“What do you want?” she hissed, pacing back and forth like she had to pee.
“You don’t get to run ahead. We both approach him at the same time. He sounds like he’s destroying school property. He could be on something, or just losing it.”
“Okay, okay.” She hopped once then took off again.
“Cristina, stop.”
She didn’t stop, but she slowed down.
Two more crashes. We took a left, then I saw a sign for the gymnasium and an arrow indicating the direction.
Another smash, and this one I could feel in my gut. With Cristina now at my side, we moved slowly down the hall, where it cut left about ten feet, then continued onward. I pulled up next to the edge of the wall. Another smash, and then I saw shards of glass sliding across the floor right in front of us.
He shouted, and then another smash. I peeked around the corner—he was mid-swing with a baseball bat, but he still saw me out of the corner of his eye. He finished his swing, connected with what was left of a trophy case.
“I don’t care if you see me,” he shouted.
I moved from around the corner, Cristina next to me. “Brandon, why are you so upset?” I asked.
“Because!” Spit flew out of his mouth, as he adjusted his grip on the bat. I noticed a trail of blood snaking down his forehead. “Everything is fucked up. That’s why.” He lifted the bat high above his head and screamed as he thrust it downward, blowing up a shelf of glass and trophies.
Cristina and I jumped back a step to avoid the glass. He turned and wiped sweat off his brow, but he smeared blood all over his face. Maybe he’d scraped a shard of glass into his skin.
“Brandon, you’re scaring us.”
“I apparently scare a lot of people.” He noticed the top of a broken trophy on the floor, and he put the bat up against it, then swung the bat like a golf club, propelling the broken trophy against the wall. “Dude, just chill and we can talk it out,” Cristina said.
He didn’t lift his head, but I could see his eyes shift in our direction again. He didn’t have a good history with girls her age. I nudged her with my elbow, hoping she’d get the hint to be quiet.
“Brandon, just put the bat—”
“She won’t call me back.”
“Who?”
He kicked a piece of a trophy, then took a swing at a wooden board that dangled by a nail. When he connected, the sound was like a solid hit at a baseball game.
“Who, Brandon? Who won’t call you back?”
He finally glanced in my direction. “Jasmine, of course. We texted, but I wanted to apologize in person. To make things right. I know it’s probably too late for that.” He lifted the bat above his head, shouting to the point of his face turning red. He swung the bat with everything he had, but he missed his target, slipped on broken glass and fell onto his hands and knees. “Fuck it all to hell.” He picked up each hand. Blood dripped to the floor. “Oh well, I guess I won’t be able to throw a football the rest of the season.” He chuckled, used the bat to push himself to a standing position.
My eyes, however, focused on one thing, my heartbeat rising rapidly. His necklace was now on the outside of his T-shirt. On the pendant, two letters were prominently displayed within a circle.
44
I had to move closer to see. I shuffled a couple of steps, but Cristina grabbed my arm.
I ignored her and spoke to Brandon. “I hear the coaches here really suck.”
He chuckled. “You have no idea.”
“Why don’t you fill me in?”
“They’re just pricks, that’s all. All they care about is winning a state championship. Meanwhile, they cut us down, throw shit at us, threaten us…well, some of us.” He turned, extended the arm that held the bat as if he were pointing at something. “Hell, my teammate Benito was gay, and the coach encouraged some of the brainless losers on the team to harass him, make him feel like shit.”
Could one of the coaches be involved in these killings? I wanted to ask his opinion, but he whirled around and took out another glass shelf. He spotted something on the floor, and he picked up a piece of a trophy. “And here it is. Last year when I was a junior, we made it all the way to the state semis. That was supposed to serve as motivation for us to work even harder to make it all the way to the championship. But dammit, they treated us like animals. Worse than animals. There was too much pressure.”
“Is that when you started being physical with girls?”
He brought the bat to his head. For a second, I thought he might ram it into his skull. Then he turned and looked at me for a quick second. “How did you find out about Mia?”
“I told you I’m a PI. But it doesn’t matter how. Do you know where she is?”
“I told you the other day I don’t know anything.”
“And nothing has changed?”
“I’m not a liar.”
I wanted to challenge him on that one.
“I hope she’s okay and everything. It’s kind of weird how she just disappeared off the planet.”
His rage had dissipated, and he sounded sincere. And since he was unloading everything else about how he felt, I was inclined to believe him. I took advantage of what seemed like a truth-telling trend.
“Do you mind if you tell me what’s on your chain?”
He looked at the necklace with a blank face, grabbed it in his fist. “I don’t care anymore. It has two letters, N-S.”
“Does it stand for Nightsteppers?”
He cocked his head. “You’re pretty frickin’ smart. Wait, don’t tell me. Did Jasmine tell you?”
“Nightsteppers, as in Highsteppers?” Cristina said with astonishment in her voice.
“That’s right. Ivy just figured it out. Then again, we didn’t exactly hide it. We painted it on the side of the fieldhouse. Then the rain came, and we figured it was fate. No one was supposed to find out. And we’d just continue doing our thing.”
I heard footsteps behind me. I glanced over my shoulder to see Stan, Brook, and a horde of uniforms moving toward us.
“So you admit to killing those animals?” Cristina asked.
Brandon set his jaw, then looked at the mess surrounding him. After a few seconds, he said, “We had to. We had to make a statement. What we did to those animals…that’s how they were treating us. All the coaches.”
He put his hands to his eyes.
“Was Jasmine part of this little team of Nightsteppers?” I asked.
I heard people approaching and looked over my shoulder. Stan was in the lead, and I waved at him and his team to stop. We were getting so much out of Brandon I couldn’t afford for him to clam up.
“Jasmine. She was supposed to be the one,” he said as if he were only talking to himself.
I wasn’t sure I understood. “The one what?”
“The one for me, dammit.”
I could see tears well in his eyes. His breathing picked up.
“Were you aware of her sexting scandal and what that was doing to her?” Cristina asked.
“Yeah…no. I mean, I don’t know. It was crazy. This other chick, Ashley, kind of threw herself at me at a party, and then next thing I know, I’m getting all these crazy text messages with her in handcuffs. Jasmine found them and went ape-shit, thinking I was sleeping with Ashley.” He shook his head and gasped out a breath.
“Were you?” Cristina asked.
I nudged her again.
He looked up and nodded. “But I didn’t mean to. It just happened.”
I could feel my heart thumping in my chest. It was difficult to listen to Brandon’s confessions. On top of being mentally unstable, he and his friends were swimming in shark-infested waters.
“The crazy thing is,” he continued, “that’s kind of how Jasmine stole me away from Mia.”
I gasped. I couldn’t help it. “You sure you don’t know anything about Mia disappearing?”
Cristina leaned forward, her hands balling into fists. “If you’re holding out on us an
d she’s being held captive, I’m going to…”
I waited to see how he’d respond.
“Are you crazy or something? I may not be the best boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend, but kidnapping? That’s not my style.”
“That’s true, you just kill animals and use Satanic symbols.”
“Don’t you get it? It was just to fuck with the minds of the coaches. They fucked with us, so we fucked with them.”
I knew Stan and Brook could hear all of this. Brandon would be arrested and might serve time. But there was more going on at this school than a bunch of hoodlum kids crossing the line. The coaches were doing some bad shit. Hopefully, the SAPD could put a stop to it.
He held up his bat, then threw it to the floor. Stan and Brook appeared on either side of me. Brandon just nodded. “I get it. I’m guilty. But can you do me a favor?” he asked as the cops ran up to cuff him.
“What?” I said at the same time as Stan.
“Check on Jasmine.”
“She’s better off without you,” Cristina said.
He rolled his eyes. “Seriously. She and I texted earlier. I told her I was sorry and I wanted to tell her in person. She invited me over, said I could sneak in through her window. I got there, did my three knocks, but she wasn’t there.”
“Don’t you think she was just blowing you off? You did hurt her earlier,” I said.
“Nah, man. I mean, at first I thought she might be. I called her about a dozen times. But I even called her parents, acted all coy and shit. They don’t know where she is.”
Brook read him his rights as Stan came over and talked to me and Cristina. But I was lost in my own thoughts, trying to reconcile everything I’d heard.
“Nice work, even if it was a little unconventional,” I finally heard Stan say.
“It was all Cristina,” I said, looking beyond Stan to Brandon. He was staring at me.
“You’re going to check on Jasmine, right?” Brandon asked.
“Ignore him,” Stan said, putting his back to the boy.
“I’m not joking. Too much crazy shit is going on with kids in our school. I know I hurt her, but I want to make sure she’s okay.”
I replayed the last several hours. We wouldn’t have learned any of this had we not been in the MACC at the time Brandon had chased down Jasmine.
“Please. I’m serious,” Brandon yelled.
I tried not to look at him.
“Are you hearing me? Do you want something to happen to Jasmine? Yes, she was a fellow Nightstepper, but she’s not like me. She doesn’t deserve to have anything happen to her. She’s a good person. She even goes to church.”
I heard shoes crunching on broken glass as they walked Brandon past us. He continued his plea. “So you’re really going to turn your back on Jasmine? Damn. And here I thought you cared.”
A snapshot of the first time I saw Jasmine at the MACC flew into my mind. I flipped around. “Is she Catholic?”
“Hell yes. Her parents make her go to Mass twice a week.”
“Has she ever used the confessional at the MACC?”
“Earlier today, why?”
I grabbed Stan and walked as fast I could out of the high school.
45
I made Stan pull out of the parking lot before I shared with him where my thoughts had gone—that someone from the MACC staff was the teen killer and, very likely, Mia’s kidnapper.
“Are you losing it?” he practically yelled, putting on his blinker, about to do a U-turn to head back to the school.
I grabbed the steering wheel. “Hold on.”
He punched the brake, and I lunged forward, his eyes moving from the steering wheel to me. “I may not have two good arms, Ivy, but I can drive just fine, thank you.”
“Sorry. Look, I know this might be a long shot, especially since we can’t verify my theory.”
“Call Dr. Amaya. You have his number, right?”
I opened my lips, but all that came out was a pained grunt.
“What is it, Ivy?”
“Things just don’t appear to be right with him. He seems off.” That wasn’t what I meant to say. “No, he’s more than off. He’s… I don’t know.”
“I can’t read your mind. What are you thinking?”
“I’m concerned that Dr. Amaya has gone off the deep end and that maybe he’s the actual killer.” I released a long sigh. “There, I said it.”
Stan groaned while shaking his head.
“Or maybe he’s part of something bigger. I’m not sure. Something is going on, and if I call him, I might be alerting the very person who’s in the middle of this. And then we might never catch him.”
Now it was his turn to release a long sigh. “I should be home in bed, getting my sleep. That’s as important as eating healthy and exercising.”
I gave him a strange look.
“I’m only saying that because this, what you’re saying, is a shot in the dark.”
“I could debate you on that, but we’re wasting time. Will you drive?”
He turned his palm upward and shrugged. “Where?”
“South on La Pressa.” That was the general direction of the two missions where murders had not occurred, not including the Alamo. But I knew the Alamo was guarded like it was the US Treasury.
The government-issued vehicle rumbled down the mostly empty road as I thought about our ultimate destination. “You had guards placed at each of the missions, right?”
“Sure did.” Stan pulled to a stop at red light.
“What are you doing?”
“The light is red.”
“Someone…Jasmine, at this very moment, could be on the verge of being killed. Of having a stake driven through her heart.”
“They did that to Dracula.”
“Whatever. Just drive.”
He punched the gas, ran the light—there wasn’t another pair of car headlights within a hundred yards—and picked up speed. “So, what’s your guess on where I should go?”
He was doubting my instinct. And the more I thought about it, I was too. “Look, we know the killer will strike again, right?”
“I’m hoping we can catch him, or them, first.”
I nodded. “The first two killings came at the two most northerly missions, Concepcion and San Jose. We’re leaving the Alamo out of this discussion, since it’s guarded so well and it’s right in the middle of the city.”
Stan scratched his stubble. “But the Alamo property is huge. Plus it’s all enclosed by a wall. Maybe they want us to think that they’d never try anything at the Alamo. Should I head back north?” He put his hand on his blinker, then checked his rearview.
“I’m certain about nothing. But I’m thinking there are just too many people around the Alamo for the killer to do what he wants. Remember, he plans all of this out; he typically lures his victim to the location. Your ME said the killings took place right there in the churches.”
“I’m following you.” He removed his hand from the blinker.
“Logic would say that if you look at a map, the killer would target the mission just south of San Jose.”
He inched up in his seat. “So you think this is all going down at Mission San Juan?”
I rubbed the back of my neck, looking out the window into the starry nighttime sky, searching for some signal to tell me how this killer thought, where he set up. I knew I could be wrong about the whole thing, including Dr. Amaya. From my peripheral vision, I saw Stan playing with his phone. “What are you doing?” I asked, moving my hand toward the steering wheel.
“Don’t you dare,” he said, with his fake hand clamped on the steering wheel. “I’m going to put in a call to the station and have them connect me with the guard at Mission San Juan.”
“Hold it.”
“What now?”
For a moment, the only sound came from the tires crossing seams in the road.
He said, “Are you thinking he might skip one, just to throw us off? So I should contact the guard at Mission
Espada?”
He went back to his phone.
I started shaking my head.
“What? You still don’t think that’s the right guess?”
“The two girls were killed at the most northerly location, Mission Concepcion; Benito at Mission San Jose. For some reason, my mind is thinking his habits have been established. He will kill all female victims at the original location, Mission Concepcion.”
“I’ll go with it, but it’s just a WAG.” He shot me a glance. “You know what that is, don’t you?”
“Wild-ass guess. And I agree with you.”
After a quick exchange with the station operator, he gave me a quick look and nodded. We turned west on Mitchell, but he wasn’t talking.
I pointed at the turn into the parking lot. “Don’t miss the—”
The car cut left, bouncing into the lot. He quickly shut off his lights and glided to a stop at the far end.
46
Stan dropped his phone in his pocket.
“No answer?”
“It rolled to voicemail. Maybe the officer fell asleep. It’s awful dark out here.”
With our heads on swivels, we walked across the grass to the front door of Mission Concepcion. An empty chair sat off to the side. It was dark, but I could see the white in Stan’s eyes as he looked my way. He punched something on his phone, then put it away and removed his pistol from his shoulder holster. He motioned for me to move behind him.
I complied, then he leaned his ear to the door.
“Hear anything?” I whispered.
“Nothing. I don’t want to go in there blind. I need a…” He took a step back, then walked to the right. I followed closely behind. He stopped at a window, stood on his tiptoes.
“See anything?”
“It’s dark. I think it’s a side room next to the sanctuary.”
“We going around back?” The complex was actually rather large. A stone-covered outdoor hallway was attached to the side of the sanctuary, and a low wall jutted out from the end. The main building of the church was rather deep and had several offshoots behind it.
The Ivy Nash Thrillers: Books 4-6: Redemption Thriller Series 10-12 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set) Page 71
