After the tenth ring it went to voice mail and he looked at the number to make sure it was her. He hung up and tried again. When it went to voice mail for the second time, he left a message and hung up. Maybe she wasn’t as worried about him as he thought.
His phone rang and he saw it was from her. He hit answer.
“You were still sleeping weren’t you?” he joked.
“You should have kept your nose out of it,” a male voice said.
The line went dead.
* * *
When Jaxon had been sixteen and attending Nathan B. Forrest High School in West Palm Beach, Florida, life had been good. As good as it could get for a teenager in the 70s and early 80s.
He played linebacker on the football team, was getting good grades, (not great, but good) and had a girlfriend who would let him get to second base most nights and had promised more for the prom. His stepmom stayed at home and took care of him while his dad worked for the government doing something he had no clue what. The man was rarely home.
Jaxon had been liked. Not popular, but liked. Nobody messed with him because of his size and his group of friends all stuck together. Most of them were football players like himself.
Collin Williamsen was a loner.
One of those kids who always seemed to end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Small, thin build, lank brown hair and black rimmed glasses. The typical geek of the 80s. He liked the band Air Supply, wore colored denim jeans, and drew pictures of dragons and wizards all day. If Jaxon had really given a crap about the guy, he would have noticed the talent the kid had for art. But, like most his age, Jaxon couldn’t care less about drawing.
Collin also had some kind of genetic defect, and Jaxon saw it for the first time in the locker room after gym class.
Jaxon was goofing off with some of his teammates, snapping towels, and joking around when his best friend and fellow linebacker, Rocky Menlose, saw Collin come out of the shower with towels covering his whole body. He had one towel around his waist, another over his shoulders and a third wrapped around his head, twisted, like girls do when their hair was wet.
Rocky pointed and said, “Hey, dork. What’s up with all the towels?”
Collin ignored him and went to his locker. Rocky was not the kind to be ignored and this usually made him angrier. The room had gotten quiet as the boys could sense the tension. Everybody was watching.
“Hey, dork. I’m talking to you. What’s up with all the towels?”
Rocky had walked over to Collin and stood over him. Jaxon followed. He thought this should be funny.
“I’m cold.” Collin said, but did not look at Rocky.
“That’s ’cause you don’t have any meat on you. You need a cheeseburger or two.”
Jaxon laughed with the rest of the boys and he could see Collin flinch at the sound.
“I heard things about you,” Rocky said. “I bet they’re true.”
Collin said nothing and seemed to shrink into himself a little more. Jaxon had heard rumors too, but he had ignored them. He wondered what Rocky was getting at.
“What’s wrong with you?” Rocky asked.
Collin said nothing and pulled the towel off of his head. His normal lank, brown hair was gone and in its place was skin. He was completely bald. A few gasps from the group and even a chuckle of laughter.
“I heard you don’t have a single hair on your body. Like a baby. That true, Dork?” Rocky reached out and tugged at the kid’s towel. “I bet if I pull this towel off, you’re as bare as a newborn babe.”
“Don’t,” Collin said.
“You gonna stop me?”
Collin tried to pull away, but Rocky was going to have none of it. He looked at Jaxon and Jaxon shrugged. He went to the other side of the boy and held his arms as Rocky yanked the towels off. Collin stood up and tried to fight back, but Jaxon and his friend were too much for him. He was not getting away.
The towels fell free and Collin stood there, stooped in the chilly air, his hairless body shivering from cold and fear. The boys in the room pointed and burst out laughing. Jaxon couldn’t help it. He laughed too. Rocky had been right. The kid didn’t have a single hair on him.
“He’s like a girl,” Jaxon said and laughed in Collin’s face.
“Told you,” Rocky said, and let Collin go. “Maybe you should dress and shower in the women’s locker room.”
“What’s going on?” a booming deep voice shouted from the coach’s office. It was Mr. Shawnessy, the history teacher. The regular coach had the day off for something and Mr. Shawnessy was filling in for him.
Everyone scattered.
Jaxon let Collin go and took one last look at the kid as he went to his own locker. The teacher stood with his hands on his hips in the doorway and waited for everyone to disperse. When he was satisfied nothing needed his attention, he went back into the office as if nothing happened.
Jaxon glanced over at Collin and saw he was crying. The kid dressed quietly, putting his wig on and left without another word or a glance back. Jaxon never saw him in the locker room again.
Hearing his name again from Tate had brought back the flood of memories and as Jaxon thought about what they had done to the kid, he knew it was not his proudest moment. He hadn’t given it much thought over the years and in fact had completely forgotten about the incident until the name had been dropped by Tate.
Collin Williamsen. Stepbrother of Robert Fanucci. Uncle to Danielle Newsome. Angry cop with a score to settle. A kid in a man’s body who had apparently never gotten over being bullied. Maybe his niece’s death had tipped him over the edge as the anger built over the years. He couldn’t put himself in Collin’s shoes and no matter how hard he tried, Jaxon could not fathom the despair the guy must be feeling. And Jaxon had helped.
Collin was paying it all back.
Paying it back for his niece and paying it back for the jocks who had tormented him in school. Rocky Menlose was dead. Jaxon had heard he died of some kind of brain tumor a few years back, so Jaxon was the only logical target of Collin’s anger.
Things made some sense, and he could get the motive for his actions against Jaxon, but going crazy over a niece seemed a bit extreme. He could only guess at their relationship. Maybe he had been a favorite uncle or in one of those families where blood ties meant everything, but as far as Jaxon knew, they weren’t even blood related. Fanucci was a stepbrother and not even Danielle’s real father.
A lot of his whole game was clicking in place in Jaxon’s mind and many of the blanks he had about all this fell into place as he thought it through. Collin had been planning this for some time and that’s how he had been able to pull all of this off. Weeks, maybe even months to coordinate it all. Hell, he’d probably broken into Jaxon’s house and planted those bombs way before this all started.
Jaxon tried to narrow it down to a specific event, but his mind couldn’t wrap around it just yet. How had Collin known he would be at the original cache spot when Jaxon had found the finger? Hell, Jaxon had just started GeoCaching only a few months ago. It must have given birth in Collin’s mind since then. Yet, there was no way he could force Jaxon’s hand on that.
Or was there?
PBIStalker.
Jaxon had forgotten about that. “Stupid!” he said aloud and Gil and Mel glanced at each other.
PBIStalker. The handle meant everything now, but Jaxon had thought nothing of it when the person had befriended him on the GeoCaching forums. Everybody had weird names and most meant nothing, but now this one did. PBIStalker had been the one to tell Jaxon about the “really cool cache” he had found in Orange Park. The brand new one that no one knew about yet. The one with the really funny trackable item.
PBIStalker. It had meant nothing then. PBI was the federal government’s official acronym for West Palm Beach. Jaxon’s home town. Collin’s home town. The place they went to high school. Jaxon should have seen it. He should have seen it with his eyes closed. He balled his fist up and punched the steerin
g wheel.
Jaxon dialed Vick’s number and listened to it ring. Gil and Mel were quiet in the car and waited for some kind of explanation from him. He didn’t have any to give.
As the phone continued to ring unanswered, he pressed the gas pedal further to the floor and the car accelerated as the urgency rose in Jaxon’s blood. He could not get there fast enough.
CHAPTER 30
Ray had the rental car floored for the last hundred miles and as he pulled into the apartment complex, he saw the lights of the local police he had called and a few officers standing around. He slammed on the brakes, skidded to a stop and jumped from the vehicle, running to the apartment. Someone shouted for him to stop, but he didn’t listen.
He burst into the place and found it a wreck. Furniture tossed about and lamps shattered, pictures broken and appliances smashed. The officers inside asked if he was Rayford Maningham and he nodded.
“Where is she?” he said, his voice sounding as if from some far off place. He was like a zombie. He could hear and see things happening around him and he even knew his own voice when he heard it, but he could feel nothing but an electrical buzzing coursing through his whole body.
“Who?” An officer asked.
“Michelle. My fiancée. Where is she?”
“There’s no one here. The place was empty.”
Ray sank to a chair as he felt his legs give and he seemed to come out of his shock. If she’s not here, then she must still be alive. But where?
He jumped back up and climbed the stairs to their room. Pushing the door open, he saw that this room had remained mostly untouched. Everything was in its place. Dresser drawers were closed, pictures were still on the walls, the bed was made. Everything was normal except for the huge numbers scrawled in red on the wall. Red that looked like blood as it dried. He touched the wetness and smelled. Paint. Thank God.
The numbers represented a position somewhere on this planet. A global position that held answers for him. A place he must go. And those numbers seemed strangely familiar.
* * *
Jaxon’s phone rang as he was crossing the Buckman Bridge from Mandarin over to Orange Park and he picked it up quickly. It was Ray.
“She’s gone,” he said.
“Ray? Who’s gone? What are you talking about? I’ve got my own problems right now.”
“Michelle. My fiancée. He took her.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Ray explained what had happened and Jaxon cursed.
“Give me the lat/longs and I’ll plug them in.”
Ray gave him the numbers and he repeated them to Gil who shook his head.
“What?” Jaxon said.
“We’ve been there already,” Gil said. “It’s the high school.”
“Nathan B. Forrest High School?” Jaxon asked.
Gil nodded.
Figures, Jaxon thought to himself, and as he realized what that meant, he held little hope he would find Vick at the hotel.
“Gil says it’s the high school in Palm Beach. My alma mater. You’ve been there before.”
“I thought I recognized the numbers. I’m getting in the car and going there now. I need you.”
“Wait just a bit, Ray. I know you feel like you can’t, but I have to see if Vick is ok. I’m only a few minutes away. And anyway, we need to do this together. He’s expecting us and the only chance we’ll have is if we work together. Can you give it a few minutes and hold tight?”
“I guess I’ll have to. Dammit! Why did he do this to her? She’s done nothing to him.”
“This isn’t about her. It’s about me. And you helped me. I don’t have time to explain right now. It’s all making sense.”
“Not to me.”
Jaxon pulled into the hotel parking lot with the tires squealing. He could see Tate standing in the parking lot looking his way.
“I have to go, Ray. I’ll call you back in a few minutes.” He didn’t wait for Ray to respond.
“What’s going on?” Mel asked.
Jaxon didn’t answer. He jumped from the car as it stopped and ran to Tate who stood there with an unreadable face.
“She’s not there,” he said. “The place has been ransacked.”
“I need to see.”
Tate led the way as Gil and Mel followed. The room was down about halfway along the main stretch and the door was open. Jaxon stepped in and stared. On the wall in red were some numbers.
“They’re the same,” Gil said. “It’s the high school.”
Mel gasped as she saw her name on the wall. It was part of the message.
Come alone with Ray Gil and Melanie or they die.
* * *
They pulled into the run down neighborhood and drove slowly toward the remains of Nathan B. Forrest High School. Ray was leading.
They had met up at a diner just off the interstate and briefly talked about how they would handle it. Every plan they came up with had flaws, so they decided no plan was best. Collin was expecting them and there was no element of surprise and no tactical advantage they could come up with. They would just have to see what he wanted.
The street was deserted and Jaxon stared at the ruins of his old neighborhood and high school. This was home to so many good memories and it was hard for him to associate this run down slum and abandoned buildings with anything he remembered.
His heart sank at the sight and he was sure Collin was laughing at what had become of the place of such torture for him. He felt sure the man was gloating at the irony.
Jaxon pulled up to the school behind Ray and parked. He stepped from the Mustang as Gil and Mel followed. The night was quiet but bright as the full moon shone down on them. A siren could be heard in the distance and they all paused. It passed without incident.
Jaxon stared up at the ruin of his school and saw nothing but blank and broken windows staring back. One half of the building was scorched from the fire that had been set during Ray and the kids’ last visit. Police tape was strewn across the front, but some gaps had been broken through already.
Ray led the way through the hole in the fence and they walked to the front steps in silence.
Gil finally spoke. “Shouldn’t we go in the back or something? I mean we’re walking right in through the front door. He’ll know we’re coming.”
“He already knows we’re coming,” Jaxon said and walked on.
Jaxon climbed the overgrown steps and almost tripped over the door as it lay in the opening. Something skittered away into the darkness of the building and Mel gasped.
“Rats,” Ray said and Jaxon nodded.
He pulled his gun and watched Ray do the same. He didn’t think they would do any good, but it felt good to hold it in his hands anyway. The place was just like Ray and the kids had described and as the litter of his youth laid spread out before him, he felt nostalgia for the building that seemed out of place.
“It’s on the third floor,” Ray said and headed for the stairs.
Ray had told him about the weird classroom re-creation and they both felt confident that that was the place they needed to be. Mr. Shawnessy’s room. The teacher who had turned his back on Collin that day in the locker room.
As they headed up the stairs, Ray turned on the flashlight and led the way. Jaxon noticed that the smell of smoke and wet, burnt, wood grew stronger as they climbed. A lesser scent hung just under that. The smell of death. He knew the body of Bethany’s fiancé had been removed, but he also knew that decay and decomposition lingered for a while.
At the third floor landing, Ray doused the light and pointed to a classroom door about halfway down the hall on their right. The windows up here were letting in enough of the moonlight to see, though it was gloomy. Broken furniture and trash hung in the shadows. The silence was pronounced and the air held a tension that he could feel.
Jaxon stepped to the door, pushed it open, and entered with his gun leading the way. He was shocked at what he saw.
The room was immaculate.
Desks were all lined up in rows with books and notebooks shoved underneath. Posters hung on the wall with sayings like, ‘Hang on’ and ‘There’s no I in we’. An old TV stood on a wheeled cart in the corner. A globe sat undisturbed up front by the chalk board. The teacher’s desk had pencil holders and trays for homework assignments. The chalkboard even had Mr. Shawnessy’s name written in a looping hand. Jaxon recognized that writing and concentrated on the task at hand.
Danger was in this room. He could feel it.
He stepped further in and turned to the back of the class. A man stood in the shadows and his silhouette did not hide what he was holding in his hand. A gun was pointed at two figures in chairs to his right. In the moonlight he could see Vick bound and gagged next to another woman he assumed was Michelle.
Jaxon turned his gun toward the man and the man spoke.
“Don’t be foolish, Jaxon. Put it down.”
The voice he did not recognize.
He didn’t know why he thought he should, but for some reason, he expected it to match his memory of Collin Williamsen. The weak, frail, boy from his youth. This man was almost his same height and was definitely well built. His outline displayed a bulk that betrayed strength.
A lantern was switched on next to the man, and Jaxon was not surprised to see a much older Collin staring back at him. He must have been wearing a blonde wig back in Orange Park, but now he was bald. The body had aged and changed, but the facial features had not. Jaxon lowered his weapon but kept it in his hand. Ray did the same.
“Hello, Collin.”
“So you do remember. You flatter me. I see you obeyed the rules this time and only brought your friends like I instructed. Good. Maybe things will turn out for the better in the end.”
“Let them go,” Jaxon said. “This is between you and me.”
“It is, isn’t it? But I also remember many others who laughed along with you. Others who brought me down just as easily as you and Rocky. These others,” he briefly waved the gun toward Ray, Gil, and Mel, “they’re laughing now, just as the ones did so long ago. I can’t allow it. They must be punished, just as surely as you.”
Cache 72 (A Jaxon Jennings' Detective Mystery Thriller Series, Book 2) Page 22