Chapter Seventy
Tragedy is an ironic human event. It tears your heart into a million pieces while at the same time it binds you to people you would otherwise not interact with. Such was the case for Maddie. Fellow students she never spoke to stopped her in the hallway to give her unsolicited hugs. She discovered that her three friends’ overemotionalized Greek-tragedy moniker of the “Forgotten Ones” was a complete lie. Everyone knew who they were. Everyone liked them. Much to Maddie’s shock, several people related to her that Lilly always told them that Maddie was not crazy.
It felt weird to have someone she had not known that long defend her. According to everything her college-entrenched sister had told her, high school was not like that. Maddie knew grief could lower boundaries and class lines. She had experienced it firsthand before. She refused to dismiss the reactions she saw around her as emotions of the moment.
The pain and shock were authentic. Maddie had spoken with enough politicians looking for photo opportunities after the Christmas Day bloodbath to know the difference, even at the tender age of eight. There was also an underlying hopelessness, the kind that comes from not being in control when you know that the outcome is in others’ hands.
Maddie hated it. She could feel it rising inside and knew it would soon suffocate her. Making it worse was that she knew the truth, or felt she did. Lilly was alive somewhere, along with the other girls who had been taken, she bet. There was more to all of this.
Her thoughts began to turn again to Tommy when he tentatively stepped into her classroom.
“Excuse me, Ms. Staley,” he said. Ms. Staley was one of the few teachers who did not look like a contestant on The Bachelor. She was a proper teacher—older, rounder, and matronly. Seeing Tommy in the door, she scurried over to him like an ant and wrapped him into a hug. On any other day, seeing him get face planted into a chest the size of the Himalayas would be funny. Today was not that day.
“Tommy, we were so worried about you.”
“I wasn’t with them, Ms. Staley,” he said, his voice empty. “Madison is needed at the front office. They sent me to get her.”
That should have sounded strange to the woman—a student not seen all day showing up and asking for another student—but it went over her head. Maddie could not help but wonder how adults ran the world being so clueless.
“That is no problem. Madison . . .”
Maddie grabbed her bag and followed Tommy. He put his finger to his lips to shush her the moment they hit the hallway. A few minutes later, he stopped at another classroom, motioning for her to stay in the hall. Moments later, Aden followed Tommy out.
“What’s going on?” asked Aden.
“You’ll find out soon,” answered Tommy. He increased his pace, face full of focus.
They followed him until they reached the media center room. Tommy opened the door, waved them in, then looked left and right in the hallway. Satisfied, he stepped into the room and closed the door.
He headed straight for his backpack lying on a table. “I got this special delivery early this morning.”
He pulled out a sleek, black shiny phone.
Maddie’s eyes widened. Immediately, she snatched the phone from Tommy. There was no need for questions. She knew who had sent it, and there was no time to waste. Her call was answered after the first ring.
“George!”
“Madison.”
Maddie pulled the phone from her face. There was a heaviness in his voice, seasoned with worry and fatigue. It did not matter that she had only spoken to Rhee on the phone a handful of times in the last six years—she could still tell the flavor of his tone was not normal for him.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing, if you like having your ass chewed out at six o’clock Monday morning.”
“I got you in trouble.”
“No, no, you did not, Madison. I chose to send you that phone. That was my decision. The only reason this is even a situation is that things have become more complicated.”
Trepidation and confusion in equal measure glowed on her face. Seeing her shocked into silence, Tommy took the phone back, put it on speaker mode, then placed it on the desk.
“George, this is Tommy. I did as your note said. I waited till I was with Maddie. Now, tell me what is going on with . . .” His voice broke before he could end the sentence. He still had not dealt with the reality that two of his friends were gone forever.
“Our friends were killed and another is missing, George,” began Aden, finishing the question for Tommy.
“I know.”
“Wait, what?” asked Maddie, surprised. “How—”
“Ass chewing, remember? First, someone called my boss about their daughter having a ‘secret’ spy phone.”
“Mother,” growled Maddie.
“Then he got a separate call from an executive assistant director at the FBI, who got a call from someone with a theory about a number of missing girls and how it was connected to the body of a missing daughter of a man, friends with a senator.”
“Dad,” grumbled Aden.
“What the director really wanted to know was how teenagers were getting information about one and connecting it to another. My boss wanted to know what the hell I was thinking.” Rhee let the question hang a moment before speaking again. “To answer the unspoken question, I cannot tell you much.”
At those words, Tommy slumped down into a chair, fighting tears. “Maddie thinks Lilly could still be alive. If she’s right . . .”
He could not finish the sentence nor the tears. They dropped on the desk like walnuts falling from a tree. It tore Maddie’s heart down. The pain in her friend’s eyes mirrored her own. She had been where he was before.
“George—”
“I can’t, Madison. Finding the body of Cathy Newman at the quarry has made things tense here. The FBI is dedicating all its resources to that investigation.”
“So, the rich guy can get justice but not Lilly,” said Tommy, bitterness oozing in the words.
“Tommy, please,” said Maddie. “You sound like that Sanders guy. And Lilly’s dad is no janitor. When he hears this—”
Rhee cut her off. “Madison, please do not do that. It will make my job here short-lived. I know she’s your friend, but telling her dad your theory will not help the situation. Trust me, it won’t.”
“Well, if you can’t tell us anything, and you can’t do anything, why the hell did you send Tommy a goddamn phone to call me on?” she snapped.
Rhee did not respond immediately. When he finally spoke, his voice carried weariness and guilt. “I . . . I’m sorry, Madison. I cannot convince my boss that there is a connection. I tried. I even used some other strange information I discovered to make a case.”
“What information.”
“It doesn’t matter—”
“It matters to me.”
Maddie could practically feel Rhee grinding his teeth on the other side of the phone. She did not care.
Again, Rhee was silent as he struggled to decide what to tell her. After a minute, a sigh slithered through the phone. “I coded an alert on the cop who was looking into you just in case he did not let it go. I saw a number of texts to a forensic photographer who does freelance work for the department. I would have ignored them but for the increasingly angry subject lines that demonstrated she was ignoring him. Too nosy for my own good, I looked at them. She’s supposed to be at a conference in San Diego.”
“Supposed?”
“She hasn’t checked in. I checked the last ping on her phone . . . it’s within the circle.”
“And that’s just a coincidence?”
“It’s not enough to go on. And I don’t work for the FBI. So, my little extracurricular activities are finished. I only called to tell you why you would not hear from me for a while and to be careful. I wish I could do more.”
“Yeah, George. Thanks.” She disconnected the call with a fist slamming into the phone. Then she picked it up an
d threw it across the room. Later, she might feel bad for being a bitch, but right now she wanted to be one. Aden and Tommy made no comment on the outburst.
Maddie wanted to hit something. She wanted to hit the person who had killed her friends and took her friend. She wanted to do something, anything to rid herself of the suffocating uselessness she felt.
She leaned back against the wall and slid down it. When she hit the floor, she was no longer in high school. She was an eight-year-old child hiding in a foul-smelling janitor’s closet, listening to the sounds of rifle fire and screams of pain.
“I can talk to my dad again. Get him to call again. Get him to do something . . .” Aden let the sentence trail off. It was clear he did not have much confidence in that course of action.
“I don’t care if it makes this George’s life harder,” said Tommy. “I’ll tell Mr. Senft everything. Maybe it’s nothing, but if it is, then what have we lost? He’ll make someone do something.”
“No.”
Maddie said the word flat and hard. She was done feeling helpless. She rose from the floor and walked back to the desk.
“No one is going to believe us. If they were going to, they would have by now.”
“Someone has to do something, Maddie,” said Tommy, his voice cracking.
“We are going to do something. But it ain’t going to be asking the adults for help. They had their chance. Pull up that map George sent us. I know you still have it.”
Tommy nodded then powered up his computer. As it started up, his tapping finger expressed the impatience that was infecting all three of them. After it finally loaded, Tommy pulled up the map, then enlarged it.
“OK,” Maddie began. “We know the X’s are where all the girls were last seen—almost a perfect circle. We know they all had issues with drugs. What does that tell us?”
Aden scrunched up his face. “I don’t understand the question.”
“Think. If all this is connected, then why would someone or some people take girls with drug issues?”
“They won’t be missed—well, maybe not missed is the best term—but the cops won’t think anything about it.”
“Exactly. Their parents will show up, but it won’t go past a report. Plus, add in a druggie and the likelihood of no gun around—”
“Easy target,” said Aden, catching on.
“But Lilly isn’t into drugs. Neither was the guy they were with,” said Tommy. “Plus, taking a girl with connections shoots down the idea of nabbing someone the cops won’t look hard for.”
“Not really,” said Maddie. Her mind was working it through now. She felt she had a handle on it. “There’s no way to know who the girls are. They just look for behavior . . . hangout spots.”
“Oh damn!” exclaimed Aden. He smacked his hand against his forehead. “I didn’t even think about it.”
“About what?” asked Maddie and Tommy.
Instead of answering right away, Aden pulled out his phone then scrolled through, looking from the screen to the map on the computer.
“Anytime now, Aden,” pushed Maddie.
“Yup. Some of those areas are near a few party spots. And by party, I mean the toking and shooting up kind.”
“And you know this how?”
Aden grimaced. “I just know. Though not since my dad showed back up. Anyway, I’m willing to bet that the other areas are the same.”
“Then I’m willing to bet the rich chick was a mistake. Or at least killing her was. If they needed or wanted a certain number, then she would need to be replaced.”
“And Lilly is the replacement?”
“Yes. Look at any crime story on television. Water and hidden bodies go together like Hawkeye and Black Widow, Katniss and a bow, Tommy and his phone. The quarry has water. Lilly and the rest were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Aden and Tommy said nothing as they each considered Maddie’s words. Finally, Tommy spoke. “Assuming that’s true, how’s that help us?”
“We know the circle is not complete. The last area is our county. Someone else is going to get taken.”
“OK, I can buy that,” said Aden. “But that doesn’t tell me what we are going to do.”
“Simple. You’re going to tell us where the party areas are.” Maddie paused and studied the map. “There are three parks in our area. We just need to watch for or catch the people in one of them. We can find out on our own.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
The three of them spun around. Tiffani stood by the door.
“I thought you locked the door,” Maddie hissed at Tommy.
“He did. But he’s not the only one around here with keys to stuff.” To underscore her point, Tiffani held up a ring of keys on her index finger and twirled them around.
“How much did you hear?”
“Enough. Stalking a kidnapper or murderer or both doesn’t sound like a smart thing to do.”
“Sometimes the thing that needs to be done isn’t the smart thing to do, but you still have to do it.”
Tiffani rolled her eyes. “And of course, Madison Jennings, the hero of Galvin High, knows what needs to be done. It’s what you’ve been doing here since day one, right?”
Maddie was in no mood for Tiffani’s tone. “No one asked you. Now, either help or leave and keep your mouth shut.”
Tiffani narrowed her eyes. She could tell there was an “or else” implied in the demand. She walked over to the desk, her eyes zeroed in on the computer screen. She reached out with a finger to the map on the screen and traced a light circle as her finger moved from red X to red X. When the circle was complete, she turned to Maddie.
“Jason is right. You are mad. You said there are three parks. What’s the plan?”
Chapter Seventy-One
The plan was simple: Maddie would position and hide wireless trail cameras, used for scouting deer and equipped with night photo capabilities, in areas around the three parks. She and Tommy would check any photos right from their phones. Since her mother had confiscated her smartphone, Maddie would get a burner smartphone.
Once they caught someone on camera going after someone, they would show it to the police or to Aden’s dad to give to the FBI. Simple and straightforward. This, of course, meant that the plan would not be easy to implement.
“Maddie, if I understand this right, you’re going to need ten cameras per park. That’s thirty cameras,” said Aden.
“Hurrah, you can count. The American education system is working.”
“Cut the bitchy sarcasm, Maddie. These cameras are four hundred dollars each. That’s twelve fucking grand. I don’t have twelve grand. Tommy, do you have twelve thousand dollars? Tiffani?”
“Ooh, I’m all out since my Jimmy Choo’s shopping spree.”
“I don’t know who that is,” said Maddie.
“Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously. Now stop being negative Nancies. We don’t need thirty. I already have ten of these things at home. We just need twenty more.”
“OK, so eight thousand. A piece of cake,” replied Aden with a roll of the eyes.
“I have the money.”
“What!” exclaimed her friends.
“How do you have eight grand? Oh wait, don’t tell me it’s your college fund,” said Tommy.
“No, my college fund is separate,” she lied. “This is different money.” Blood money, she thought. “I just need it transferred to my savings account. All we have to do is sign in to my parents’ account to get it.”
“And you know your parents’ account password, right?” asked Tiffani.
“Of course I don’t. But it’s on my mom’s computer files. We just hack into that remotely, and then you know . . . get it.”
“Your mother has her banking password on her computer? Seriously, in this day and age?” Tommy shook his head. “OK, putting aside that you want me to commit a felony while I’m still in high school, how are you going to set the cameras up? We have school. I know, I know, you’l
l cut classes, which will lead to a call from the school to Mommy and Daddy, and we’re busted.”
Tiffani shook her head in the negative. “Nah, the attendance office will send an automated call to the parents.”
“So, we just change out the contact number in the system, right?” said Maddie.
“OK, so now I’m up to two felonies.”
Aden extended his arm and pushed Tommy in the shoulder. “Pfft, like you haven’t hacked the school system before. Gimme a break. This is the easiest part of this.”
“It’s even easier. I can probably do it with Mr. Y Leiro’s password. I have it.”
Tommy did a double take. “Why would you have that?”
“He trusts me,” Tiffani answered, shrugging.
“OK, so, Tommy, you’re going to get me another phone, and we’ll transfer the funds. Tiffani will change the phone number on record in the school database. I’ll buy the cameras tomorrow. We will all keep an eye on the photos that come in. Are we all clear?”
“What if they take someone before we set up or in an area we don’t have coverage for?” asked Tommy.
Maddie frowned then sighed. “This is all we can do. So, if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. We just have to try.”
They all went back to their classes. Maddie sat through one before excusing herself to see a grief counselor. After leaving with phony tears, she headed to the library. Tommy was waiting for her with an open laptop.
She plopped down beside him. “So, how do we do this?”
“Simple. Send an email to your mom from my computer. I’ve got a document attached with something about Allie’s and Zara’s funerals and a GoFundMe page I just set up. Ask your mom to send some money to it. It has a rootkit in it. Basically, it will install something—”
The Madison Jennings Series Box Set Page 42