Tariq snapped his head back to face her. His eyes were wide. “FBI? You kept that one quiet. If I would’ve known, I would have had lots of questions. You could have starred in tomorrow’s anecdotes. Now I’m just going to have to guess why you’re here. I’ll make something good up for my next customer.”
For the first time in longer than she could remember, she smiled. “I’m fairly certain anything you come up with will be more exciting than the real reason I’m here anyway.”
Jess paid him and shut the door. She looked up at the imposing red-brick building. Six Doric columns lined the front of the darkened structure. The only light came from the streetlamps, which cast an ethereal glow over the campus. It was picturesque, and quaint like a Thomas Kinkade painting.
She pulled out her badge. Before she had time to ring the doorbell, the lights turned on and a middle-aged woman came to the door. Her faded brown hair was cut into a sharp bob just below her pearl-studded ears. A navy-blue cardigan, buttoned halfway, showed the matching sweater below. Her eyes narrowed as she studied Jess and a spark of recognition flashed across her face.
Jess sucked in a sharp breath of air. Her trachea tightened in a painful spasm like someone had wrapped their hands around her neck and squeezed. Shit, don’t let her recognize me. She couldn’t deal with that tonight. Not here, not now. Usually when she was scared that someone had recognized her, she would call her best friend Lindsay to give her some perspective, but Lindsay was dead.
For a long moment they stood in silence while the woman scrutinized her. Jess squeezed her hands into tight fists at her side but she didn’t flinch or turn away to hide her face. If the woman recognized her, Jess would deal with it. She had had a lifetime to prepare for moments like these but it never got easier. And it never would. She would never feel comfortable with people knowing who she was, or more to the point, who her father was.
Eventually Jess cleared her throat to indicate to the woman that if she wanted to say something, she needed to do it now because Jess wasn’t prepared to leave that dagger hanging above her.
“I’m sorry. You just look familiar, but I can’t seem to place you. Have we met before?”
Jess shook her head. “No, ma’am, we’ve never met. I just have one of those faces.” Jess held up her badge for inspection. “Like I said before, I’m Special Agent Bishop.”
“Sorry. Where are my manners? I’m Yvonne Crawford, the house mother for Levi Smith’s dorm. I understand you would like to speak to him. May I ask what this is in connection to?”
Without fail, whenever Jess mentioned she was from the FBI, people asked questions. Normally she didn’t respond, but in this instance, she didn’t want to cause any alarm. “I’m a friend of Levi’s aunt. I’m here on her behalf, strictly in that capacity.”
Yvonne nodded. “He will be asleep now. We have a strict lights-out policy at ten. We don’t even allow reading after lights out. And definitely no electronics. Can this not wait until tomorrow morning?”
“Unfortunately not.” The request to return at a more sociable hour was perfectly reasonable, but Jess suspected Jeanie would not be able to relax until she had texted her to let her know everything was okay.
“All right, then. I will show you where his room is. He shares with another boy so if you could try not to disrupt him, that would be greatly appreciated.”
“Of course.” Jess followed Yvonne when she turned and walked down the hall to a wide stone staircase. Ornate scrolls were carved into the thick balustrade as well as the school motto Yvonne had used as a greeting. The treads of the stone stairs dipped from years of use. The entire building felt like it belonged in a period movie.
Yvonne led her down a darkened hall to a door at the very end. “This is Levi’s room.”
“Thanks.” Jess knocked on the door. When there was no answer she opened the door. She was greeted by the sound of soft snoring. He and his roommate were obviously asleep but Jess needed to be able to say she had seen the whites of his eyes to confirm to Jeanie he was all right. She patted on the wall until she located the light switch.
She glanced from the boy sleeping open-mouthed to the empty, made bed on the other side of the room. “Is that Levi?” Jess asked, pointing to the drooling boy.
“No, that is his roommate, Tom.” Yvonne’s eyes widened at the sight of the empty bed.
“Where else would Levi be?”
Yvonne shook her head. “Nowhere. They aren’t allowed out of their rooms until breakfast at seven.”
It sounded more like a prison than a school. “What if they need to use the bathroom?”
“Every room now has an en-suite. It was part of the refurbishments done in the nineties.” She pointed to the open door.
Just to be sure Levi wasn’t merely taking a piss, she turned on the lights in the bathroom and had a look for herself. The toilet lid was up and it needed to be flushed but there was no sign of him. “There is no shower in here. Where are those?”
“On the ground floor. But they’re not allowed to use them after nine.”
“They’re also not allowed out of their rooms. And we see how well that one is working out.”
The tight slash of Yvonne’s mouth turned down into a frown. Her expression told her that when they found Levi he was going to be in some serious trouble. God only knew what that meant in a place like this: demerit points, suspension, cold gruel for dinner? And then he would have to deal with the wrath of Jeanie on top of that. She hadn’t even met the kid yet but she sincerely hoped whatever he had been doing was worth it because there was going to be some serious hell to pay.
Jess glanced at his roommate, still snoring away, completely oblivious. She turned off the lights and shut the door behind them. “Let’s check the showers. If he’s not there, where else could he be?” Her suspicions were that he was just trying to get some private time. He was a teenage boy after all, living in a very confined space. The poor kid probably just wanted to masturbate in peace.
“I suppose he could be in the library.”
Because a midnight study session was much more likely than a seventeen-year-old boy needing alone time in the shower. Jess did her best not to roll her eyes. “Where’s that?”
“It’s on the other side of campus.”
“Okay. We’ll check there if he’s not in the showers.” She really hoped Levi was downstairs because she did not want to trek across the snow tonight. Her feet were still frozen and she really just wanted to get to sleep before she needed another dose of painkillers.
Jess followed Yvonne across the darkened hall and back down the stairs. She shivered when a draft of cold air hit her. “Did they not think of putting in central heating when they did the refurbishment? Or maybe upgrading the insulation? It’s freezing in here.”
“We have central heating. Children sleep better in cool environments.”
Jess pushed her hands deeper into her pockets and hugged her arms closer to her body to conserve heat.
Yvonne stopped at the end of the hall. “Lavatory” was written above the door on a cracked sign with embossed black lettering. “These are the showers.”
Jess gave a cursory knock to let anyone on the other side of the door know she was coming in before she opened it. The lights were off. The entire room was ensconced in complete darkness. “Hello?” She ran her hand along the wall until she found the switch. The lights flickered on and off a few times before finally committing to illuminate the room. Tiny black and white hexagons of tile fit together on the floor to create a weathered mosaic pattern. Partitions blocked off the row of shower heads to create individual stalls. The smell of fresh bleach burned her sinuses. “Hello,” she said again, this time louder. “Levi, are you in here?”
A slow cadence of a drip tapped against the tiles, like the steady beat of a drum. Jess followed the sound around the corner. “Hello?” With each step, the tap of water bouncing off the hard floor grew louder until she reached the final stall.
And then she sa
w him.
Three
Oh, shit. Jess’s heart stopped mid-beat, squeezing the blood in her veins with a punishing force. Her mouth dropped open. She tried to speak but no air made it past the tightness in her throat. She felt like she was being strangled from the inside.
The lifeless body of a teenage boy hung from an overhead pipe. The metal cylinder strained under the weight, releasing a stream of water that ran down his bare chest and legs, soaking his black socks before engorged drops splatted against the drain. Bright-blue eyes gazed straight ahead, fixed in a permanent stare. The whites of his eyes were a mottled sea of red pinpricks from petechial hemorrhages. His mouth was slightly agape, his full lips brushed with purple edges.
She tried to suck in a breath, but nothing happened. She couldn’t breathe or speak or even blink; all she could do was stare in horror. He was just a child. So young. Not again. Her mind flashed back to the first dead body she’d ever seen. He had been naked too. No. Her mind screamed at her. She couldn’t let her mind be dragged back there but it was too late.
Her legs buckled under her as her vision went dark.
“Oh my God!” A scream tore through the room.
The echo bounced off the tiles, multiplying the intensity, breaking the macabre spell, bringing her back to the present. Jess’s head shot up, suddenly remembering where she was.
“No!” Yvonne screeched again. She tried to push past Jess as she ran forward.
Jess turned to hold her back. She strained as she pushed against Yvonne to keep her in place. “You can’t touch him.” Despite the horror of the situation, the agent in her took hold and pushed out the gruesome reality of what they were seeing. “This is a crime scene.” Though it was obviously a suicide, Jess didn’t have the jurisdiction or power to make a definitive ruling. A coroner needed to examine his body and make that call.
“No,” Yvonne whimpered. She shook as her body was racked with sobs.
“Is this Levi Smith?” Jess held her breath, praying to a god she didn’t believe in that the answer would be no. Please, for Jeanie, say no.
Yvonne nodded. The small movement was like a stab to her heart, destroying any hope.
“I can’t believe this happened to him too.” She sobbed against Jess’s shoulder.
“Too?” Jess’s eyes narrowed. She pulled back to look at her. “What do you mean ‘too’?”
“Not again.” She sobbed.
“What do you mean ‘too’?” Jess demanded. “Has this happened before? Has someone else committed suicide?”
Yvonne’s eyes widened as her gaze darted around the room, not knowing where to settle. “I-uh-no,” she stammered between frantic gulps.
The hairs on Jess’s arms stood taut. Yvonne was lying, she could feel it in her gut. “This isn’t the first suicide you’ve had at this school, is it?”
Yvonne didn’t say anything, she just continued to sob, her face burning scarlet from the stream of hot tears.
“Tell me. Did someone else commit suicide here?”
“I knew we should’ve done more to stop it.” She shook her head.
“Stop what?” Jess pressed. “What should you have stopped?”
“I-I don’t know.” She said something else, but it came out in an incomprehensible, garbled wail. She leaned heavy against Jess, no longer able to keep herself upright.
Jess turned her around, so she could look her directly in the eye. “Yvonne, I need you to tell me the truth. Was there another suicide at this school?”
“They were so young,” she whimpered.
“They? So this isn’t the first suicide? Who else? Who was the other boy? I need you to focus, Yvonne.”
“Okay.” Black trails of mascara ran down her face.
“Who was the other boy?”
“Ryan was the first.”
A bolt of terror ran up Jess’s spine. First. She pounced on the small utterance. The word implied that there were more than two. She would have said “other” if there had only been two. “There are more, aren’t there? Not just Ryan and Levi,” she asked, hoping for once that she was wrong.
“Yes,” she sobbed. “After Ryan it was Eric, and then Sam, and Jason, and now Levi.”
Jess sucked in a sharp breath as she silently tallied the numbers. Five. She squeezed the older woman’s arms as she gave her a shake to focus her. “Five boys have committed suicide? At this school?”
Yvonne’s mouth crumpled in on itself as she nodded.
“Five boys?” Jess asked again for clarification because she was unable to comprehend her words. “Since when? Since the school opened?”
Yvonne sniffed. “No, Ryan killed himself in August at the beginning of the school year.”
Jess quickly did the math. “Five students have committed suicide at this school in the last five months?”
Yvonne’s only answer was a pained cry.
“Yvonne.” Jess held Yvonne’s face between her hands to make sure she was listening. “Yvonne,” Jess repeated and waited for her glassy eyes to focus on her before she continued. “You said you should have done more. What did you mean? What could the school have done to stop it?”
“They had a pact or something. We should have…” Her lip trembled as her words trailed off. “I don’t know…” Her body vibrated as another sob tore through her.
Jess knew she wasn’t going to get any coherent answers from her right now. “Is this the only entrance to the shower?”
Yvonne nodded.
“Good. Okay, I’m going to tell you what we’re going to do. We are going to go back to the hall and we are going to call the police. We are going to make sure nobody goes in the bathroom because the coroner needs to come and take Levi away. Okay?” Jess spoke quietly so Yvonne would have to concentrate to listen. She made sure her voice sounded as calm and placid as she could because Yvonne would feed off any stress she exhibited. Jess physically turned Yvonne away, pulling her toward the door one step at a time.
Jess looked around the darkened hall. She turned on the flashlight feature on her phone, looking for a place for Yvonne to sit, but there were no seats, just the cold tiled floor. Jess kept one arm around her while she hit the first number on her speed dial.
After three rings a deep voice sounded on the other end of the line. “Jessie?” Agent Jamison Briggs answered. Sleep took his normal baritone to a raspy bass. It was obvious he had been asleep when she called. “You okay? What’s going on?”
Jess squeezed the phone until her hand ached. “Jamison, I need your help.” She wasn’t even sure why she had called him. It was more muscle memory than choice. For over a decade, he had been the one she turned to. He had been her partner and her friend. But she no longer had any right to ask him for anything. Given their history, he was more than entitled to tell her to go to hell. She could have called Alex Chan; he was her partner now.
“What do you need?” he asked without missing a beat.
Her heart squeezed painfully at the response. He had always been there for her, no questions asked, and she had repaid his loyalty with suspicion and a point-blank range shot to his chest. “I’m at Gracemount Academy. There’s been a suicide. I’m about to call the Metropolitan Police but I need you to come down here and help me secure the scene.”
“What? Um…what are you doing at an all-boys boarding school? Were you… um shit, Jessie, I don’t even know how to say this. Were you seeing one of the teachers… or students there? What am I walking into here?”
Her skin burned hot with mortification. The question slashed her to the core. Jamison was the only person other than her therapist that knew she used sex to deal with the realities of her life and numb the pain. Yes, she had sex with strangers, lots of them, but never with anyone not old enough to consent. Jamison should know her better than that. But then again, she should have known he wasn’t a serial killer.
She bit her lip until she tasted the metallic zing of blood, hoping the pain would counteract the shame of the question. At first all
she could do was shake her head but then she realized he couldn’t see her. “No.”
There was a loud exhale on the other end of the line. Relief. He honestly thought it was a possibility she’d have sex with a high-school student.
“This is the fifth suicide in less than six months. Apparently, there is some sort of suicide pact going on here. I want to get to the bottom of it and shut this down hard.”
“Shit. Okay, give me a second to get dressed. I’ll be right down.”
Jess hung up and then called the police. The entire time she spoke to dispatch, she did not let go of Yvonne, who trembled against her. She held her awkwardly, allowing the woman to wipe her tears and snot on her jacket. Jess never hugged anyone. She hated physical contact other than for sex, but Yvonne needed someone to lean on and Jess was her only option, so she wasn’t about to leave her to cry on her own. The poor woman was going to need a stiff drink after tonight.
Sometimes Jess forgot how distressing it was for people to see a dead body. Fortunately, or unfortunately, her father’s crimes had hardened her. Few things shocked her since she had discovered the body of one his victims, naked and bloodied on their basement floor.
Nothing could ever hurt like that.
Jess gave Yvonne a soft squeeze. Her tears had slowed down and she hadn’t made a whimpering sound in over a minute. Jess needed to interview her and now was as good a time as any, while everything was fresh in her mind. “When was the last time you saw Levi?”
“Tonight at dinner. We had chicken casserole. That’s his favorite. He had seconds and he said how nice it was. He always compliments the kitchen staff no matter how bad the food is because he has such good manners. He is such a sweet boy.”
Jess gave her a soft smile. Yvonne was still talking about Levi in the present tense. Lindsay had been dead over a month and Jess still caught herself talking about her in the present tense. Every time she picked up her phone she had the urge to call her. Sometimes she would bring up her number and pretend Lindsay was going to answer. She would imagine talking, and laughing, unloading her problems with the safest person she had ever known. Trust didn’t come easily to Jess, but she had trusted Lindsay completely. She had never imagined a world without her but shit happens. Jess blinked to focus her thoughts. “Did Levi seem depressed or agitated? Anything out of the ordinary?”
Catch Your Death Page 2
