Had he skipped school? Maybe he knew I’d be looking for him. I looked up and saw a kid wearing a letterman’s jacket with a football on the sleeve; he was pulling out his keys as he cut between two sports cars. I quickly moved in that direction—that was a mistake. My head started spinning, and everything tilted to the left. I tilted too, my elbow banging against the hood of a car.
“What the hell, lady?”
It was the football player, but I was too busy trying to keep myself from tumbling to the ground to say anything. I twisted my torso, placed both hands on the hood, and let out a breath.
“Are you going to keel over and die or something?”
“Sorry,” I said, glancing up.
His eyes got wide. “Whoa, what happened to you?”
I planted my butt against the side of the car, then touched the bandage on my face. “I was mugged.” My ability to be subtle had left me. “Can you tell me if you’ve seen Brandon McCarthy at school today?”
“Oh, Little Bitch?” he said with a smirk.
What was it with everyone at this high school having “bitch” as a nickname? “So, have you seen him?”
“Not sure. Coach called off football practice today. We had a teammate, uh…”
“I heard. It’s really sad.”
“Yeah, I guess he was pretty cool and all. I didn’t know him that well.” He looked off for a moment.
“But he was your teammate, so it’s okay to be upset.”
“I’m not upset.” He bowed out his chest.
I assumed he felt his reputation as a tough football player would be ruined if he showed any emotion. “No worries. I’m sure Benito had some close friends on the team.”
“Eh.” He rocked back and forth on his feet a bit.
How could I not inquire further after that response? “Was Benito disliked?”
He picked a nail for a few seconds, then said, “Some guys thought he was a little…you know.”
“I don’t know.”
“They were thinking he might be a little light on his feet, if you know what I’m saying.”
He was gay. In the regular world, that mattered very little to people, for the most part. On a high school football team, however, even in the twenty-first century, they probably weren’t as open-minded. “Has anyone talked about why he was at the mission?”
“Huh? Nah. No clue. Wasn’t he Catholic, though? Confession of sins and all that, maybe? Listen, I need to get going and everything.”
“What about Brandon?”
“Some seniors left early since athletics is the last period of the day. What do you want with him anyway?”
I remembered he was the kid and I was the adult, so I ignored his question. “Any idea on where he might have gone?”
Another smirk. “What do I look like, his mother? Damn.” He twirled his key chain around his fingers a couple of times. “You’re asking a lot of questions about Little Bitch. You a cop? You don’t look like a cop.”
“I guess you answered your own question. By the way, why do you call Brandon ‘Little Bitch’?”
“Oh, well, it’s really something we picked up from Coach Rossi. He started calling Brandon his Little Bitch. He teased him a lot. Made him run a lot of gassers for mouthing off. Pretty much treated him like—”
“His little bitch.”
A quick chuckle. “Yeah, that.”
“Does Coach Rossi ride anyone else like that?”
His face went blank, and he didn’t respond. I must have crossed some imaginary line, and he now saw me as the enemy.
I quickly said, “You don’t have to tell me. I was just wondering, that’s all. I mean, my basketball coach in high school was a tyrant. She’d push us around, throw balls at us, make us run until we puked our guts out. That woman was the most hated person in the school.” I was a little surprised with my mental agility to create a complete fabrication on the fly. I was hoping he’d open up, give me the scoop on this coach-hating vibe we’d seen out of Jasmine’s friends and Brandon.
He crossed his arms and nodded. “I need to get going. I’ve got a lot of homework.”
I pushed off the car to a standing position. Hello, blood rush. I got lightheaded and reached for the car in the adjacent space. Was someone yelling my name? When I was able to focus, I saw the ugly scowl of Principal Peterson closing in fast from about ten feet away. “Ivy Nash, you have no right being on this campus, harassing my students. You are trespassing, do you hear me?”
Damn, this guy was a nag. “Do you even know what’s going on in your school?”
His feet pounded the ground as he entered my personal space. “What are you talking about? I get the most out of my staff, and our students have higher test scores than any other high school in the district.”
A waft of warm tuna fish blew right into my face. I tried covering my nose.
“Are you drunk too? Good Lord, you can’t keep your balance. Is that booze I smell on you?”
Before I could respond, he had a phone to his ear. “I’d like to report a trespasser on our school property. Okay, yes I’ll hold.” He gave me another one of his smug looks.
I thought he was going to stick his tongue out at me. I wanted to slap him. I heard a chirp, and through the mental fog and the tuna-fish haze, I plucked my phone from my pocket. It was a text from Cristina.
Get ur ass over to the MACC. Brandon just showed up.
I tapped my Uber app and happily left Peterson in the parking lot.
39
Cristina handed me a power bar, then she tore the wrapper on hers and took a bite. She noticed I was looking at her. “Go ahead, eat the damn thing. I’m telling you, it will help with all your…issues.”
“I don’t have issues. I’m just a little lightheaded, that’s all.” Still, though, all I’d had to eat was soup. So, I followed her lead and tried the power bar. “Mmm. Pretty good.” I then noticed how many grams of sugar were on the wrapper. “Not sure this is going to help me.”
“It’s not Stan-approved, if that’s what you mean.”
It was amazing that Stan’s approach to health and diet was the new standard.
“You lost Brandon how soon after he arrived?” We were standing in the large, open area downstairs at the MACC, as kids milled about in their various cliques.
“Five minutes, max. I texted you that I wanted to grab his ass, get Dr. Amaya to help me detain him, but you said to hold off.”
“We’re not the cops,” I reminded her. My eyes were diverted to Dr. Amaya. He had a group of people in his office. He was standing at a whiteboard that had a bunch of numbers on it. “Wonder how long this budget meeting will take place,” I said.
Cristina looked over her shoulder at the girl who logged in everyone who entered the MACC. “Why don’t we just make her show us the logs so we can see if he snuck out when I wasn’t looking? What she going to do, sue us?”
“And exactly how do you think we should go about that?”
“There’s two of us…” She paused, gave me the once-over. “Well, right now, we’re about at a one point five.”
“Funny.” I bit off another piece of the candy bar disguised as a power bar. “We’re not bullying that girl into giving us the logs.” I let out a frustrated breath and watched a group of teenage girls walk by. They were all on their phones, taking selfies and smacking on gum.
Cristina leaned closer to me. “I never knew cheerleaders could be so talented. Taking selfies, chewing gum at the same time.” She brought a hand to her face, then mockingly said, “Can I be one of them?”
“You cheering for anyone would be a positive.” I saw the same pack of girls ignore another girl who’d appeared to have asked one of them a question. She had a book and wore thick-rimmed glasses. “It’s amazing how mean kids can be,” I said, shifting my sights around the facility, looking for any sign of Brandon. “Are you sure you checked all those side rooms when you searched for Brandon?”
“Everywhere except the boys’ bathroom
.”
“Maybe he was in there.”
“I waited outside for five minutes.”
“How about the ping-pong room?”
“That too.”
“Did he see you when he came in?”
“Don’t think so, but he doesn’t really know me.”
Just then, the door to Dr. Amaya’s office opened, and a bunch of folks walked out. They either had gray hair or wrinkles, or both. As I approached them, I could hear a number of them blowing out breaths, like they were exhausted after a torturous, long meeting.
“Were you holding them hostage in there, Doctor?” I joked as we met just outside his office.
He gave me a funny look. Actually, it wasn’t funny. It was more like instantly pissed. “Uh, no, Ivy,” he said with a serious tone.
“Dr. Amaya is way too kind to hold anyone hostage,” Clifton said with a hearty smack on the doctor’s back.
The doctor cracked the tiniest of smiles and explained Clifton’s comment. “We went on a wild boar hunting trip in Louisiana a few weeks back. They wanted to trap the animals and hold them in the cage until we could get to them and kill them. Seemed inhumane to me. But hey, I guess I should have thought about that before signing up for a hunting trip.”
I tried to get past the doctor’s odd response and all of their testosterone-fueled games and asked if we could check the logs.
“Why would you want the logs, Ivy?” He tilted his head, acting as if he were holding back a more visceral reaction.
Clifton apparently felt the tension in our space. “I’ll let the two of you continue your discussion without me prying into your business.”
“I didn’t mean to interrupt anything,” I said. “But I do have some urgency with my request.” I glanced upstairs and saw one of the doors open.
Clifton smiled. “No worries, Ivy.” Then he turned and looked at the doctor, whose face was etched with disgust. “Lighten up, Doc. We’ll figure out this budget issue.”
Dr. Amaya shuffled his feet, nodding at Clifton. “I’m good. Think I might head out early today. Maybe I can go to that new target-practice place you told me about to try out the crossbow I picked up since our hunting trip.”
I felt a prick at the base of my skull. Crossbow?
Clifton said he had some work to do on his family farm, waved goodbye, and headed toward the exit.
For a moment, that left Dr. Amaya and me alone in our space. It was like the great stare-off. I hadn’t felt this way about him since I first met him, when his seemingly hateful glare had felt like a violation to my womanhood. Of course, it had turned out to be nothing. Apparently, he thought I looked like his daughter and couldn’t stop staring at me. Now, though, I had a different vibe. Irritation bordering on outright anger.
“Did I upset you, Doctor?”
He looked off for a moment, releasing a breath. “It’s nothing. Why did you need to see the logs? We have our policies for a reason, you know.”
He was still being short with me. And it was starting to piss me off.
Cristina suddenly hopped next to me and smacked my shoulder. “Ivy, we’ve got a Brandon sighting.” She took off for the front door.
I started following her, but my fragile state wouldn’t allow anything more than a fast walk. I then spotted Jasmine and, about twenty feet behind her, Brandon. I couldn’t see their faces, so I wasn’t sure if they were running together or if he was chasing her.
My body wanted to break into a sprint, but I couldn’t. As it was, I felt like I was driving forty miles an hour on a solid sheet of ice. Cristina was up ahead of me, but Jasmine had just run out the door, followed quickly by Brandon. “Dammit,” I said, pumping my arms. Just then, a little kid holding a drink cut right in front of Cristina. She tried to jump over him and fell to the ground.
“You okay?” I asked, walking past her as she rolled to her side. I felt like I was moving at the pace of a tortoise.
She moaned, “I’m fine.” She got to her feet, and we reached the door at the same time. We slammed the door open.
“I always thought you were a worthless slut.” Brandon had Jasmine by her hair. She tried pulling away, whimpering. I bolted out of my stance, but before I took two steps, he threw her to the ground. She tumbled toward me and Cristina.
“Brandon!” I yelled.
But he paid me no attention. He ran off like the chickenshit he was.
40
Cristina sprinted down the sidewalk after Brandon.
“What are you doing?” I yelled, as I dropped to my knees. “Are you okay, Jasmine?”
Gasping out breaths, she tried to push herself off the sidewalk, but as she put pressure on her arm, she dropped back.
“Let me see your arm.”
She raised her elbow to show a contusion. A large bruise had already formed around a bloody scrape. “Can you move it?”
She moved it about six inches but moaned in the process.
“You need to get to the emergency room. It might be broken.” I helped her to a sitting position.
“I’m fine.” A single tear rolled down her cheek, but she quickly wiped it away.
I heard the quick shuffle of shoes, and I lifted my sights to see Cristina pulling up next to us. “That motherfucker…” She put her hands on her knees, panting. “He’s…he’s frickin’ quick. He hauled ass around the corner, then cut in front of this truck. Almost got hit, but somehow dodged it, then disappeared down an alley. I lost him.”
“We’ll get him.” I pulled out my phone.
“Who are you calling?” Jasmine asked.
“Who else? The cops,” Cristina said. “They better catch Brandon before I do. I’m going to beat his ass.”
I glared at Cristina, hoping she’d see my signal to dial back the violent response.
“Are you? Are you calling the cops?” Jasmine asked.
I punched Stan’s number and put the phone to my ear. “No need to worry, Jasmine. I’m calling a friend of mine, a detective. He’ll know how to handle this. He’ll make sure you’re protected, and he’ll pick up Brandon. We saw everything. He’ll be arrested, and he’ll go to jail for assault.”
Before I knew what had happened, she snatched the phone out of my hand, hung up the call, and tossed the phone toward the building. She then got to her feet and backed away a few steps. “I don’t need the help. I don’t want the help.”
“What the hell are you saying, Jasmine? He threw you to the ground.”
“I’m fine. It’s no big deal. We just had a disagreement.”
“Jasmine.” I took a step forward. She took two steps back, so I stopped. “Jasmine. Are you two a couple?”
“Kind of, yes.”
“This has happened before, hasn’t it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe once, twice. Look, Brandon’s got issues, but so do I. Hell, who doesn’t these days?”
“He’s an abusive boyfriend, Jasmine. He won’t stop. It will only get worse. You need to stay away from him. And we need to call the cops and have him arrested.”
“No, dammit! You’re just going to make it worse.”
Cristina moved next to me “How? He’s got you scared. He’s probably threatened you if you tell anyone, hasn’t he?”
Before she could answer, the door to the MACC opened, and the throng of snobby girls came out. Jasmine glared at me and Cristina. “Just chill,” she whispered.
“Hey, Jas,” the lead girl said, swaying her hips from side to side as if it somehow designated her as the queen of the group.
“Hey,” Jasmine, said, running her fingers through her hair.
They sauntered past us. Two of the girls in the rear of the pack looked over their shoulders at Jasmine and giggled. A few seconds later, Cristina said, “Who are those snobby bitches?”
“Oh, they’re with the Highsteppers, our drill team. They’re full of themselves, but they can make or break your rep if you don’t watch your step around them.”
“Your reputation,” I said, still tryi
ng to wrap my mind around the social pressure I’d just witnessed. “You were just assaulted, and it wasn’t the first time. You don’t need to put up a façade for them.”
“Dammit, you’re just so naïve. If I say or do the wrong thing to the wrong person, then they’ll trash me on Snapchat, Instagram, Reddit, you name it. And then what do I have?”
“Is Brandon one of those wrong people?” Cristina asked.
She tried stretching out her arm and winced. “Maybe, but it doesn’t matter now. I just need to suck it up and I’ll be fine.”
“Is he the guy you had this so-called sexting scandal with?” I asked.
She opened her lips, but closed them just as fast. “It’s complicated.”
“Why?” Cristina said. “I’m in high school too. I know about all of the crazy shit that goes on in the popular crowd, and those who are trying to claw their way into that group. But you don’t have to take part in that. You can break away.”
Tears bubbled in Jasmine’s eyes, and then she looked off for brief second. “I—” She stopped short.
Then she toyed with something through her T-shirt. It had to be a necklace. I wanted to ask her about it, but she was already on edge. I tried to bring down the intensity a bit. “Jasmine, it’s okay. We’re not going to do anything you don’t want us to.”
“Thank you.” Her shoulders dropped an inch. “It’s just that…there’s so much going on. Benito died, and it really hit me hard. I was trying to talk to Brandon about it, but he’s too wrapped up in his own drama to care.”
I glanced at Cristina, then flipped back to Jasmine. “That police detective friend I told you about? He has a whole team of folks working Benito’s murder case around the clock.”
She nodded, but her gaze was still distant. “I’ve been one of those snobby bitches before. I was a Highstepper as a freshman. I’ve been mean, vindictive.” Her chin quivered. “I’m not proud of it. We all need to be cleansed. None of us are perfect.”
The Ivy Nash Thrillers: Books 4-6: Redemption Thriller Series 10-12 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set) Page 69
