Next Girl to Die

by Dea Poirier

  “What is that?”

  “Someone stuck a screwdriver in your gas tank.”

  I ask him to clarify, because I must have heard him wrong. Once he’s explained it to me three times, I ask, “Is it possible I drove over something and it bounced up there?”

  He shakes his head. “I doubt it. I think someone stuck that in your tank.”

  “How long would it take after piercing it for all the gas to drain out?”

  “It’d be immediate.”

  It must have happened while I was in the church. “How long will it take you to fix?” I ask, thankful that I haven’t had a chance to return my rental car yet.

  “A few hours. Worst case, tomorrow.”

  I grab a plastic bag from behind the counter, wrap it carefully around the screwdriver so I won’t mess up any fingerprints, and yank it out.

  CHAPTER 16

  As soon as I get to the station, I head to Sergeant Michaels’s office. I pop my head in his office and catch him midswig from his coffee cup, his eyes intently focused on his computer.

  “Afternoon,” I say when he finally looks up at me.

  “Afternoon.” He eyes the bag in my hand.

  “Someone stuck a screwdriver in my gas tank. I’m going to send it off for prints.”

  “What the hell is going on in this town?” he growls as he leans back in his chair. Red is creeping up from his collar. “Between you and me—and technically Jason—I’ve launched an unofficial investigation into the fire. Give him that screwdriver. These things might be related.”

  I nod. “Did he find something in the basement?”

  “There was a partial print on the window. But we haven’t been able to match it to anything in the database.” He furrows his brow and looks down at his desk. “The whole basement was filled with fireproof filing cabinets, yet all the files inside were burned. Like someone set fires inside each one.”

  “Are you saying they went back and set the fires? Because they couldn’t have done that while I was there.”

  He nods. “The fire marshal found evidence someone had come back there.”

  Someone wanted those files destroyed real bad if they returned to the scene. Maybe the fire wasn’t just to kill me after all.

  “Jason also questioned Danny at the Gas-N-Go. No one that he saw had filled up gas containers the day of the fire. Nothing was seen on surveillance either.”

  Who would have the motive to burn all the files down there? Someone who didn’t want us to find out about something.

  “Thank you for opening the investigation.”

  He nods. “Of course. I find it deeply disturbing that someone would put one of the officers on this island at risk like that. And I will find out who is responsible,” he says.

  We chat for another few minutes, catching up on my progress, and then I hand over the screwdriver to Jason. When I get into my office, I’ve got an email from Father Samuel with names of all the girls from the choir group. I forward the email to Allen and ask him to handle interviews. It’ll probably take a few days to get them all to come in, so I want to get started as soon as possible.

  I’ve watched the clock tick down to four p.m. And then slowly past. I’ve called Ryder’s mom twice, and so far there’s no answer—he’s still a no-show. I can’t just sit around here and wait. I need to talk to Ryder. I grab my bag and keys and tell Sergeant Michaels where I’m headed. Just as I reach my rental car, someone calls my name from across the street. Noah jogs over. Seeing him lifts some of the weight from my shoulders, and I stand straighter. My heart starts to race, but I try to play it cool.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “How’s it going?”

  “Pretty good; just got a new story to write on some of the political turmoil,” he says with a grin. Clearly it’s the kind of story he enjoys writing.

  “Sounds thrilling,” I say with a laugh.

  “How’s the case coming?”

  “You know I can—” I start.

  “Can’t comment on an ongoing investigation, I know. I’m more checking on how you’re holding up. It’s so similar to Rachel. I’m not asking for details. I’m asking about you.”

  “I’m fine,” I say, clipped, almost defensive. “Thank you.”

  He nods and shoves his hands in his pockets. “A few of the teenagers I’ve talked to said the Warren kid has info about Madeline,” he says in a tone that’s almost hushed.

  I raise an eyebrow at that. There’s no way I’m telling him that’s where I’m headed, but he’s piqued my curiosity all the same. “Oh?”

  He shrugs. “No one would give me details. That’s all I’ve got for you.”

  “So you haven’t talked to him?”

  “Oh, I’ve tried. He won’t talk to me.”

  “Look, I’ve got to get going. Thanks for the tip,” I say before walking to my car to drive to the Warrens’.

  The Warrens have one of the newer houses on the island. The kind of sleek, contemporary house that belongs in the Hollywood Hills, not here. While most of the other houses in Vinalhaven are three-story classic Victorians, this one is three stories of sharp lines, large panel windows, and concrete. It looks like something a modern-day Le Corbusier would have designed.

  I step onto the porch, the boards whining and groaning beneath my feet. A cool breeze sweeps past me, blowing my ponytail against the back of my neck. The front door creaks in the wind, catching my eye. The door swings in, opening about six inches.

  “Hello?” I call into the quiet house. The silence inside is thick, palpable, and though I listen for a response, the rush of blood in my ears is deafening.

  I push the door in, my hand hovering over my gun. I try to keep my mind busy, flooding my brain, cataloging everything I see. After all, if my brain is busy with that, there won’t be any room for fear to sneak in. Through the first floor, I creep slowly. It’s eerily empty, decorated in the sleek, modern style you’d expect for a house like this. Minimal, austere. As I weave my way through the house, I pass a sleek kitchen. The whole thing is gray, from the flat, unadorned cabinets to the glittering granite. I touch my knuckle to the coffeepot and find the carafe still warm. Someone was here recently, at least.

  Glancing up the cement stairs, I try to discern if there’s anyone in the house. Something clinks upstairs, like someone dropped a coin on tile. I climb the stairs, straining to hear any other indications of where they are over the pounding of my heart. Droplets glistening on the white marble landing catch my eye. The small red beads form a trail between doorways.

  Blood.

  It’s not enough blood to be a mortal wound—it’s more the kind of trail you’d leave after nicking yourself while cutting an onion—but my heart hammers as I throw open the door in front of me. The room is dim, the curtains closed. Stretching my fingers out against the rough wall, I feel for the light switch. Turning on the light doesn’t help much. It illuminates the dirty laundry piled next to the bed. But there’s no blood in this room. The trail leads me to another door, but when I try the handle, it’s locked.

  “Leave me alone,” someone says from inside. The voice is low but not deep enough to be a man. Ryder.

  “Ryder, open the door,” I say, forcing my voice to be steady, calm, as my training takes over. It doesn’t stop the nag of panic at the back of my mind. This situation grates on my nerves—the blood, the locked door.

  Something rustles on the other side, and the shadows of his feet shift beneath the door. “Who’s there?”

  “I’m Detective Claire Calderwood. We were supposed to talk today. Are you okay in there?”

  It isn’t until I hear the water running inside the locked room that I realize Ryder is in the bathroom. His feet scuff against the floor. I listen, trying to figure out what he’s doing.

  “Just go away. Leave me alone,” he growls.

  I try the handle again, jiggling it as I twist, but the knob won’t budge. Behind the door, he coughs, and something rustles again. My heart beats frantically a
s I try to figure out how to get the door open. Ryder starts to talk again, but something slaps hard against the tile floor. I drop to my knees automatically to peek beneath the door. Through the three-inch gap at the bottom, I see Ryder’s body collapsed on the plush pink bath mat, a growing pool of blood next to him.

  I push off the wooden floor and kick the door over and over, landing my heel close to the doorknob. Finally, with a crack of splintering wood, the door flies open and rattles on its hinges. Ryder is limp on the floor, his face pale. His long black hair covers most of his face. Deep gashes cut across his pale wrists, oozing red on the floor. The sink is flooded with red water spilling over the brim and trickling onto the floor. He must have submerged his wounds so that he’d bleed out faster.

  He needs to get to a hospital soon, but the closest one is across the bay. There’s no way I can wait for a boat to get him. We’ll have to take him to urgent care to stabilize him. I grab my phone and call Jason. I need his help to get Ryder to urgent care, and I may need him to perform CPR while I’m driving if things get much worse. I put the phone on speaker and search the drawers for something to wrap up his wrists. The best thing I can find is Ace bandages and toilet paper.

  “Jason, I need you at the Warrens’, now.” My words are rushed, but I catch him up on the situation. Luckily Jason’s out on patrol today. I don’t have to worry about him alerting Allen. He can’t know until Ryder is stable. Otherwise, he’ll just get in the way.

  After five of the longest minutes of my life, Ryder’s arms are bandaged, and Jason calls my name from downstairs. “Claire?”

  “Up here!”

  Jason’s feet pound against the stairs, and he freezes behind me.

  “We’ve got to get him to urgent care. You can do CPR, right?”

  “Uh, yeah,” he says with zero conviction to his words.

  “Help me carry him downstairs.”

  Jason grabs Ryder beneath the armpits, and I take his feet. Ryder is tall and lanky but heavier than he looks. After we slide him into the back of Jason’s patrol car, we drive to urgent care in two minutes. I wish there were some way to get him out of here without anyone in town seeing, but that’s not an option.

  My heart pounds as we carry him through the doors. Ryder is so pale I’m not sure if we’re too late. There’s no telling how much blood he lost when he plunged his arms into the hot water.

  “How’s he doing?” I ask as Jason helps me carry him out of the back seat.

  “He’s still got a pulse. It’s weak, though.”

  The nurse looks at me wide eyed from behind the desk as we come through the doors. “What the hell happened?”

  “Suicide attempt,” I say.

  “We can bandage him, but he’s going to have to be transported to the hospital. There’s not much we can do for him here.”

  I knew she’d say that. But we’ve got to get the bleeding under control. Otherwise there won’t be any chance that we can get him to the hospital. The makeshift bandages I gave him are barely doing any good. While Ryder is back with the doctors, I call Sergeant Michaels to give him a rundown of what happened. And though I offer to go to the hospital, he informs me that he’s going to take Allen ahead and wait there. I want to head to the hospital in hopes I can question Ryder once he’s stable, but Sergeant Michaels orders me to stay behind on the island. Anger flickers through me. Ryder may have answers I can’t get anywhere else. But I know better than to argue with a sergeant.

  Jason heads back to the station, and as much as I want to jump right back into the case, I need to go home and clean off the blood. I walk down Main Street, my hands still trembling with adrenaline. Thankfully the movers are gone when I get back to my house. After I’ve showered, changed, and grabbed some water, my nerves are still on edge. And though I try to push today’s events from my mind, I know I need to talk to someone to unburden my mind. But my options are limited. Noah’s the first person who pops into my mind. I need to see what he’s looking into anyway. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind going out for a drink.

  I head downstairs and glance at Noah’s contact info on my phone. There’s a war raging in my mind as my finger hovers over the call button. Maybe I shouldn’t bother him with this. Maybe I should just keep these issues to myself. My finger ventures closer. Finally, on the third attempt, I give in.

  “Hey, Claire,” he answers.

  “Hey. I know this will probably be weird, but would you want to grab a drink?”

  He clears his throat and says something muffled that I can’t quite make out. Maybe I shouldn’t have called him. “When and where?” he asks.

  “Now, at the Sand Bar.”

  “Oh,” he says, and his voice falls.

  “Too short notice?”

  “Never. I’ll be there in ten. With bells on.”

  I head to the bar and wait outside for Noah. The doors are propped open with rusty anchors, letting the cigarette smoke and the dull roar of gossip spill into the street. In a couple of minutes Noah walks up the sidewalk toward me, picking up speed when our eyes meet.

  “Never thought you’d ask me to get a drink,” he says with a sheepish grin. Noah’s got on a tight faded AC/DC T-shirt with a leather coat open over it. He’s wearing distressed jeans that hang on him in just the right way.

  “Don’t make me regret it,” I warn in a way that makes it clear I might not be serious. Somehow, just seeing him unwinds the anxiety that’s been wound around my chest all day.

  The large oak bar is already full, but that’s no surprise. It’s full every night. This place is always packed as I drive home from the station. Several women are teetering on their barstools precariously. It looks like they’re a heartbeat from smacking their heads on the grimy floor. I lead us toward a table in the corner, as far from the others as we can manage. I’m not worried about any of them spreading rumors about seeing me here. I don’t want to be bothered with stories about my childhood—or worse, Rachel.

  Noah and I take a seat in the dim corner, and a few seconds later, a waitress who doesn’t look old enough to drink drops by our table. We both order beer, and I watch the other patrons gather like a school of fish in a group by the bar.

  “So what did you want to talk about?” Noah asks as he slides out of his jacket.

  I glance toward our waitress, who’s still lingering behind the bar. I give him a rundown of what happened without giving him any details about who hurt themselves.

  “Holy shit,” he says as he leans back. “Are you okay?”

  I nod. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Just processing all of it.”

  “You sure you’re all right?” he asks. The question is more serious than what I’d expect out of him.

  I nod and press my lips together. “Yeah. I’m glad it wasn’t worse. But I’d really rather talk about anything else.” I need to get my mind off the case. “What have you found? Catch me up.”

  “Well, I looked into Jacob Warren like you asked. Since I wasn’t sure what you wanted on him, I’ll give you a rundown of what I found. Jacob lived in Vinalhaven and went to school with Rachel. Like the other Warrens, it seems most people did not care for Jacob. After 2005, I couldn’t find anything on Jacob, but then I discovered that he killed himself.”

  I shake my head. My mom told me he’d moved off the island. There’s no way she doesn’t know that he killed himself if that’s what happened. Why would she hide that from me?

  “They were dating, weren’t they?” he asks, his brow furrowed. His eyes tell me he already knows the answers.

  “Is this on or off the record?” When I first met Noah, making a distinction was easy—but now, with the lines so blurred, I don’t know what to think. My worst fear is letting my guard down and finding all of this in print. I can’t be too careful. There are a million other things I’d let him write before this ended up all over the internet. This was Rachel’s big secret, the one she didn’t want anyone to know. Hell, she didn’t even want me to know. She only told me because she thought she was pre
gnant.

  “Unless you tell me otherwise, it’s all off the record. What would it matter if it weren’t, though?”

  I shake my head. It makes me feel like I’m speaking ill of the dead. “It was a secret Rachel and I had,” I say as I try to get comfortable on the plastic booth cover. “I really don’t want to get into it, though.”

  Though he doesn’t look pleased, he says, “I also spoke to some of Rachel’s old teachers, but they didn’t have anything for me other than a few memories that Rachel seemed distant and was skipping some classes leading up to her death.”

  Our waitress drops off our beers and lingers at the table a bit longer than I’d like. “You guys know anything yet? Do you know who killed Madeline and Emma?” she asks in a hushed voice.

  “We’re working on it, but I can’t comment any further on an ongoing investigation,” I answer. She narrows her eyes, deflates, and stalks away.

  “I can’t believe Rachel was skipping her classes,” I say, but what I mean is that I can’t believe Rachel was skipping her classes and didn’t tell me about it. Even after all this time, it feels like a betrayal. I wish I knew why she stopped trusting me, why she started building a wall around herself out of secrets.

  “That’s all I’ve been able to find so far. I’ll keep digging, though,” he says, pulling me from my teenage misery.

  Since Noah doesn’t have anything else about Rachel, I say, “So tell me more about you.” I hope that if he talks about himself, maybe it’ll distract me from all this. There’s already an unfair balance here: Noah knows way too much about me, and I know next to nothing about him.

  “I have no idea where to start,” he says with a nervous laugh.

  “Tell me the weirdest thing about your childhood.”

  “I made replicas of all the furniture in my bedroom out of cardboard,” he says without skipping a beat.

  A laugh slips from me. “You what?” I ask, because I couldn’t have heard him right.