Blur (Blur Trilogy)

by Steven James

  “Kyle, you’re not making any sense. What then? What? Do we sneak into Mr. McKinney’s house again and put them back in his closet? Besides, if he thought someone was in his house, he’s probably already checked to see if the phones are missing!”

  “Don’t worry, he would never call the cops. I mean, really? Tell them someone broke into his home and stole three cell phones that he took from dead girls?”

  “But you’ve just implicated yourself.”

  “I did that when I touched the phones in the house.”

  Daniel had no idea what to say.

  Kyle didn’t seem to either.

  “I have to get to Rizzo’s,” he said finally. “Don’t say anything about this, okay?”

  “Are you kidding? Who would I tell?”

  “We’ll talk after I’m off work and you’re done with football practice.”

  Slightly dazed, Daniel watched Kyle drive away.

  Unbelievable.

  What were they going to do now?

  His head wasn’t in practice. There were too many other things on his mind. Everything seemed to be both somehow coming together and unraveling at the same time.

  There were three cell phones in Mr. McKinney’s home.

  All from girls.

  And Kyle had taken them from the house.

  How were they going to get the sheriff’s department to look into Mr. McKinney if Kyle had the phones?

  Then another realization hit him: he hadn’t replaced the padlock in the hasp when he and Kyle fled the house. If Mr. McKinney noticed that, he would know for sure that someone had been there.

  After practice, Coach Jostens told the offensive team he was going to be gone tomorrow, but gave them drills to work on. “I’ll be here right after school for a few minutes in case you have any questions before I take off. Don’t worry, I’ll be back on Friday for the game. I wouldn’t miss that for the world.”

  When Daniel left the locker room, he called Kyle immediately and found that he was still at work. “I forgot I need to watch Michele tonight,” Kyle told him. “I can’t go over to Ronnie’s to see if he can identify which phone was his sister’s.”

  “Well, I know his mom wouldn’t be too excited to see me, so I can’t pick them up from you and take them over there by myself, even if I wanted to. Besides, if she found out we have Emily’s phone, well, that could cause all sorts of misunderstandings.”

  “No kidding.”

  “I’ll text Ronnie. Maybe we can meet up tomorrow between classes. I’ll ask him to bring Emily’s charger.”

  “He’ll know we have her phone if you tell him to do that,” Kyle noted.

  “I’ll just tell him we might have a lead. If we meet in the library they’ll have copies of yearbooks from the years before we started attending here—who knows, maybe even from the other schools in our conference. There might be something in them.”

  “You’re impressing me now, buddy. I can tell you’ve been thinking about this.”

  “My mind wasn’t exactly on practice this afternoon. Also, you know how cell phones evolve and change styles every year or two? Well, you have the phones. Go online tonight, see if you can figure out, by the shape of the charging inputs, the design, whatever, what years they came out. We’ll try to match the dates up with any instances of girls who might have disappeared or died in the towns Mr. McKinney used to teach in.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  After they hung up, Daniel headed home and went online, searching for class rosters from the years Mr. McKinney was at the other high schools, then he looked for articles about other girls who might have disappeared.

  He found that last year, a girl from Roosevelt High had apparently killed herself with carbon monoxide poisoning by running her car in her garage with the doors closed, and one girl from Coulee High was found dead from a drug overdose two years ago.

  Both had died on nights when Beldon High had away football games at the girls’ schools.

  Daniel’s heart seemed to stop and somehow race forward at the same time.

  Tell your dad. You have to tell your dad.

  Really? And tell him what? You don’t have any evidence they were murdered. There’s no proof. It’s all circumstantial.

  No, it wasn’t enough, not yet.

  But tomorrow when he met up with Kyle and Ronnie, he would find out more.

  And then he would go to his dad with everything and tell him about the other girls. And what Mr. McKinney had done to them.

  CHAPTER

  FIFTY-FIVE

  Thursday.

  Daniel woke up with a headache.

  Severe headaches had preceded each of the other times Emily had appeared to him. So already that was a bad sign for the day.

  His dad had the morning off and was sleeping in.

  Daniel rose, got dressed, and rounded up some breakfast.

  Before heading to school, he texted Ronnie asking him to bring the charger. They agreed to meet in the library between fifth and sixth hour.

  Over the course of the morning, Daniel glimpsed Stacy twice at the far end of the hallway, but she avoided him. And based on what he’d told her the other night about losing touch with reality, he wasn’t exactly surprised.

  Ronnie and Kyle were waiting for him in a quiet corner of the library behind an expansive row of bookshelves.

  Daniel didn’t see the phones yet and assumed Kyle was waiting until he’d gotten there before showing them to Ronnie.

  He had no idea how Ronnie would respond when he saw them.

  Since they were in the library, he lowered his voice as he warned Ronnie not to get too upset right away.

  “About what?”

  “We found something and we’re not sure exactly what it means.”

  “You wanted me to bring her phone charger. Is that what you found?” He sounded anxious, but also excited. “Did you find her phone?”

  “We might have. I don’t know.” Daniel nodded for Kyle to show him the phones and, using a bandanna he’d brought with him so he wouldn’t leave more prints, he gingerly drew them out of his backpack.

  “That’s hers.” Ronnie pointed to the older-model Samsung Galaxy in the pink case. “My dad gave it to her when he upgraded.”

  “Plug the charger into the wall,” Daniel said.

  Ronnie found an outlet at one of the study desks nearby and plugged the phone in.

  The three of them watched, hardly breathing, while it booted up.

  The home screen became visible.

  A photo of a golden retriever.

  “Trevor,” Ronnie whispered.

  No password prompt.

  For a moment none of the boys spoke. Finally, Kyle said, “Daniel, there’s no way he would have this phone if Emily drowned by accident.”

  “I agree.”

  “Who?” Ronnie asked urgently. “Who had it?”

  “We’ll tell you later,” Daniel replied. “We need—”

  “Who? Tell me!”

  “Shh. We’ll—”

  “Hang on.” Suddenly Ronnie looked at them askance, his eyes wide. “Why are there three phones?”

  “We’re not sure,” Daniel told him honestly. He didn’t want to handle Emily’s phone, so, just as Kyle had done, he used the bandanna beneath his finger when he tapped the screen to check the most recent texts.

  In addition to the messages from Emily’s mom on the night she disappeared asking where she was, the last text message, received Friday afternoon, read, “Meet me by Windy Pt 6:30. Kyle G.”

  Both Daniel and Ronnie stared disbelievingly at Kyle.

  “You did it!” Ronnie gasped. Even though he was much smaller, he shoved Kyle hard against the wall.

  “Easy.” He held Ronnie back at arm’s length. “It wasn’t me. Check the number. Someone else
sent it to lure her out there.”

  “You could have used another phone.”

  “Quiet.” Daniel took hold of Ronnie’s shoulders and pulled him away from Kyle. “Don’t make the librarian come over here. Hang on now. Let’s figure this out.”

  Ronnie jerked away from Daniel but, at least for the moment, held back from going after Kyle, though he glared at him and looked like he was ready to go at him again any moment.

  It only took a second to verify that the number wasn’t from Kyle’s phone. Daniel asked him, “Is there any way Emily would have known that the text wasn’t from you? I mean, she didn’t have your actual number, did she?”

  “No. No way.”

  “Then somehow, whoever texted her knew she had a crush on you and—”

  “She had a crush on you?” Ronnie snapped.

  “It only means,” Daniel said, “that someone was able to use that to get her out to Windy Point alone. It doesn’t mean it was Kyle.”

  He scrolled through the texts and didn’t see any others from that number. When he went to the incoming and outgoing calls, the number never came up.

  “There’s one way to figure out whose number that is.” Kyle pulled out his cell. “Call it.”

  CHAPTER

  FIFTY-SIX

  Kyle tapped in the number.

  No one picked up.

  No voicemail.

  No surprise.

  Whoever had sent the text could easily have used a prepaid phone and destroyed it, or maybe he—or she—just wasn’t answering it.

  The three boys only had a couple minutes before the tardy bell would ring.

  Ronnie had class on the other end of the building and had to leave, but told them to fill him in if they found out anything. He didn’t look convinced that Kyle was innocent, but apparently trusted Daniel enough to let things be for the time being.

  Daniel and Kyle had class on this wing, so they decided they could spare another minute or two.

  Kyle replaced the three phones in his backpack. “When I was looking up info on ’em I found that they’re all pretty new, only from the last couple years.”

  “That fits with when the two girls died at those other schools.”

  “So you found some girls who died?”

  “Yeah. A girl in her car in her garage and an overdose. The first was a suicide. They called the second one accidental.” Then he added, “Both of them died on nights when we had away football games at their schools.”

  “Mr. McKinney might very well have attended the games,” Kyle replied. “And if he did kill girls in those other towns, who would suspect him?” He gestured toward a nearby bookshelf. “Come on. We need to see if there are any pictures of those games.”

  The two of them quickly flipped through the library’s reference copies of Beldon High yearbooks from the years when the girls had died.

  They found photos from each of the football games.

  In the picture that the school photographer had taken of the Roosevelt High game, Daniel recognized one of the cheerleaders as also being in the photo of the math club that Mr. McKinney had led there, the photo he’d seen in his house.

  She was in the background, walking right past Coach Jostens.

  “That’s the girl who overdosed,” he said softly.

  The tardy bell rang and they both scooted out of the library, agreeing to touch base tonight as soon as they could after Daniel’s football practice.

  For the remainder of the school day, Daniel wrestled with the headache, but it was making it harder and harder for him to concentrate.

  He tried desperately to piece things together.

  The football games.

  Three dead girls.

  Three phones in Mr. McKinney’s closet.

  He’s friends with Coach Jostens, plus he’s a teacher. Going to the games makes sense.

  After school, Nicole met up with him while he was on his way to change for practice. She smiled warmly at him. “Thank you, Daniel.”

  “For what?”

  She looked at him curiously. “You know.”

  “I’m sorry, I . . .”

  “The necklace, silly.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She reached down and untucked the necklace she had on.

  It was the one that Emily Jackson had been wearing in the photos at the funeral and on her grave, the necklace she’d pulled through her neck when she appeared to Daniel at the football game.

  He could barely get the words out. “Where did you get that?”

  “It was in my locker.”

  “It’s not from me.”

  “Of course it is.” Nicole unsnapped the clasp on the locket and flicked it open.

  Inside was a picture of Daniel’s face, cut out from the newspaper article about last week’s game.

  He stared at it.

  “No . . . Nicole, that’s . . .”

  “Are you saying someone else put your picture in the locket and then gave it to me? Who would do that? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Mr. McKinney.

  He slid it through the ventilation holes at the top of her locker.

  But why Nicole?

  The dance. He was there at the punch table. He could have seen you talking with her, maybe even saw you two leave together. Teachers hear things too. Maybe he heard she likes you.

  He knows.

  He gave her Emily’s necklace.

  He’s setting you up for—

  Mr. Reicher, the school principal, was striding down the hallway toward them.

  “Something’s up, Nicole,” Daniel said. “I want you to go straight home.”

  “What is it?” The confusion on her face descended into fear. “Is it something to do with—”

  Before she could finish, Principal Reicher arrived. “Daniel, may I speak with you, please?”

  “Um, sure.” He turned to Nicole. “I’ll text you.”

  “Okay.”

  Daniel had no idea what this was about, but expected they would be going to the school office. However, they headed to the boys’ locker room instead.

  Inside, a bunch of guys were getting ready for football and cross-country practice and stared uncertainly at their star quarterback entering with the school’s principal.

  Both Daniel’s football coaches, Coach Warner and Coach Jostens, were waiting for him by his locker.

  And so was his dad.

  CHAPTER

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  “Can you open this for us, Dan?” his father said.

  “What’s going on?”

  Mr. Reicher answered. “We received word that there’s something in your locker that’s not yours.”

  Received word—what’s that supposed to mean? And why did they call in your dad?

  “No.” Daniel had a sinking, unsettling feeling as he remembered Nicole finding the necklace in hers. “I didn’t take anything from anyone.”

  “Can you open your locker, please?” his dad repeated.

  Daniel flipped through the combination and swung the door to the side.

  His father donned latex crime scene gloves and removed Daniel’s football equipment one item at a time, inspecting them as he did.

  It didn’t take long to find the item that shouldn’t have been in his locker.

  A lens.

  The one from Emily’s glasses.

  His father held it up.

  “I don’t know how that got in there.” Daniel’s voice caught as he tried to explain himself.

  But he thought he did know how it’d gotten in there.

  Yes.

  Mr. McKinney.

  Daniel’s eyes went to the ventilation holes in the locker.

  Yes, just like with Nicole’s locker. He slid it in there!

>   “What’s that from?” Principal Reicher asked Daniel’s father.

  “We’ll have to see.”

  Coach Warner looked at them quizzically. “What’s going on?”

  “Someone must have dropped it in there,” Daniel exclaimed.

  “I’m afraid Daniel is going to miss practice,” his dad told the coaches.

  “I’m telling you,” Daniel said, “I didn’t put that in there.”

  Coach Warner looked worried, which only seemed natural, given the circumstances. “Well, let us know if there’s anything you need us to do.”

  Daniel didn’t like the sound of that. It might very well mean they wouldn’t let him play in tomorrow night’s game.

  His dad went through the rest of the things in his locker, but found nothing else unusual.

  Without a word, he replaced the items and then gestured for Daniel to follow him. From across the room, Coach Jostens’s eyes followed them all the way to the door.

  “You told me you didn’t find the lens,” Daniel’s dad said to him quietly.

  “I was telling the truth. He stuck it in there. He’s trying to set me up.”

  “Who’s trying to set you up?”

  “Mr. McKinney.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Daniel was aware that his father knew Mr. McKinney, but he felt like he didn’t have any choice at this point other than telling the truth, even if it meant getting in trouble for sneaking into his house.

  He told his dad about finding Emily’s phone, but left out Kyle’s name.

  “And how do you know it was her phone?”

  Mentioning Ronnie and the charger might not be good either. “Um . . .”

  “What aren’t you telling me here?”

  He finally realized that he needed to be as up-front as possible. “Kyle has it. He’s the one who found it in Mr. McKinney’s bedroom—along with the phones of two other girls we think Mr. McKinney killed.”

  Daniel wasn’t sure if he should tell his dad about the text that’d been sent to lure Emily out to Windy Point—the message that was supposedly from Kyle.

  He decided to go ahead.

  His father listened in silence. Daniel thought for sure he would rip into him for going into Mr. McKinney’s house, but instead he asked about the cell phones. “And you’re telling me Kyle has these phones?”