The Lost Causes

by Jessica Koosed Etting

  “Whoever he is, he’s good at covering his tracks. We’ve known that from the start,” Andrew said. “Remember the crime scene? No fingerprints, no one else’s blood.”

  “How do you go from spending the day with teenagers to spending the night torturing and killing people?” Gabby asked warily.

  Z shrugged. “How well do any of us really know our teachers?”

  She was right. Outside the classroom, Andrew didn’t have a clue who his teachers were or what they did with their spare time. But one of them was a killer.

  “Think how many teachers got that windbreaker I saw in the vision,” Gabby said. “It could be any of them.”

  “Not quite,” Andrew cut in. He’d been glued to his computer since Gabby’s discovery. Besides his desire to solve the case and get the serum safely back, he saw this as another opportunity to prove himself to Nash and Patricia, to cement his path toward a legitimate entry into the FBI. “I’ve been able to narrow the field down to six based on everything we already know about Devon’s killer.”

  “Wow. How did you do all that in the last few hours?” Gabby asked.

  One effect of the serum was that every time Andrew used his computer for research, he got a little faster, he could see a little further. He also had Nash’s FBI passwords to thank. “Once I had their social security numbers, I could plug in different algorithms —”

  “Who gives a crap how you did it?” Justin interjected. “It’s pretty sweet you figured out how to get it down to six.” Did Justin just give him a compliment?

  Andrew could barely absorb it, though, because Sabrina had just pulled up in her rental car. His eyes went wide when he saw her. The bruise on her forehead was the size of Andrew’s fist.

  “Andrew, I’m okay. I promise,” she said before he could say anything. “It looks worse than it feels.”

  “Did you go to the hospital?” Gabby asked.

  “No, but the cop on the scene checked me out. He said I’m fine.”

  “And the accident happened because the white van was following you, right?” Z asked, chewing on one of her nails.

  “Yeah,” Sabrina said. “I was trying as hard as I could to see the guy driving. Nash said Devon Warner’s white van was never returned. Obviously there’s no way to be sure, but I think whoever killed Devon was the one driving it.”

  “Wait … if Devon’s killer is the one driving around in that van … that means it was one of our teachers who was following you, Sabrina,” Gabby said, the words getting caught in her throat.

  Sabrina’s eyes widened. “It would explain why he was racing away from me so fast.” Then she thought of something else. “He’s probably been stalking us at school, too, and we never even knew it.”

  “I don’t get how he knows about us in the first place, though,” Z pointed out.

  The question lingered in the air.

  “What are we going to do?” Gabby asked, her eyes darting from face to face. Justin draped a protective arm around her. “Patricia and Nash aren’t going to want us to go to school now, knowing that … are they?”

  Her question startled Andrew. Sure, he intellectually understood the dangers of walking on to a campus with a murderer … who seemed to have the five of them on his radar. But he had never considered that Patricia and Nash would hold them off at this point, right when they were getting so close. How would he be able to prove himself from the sidelines?

  “Let’s see what Nash and Patricia say about it all,” Andrew said, breaking the silence.

  Sabrina pushed the buzzer, then turned to Z. “What were you going to tell me last night? You texted that you had a crazy story.”

  “It was something I heard. But compared to all this, it doesn’t seems so crazy anymore,” Z said.

  “Did you hear Principal Walters thinking about being horny again?” Justin asked. He’d laughed for at least twenty minutes when Z told them that story last week.

  “Worse,” Z replied.

  Andrew scoffed. “No way. What could be worse?”

  “My boyfriend wants to bone my brother.”

  “You have a boyfriend?” Justin said.

  Z was unfazed. “Ex-boyfriend.”

  * * *

  Andrew was on the edge of his seat as Nash brought up the images of Cedar Springs High faculty members on the projection screen, waiting to see if Nash’s suspect list would match his own. Maybe then Nash and Patricia would realize how valuable the Lost Causes were in the field.

  “There are forty teachers currently at Cedar Springs High,” Nash began. “Now we know one of them has the serum. One of them has been leading a double life. Whoever it is, it’s someone who not only has the capacity to commit murder but who had knowledge of the serum’s existence and wanted it enough to kill for it.”

  He let the words sink in before turning back to the photos. “Of these forty teachers, twenty-four of them are female, so we can put them on the back burner for now. Gabby feels confident the assailant she saw was male.”

  Nash touched the board, swiping the entire cluster of female teachers to the right side of the screen.

  “That leaves us with twelve male faculty members when we account for age, build and health.” Andrew studied the faces on the screen. So far his list of suspects was right on track.

  “We were able to eliminate seven more after pursuing further intel, like cell phone calls and credit card statements that established alibis for the night the medical examiner had determined that Devon Warner was killed.”

  Andrew watched intently as Nash slid several more teachers away. He put his hand up, confused. “Wait. Why did you move Coach Colfax over?” Andrew hadn’t found any credit card activity or cell phone calls to indicate that Coach Colfax had an alibi for Devon’s murder. Plus, the guy was in perfect shape, physically able to take a victim down.

  “All the PE teachers were at a retreat in Denver the night Devon Warner was killed. Cell phones were banned for most of the conference, but we confirmed with the hotel that Colfax had a room and was accounted for the whole time.”

  Andrew shrank down. At least Nash hadn’t said checkmate. Nash emphatically tapped the remaining photos on the left side of the board. “These five men are our strongest group of suspects.”

  Minus Colfax, it was the same as Andrew’s list.

  There was Mr. Wincott, the English lit teacher with a British accent that somehow made him attractive to every girl in school. Dr. Fields, his and Gabby’s chemistry teacher, notorious for being one of the most demanding teachers at school. Computer science and technology teacher Mr. Manzetti, or Sweaty Manzetti, as he was widely known. Mr. Schroeder, the soft-spoken Spanish teacher with no sense of humor. And finally, Mr. Greenly, who obviously was a sociopath. He was the only one Andrew thought seemed capable of killing someone.

  “So far we haven’t found any major direct links between any of these teachers and Lily, Devon or the FBI,” Nash said. “We know from Gabby’s vision that Devon considered one of these men a friend.”

  “His only friend, he said,” Gabby added.

  “Andrew, you start digging into any connections that haven’t come to light yet.”

  Andrew nodded. “Already on it.”

  “We’re also trying to find the cracks in these five teachers’ facades,” Nash continued. “Who would have had the opportunity to hear about the serum? Did any of them ever speak to Lily — even if it was just in town at the farmers’ market? Which of them has a compelling motive? A reason why they’d think this serum was worth killing for? Do they have criminal backgrounds or ties to an international government?”

  “Our teachers?” Justin asked in disbelief.

  “Things aren’t always what they seem,” Patricia reminded him, moving to the other side of the projection screen. “We found more than a few facts about these five teachers that you might not expect.”
She pointed to an old photo of Andrew’s chemistry teacher, Dr. Fields. Andrew had never seen him without his lab coat on, so his suit and tie looked almost like a costume. She didn’t need to state the obvious — that a chemistry scholar might be the only one of the bunch to come close to understanding the science behind the serum. “Before Fields moved to Cedar Springs, he was working in research and development at one of the world’s largest biochem firms. I recognized his name the minute I saw it. Lily went to a conference where Dr. Fields was the keynote speaker. I remember because she raved about it for weeks afterward.”

  “A connection to Lily. That’s huge,” Andrew responded.

  “Yes and no. The conference was at least fifteen years ago. But another thing worth noting is that Dr. Fields quit his job at the biochem firm unexpectedly three years ago and took up teaching high school chemistry. He moved to Cedar Springs within the same year as Lily.”

  It was a highly unusual move to quit and become a high school teacher with credentials like his. If Dr. Fields really felt a burning passion to teach, he could’ve been a college professor. His move to Cedar Springs was odd … and the timing of it was also a bit too coincidental.

  Nash pointed to Mr. Schroeder. “We discovered that Schroeder has a sealed juvenile record.”

  Sabrina frowned. “A juvenile record for what? The guy barely speaks above a whisper in class.”

  Nash paused, probably debating whether to admit he’d broken into sealed records. Andrew was jealous he didn’t have that kind of access himself. “He was in juvenile hall for two years,” Nash finally told them. “For aggravated assault. I’m still getting more details, but he almost killed a man with a baseball bat when he was sixteen.”

  Andrew was shocked. It was hard to believe the gentle teacher who had never once given Andrew a hard time for his multiple absences was capable of violent assault … but then again, everyone had secrets. Look at the enormous one Andrew and the others were keeping from the rest of the world. Who would ever guess they were working with the FBI?

  Andrew put a star next to Schroeder. Regardless of his outward temperament, a history of violence was a definite red flag. “What about Greenly?” he asked, hoping he didn’t sound too eager. Now that was a guy he wouldn’t be surprised to hear had a sordid past.

  “Nothing major, nothing criminal,” Patricia answered, and Andrew tried not to look too disappointed. “We know that he grew up and went to school in Albuquerque, the same city Lily used to live in, though that could be just a coincidence. There’s no indication yet that they knew each other at all.”

  “What about Sweaty” — Justin stopped himself — “I mean … Mr. Manzetti. That dude’s always creeped me out.”

  “Nothing specific has jumped out with him yet either,” Nash said. “But like the others, he’s the right age and build, with no alibi as far as we can tell for the night of Devon’s murder.”

  “I found something that jumped out,” Andrew piped up. He tried to tone down the gloating. “Manzetti has a ton of debt. I had to dig because he’s constantly moving money around to different credit cards and bank accounts. But when I added everything up, he’s in debt over thirty thousand dollars.”

  “Just because he has no money doesn’t mean he’s a killer,” Justin snapped.

  “I know. My point was that if he’s desperate for money, it makes sense he’d want to steal the serum. He could sell it for billions, right?”

  “Oh,” Justin said. “Yeah, good call.”

  Nash wrote this information down, which meant he hadn’t discovered that little tidbit yet. Minor victory for Andrew.

  “What about Mr. Wincott?” Gabby asked, studying his face on the screen as though she was seeing him for the first time.

  “Wincott is at the top of my list,” Nash answered.

  Z perked up. “What did he do? I mean other than walk around like we should all be making shrines in his honor.”

  “It’s more what his father did, not him,” Patricia answered. “His British father was briefly jailed fifteen years ago for contact he had with Wo Shing, a triad society in Hong Kong. They’re incredibly powerful and fully armed, so to say they’re dangerous is putting it lightly. They also have factions everywhere from London to Jordan to Australia. They’re believed to be behind several successful and unsuccessful assassinations within the Chinese government.”

  “Sounds like the serum would be right up their alley,” Z said. “Can you imagine a group of assassins who could hear thoughts like I can? We’d be leaking information to them without even knowing it.”

  “Both of Wincott’s parents have been on Interpol’s watch list for years,” Nash added. “And the couple was being closely observed by England’s version of the CIA.”

  Andrew made a mental note to ask Nash about access to international records.

  “So when are you going to question them?” Z asked. “Am I going to sit in like I did with Sadie?”

  “You can’t,” Justin responded. “All these teachers know who you are. They’d never talk in front of a student, right?” He looked at Patricia and Nash for confirmation.

  “The situation is too delicate for a formal questioning right now,” Patricia replied.

  “What do you mean?” Andrew probed. “You’re not calling any of them in?” Nash gave Patricia a pointed look. Yeah, Andrew thought he was definitely detecting some friction between them.

  “We’re not questioning them for several reasons. One, we don’t have a shred of real evidence,” Patricia replied, speaking more quickly. “We can’t just bring somebody in on a psychic hunch.”

  “Maybe you should’ve thought of that before,” Z mumbled just loud enough to be heard.

  Patricia didn’t pause to acknowledge her. “And two, we can’t risk tipping our hand. One of these men has the serum. If he gets wind that we’re bringing other teachers in for questioning, he could run — and the serum would run with him.”

  “So what are we going to do?” Gabby asked. “Have Andrew see what he can find online? And what do we do about school? Are we staying home?”

  There was a brief silence. “No,” Patricia finally replied. She looked at Nash, as if hoping he’d step in, but he remained silent. “The five of you are on the inside in a way Nash and I can’t be.”

  “You want us to narrow the suspect pool?” Sabrina asked. “At school?” A nervous energy surged through Andrew. He hadn’t wanted to back away from the case right when they were getting close to solving it … but now that he knew more of these teachers’ histories, the extent of the danger was beginning to feel more real.

  “But one of these five teachers is a killer — who knows exactly who the five of us are,” Gabby protested nervously.

  “Not necessarily,” Patricia said. “We’re not sure who was driving that van. But even if that was the case, and he was the one, then he was also driving the van around Z’s house last week. He’s known about you for a while.”

  “How is that better?” Gabby asked, sounding frantic.

  “If he does actually know about the five of you, then as of now, he’s only been keeping tabs on you, not trying to engage you in any way. If you suddenly don’t show up at school, don’t you think that will be a bigger red flag than sticking to your normal routines? Sudden unexplained absences — of the five people he’s been tracking — could tip him off more, change his agenda.”

  Andrew instantly realized she was right. He looked around the room and saw Z and Sabrina nodding. They were damned if they did, and damned if they didn’t. At least at school they might be able to discover something important.

  “Let’s be clear. However we proceed, we need to keep you safe,” Nash cut in. His eyes stayed on Sabrina a bit longer — probably because she was the one who had just been followed by the van. “No one is asking you to apprehend anyone in the hallway. None of you should make any direct contact with t
hese teachers if it’s out of the ordinary. If they’re not your teachers, don’t talk to them. Is that clear?” Andrew and the others nodded.

  “But within those parameters, we’re relying on you for intel,” Patricia said. She shot Nash an unreadable look. They were having so many private conversations that it was like being front row at a Charlie Chaplin movie. “It may take longer to draw him out, but it’s the best way we can think of to find the serum.”

  Z squinted at the screen. “Why do you think this guy is still here? It doesn’t make sense to me that he’d stick around when he knows we’re on to him.”

  Patricia took a breath. “The only reason I can think of is that whatever he’s planning to do with the serum, he’s planning on doing it here.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Right next to the teachers’ parking lot was a statue of a bulldog, the school mascot, sitting on top of a granite pedestal. Three months ago, Justin, Hindy and some other guys were wasted and snuck onto campus late one night to climb on top and stream themselves live. That felt like three years ago at this point. Justin remembered it now as he and the others stood behind the statue, using the spot as a lookout. They had a perfect view of the teachers’ lot, but the teachers wouldn’t be able to see them.

  “I think we should try not to be alone today,” Sabrina said.

  A life-or-death buddy system, Justin thought grimly.

  “Are you guys sure we should be doing this?” Gabby asked, squeezing his hand tightly. “What if we’re in over our heads this time? He’s got to know we’re on to him if he was driving that van.”

  “We’re totally in over our heads,” Z answered. Justin was surprised to hear fear in her voice, too. “But we’re also the ones who have the best shot at figuring out who has the serum.”

  Sabrina nodded. “We have to finish this. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to imagine a group of terrorists who have Andrew’s brainpower or Justin’s psychokinesis.”