Something she didn’t want to do? Olivia thought of Ronny DeStefano and how, at one point, she’d thought Rex and Amber might have killed him.
“I’m sorry,” Olivia said.
Amber laughed, drily and without a hint of mirth. “He even tried to use me to pay off a debt.”
“What?” Olivia cried. She couldn’t help herself.
“Sh!” Kitty whispered from across the room.
“Yeah,” Amber said, her voice lower. “This guy wanted money from Rex for . . .” She paused, and Olivia wondered if she’d spill Rex’s biggest secret. “For something,” she said instead. “And he offered the guy a night with me as payment.”
“Oh my God, Amber,” Olivia said, dumbstruck. Rex was even more of a monster than she’d realized. “I’m so sorry.”
“I didn’t do it,” Amber said. “Gave him some jewelry instead. But that was Rex.”
Olivia pushed herself to her knees and crawled to the edge of the sofa. She didn’t care if she could be seen from the street, she needed to look Amber in the eyes. For all the bad blood between them, Olivia wouldn’t have wished Rex on her worst enemy, and she was just now beginning to understand what Amber’s relationship with him had been like.
“Amber,” she said, staring at her friend in the growing twilight. “You deserve better than that.”
Amber’s smile was tight. “Do I?”
“Yes,” Olivia said. “And don’t ever forget it.”
Kitty crouched on the dining room floor, hidden behind the silk damask curtains, knees hugged tightly to her chest, head resting against the wall as the sun gradually shifted across the horizon.
Several cars had passed on Amber’s secluded block. None had so much as slowed down, let alone stopped. She’d seen three nannies pushing their wards in strollers, cell phones fixed to their ears as they walked. Two joggers, one with dog accompaniment, one without. A FedEx truck had caused a brief flurry of anxiety as it squealed to a stop in front of the house, but the driver merely checked his GPS before he roared up the street.
From the pocket of her jeans, Kitty’s phone vibrated. The noise sounded so loud in the tense silence of Amber’s living room, she jumped.
“Do you see something?” Olivia whispered. She scrambled to Kitty’s side.
Kitty shook her head. “Cell phone.”
“Oh.”
The message was from Mika.
Where are you? Practice started half an hour ago.
Kitty hadn’t told anyone she was bailing on school, let alone volleyball practice two days before a huge tournament. She thought about responding, coming up with a lie about food poisoning or something, so Mika wouldn’t worry about her, but then a second message came in.
Or are you at some special ’Maine Men meeting?
Kitty could practically hear the derision in Mika’s voice, and suddenly, she didn’t care if her best friend knew where she was or not.
Fifteen minutes later, a flurry of texts lit her up her phone.
Donté: Mika said you didn’t show up for practice. Is everything okay?
Mika: Seriously, where are you? Coach is biting through nails she’s so pissed.
Coach Miles: Wei! You’d better have a good excuse for missing practice or I’m benching you for Sunday’s tournament.
Coach Miles: This is not NCAA behavior.
Donté: I’m worried. Please let me know you’re safe.
Coach Miles: Especially after I did you that favor, getting Vreeland on the team at Gunn. I am not impressed, Wei.
Donté: Kitty?
Enough! She typed two quick words to Donté so he didn’t call the cops and report her as a missing person. I’m fine. Then she powered off her phone and shoved it back in her pocket. She needed to be on her game for something much more important than a volleyball tournament. People’s lives were on the line and if she wasn’t—
Kitty froze. Out of the corner of her eye, a shadowy figure crept across the Stevenses’ front yard.
“What?” Olivia asked. “What do you—”
Kitty held up her hand and Olivia fell silent.
Had she really seen something or was it just a trick of the departing light? Kitty stared out onto the front lawn, hardly daring to breathe.
It felt like an hour as she sat there, body rigid, waiting to see if something moved outside the window. Her quads ached from crouching, and in the lengthening late-afternoon shadows, her eyes began to play tricks on her as every tree, bush, and mailbox seemed to move when her eyes were fixed elsewhere. She was just about to give up and call the whole thing quits when she saw it again.
This time there was no mistaking the darkened figure that darted from behind the garbage bin across the street and disappeared into the hedges at the edge of the Stevenses’ property.
Someone was outside.
“Oh my God!” Olivia gasped.
“You saw it too?”
A creak from the floor above, then John’s head appeared at the top of the stairs. “Did you guys see that?”
“What?” Amber asked. There was a catch in her throat.
Kitty knew exactly what she was feeling. Panic. Even though they had superior numbers and the element of surprise, their anonymous stalker had killed three people. They couldn’t take him lightly.
“Kyle!” Kitty said, her voice hushed. “Get ready.”
“On it!”
She turned back to the window in time to see the dark mass dash across the front lawn to the door. Kitty fought the instinct to lunge at the door and lock it, even though they’d intentionally left it unlocked for the ambush, and as she crouched behind the curtain, legs ready to pounce, she couldn’t help but think they’d all made a horrible mistake.
Her heart pounded in her chest, so loudly she almost missed the imperceptible click of the handle. There was a rush of air as the door silently swung open, then closed, and a hooded figure tiptoed into the living room.
“Now!” Kyle yelled.
Bodied flew from every direction. Kyle, Tyler, Logan, and John all seemed to tackle the intruder at once, smothering him. Olivia dashed to the wall and switched on the overhead lights, while Kitty slowly rose to her feet and approached the dog pile of tangled limbs.
“I’ve got him!” John cried.
Logan groaned. “That’s me, dude.”
“I called 911,” Kyle barked. “The cops will be here any second. Don’t even bother trying to escape.”
“I’m not trying to escape!” came a familiar voice.
“Ed?” Kitty said.
Kyle, John, and Logan peeled away to reveal Ed the Head, who had Tyler in a half nelson.
“Let me go!” Tyler roared.
“Fine.” Ed released Tyler, who rolled off of him and collapsed onto his side. “You were too easy to pin anyway.”
“What the hell is he doing here?” Amber asked.
Olivia was pale as a sheet and still trembling. “You’re supposed to be keeping an eye on Tammi Barnes.”
“What’s wrong?” Kitty asked.
Ed climbed to his feet, as the blare of sirens grew louder outside. “Tammi Barnes has disappeared.”
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
THIRTY-FIVE
SERGEANT CALLAHAN SLAPPED HIS PALM AGAINST THE TABLE in the interrogation room so fiercely that Kitty jumped in her chair.
“What were you thinking?” he bellowed. His countenance was dark and glowering, and the jolly bedside manner he used with underage suspects had completely vanished.
“We were trying to help,” Kyle said lamely.
Sergeant Callahan pointed at Amber. “By putting her life in danger?”
“Um . . .” Kyle looked at Kitty as if hoping she’d supply the answer. So much for the big man on campus.
“We didn’t think you’d listen to us,” she said. Once again, it was her job to take control. “And Amber wasn
’t in any danger with all of us in the house.”
“Do you really believe that?” Sergeant Callahan asked. It was a loaded question, but Kitty had no choice but to answer.
“Yes.”
“Then you’re stupider than I thought, Kitty. What if the killer had shown up with an automatic weapon? What would you have done then, huh? Disarmed him with your extensive hand-to-hand combat training? I’ll tell you what would have happened. You’d all be dead.” He pointed to each of them in turn. “Every single one of you.”
“But,” Kitty said, unable to help herself, “the killer’s never used a gun. Don’t you think it would be out of character?”
Sergeant Callahan’s eyebrows shot up. “I’m so glad your FBI profiling experience has come in handy here. I’m so glad you kids think you know more than those who risk their lives every single day.”
“To protect and serve,” Ed said. Despite his glibness, Ed looked markedly uncomfortable as he drummed his fingers against the table.
Sergeant Callahan smacked the table again. “This isn’t a video game. Real lives are at stake.”
“We know that,” Kitty said. Better than you can imagine.
“Do you?” Sergeant Callahan asked. His eyes narrowed as he glared at her. “Do you really?” He paused, a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Because if I was the killer, you’d be the next victim on my list.”
Kitty’s mouth went dry as Sergeant Callahan’s eyes continued to burn a hole through her head. There was something hard in those eyes, a fierceness Kitty had seen only once before in her living room. If I was the killer . . .
“They did more tonight than you’ve done in a month,” Amber said.
Sergeant Callahan laughed, breaking eye contact with Kitty. The grim look on his face vanished. “More harm, you mean.”
Only Amber didn’t find it funny. She shot to her feet and screamed in Sergeant Callahan’s face. “It’s your fault Rex is dead!”
Sergeant Callahan’s face grew red. “I’m sorry?”
“Locker searches,” Amber sneered. “Assemblies. Stupid, pointless questioning. On TV they’d have brought in a profiler, a CSI team, something professional. You just sat there and let this guy kill again.” Her voice began to quiver. “You let him kill Rex.”
A tear rolled down Amber’s cheek, and for the first time in her life, Kitty actually felt sorry for the meanest girl in school.
Silence fell as Amber glared at a surprised Sergeant Callahan, her chin quivering as tears welled up in her eyes. Kitty watched as Olivia reached out and gripped Amber’s hand. All this time Amber had been the enemy, the symbol of what DGM fought against at Bishop DuMaine. But in the end, she was just as scared and vulnerable as the rest of them.
The quiet was jarred by the sharp pounding of footsteps outside the door, followed by the indistinct swell of voices, quickly muted, then sharp staccatos as officers in the station barked out orders.
Sergeant Callahan shook off his stupor and strode to the door. “What the hell is going on out there?”
Before he reached it, the door burst open, held by an enormous arm. It was attached, as best as Kitty could tell, to a WWE wrestler with flowing blond locks and pecs the size of dinner plates. He stood at attention as a trim woman with sun-streaked hair and an expensively tailored suit strode purposely into the interrogation room.
“Brendan,” she said, addressing Sergeant Callahan. “Is there a reason you’re holding these children for questioning without parental consent?”
Sergeant Callahan straightened up immediately—shoulders back, eyes forward—as if his superior officer had just arrived for inspection. “Mrs. Deringer!”
Kitty’s eyes grew wide. Mrs. Deringer? As in Bree’s mom?
At the other end of the table, she saw John wriggle in his chair.
“They’re not being questioned, Diana,” he said. “There are no charges at this time.”
Mrs. Deringer laughed. Her entire face lit up, and she looked like a teen herself with her perfectly smooth skin and dancing brown eyes. Kitty had a difficult time reconciling her with her angry, sarcastic, and totally non-designer-label-wearing daughter.
She laid a hand on Sergeant Callahan’s arm, and he visibly relaxed at her touch. “Are you really going to tell me that you were attempting to scare these poor children?”
“Diana,” he said, clearly flustered. “What are you doing?”
“I’m here in my official capacity as the children’s rights advocate for the students of Bishop DuMaine,” she said, smiling.
Kitty pinned her lips together. An official children’s rights advocate? Was that even a thing?
“But I thought—”
“So unless you’re planning to charge them with obstructing justice or interfering with a police investigation, I suggest you release them all into my custody.”
“No, Mrs. Deringer.” Sergeant Callahan shook his head, confused. “I mean, yes. I mean, at once.”
Mrs. Deringer smiled, her dancing eyes fixed on Sergeant Callahan’s face. “I knew you’d understand.” Then she spun around, winked quickly at Kitty, and snapped her fingers. “Children,” she said, turning toward the door. “Follow me.”
Ed paused outside the interrogation room as the others filed past him, his spidey sense tingling. Something was wrong.
At first, it just sounded like background voices, distant and fuzzy, as if someone had left the TV on in the break room. But as they neared the double doors that led outside, the noise began to swell, and Ed could clearly hear the angry shouts of a large crowd.
“Quickly,” Mrs. Deringer said out of the corner of her mouth.
“What’s going on out there?” Ed asked, trotting after her.
“It sounds like a mob,” Olivia said.
Mrs. Deringer paused before the doors and turned to face them. “It appears that some parental members of the community have gathered outside the precinct to express their, er, disapproval of the investigation. So if you’ll just stay close to Olaf, we should be fine.”
Ed shimmied up behind Olaf’s bulk. “Done and done.”
As soon as the door opened, a wave of sound crashed into them. About forty people had gathered outside the station, kept at bay by a line of noticeably inadequate metal barriers, and two uniformed officers who looked as if they weren’t sure how to handle the situation.
“If you could all just go home,” one officer pleaded.
“The police are idiots!” a woman screamed, followed by supportive cheers.
“Ma’am,” the officer said patiently. “This is a complex situation, and we are—”
“My son is missing!” the woman cried. She pushed herself to the front of the crowd and even without the bathrobe, Ed instantly recognized Xavier Hathaway’s mother. “And you’ve done nothing to find him.”
“We’re doing everything we can.”
“Really?” a man asked, his voice full of sarcasm.
“Yes,” the officer said, clearly offended. “In fact, Sergeant Callahan is questioning suspects right now.”
“It’s that DGM group!” someone else yelled.
Another voice agreed. “Yeah. They’re the ones behind it.”
“Is that them?” Ed saw a finger pointing in their direction. “Are those the suspects?”
Uh-oh.
“They’re the ones! They’re the killers!”
There was a rush of rage and motion as the crowd pushed forward, hardly contained by the two officers who attempted to form a wall between them and the crowd. Ed was wondering if they’d have to make a break for it, when Mrs. Deringer stepped forward.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, her voice commanding and utterly calm. “These children are not murderers. They were witnesses to the most recent string of crimes, and their presence here this evening is merely to help the investigation.”
“Who the hell are you?” someone asked. “Their lawyer?”
“I represent the students of Bishop DuMaine P
reparatory School,” she said, keeping up her bluff. Good call. If they found out she was Bree Deringer’s mom they’d probably tar and feather her. “And we want to find out who is behind these killings and disappearances as much as you do.”
The crowd stalled, their angry momentum derailed. Mrs. Deringer spun back to Ed and the rest with a guilty smile. “Quickly,” she said under her breath. “To the cars.”
They walked as fast as they could without breaking into a run, glancing back over their shoulders every few seconds just to make sure the mob hadn’t changed its collective mind.
“How did she know where we were?” Kitty asked.
“I used Logan’s phone to text Bree,” John said. “To tell her what happened in case we got arrested.”
“I had no idea her mom was such a badass,” Olivia said, her eyes wide with wonder. “And fierce. Did you see that Burberry jacket she has on? A-mazing.”
“I wonder if she’ll let us see Bree,” John said to no one in particular.
“I wonder,” Ed the Head chimed in, “if we should talk about what the fuck actually happened tonight!”
“Can we at least get out of the police parking lot first?” Kitty said drily. “In case you missed it, there’s a mob out there calling for blood.”
Ed rolled his eyes. “Fine.” It wasn’t like he wanted to talk in front of Logan anyway. How he managed to weasel his way into the plan at Amber’s house was beyond him.
They rounded the building where two cars waited: a tank-like SUV, black with tinted windows, and a Lincoln Town Car with a livery tag on the back bumper. A driver stood at the passenger door and whipped it open as they approached.
“Sweet,” Ed said, starting for the Town Car. “I’ve always wanted my own private driver.”
Mrs. Deringer held out her arm. “Not you, twerp,” she said under her breath. Then she turned to Kyle and Tyler, once again all charm and smiles. “Do you think you boys could escort Amber home? After all she’s been through, I think she could use the support of two strong, sensitive men such as yourselves.”
Tyler puffed up his chest. “Anything you say, Mrs. Deringer.”
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