by Kristi Rose
I nodded.
“Use these tricks to get what you need.” She held out her hand. “That’ll be twenty-five bucks for the tracker.”
“Advice for free?” I asked as I dug money out of my pocket.
“This time,” she said with a smile.
I left Mrs. Wright’s and went to Ralph’s Grocery store where I worked part-time. I needed to check the work schedule. And tell my boss Lason about my situation with the cops. I’d rather he heard it from me.
The conversation was awkward, and it didn’t escape my notice that Lason took a step back when I gave him the story. As I feared, he kept me off the schedule for the following week, as a precautionary measure, with promises to put me back on as soon as I was no longer in the spotlight.
Back in my car, I got a text from Toby to call him when I was free, so I did.
“Dudette, guess what I found?” he said and followed it with a long inhale.
I gasped in horror. “Are you vaping?”
Toby scoffed. “I’m not a nitwit. I’m sucking on an old empty vial, pretending, if you must know. Now, you want to be my mom some more, or can I tell you what I found? Because it’s goooood.”
I chuckled. “I can only imagine.”
He sighed. Lady Marmalade cooed in the background. “Troy attends the Recode and Reshape program, a rich kid version of the scared straight program. It’s a joke. Nothing about the program scares me. I mean, they teach them to learn to code. If that’s so scary, then I’m Captain America of coding because I’m wicked good and go to dark places on the web.”
I laughed. “Yes, you are the superhero of the cyberworld.”
“Anyway, Recode and Reshape is a private company that has a contract with the community center in Vancouver to run the program, and guess who’s the instructor?” Toby snort-laughed. “I mean, was the instructor.” His voice sobered instantly. “Sorry, Sam. I didn’t mean to laugh at your dead guy.”
I groaned. “He’s not my dead guy, and Josh was the instructor? How come that didn’t come up in Dad’s research?”
In my mind’s eye, I could see Toby shrug. Then he slowly inhaled. A pretend vape.
Some habits die hard.
He said, “Because he asked me to look into his background. We were focused on where Josh came from.”
I pulled out of Ralph’s parking lot and pointed LC toward Mrs. Wright’s again. “Who owns the private company that employed Josh?”
“I’m still digging into that. It’s an educational company called Pay Forward for the Kids. It’s got a lot of redirects. When I know, you’ll know.”
Redirects were used to cloak what the web owner didn’t want people to see.
“Okay, Toby. Thanks. Anything you find, send to my dad. If I have more questions, I’ll give you a ring.”
“You know the drill. Not between the hours of—”
“Yes, I know when you get high.” I laughed and hung up.
The drive back to Mrs. Wright’s was quick, and she met me at the door.
She arched a brow. “What did you forget?”
I showed her a handful of twenties and said in a low voice, “A way to pick a lock?”
She shook her head in pity. “Oh, hon, you’re gonna need more than a tool. Come in, let me show you what I know.”
10
Thursday
Precious and I had a plan. And it comprised of breaking and entering.
Leo had called when I was leaving Mrs. Wright’s. The medical examiner was still working on Josh’s autopsy, but there were no signs of an inhalation injury, seen in the lungs when they reacted to inhaling a caustic substance. Dad had said an inhalation injury tied the other vaping patients together.
This didn’t completely rule out Josh being a victim of the current vaping crisis, but it reduced the odds greatly. And increased the odds that DB would look at me. Leo said they found the vaping pen and vial, and the lab was testing it. But it would be awhile before we knew more.
Hence the B and E plan. I needed more info on Josh. More than Toby could find. And I was starting with his work office.
Because the Village Garden School is housed in what used to be the old community center, Precious and I knew a few things about how to get into the old building without using the front door.
We’d both spent time there in our teen years, and when your parents were upstanding members of society, finding ways to experiment and not be seen became a quest. With Precious the lookout, Hue and I had explored the off-limit areas every chance we got. Maybe that’s why Leo hadn’t liked me so much in high school. He thought I was a bad influence on Hue his kid brother. Which wasn’t true at all. All three of us were equally bad influences.
Those old skills were going to get me into Principal Josh’s office. Because I was part chicken, I didn’t want to commit breaking and entering alone and convinced Precious to go with me. We waited until all threads of daylight disappeared, which in the Pacific Northwest during mid-fall comes a little after seven p.m. By winter, it would be pitch black around five.
Toby had given me a device to plug into Josh’s computer that would link it to Toby’s, and then my tech genius friend would scan it. Mrs. Wright gave me a lock-picking kit and a quick education on the various locks and how to break in. This was for Josh’s office door, but a skill I could see coming in handy later on.
On the roof of Village Garden School was a trapdoor that lead into the attic. Back in my teen days, the lock had been broken, and I hoped that was the case today. Banking on the school districts desire to cut costs when the school was undergoing renovations.
Dressed in all black, Precious tucked her blond hair into a black cap and ran black streaks down her face. I wore a dark hoodie and before we set out on foot, pulled up the hood. We tried to stick to the shadows of downtown, an incredibly hard task thanks to my mom who’d carried out her restoration plan and had new streetlights installed. Stupid lights lit up the town as if the sun were shining twenty-four seven, or so it seemed when one was trying to stick to the shadows.
With my back to the Village Garden School, I stared at the steel ladder fixed to the side of the bank, an escape route dictated by fire code. The ladder started six feet from the ground, and ran up the side of the building to the second floor. A quick hop from the ground and some upper body strength—thank you, yoga—had me climbing the rungs, Precious behind me. At the top, we pulled ourselves up over the ledge and onto the roof.
Across a two-foot opening was VGS’s roof. A leap of faith separated me from my fact-finding mission. Precious and I had done this several times as teenagers. As I looked over the ledge and down the two stories to the concrete below, the leap looked far scarier than it had as a teen.
“I can’t do this,” Precious said, looking at the ground.
“Visualize yourself making it across,” I said.
“I only see myself falling,” she grumbled. “And there’s no realistic strategy I can envision that will save me.”
I cuffed her along the shoulder. “That’s not being positive. But if you fall try to land on your legs and bend your knees on impact. Better break those than your head.”
“You’re not funny.”
“I wasn’t being funny. I don’t have a choice here. My freedom is on the line. And you know how DB is. Once he starts down a path, he’ll see it through until I’m sitting in the electric chair.” Even in the dark I could see Precious roll her eyes.
“Washington doesn’t have an electric chair or the death penalty.”
“That’s not the point,” I said. I backed up to give myself enough of a running start.
“I’ll meet you at the front doors,” she said.
I wiped my sweaty hands down my jegging-clad thighs. “I don’t think I can open the front doors without setting off the alarm.”
“Then I’ll meet you at Josh’s window.” She pointed to the ledge. “But I can’t do that.” She put her hands on her breasts. “These bad boys will get in the way.”
> She had a point.
“Okay, the window it is.” I strapped on the mini backpack that held the tools we anticipated needing; Mrs. Wright’s lock picking tool and a computer thingamajig from Toby.
“Hold on to your titties, kitty,” Precious mumbled.
Without the crack of a start gun, I sprinted toward the ledge. When I reached the end, I pushed off like an Olympic hurdle jumper, my arms and legs wind-milling as I flew over nothingness. I landed on the other side with an “oomph,” falling forward onto my hands.
“You okay?” Precious whispered loudly.
“Yep.” When concocting this plan I’ll admit I’d gotten a little excited. Who gets to do stuff like jump off or break into buildings for their job? Actors and criminals, that’s who. And Samantha True. But the reality was a whole lot suckier than what I’d envisioned. My palms burned from scuffing the rooftop.
From the backpack, I took out my headlamp and put on the red light. The hatch into the attic of the Village Garden School was in the far corner of the building. If memory served, inside was a door to a stairway that would deliver me to the second floor.
I was right about the hatch lock, still the same old broken one from my teen years.
Scary how freakishly easy this had been. I opened the hatch and aimed my headlamp light, which I flipped to white, into the attic space. But this part wouldn’t be easy. The attic was creepy as all get out. Creepier than that. To get in I had to descend four steps. Not a lot in daylight, but huge in this moment. The stairs, old wood, looked rickety and were covered in dirt and dust.
I swallowed, forcing back dread and ignoring my fears. I wished Precious was with me. I reminded myself that prison time for a crime I didn’t commit was why I was staring into this black hole filled with cobwebs, and more than likely enormous vampire spiders were their occupants.
On a whimper, I stepped onto the middle stair. It bowed with a groan. Using my photographer’s memory, I pictured the space way back when trying to locate the door that would take me out of the attic.
Boxes and furniture in various states of disrepair were clustered together in pockets of the attic. The fear part of my brain whispered that anything or anyone could be hiding behind them. Logic called me a moron. Regardless, this was a prime setting for a scary movie.
I recalled the location of the door. I had to pass bookshelves, towers of boxes, and a collection of desks, some lopsided from missing legs.
Fearing my headlamp light wasn’t enough, I added a heavier flashlight from my pack because I could use it as a bug killer and cranium smasher. My light cast shadows on the attic junk that were weird in shape and made the scene scarier, if that were possible. Fear made goosebumps scurry across my skin.
With the roof hatch still open, I debated leaving it that way since the moon brought in some light. But there was no way I would exit from here. I was going out the window Precious was coming in. Or if spooked enough, I wasn’t above going out the front door. I didn’t care about the alarm, so long as I got what I came for.
On the count of three, I would close the hatch and dash for the exit.
One, two… I couldn’t do this. I stared back up at the hatch and out at the dark sky.
One, two… I blew out a breath. I would suck in prison. If I couldn’t even make it across a dark room, how would I survive in an environment scarier and tougher?
One, two… I stomped my foot in frustration, and something scurried across the floor away from me.
I choked back a scream.
Suck it up, buttercup.
One, two, three! I let the hatch slam closed and jumped off the stairs, then made the mad dash across the attic, sweeping my beam across the floor as I went. My heartbeat pounded madly in my chest and echoed in my ears.
Every time I passed a large group of items I hunched over, envisioning those items coming down on me, or worse, someone popping out from behind them.
I made it across the room in seconds, and with momentum and fear driving me forward, I didn’t pause to try the door, just rammed it with my shoulder. It flew open on impact and sent me into the stairwell. I tripped over the threshold, launched into the air toward the stairs, and descended them ass over teakettle, knocking myself in the head with my cranium smasher flashlight.
Thump thump bump bump.
Thankfully, there were only five stairs before the landing where I came to a stop. My body screamed in protest, a late reaction to the impact. A long deep groan was pulled from me as I tried to sit. I’d made a huge cacophony of noise, so if anybody were in the building, I’d soon be discovered.
Needing another moment to recoup, I flopped back and stared at the ceiling and waited for the cops to show up. After what felt like an eternity, nobody came, so I used the stair rails to pull myself up.
I forced myself back to the attic door and eased it closed. A sign taped to the door read Attic, Employees Only. A second, hand-drawn sign was attached that read Monsters Await.
My headlamp had come off in the tumble and was resting on the second step down from the door. I picked it up on my way and slowly took the steps down. My flashlight waited at the bottom of the stairs, the beam extinguished. I snatched it up.
Using the headlamp’s red light, I scanned the second floor. Even with the walls decorated with cute, joyful pictures of children, I was freaked out. I hurried along to the stairs and stuck to the side away from the windows as I made my way down to the first floor, taking care not to shine my headlamp out.
Time to see if I was an apt student.
In school, I’d been meh about some subjects, but this one had interested me, so fingers crossed. I knelt before Josh’s office door and read the lock name. Awesome. I had a tool for that.
To make sure I was working smarter and not harder, I tried the handle. The door was locked.
Using the two tools Mrs. Wright had sold me, I did as she instructed and popped the lock in seconds.
That song, “Breaking The Law” popped into my head.
I turned the knob, gave the door a shove, and let momentum carry it open.
Creep factor to the max. A man had died here. Was his soul still here? What did they say about a soul at unrest? Was that Josh? Would he haunt us while here? I trembled with unease, my legs wobbly. I flashed the light around the office, then stopped where Josh had fallen.
A tapping sound came from inside the room. I rocked back on my haunches and weighed the merit of getting busted versus seeing a ghost. Neither were high on my must-do list.
“Sam,” a voice whispered.
I whimpered and ran the light through the room again.
A face clouded in black with dark streaks under its dark eyes was pressed against the window, looking in. Its presence was so off-putting and startling, I screamed. The face screamed, too.
Oddly, the scream was something I was familiar with. Precious and not Josh’s ghost.
I ran to the window and slid it open. “Jeepers, you scared me.”
“I scared you? I thought you’d seen a ghost,” she whispered.
“I thought you were the ghost,” I said. “I’m so freaked out right now I want to leave.”
Precious looked like she wanted to as well. She chewed her pinky nail. “Where did he die?”
I turned and pointed my light to the spot where Josh had fallen.
“I’ve got the willies,” she said.
“Try being in here,” I mumbled.
“Get the computer information and let’s go,” she said.
I took the computer scanner from the pack, then popped the screen from the window. I handed her the backpack. “I’m coming out this way. There’s no way in all that’s good and holy I’m going back through that attic.”
“Good plan.”
I flashed light over Josh’s desk then gasped. “His computer’s gone.”
Precious groaned. I turned in time to see her slap her forehead. “I bet the cops took it.”
All this for nothing.
“Okay, I
’m coming out,” I said.
In front of the window was a credenza. On it was one picture. I hadn’t seen it on my initial visit. But this was of Josh at the opening of the school cutting the ribbon with Mrs. Rivers and the school board by his side.
“Mrs. Rivers,” I said, just as I was about to put a foot on the credenza.
“What?”
“She had access to his calendar.” I made eye contact with Precious. “It’s better than nothing, right?” I needed encouragement to turn around when what I really wanted was to go out the window.
“We came for something. You don’t want to do this for nothing.”
“Poop,” I said. I did the count-to-three thing again and ran across Josh’s office, leaping over where his body had fallen, and into the main outer office.
Dropping into Mrs. Rivers’s chair, I booted up her computer and plugged the device into the USB port. Like Toby had instructed, I clicked on all the right icons and let the device do its magic. Various windows popped up, allowing glimpses into Josh’s calendar, a few photos, and Mrs. River’s email program. The windows flashed across the screen in quick snapshots, occasional words or images flashing by.
A stock photo of two people standing on an island beach, water lapping at their toes caught my attention. Someone had added graphics and text to the photo. They’d drawn a dark heart around the couple, an arrow pointing to them, and what looked like a handwriting font that read, me, you and Fiji. But as fast as it had flashed on the screen, another email or calendar page replaced it.
Twelves minutes later, I was in the grass next to Precious. One minute after that I was popping the screen back on the window.
Precious and I parted ways at her car, her claiming a need for a shot of something strong to calm her nerves and a hot bath.
Though I felt the same need, especially the need to go inside and turn on all the lights and check under my bed, the unsettled feeling of having failed on my objective was stronger.
What if Mrs. River’s computer yielded nothing? What if that image had been a spam email? I’d texted Toby to keep his eyes open for the picture to see if it meant anything.