hottie”—in a string bikini mounting a Japanese motorcycle. Bile rises in the back of my throat, and I decide it’s best to leave this place before I catch something.

  A page from a mini-notepad is taped to the desk, four or five usernames and passwords scribbled on it. They’re not much good without the computer, but I photograph them anyway in case Taylor, or maybe Roz, can work some sort of cyber magic with them.

  For the rest of the room, I opt for a couple of panoramas that will give me a detailed 360-degree view of everything. When I close the door so I can get the whole room uninterrupted, I discover a fourth movie poster. Something called THX 1138.