One Way Ticket (A Smith and Hughes Mystery Book 1)

by Jay Forman

  “Erica!”

  “Don’t, Jack.” I didn’t need his help. This was my battle and I was ready to fight it. “Did it ever occur to you that I needed that fictional family in a place far, far away to survive in your world? It was because of my real family, my father, that I had to hide in the supportive and nurturing environment at Berkshire.” Dr. Campbell wasn’t the only one who could regurgitate the school’s marketing propaganda. “Imagine how you’d feel if all your dear friends at the Granite Club, people you’ve known all your life, stopped talking to you? Not talking about you, though. If, every day, they went out of their way to make sure that you knew you weren’t welcome near them anymore?”

  “That would never happen.”

  “Really? So, if all your friends saw Kayla’s video they wouldn’t judge you?”

  “Kayla didn’t kill seven women!”

  My father was only convicted of killing six women, not seven, but I didn’t bother correcting her. “No, but she did something that you don’t want anyone to know about. And the crazy thing is? I’m probably the only person you know who can empathise. Kayla’s actions were hers, not yours, but your friends might tar and feather you anyway just because she was your daughter. Believe me, I know how it feels to be forced into exile. I wouldn’t wish that kind of isolation on anyone.”

  “Not even your worst enemy?”

  “Not even you.”

  Erica must have paid for extra soundproofing when she had her house built because my ears started to feel as if they’d been sucked into a sound-vacuum. I could almost hear her breathing. The clock ticked. Jack’s stomach growled.

  She blinked first when my cellphone vibrated in my pocket. “I don’t trust you.”

  If she was hoping I’d back down or grovel for understanding she was going to be disappointed. “The feeling’s mutual.”

  “Why are you doing this? What’s in it for you?”

  I had to think for a minute to choose my words. “Maybe the time has come for me to settle the score?”

  “I knew it! You just want...,”

  “Do you know where I ran away to after you attacked me?” Was she capable of understanding?

  “Lee, you don’t have to...,”

  We both ignored Jack and Erica cut him off. “I didn’t attack you...,”

  “Not physically, but it was an attack.”

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  “Did you even wonder where I went?”

  “No.”

  “I went to the tower room.”

  She sucked in a short, sharp breath.

  “I opened the window, took out the screen, stepped up on the ledge, and looked down. I was scared, angry, embarrassed, and all the hurt I’d been carrying around inside ever since my dad had been arrested became unbearable. I didn’t think I’d ever get free of it. Free of the betrayal and humiliation.” My toes involuntarily curled in my shoes, remembering the feel of the rough cold edge of the stone ledge cutting into the soles of my bare feet. “I was barely seventeen and, because of you, I was about to lose the only friends I had. I’d already lost all my childhood friends. I didn’t think I could go through that again. I didn’t want to go through that again. If your daughter did jump I know better than anyone how she felt in her last few minutes. No kid deserves to be put through that kind of hell. Being a teenager is hard enough.”

  “I didn’t know.” And I didn’t know Erica was capable of talking so softly.

  “I can’t change or fix my past, but if someone’s responsible for pushing a teenage girl to her death, whether they did it with words or by force, I want to make damn sure that they’re held accountable for it. I want to do it for me. That’s what I meant about settling the score.”

  “Even for my daughter?”

  “Kayla’s not to blame for your actions, you are.” I didn’t expect an apology and my expectations were met.

  “What stopped you?”

  “Not what. Who.”

  Erica looked at Jack.

  “I didn’t do anything,” he still refused to take any credit. “I was just in the right place at the right time.”

  He was right – he hadn’t done anything, he’d done everything. I would have taken that final step if...if the rowing team had returned to the school a little earlier or later ...if Jack hadn’t seen me when they were high-fiving their victory as they walked across the quad...if he’d paid attention to their repeated calls to join them (‘Hustle it, Hughs-ey!’) ...if he hadn’t frozen in place on the bottom step looking up at me, as immoveable as the Aslans...if he hadn’t just become an orphan a month earlier. We met halfway on the circular staircase in the tower. He led me through the secret passage that ran along the length of the chapel ceiling, down the service staircase behind the organ pipes, and outside to the school’s vegetable garden. He carried me down to our favourite rocky cove and held me tight. I held onto him just as tight. We squeezed out all the tears we’d both been holding in. Two security guards found us before we had the chance to find out how far our physical connection might have gone.

  My eyes met Jack’s. Were the same memories playing in his mind?

  “What do you want to know?”

  I needed to step back from the emotional edge, so I let Jack take the lead.

  “Let us look through her things from Berkshire. And tell us everything you know about what happened.”

  “I don’t know anything.” Erica stroked the colt and then lifted her hand off it. “I talked to her about a week before...before, but she sounded fine. And she was looking forward to the house I’m building on Allamanda Cay; she asked me all sorts of questions about it. I’d hoped we could spend Christmas there this year.” She crossed her legs and shifted to turn her back to the figurine. “Did Dick and Andre talk to you about Allamanda? I never thought Greg had it in him to put together an opportunity like that.”

  Jack quickly said, “They mentioned it” and then got back to the subject at hand. “Was Kayla having problems with any of the other students?”

  “No. Well, except for Jocelyn, but she was more of an annoyance than a problem. She idolized Kayla and trotted around after her everywhere.”

  “What about her off-campus activities?”

  Erica shook her head. “The only thing she was involved in was riding, and Pam and Greg were like family to her.”

  “What about their son?” I pulled my thoughts back into the present and rejoined the conversation. “Was Kayla dating him?”

  “Barely. They were going to go to the grad ball together. Pam and I were hoping Ethan and Kayla ... well, it doesn’t matter what we were hoping now. It’s not going to happen.”

  “What, exactly, did Pam say to you about Ethan?” Jack, as always, wanted specifics.

  “Not much. Just that he hasn’t been seen since lunch. He’s not answering his cellphone, but his car’s still in the student parking lot, so he didn’t drive himself anywhere. The police are already involved. They’ve been to the school and were at Pam’s place just before she called me.”

  “What’s on the video?” Even Jack looked surprised by my bluntness.

  “I won’t talk about that.”

  “We’ll need to see it.” I wasn’t going to let her keep what might be the most important piece of the puzzle from us.

  She stood up and started walking to the front foyer. “You can see Kayla’s things, they’re in her room.”

  Thankfully, but not surprisingly, there was an elevator in Erica’s house and Jack was able to come with me to Kayla’s room. Erica stayed downstairs.

  Kayla’s pale blue room had been decorated to designer perfection, but it didn’t look lived in. There wasn’t any clutter anywhere, which seemed strange to me. Either Kayla was a female teenage anomaly, a neat freak, or she never spent much time in the room. The only personal item I could see was a small stuffed panda bear leaning against the throw pillows at the head of the king-sized bed. It was missing one eye and looked like it was winking. The stuffing in its bod
y had been misshapen from too many hugs. It reminded me of the stuffed koala I’d had as a little girl. I’d named him Koala. I wondered if Kayla had named her bear, and if she’d been more creative than I had.

  Jack sat on the cedar chest at the foot of the bed and I pushed the nine cardboard boxes that were stacked against the wall over to him.

  “You go through those; I’ll snoop around the room.”

  “I don’t feel comfortable doing this. It feels too much like an invasion of privacy.”

  “Pretend you’re an archaeologist. They dig through the flotsam and jetsam of people’s lives all the time and it doesn’t bother them. And look at everything. The stuff people collect always tells a story.”

  “That was pretty intense downstairs.” He tore the strip of tape off of the box closest to him. “You handled it amazingly well.”

  “She can’t hurt me anymore.” I started going through the drawers in Kayla’s dresser. “I’m okay with who I am now.” Kayla’s drawers were just as barren of personality as her room. They told me next to nothing about her, other than the fact that she preferred cashmere sweaters over sweatshirts.

  I walked into the closet, which was bigger than my bathroom at home. It was half-empty. “She wasn’t a clotheshorse.” Her shoes were lined up according to height. (Mine were lined up according to where they fell after I kicked them off.)

  “Think again!”

  I went to see what Jack was talking about.

  The box he’d just opened was full, jammed full, of shoes.

  “Who needs that many shoes?”

  “You’re atypical.”

  “No, I’m sensible.”

  Jack held up a black pump. “That’s a Jimmy Choo.” He put it down and lifted out a bright purple shoe; the toe on it was so pointy it could have picked a lock. My ankles hurt just looking at the height of the heel on it. “And that’s a Manolo Blahnik.” He rifled through the box. “Two pairs of Louboutins. No, three. There has to be about twenty thousand dollars’ worth of footwear in here.”

  “See? Nobody could call that sensible.”

  Jack pushed the box away and opened another one. “What’s in the closet?”

  “Nothing like that.”

  “Armani, Versace,” he pushed aside some of the sparkly and silky clothes and dug further down into the box. “Stella McArtney, Dolce and Gabbana...,”

  “Doesn’t it strike you as odd that she had those things at school? Where would she wear them up there? Why weren’t they left in the closet here?”

  “Good question.” He moved on to another box.

  I went into the en suite, but didn’t spend long in it. The scent coming from the decorative bottles of various hair and body products made my eyes water and once I started sneezing I knew I’d seen, and smelled, enough. “Her shower’s bigger than yours, but there aren’t as many showerheads.”

  By the time we’d finished going through everything we hadn’t learned very much at all about Kayla. She had enough clothes, shoes, accessories and cosmetics to stock Holt Renfrew’s flagship store on Bloor Street in the heart of Toronto. What she didn’t have told me more about her than what she did have. There was nothing personal. There weren’t any ticket stubs from shows she’d been to, no books bought just for the pleasure of reading, no photographs (other than framed and formal individual portraits of her parents, and one of an older couple who were probably her grandparents.)

  “Who was she?” Jack asked as he repacked the boxes.

  “I haven’t got a clue.” I went over to her desk and looked at the collection of ribbons and trophies on the shelves beside it. “She was a good rider and tennis player.” I recognized one of the swimming trophies, because I had one just like it.

  “Do you realize what’s not here?”

  “What?” I let Jack drape his arm around my shoulders and we hobbled our way along the hallway to the elevator.

  “No computer or cellphone.”

  “You’re right!” I should have noticed that.

  “So who has them?”

  “Erica?”

  Jack shrugged his shoulders. “Or maybe your uniformed friend that you can’t deny or confirm you’ve been talking to?”

  “Maybe.”

  Erica was standing in front of the fireplace, looking up at the Stubbs painting, when the elevator doors opened.

  “I actually feel sorry for her,” I whispered.

  “Because you’re human, whether you like to admit it or not,” Jack whispered back.

  She must have heard us clump-clumping across the foyer because she turned around and came to us, instead of waiting for us to get to her. “Well?”

  “We didn’t learn much,” Jack said.

  “What did she call her panda bear?”

  Erica almost smiled. “Bert.”

  “Where are her computer and cellphone?” Jack asked.

  “The police must have them. They kept her note, too.”

  “I don’t know if Doug and Andre told you, but Lee’s going to move into Berkshire...,”

  “As a don, I know.”

  “She might learn more from the girls in Kayla’s class. I’ll let you know if we find anything...,”

  Jack was nudging me to start moving toward the front door, but I wasn’t budging. I could see what Erica was gripping in her right hand. “Is that the USB key?”

  She lifted her hand, opened it and stared at the silver stick lying on her palm. “This isn’t who my daughter was, who I raised her to be.”

  I held out my hand. For the second time our eyes met, but this time neither of us were glaring.

  “I need to know what really happened to my daughter. If someone pushed her it’ll be my turn to settle a score.” She dropped the USB key into my hand, then turned and walked up the stairs without saying another word.

  I wished I’d brought my backpack with me; my computer lived in it. Jack hadn’t brought his laptop either. “Is there a computer on the plane?” I pushed down on the accelerator so hard that I almost laid a patch in Erica’s driveway.

  “Yes, and it will still be there even if you stay at the speed limit.”

  I didn’t want to slow down. I was dying to see whatever was on the USB key. But we got stuck in stop-and-go traffic on the 401. A transport truck had rolled over and was lying across the barrier between the express and collector lanes. Did any of the half-million cars that travelled daily along North America’s busiest highway ever get to accelerate up to the speed limit? The police had closed all four of the westbound collector lanes and two of the express lanes, so all of the cars on the road were being jammed into the two remaining express lanes. We were in the supposedly fast lane on the express side of the barrier, but the speedometer kept dropping to zero.

  “Telling Erica about that night,” Jack paused and I had no desire to jump into the silence. “It touched her. You connected with her.”

  “If you say so.”

  It wasn’t until I was pulling up to the plane that he spoke again. “Do you ever wonder how different our lives might have been if the security guards hadn’t found us?”

  I just nodded and silently added, And if you hadn’t married Lisa.

  *

  George fired up the plane engines while Jack powered up the laptop.

  There were two files on the USB key: a video file and a Word file.

  “Which one first?” he asked me.

  “The video.”

  The minute the video started to play I wanted to close my eyes or turn away, but knew I couldn’t.

  Kayla was naked, on her knees, facing the camera, straddling a naked man. The man was lying on his back and we could only see the lower half of his naked legs hanging over the end of a bed. Kayla was riding him. Her pert breasts bounced. Her Brazilian wax left nothing to the imagination. When she rose up I saw more of the man than I wanted to and the full frontal male nudity combined with the angle of the camera made the video triple X-rated. The man thrust up into Kayla hard. Then the screen went bla
ck.

  “Fuck.”

  “Yup, that’s what they were doing.” I felt ill. “We should watch it again.”

  “Why?”

  “Pay attention to the room and the man this time.” I put my hand over Jack’s on the mouse and clicked to start the video again. “We need to know where this was shot and who that man is.”

  Three minutes and eighteen seconds felt like forever. I tried to follow my own advice, but couldn’t take my eyes off of Kayla’s face. Her cheeks weren’t flushed. She wasn’t breathing heavily. She wasn’t enjoying it. There wasn’t any sound, so I didn’t know if the man was saying anything.

  “There!” Jack paused the video. “See that?” He pointed at the man’s knees.

  I leaned in closer to the screen and saw a scar that looked like a sideways Omega symbol that curved around the outside of the man’s left kneecap.

  “This guy had major knee surgery.”

  “Great. Now all we have to do is ask every male at Berkshire to drop their pants so we can look at their knees.”

  “Or I could talk to the gym teacher to see if any of the upper forms have needed knee surgery.”

  “Good one.”

  “What about the room? Did you see anything?”

  “Let me see it one more time.” This time I paid attention to the room.

  The camera was focused so closely on the coupling couple that I couldn’t see much of the room. Behind Kayla’s torso I could see the dark wood of the headboard. A large painting hung on the wall above it. Kayla’s body wasn’t perfectly centred in front of the painting, so quite a bit of it was visible. “Can you zoom in?”

  “I can’t. It won’t let me.”

  “Then pause it, hang on,” I waited for Kayla to lean a little bit to the left. “Stop there. Look at the painting.”

  The painting was a seascape. I could just make out the ocean beyond low rolling hills. Sunlight streaked through grey clouds in an angry looking sky. “Is that a Constable?” It reminded me of the Constable paintings I’d seen in the National Gallery in London.

  “I think it might be.”

  “Are there any Constables at Berkshire?”

  “None. And that bed’s too big to be a dorm bed.”

  “Let’s look at the Word file.”