I yawned. “I saw someone wearing the cape outside Dr. Vail’s last night.”
“I see,” she said. “Is that why the police are looking for you? They called the school.”
“Dammit.” I blinked. “Sorry. I really should go.”
“Don’t worry. The police don’t know you’re here. When they called I had no idea you were in the school,” she said. “It seems you are in a lot of trouble. Found at a possible murder scene. You mentioned your brother. And Tara’s unhappy with you. Tell me why.”
“For some odd reason, Luke Harper loves me and not her,” my words slurred. “Isn’t that the damnedest thing you’ve ever heard?”
“Because you’re not worth loving.” Not a question, but a fact. “You lack the better qualities Tara has.”
“That’s an ugly way to put it. But yes, my mother abandoned me for Shawna’s father. That’s a pretty crappy way to start off in life. Red says I have self-worth issues.” I wondered why my lips decided to spill all this sensitive information to a woman I hardly knew. My bottom slipped forward on the plastic lined cot and my head bumped against a book shelf. “Ouch. You’re better than Red in getting to the heart of my problems.”
“I’ve counseled students for twenty-five years. I told you I was good at summing people up. Don’t you wish you could make the pain go away?”
“Dang right.” I peered at her through foggy eyes. “But that Advil you gave me is working pretty well. Didn’t even feel that bump to my head.”
“Would you like more? Maybe you should rest before going to the police. You seem unable to speak properly.” Reaching into her purse, she pulled out a vial of pills. “You must be sleepy.”
“In a minute.” I nodded. Or at least my brain sent the signal. My head flopped back.
“I’ll just leave them with you.” Cooke nudged the pills into my hand, closing my fingers around the bottle. “Your water bottle is in your other hand.”
“By the way.” I spoke with my head cranked back, watching her through half-closed eyes. My thoughts climbed through our conversation, landing on a passage. “How did you know thirteen of your staff received messages? Most haven’t shared with anyone.”
Cooke’s cheeks brightened. “I’m obligated to know anything related to this school. Occasionally, I check the staff email accounts. I’d rather nip a scandal in the bud before it erupts.”
“So you knew about the love triangle between Cleveland, Pringle, and Coach Newcomb?”
“That was obvious, although I wouldn’t call it a triangle. I hadn’t realized what an idiot Cleveland would become around someone like Maranda Pringle.” She shook her head. “His wife left him a few years ago. That should have been a red flag.”
“So Cleveland’s ineffective?” I tried to lift my head, but couldn’t manage the effort. Damn concussion. “But you keep him as principal? Does he know what’s going on with the accounts?”
“The accounts? No.” She laughed. “Cleveland likes the prestige of the school. His own private school background was great for PR. And the children like him. But he leaves the grunt work to me.”
“The Bear said something’s wrong with your finances,” I mumbled and tried to watch her reaction. “Maranda sent Cleveland an email about it. So did Amber.”
“A talking bear? You’re not making any sense. Why don’t you rest, dear? I’ll be back later to check on you.”
“I need to go.” I told my brain to tell my body to move, but everything south of my neck had shut down. The water bottle slipped from my hand and rolled to the floor.
“Do you want my help?” Cooke asked. “Does your head still hurt?”
“I’m not sure,” I mumbled. “I’m really tired.”
“Here, dear. Let me help you.” Cooke shook out a handful of pills, dropped them into my slack mouth, and poured water after them.
I moved the pills around with my tongue, shoving them into my cheeks. Water ran from my lips and dribbled over my chin.
Cooke massaged my neck with her scarf and wiped my face. “This will make you feel better. I promise.”
“Just lie down.” She pulled on my legs and my body slid, collapsing on the cot. Through slitted eyes, I watched her dust her hands and don her dark trench coat. One that when she turned, blew out behind her. Like a cape.
Dammit. The expletive cut through my drowsy thoughts as I tried to spit out the pills that were not Advil. Cooke made a good phantom. And an even better killer.
My tongue searched for the last pill, and I rolled it to the edge of my lips where it fell off my chin. Luke was going to kill me for coming back to the school, I thought, edging toward sleep.
If I weren’t already dead first.
Thirty-Two
I woke to cramped muscles, a throbbing head, and a god-awful taste in my mouth. Whatever I lay on felt like a cold slab. In a dark room. One alarming thought, quicker than its sluggish cohorts, feared I had landed in a tomb.
Or, said a brighter thought, the cot in the Peerless book room.
My dim mind sorted through the last events. Panic over my missed police visit and Cody’s kidnapping pushed my heart into my throat and cleared my head. How long had I slept? I held up my watch arm, bare as usual. Couldn’t see in the dark anyway. I stretched my other limbs, checking my mobility. Tinsley’s keys rubbed against my thigh.
She hadn’t searched my pockets.
Maybe Cooke wasn’t as wicked as I thought. Maybe she was just a very bad dispenser of medicines. What the hell had she given me? Fear washed out the remaining grogginess. And what about Tinsley? Was he still in the school or had he turned himself into the police?
Were we the next suicides? One victim of scandal and one broken heart?
Slinking off the cot, I stumbled forward in the dark, slammed into a desk, and found the door.
The handle wouldn’t turn.
I felt along the wall, seeking the switch, and shut on the lights. I blinked as the fluorescent bulbs twitched, then flared overhead, illuminating the book room. I prayed the lock worked both ways, fumbled on the ring for the master key, and jammed it into the lock. The handle turned.
The darkened hall did not bode as a good sign. I shivered in the stillness, my thoughts flitting to Twilight Zone plots. Maybe it was the end of days and I had gotten my just desserts. Left in a school forever. My personal ring of hell.
Fear for Tinsley led me deeper into the school rather than toward escape. I headed toward the front lobby rotunda and its spoked hallways. The office or a hall? I hesitated, then chose the arts hall. I bounded forward with Tinsley’s pocketed keys rubbing against my groin and my flannel shirt slapping my thighs. At the end of the passage, the double doors of the drama wing loomed like a shot from a horror movie. My chest heaved as I lurched toward the growing doors. Slamming to a stop, I yanked on the levers.
Unlocked. Which made me pause, but I hauled open a door anyway. Running through the bean bag strewn vestibule, I tried Tinsley’s office first. Unlocked and empty.
“I don’t like this,” I said to Tinsley’s mirror.
I spun out of his office and tried the stage door. Also unlocked. I stumbled up the steps, almost collided with the props table, and fell onto the wooden floor. My eyes began to adjust to the soft glow of the ghost light left on the stage. Hopping up, I felt along the table, letting my fingers bump along until they recognized a hammer someone had forgotten to put away. I smacked the metal head into the palm of my hand, then shook the ouch off my palm. Creeping forward, I pushed through the dark curtains. The caged ghost light cast an eerie glow on the stage. Darkness shrouded the theater.
I expected to find Tinsley left in some kind of macabre hara-kiri scene. Instead I found my turquoise backdrop raised and covered in graffiti. Well drawn graffiti, but graffiti nevertheless. A lanky boy of about eighteen tossed his can
of spray paint to the stage floor and held up his hands. His frightened eyes cut my exclamation short. I realized I held a hammer above my bandaged head, like some wild stalker from a slasher movie.
“Who are you?” I said, then eyed the backdrop that featured a spray portrait trinity of Dr. Vail, Amber Tipton, and Maranda Pringle. He had written “R.I.P. Peerless” above their heads and “Rage, rage against the dying light” beneath. Reminiscent of the PeerNotes messages quoting Evita and Romeo and Juliet. Was this the phantom texter and not Cooke? I couldn’t seem to hold a fixed idea in my brain. As soon as I thought I knew the culprit, the facts slipped from my fingers. But then why had Cooke drugged me? My perspective was skewed. Was the phantom and the killer not one in the same? Fear and frustration edged me toward anger.
“You are Preston King,” I amended. “The art genius.”
He bobbed his head, edging backward.
“Preston,” I said, swinging my hammer. “Did you publish all those announcements on PeerNotes? The ones about Tinsley and Amber Tipton’s death?”
His eyes on the hammer, he nodded and bumped into the director’s table.
“Why?” I stalked toward him.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I thought it was funny?”
“Funny?” My voice rose. “You thought it was funny to harass the staff? That kind of funny is illegal. It’s called cyber stalking. And this kind of funny is illegal, too.” I pointed at the backdrop. “It’s called vandalism.”
“Dude, you don’t know what it’s like to go to this school.” He pushed his hand through his sandy brown hair. “Dr. Vail was the only teacher who stood up for me.”
“I don’t know what it’s like to go to this school.” I slapped the hammer into the palm of my hand. “But I know what it’s like to not fit in. That’s a bullshit reason to scare adults.”
“I wasn’t trying to scare anybody. I’m just sick of all the fuss over Romeo and Juliet when the focus should be on real people.” He had the effrontery to tear up. “Real people dying, like Dr. Vail. And I didn’t like her, but nobody seemed to care about Miss Pringle. And Ellis.” His voice broke and tears spilled over his cheeks. “The theater geeks’ jealousy killed Ellis.”
I pushed on, ignoring his tears. “What about the photos you took of Tinsley? That proves you’re stalking him.”
Preston wiped his face on his arm. “I was just trying to show the drama geeks what Mr. Tinsley really thinks of them. He only cares about his awards. I didn’t mean it as stalking.”
“You can tell that to the police, Preston. They have PeerNotes and the texting evidence. If it’s not on your computer, they’ll get it off the school computers.”
“Everybody hacks into PeerNotes. They can’t prove that. Just like they couldn’t prove who was bullying Ellis.” He rubbed his nose on his shoulder. “And I didn’t text anybody.”
“Liar. Thirteen teachers received anonymous texts.” My words slowed. The PeerNotes announcements started last week with the outset of Romeo and Juliet. The anonymous texting began two weeks before Maranda Pringle’s suicide, but none after her death. That I knew of. I eyed him. “You didn’t send text messages to Pringle or Tinsley? Or Vail?”
Of course he wouldn’t text Vail. She was Preston’s champion. I had been examining the anonymous messaging all wrong.
“I’ll be damned,” I spoke to myself. “The texting is completely different than what’s going on in PeerNotes. Two different cases of cyberbullying.”
“Dude, I wasn’t cyberbullying,” Preston whined. “I meant it like art as social protest.”
“Save your contemporary art thesis for college.” I narrowed my eyes. “Did you sell Miss Pringle some ADHD meds?”
“No, dude. I would never sell to an adult. Besides, the school nurse has a cabinet full of that stuff. We have to keep our medications in there. Why would Miss Pringle buy it if she could easily take some?”
Or an administrator could easily steal some. “Are you alone? Is anyone else in the school?”
He shook his head. “They were on lockdown all day. Closed the campus as soon as school got out. Everyone cleared out quickly. I think most of the teachers were going to Miss Pringle’s funeral.”
“What time is it?”
“Around seven o’clock.” He gave me a look that bespoke of crazy. “What are you doing here?”
“I was sleeping.” I paused. “The funeral was at four. You need to get out of here and explain to the police what you have done.”
I held up my hand to silence his protest. “Believe me, you’ll be in much bigger trouble if you don’t. They want whoever sent those texts. Those texts are what triggered the murders.”
“Murders?”
“My gut was right. Pringle didn’t kill herself. The texts were sent to make Pringle’s murder look like suicide.” Fear sluiced through me. “Preston, you need to get out of here now.”
I didn’t want to freak him out, but I had a feeling we weren’t alone. Cooke would have attended the funeral, but after the falderal and casseroles, she’d come back for me. After the school had emptied.
Which was right about now.
Thirty-Three
Tinsley’s keys didn’t include disarming the security system to the theater’s outside door. I kept my curses mental and my optimism visible. Surely somebody must have figured out I was missing. And would make the conclusion I had never left the school. Except they didn’t know I had gone to school. And were too busy dealing with Cody’s kidnapping attempt. I was going to kill that kid.
“How’d you get in here, anyway?” I asked Preston.
“I had a friend let me in before school got out. I hid until everyone left.”
Damn. “Let’s try the front doors,” I replied with a smile I didn’t feel. We maneuvered through the back stage maze to the arts hall. “You got a phone on you, by the way?”
“No.” Preston focused his scowl on his Nikes. “My dad took it when I got in trouble for selling the shrooms. Where’s your phone?”
“Mine is evidence from a crime scene.” My face warmed.
Preston and I were a good match.
The front doors were also locked. Once again, the lights on the nearby security pad mocked us. Frustrated, I smacked the butt of the hammer into my palm, then held back a whimper.
“Since you hacked into PeerNotes, can you hack a security system?”
“Are you kidding me?” he gaped. “I’m not a criminal. A monkey can figure out how to send push notifications from PeerNotes.”
“Let’s go in the office and call somebody to let us out.”
“What about the cleaning crew?” asked Preston.
“I have a feeling they were told not to come in tonight,” I said, then smiled to make him feel better.
“Dude, can you stop smiling like that? You’re freaking me out.”
I dropped my fake smile and waved for him to follow me into the office. The front reception area appeared dark, but light glowed from the back office hall.
The location of Cooke’s room.
My mouth stretched into that odd, nervy smile before I could stop it. I now freaked myself out. I used Tinsley’s keys to unlock the glass doors and led Preston into the office. He leaned over the counter to grab the phone. While he left a message for his parents, I honed in on a soft jangle of metal coming from the back. My hand snatched the receiver from Preston. With a finger to my lips, I set the receiver back on the phone, then grabbed Preston and drug him below the counter.
A moment later, we fixed our attention on the scrape of the back door opening. Preston’s eyes had rounded within their sockets. I leaned into his ear.
“Quick, before that person turns the corner and sees you, get out of the office and find some place to hide. I’m going to try the police. They can override the sec
urity system and let us out.”
“Who’s here?” asked Preston.
“I don’t know, but don’t trust anybody. Particularly Principal Cooke.” I gave him a shove. “Just go.”
Preston sped toward the glass doors and slipped out. I watched him shoot toward the arts hall. Behind me, I could hear the padding of feet on carpet and the shifting of a door. I crawled to the end of the counter and peeked around. A wall blocked my view to the back area, although I could see the edge of a door open in the hallway. Cooke’s office door.
The door swung shut. I spun around and slammed my back against the high counter wall, the hammer still clenched in my hand. Squeezing my eyes shut, I listened to the footsteps tread into the front office, then stop.
I held my breath. The footsteps receded. I waited for the soft scrape of the back door opening, before peeking around the corner of the counter again. I couldn’t let Cooke roam the school. I hated to think what she would do if she found Preston. And me missing from my book room slumber. And where was Tinsley?
I darted into the main office area, weighing losing sight of Cooke over taking the time to call the police. As I turned the corner to the back hall, the shrill ring of a phone jerked me to a stop. My heart pounded in my throat. I waited, gripping the hammer. The phone continued its clamor. Through the glass of the back office door, a dim shadow moved in the faint glow of the hall security lights. I dove left into the closest room and left the door cracked.
Then realized I had just hid myself in Cooke’s office.
On the wall below the desk, the fuzzy arc of a small nightlight illuminated the basic contents of the room. The water bottle she had left Tinsley still sat on the desk. But no Tinsley. However, an IBM Business Phone blinked and buzzed, alerting the school stalker that the outside world needed attention.
I slipped behind the desk, too frazzled by the phone’s obnoxious jangle to listen for any sound from the admin area.
Mid-ring the phone quit, the silence causing an echo ring between my ears. I took a deep breath, sinking to a squat on the floor between the desk and the wall. My ears picked up a muffled banging. Had Preston been caught?
DEATH IN PERSPECTIVE Page 26