The Lost Causes

by Jessica Koosed Etting

  “Gabby …”

  Z’s voice took Gabby out of the vision for good.

  “Are you okay? It sounded like you were gagging.”

  “Was I?” Gabby was surprised, but when she put her hand to her stomach, she felt it contracting as if she had been retching herself. She held up the wallet for Z. “He stole this wallet. From a lady on a bus.”

  “He took the bracelet from that waitress, too. Maybe he’s a kleptomaniac.”

  “Maybe …” Gabby said, but something about that answer didn’t fit. She’d spent a long time researching mental illnesses when her OCD had first taken hold. Kleptomania was a compulsion, too, possibly even a variant of obsessive-compulsive disorder. But this wasn’t a compulsion for Devon, Gabby was pretty sure. It had felt like pure, scorching desperation.

  “No. He’s not a kleptomaniac,” Gabby said firmly. “He’s not doing it for the rush. He needs the money … I have a feeling what I just saw happened a long time ago, though.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Gabby paused, letting the details of the vision come back to her. “The billboards.” Z looked at her for more. “Out the window, I saw some billboards. One was for Ratatouille — that movie with the rat chef. That came out when we were kids, right?”

  “You guys! Come here!” Sabrina called from outside the room, interrupting.

  Gabby and Z found the others gathered in the tiny hallway by an open closet.

  “I found a safe in here,” Sabrina said, peeking out of the closet. “A tiny one under the carpet.”

  “How did you think to do that?” Z asked, impressed.

  Sabrina shrugged. “The edge of the carpet was already coming up a little. I pulled it back and there it was. It’s bolted in pretty good, though.”

  “Yeah, it is,” Justin said as he crouched down, trying to lift it up. “I don’t think we can move it without some kind of electric screwdriver or something. If I try to move it with my mind, I might blow a hole in the floor.”

  “Do you think you can just open it?” Sabrina asked him. “Undo the lock with your mind?”

  “Maybe …” Justin said, leaning back. Gabby clicked her tongue nervously, her inner radar growing stronger again. Get out while you can.

  “You guys, we should go,” Gabby pleaded. “It’s already been a while.”

  “If the serum is anywhere in this apartment, it’s probably in the safe,” Sabrina said. “Two more minutes and then I promise we’ll go. Andrew, stand by the window as lookout.”

  Andrew moved quickly to the small kitchen, standing behind the faded sheet that served as a curtain.

  “Let’s see if I can make this happen.” Justin focused on the safe door. For several long beats, it was completely silent, nothing happening.

  Gabby bit her lip, the knot in her stomach growing to the size of a grapefruit. But before she said anything, she heard a scraping sound from the lock, metal against metal, the latch unlocking.

  “You did it,” she said, astounded. Justin looked pretty shocked himself.

  They huddled in the cramped space to get a closer look as Justin pulled open the safe door all the way. There was no vial of serum in the small velvet-lined safe. There was just one thing.

  A small silver handgun.

  Justin reached out to touch it, but before he could lay a finger on it, a creaking noise from the living room stopped them all in their tracks.

  It sounded as if someone had just walked through the front door.

  The footsteps crossed the apartment quickly. Gabby tried to control her breathing. Justin stood up in the closet, flexing his body, preparing to attack.

  “Who’s there?” a gruff, familiar voice called out.

  Nash.

  “Just us,” Gabby croaked in relief.

  Nash entered the hallway. Though his face bore its usual impenetrable expression, there was anger in his eyes. “What the hell? I could’ve killed you.”

  Gabby swallowed. There was a pistol in his right hand. His knuckles were bruised and caked with blood. Where had he just come from?

  “Way to look out, Andrew,” Justin grumbled.

  Andrew defended himself. “I swear, he came out of nowhere.”

  “What are you guys doing here?” Nash asked.

  The five of them shared an uncertain glance.

  “We got Devon’s address,” Sabrina said, taking the lead. “We figured we’d take a look.”

  Nash glared. “Without telling us? Do you know how much danger you all put yourselves in?”

  I do, Gabby wanted to shout.

  “But why haven’t you told us about this place?” Z asked.

  “Because I’ve been conducting surveillance and collecting evidence for the last two days. It appears Devon Warner hasn’t been back to his apartment for at least a week. We wanted to make sure there was no immediate danger before we brought you in. I came back tonight to grab a safe I discovered last time and then we were going to call you all.” He stopped, as if he suddenly knew why they were huddled around the closet. “I see you found the safe, too.”

  They nodded and he pulled a drill from his black backpack. “You want to let me at it?”

  “We managed to open it up ourselves,” Z said. “Or Justin did.”

  “With what?” Nash asked.

  Justin shrugged. “My brain.”

  Even through Nash’s annoyance at finding them there, Gabby could tell he was grudgingly impressed. Nash kneeled at the safe and carefully examined the gun. “It’s a .357 Magnum.”

  “What does that mean?” Justin asked.

  “It’s the same type of gun Devon stole from Sadie Webb,” Andrew said.

  Nash paused, as if debating what he was about to reveal.

  “What is it?” Z prodded him.

  “It’s also the same type of gun used to kill Lily Carpenter.”

  * * *

  Later, as they trudged down the dark street toward Z’s car, the eerie feeling returned to Gabby, even more strongly than before. It was a prickly sensation, a taste in her mouth.

  But finally she was able to recognize what it was.

  It wasn’t fear. It was the distinct feeling of being watched. And someone had been doing it all night.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The hallways of Cedar Springs High were beginning to empty, ten minutes after the final bell.

  As Andrew waded through a group of lacrosse players playfully jousting with their sticks in the hall, he almost felt he was part of the hubbub. No, the serum hadn’t improved his athletic ability, but that didn’t matter. Because he actually had a place to go after school — and it had nothing to do with the case. After their intense evening at Devon Warner’s apartment last night, where they’d found the same type of gun used to kill Lily Carpenter, it seemed even more certain that Devon was their guy. As embarrassing as it was to get caught like that at the apartment by Nash, Andrew preferred to look at it as a learning experience. The five of them learned that when Patricia and Nash didn’t inform them of every single detail, it was because they were trying to keep them safe. And Patricia and Nash learned that the Lost Causes were perhaps more capable than they even imagined. Andrew saw the look on Nash’s face when he realized Justin cracked the safe open with his eyes.

  Nash was running tests on the gun, and today, Andrew was trying something else entirely.

  “Andrew! Hey!” Eric MacNamar said, welcoming him with a high five as Andrew stepped into one of the math classrooms.

  When Andrew had first seen the flyer advertising for new Mathletes last week, he ignored it the way he ignored all the club and group notices that appeared on the bulletin board outside the cafeteria. But he’d passed by the meeting on his way out of school yesterday, heard them discussing parametric equations and found himself pulled in. He stayed for the entire meeting and
even agreed to return today.

  He’d debated if he would really do it. Yet here he was.

  “I’m so glad you came back!” Ali Hanuman exclaimed. That was a huge compliment, coming from her. She’d been at the top of their grade the last two years and now she was the one excited to have Andrew on the team? Andrew grinned. People didn’t usually greet him so warmly. Was this what it was like to be Justin? Why that guy didn’t have a permanent smile on his face was beyond him.

  “Hello again, Andrew,” Ms. O’Reilly called out from beside the dry-erase board. Andrew had been terrified of her in geometry last year, but now he flashed her an easy smile.

  “Are you officially joining the team?” she asked.

  “I think so.” Andrew still had commitments to Nash and Patricia, but there was no reason to let his skills go to waste during his time off.

  “Fantastic,” Ms. O’Reilly replied as she projected a string of equations on the board. “We have a qualifying meet coming up in two weeks. If we’re going to get through to regionals, we need each member to be on point. Today let’s try some problems from the individual round at last year’s semifinals.”

  She passed out scratch paper to the group and everyone got to work. These questions were much harder than anything they were doing in Greenly’s class, but Andrew had the answers within fifteen minutes.

  “First again today?” said Krissy, a senior. “No way.”

  Ms. O’Reilly reviewed Andrew’s page, shaking her head in astonishment. “Very impressive, Andrew. You’ve come a long way in a year.”

  He made a mental note to wait a few more minutes next time. Nash had warned them to fly under the radar.

  Ali said, “You do that at these meets, and we’re going to nationals.”

  Eric nodded vigorously. “Crested Butte can suck it.”

  When the meeting ended an hour later, Andrew was dreaming of leading his team to the national championship. The winners even got to go to the White House to meet the president. Who else in Cedar Springs got to do that?

  All thoughts of what he would say to the president vanished when he saw Nash in the doorway.

  “Hello,” Ms. O’Reilly said, noticing Nash at the same time. “Can I help you?” She quickly raked her hand through her hair, flashing a smile.

  “Hey, there,” Nash replied. “I’m Andrew’s cousin. Here to pick him up. Flew in from Massachusetts yesterday.” He had effortlessly adopted a Boston accent and taken on a charming persona Andrew had never seen from Nash before. If it was possible for a woman to melt in a guy’s gaze, Andrew was seeing it before his very eyes.

  “It’s so nice to meet you,” Ms. O’Reilly gushed. “Your younger cousin here is quite the mathematician. I’ve never seen someone solve deductive reasoning questions so fast.”

  “Is that so?” He cocked his head at Andrew. “Let’s go, buddy. You can tell me all about it in the car.”

  As he and Nash walked through the empty courtyard, Nash said, “Way to fly under the radar.”

  Andrew rolled his eyes. “Please. It’s not like anyone would ever guess that it’s because an FBI agent drugged me with a serum that suddenly made me a genius.”

  Nash shrugged. “You’re probably right about that.”

  “What are you even here for?” Andrew asked.

  “You’ll see.”

  * * *

  Nash led Andrew to the white van parked several blocks from school on an empty street near the woods. Patricia was up front, tapping away on a laptop until Andrew entered the car.

  “He was in a Mathletes meeting,” Nash said. He slid into the driver’s seat, though he didn’t turn the engine on. Patricia pressed her lips together, hiding a smile.

  “What’s going on?” Andrew asked. Every other time he’d met with them, the other four had been there, too.

  “We need your help,” Patricia replied.

  “Where’s everyone else?”

  “We haven’t called them yet,” said Nash. “Hopefully your friends will be patient this time.”

  “We felt we could use your help the most right now, Andrew,” Patricia explained. Andrew actually felt a surge of pride.

  “Sure,” he said. “What do you need?”

  “Devon Warner hasn’t returned to his apartment in a week and I doubt he will anytime soon, if he ever does,” Nash told him. “Our initial ballistics tests show that the gun found in the safe appears to be the exact one used to kill Lily Carpenter. At this point, Devon Warner is our prime suspect.”

  Andrew couldn’t believe it. Their work had actually led the FBI to something real. Maybe Devon hadn’t been back to the apartment because he had the serum and was now on the run. It was frightening to think that whatever plan he had for the serum might already be in motion.

  “As I see it, the timeline plays out like this. We know the guy’s a thief. When he shows up to Lily’s house, he has the bracelet he’d stolen from Sadie Webb — two days earlier — in his pocket,” Nash said. “So he tortures Lily, steals the serum and kills her with the gun he stole from Sadie. Then as he’s leaving, the bracelet falls out of his pocket.”

  “Why take the bracelet with him?” Andrew asked.

  “It’s almost as good as cash. And he was about to go on the run with the serum,” said Nash.

  “Then after he stole the serum, he returns home to put the gun away in his safe?” Andrew asked dubiously.

  “Maybe he needed to change course on the fly,” Nash suggested. “He returns home with the gun, some of the prescriptions he stole from Lily —”

  “Z thought maybe Lily was the one who brought those prescription bottles to his apartment. Like they were dating or something.”

  Patricia shook her head. “I sincerely doubt that. But we are still looking into possible connections between Lily and Devon. So far, we’ve come up with nothing. It’s more likely he stole the bottles from her home at the time of the murder. Those are worth several hundred dollars on the street.”

  “She was really on all that medication?” Andrew didn’t know much about FBI recruiting, but mental illness didn’t seem to be an ideal trait.

  Patricia paused. “Lily had some family issues she was dealing with.”

  Andrew shifted in his seat. “So how can I help?”

  “We need to find out who Devon Warner is and where he has gone,” Nash said. “How did he discover the serum? What was his connection to Lily? Was he working with someone else?”

  Andrew thought back to what Lily had said to Sabrina in the cabin. I know why they want it.

  “We want you to pull every piece of cyber-information you can find on him,” Nash continued. “In case anything relevant somehow escaped my notice.” The way he said it, Andrew could tell he thought that was impossible. Patricia gave Andrew a quick wink and he suppressed a grin.

  She opened a file folder to reveal a photo of a man and woman on the street. “This is a street-cam photo pulled from outside the Tipsy Tavern on the night Devon Warner left with Sadie Webb.” This had to be the photo Nash showed Z at Sadie’s apartment.

  Devon was well illuminated by the streetlight above him, his muscular build apparent even at a distance. He was dressed in jeans and a black leather jacket, his arm around Sadie.

  “We have a whole sequence of photos that shows them leaving the bar together. Sadie got into her car to drive to the motel while Devon walked down the street to the liquor store. Here’s another image from outside the store. He bought a twelve-pack of beer that he brought back to the room.”

  Patricia flipped through to the next page. “This is the lease agreement for the apartment in Falcon Rock that you all went to. Devon signed a year’s lease five months ago. There’s a social security number on there, which may prove helpful when you go through the federal search databases.”

  Andrew nodded, slightly overwhelmed. “Federal
search databases?”

  Patricia looked at Nash.

  “I’ll give you some passwords,” Nash said gruffly. “See what you can find.”

  * * *

  Three hours later, Andrew was on the cyber-trail of Devon Warner from the small desktop computer in his room. If you typed most people’s names into Google, a few hits would come up right away. A Facebook or Instagram page. Maybe an article from a local paper or a white pages listing. But “Devon Warner Falcon Rock” had brought up nothing like that, nor had any of the other dozens of search parameters Andrew had thought of.

  He clicked out of the Internet browser, feeling nervous. It was time to go deeper. His pulse quickened with excitement. He’d been itching for an assignment like this where he could really let his new analytical abilities loose. Maybe when this case was over, he could ask Patricia about becoming an FBI analyst after he graduated. With all his illnesses, he never had an answer to the “what do you want to be when you grow up” question. But if he could do this kind of thing all day and actually get paid for it, it would be a dream job.

  He opened the Colorado Department of Motor Vehicles database, using the passwords Nash provided. It took him a few minutes to run the search query. Finally images began popping up on the screen, one by one, until a total of three driver’s licenses came up. Each belonged to a different Devon Warner.

  His eyes darted between the street-cam photo Patricia gave him and the driver’s license images, trying to find the match. One Devon Warner was in his late teens, making him way too young. One was African American and a good foot shorter. But the final image — the most recently procured license — belonged to the Devon Warner in question. Even though it was immediately obvious by the way the photos matched — Devon had a beard and long brown hair parted in the middle, just as he did in the street-cam photo — Andrew confirmed that the social security number matched the one Patricia had given him.

  Devon obtained the license five months ago, the same time he’d rented the apartment in Falcon Rock. He didn’t own a vehicle, though it appeared he rented one whenever he needed. His license had been scanned several times at the local Enterprise franchise.