He walked past the mysterious door number one, past the little boys and girls rooms, past the owner’s office and all the way to the end. All along the walls, wherever there wasn’t a door, there were forty-eight pound sacks of flour stacked to shoulder height. Above that were black and white photos of the building’s long history. Tim ignored these. He’d gotten all the way to the end and was pushing open the door to the rear parking lot when Kissy caught up.
“No. Not there. Come with me.”
She led him back up the hallway past all the sacks of flour to the first door. As she fumbled with her key ring, the door was opened by a little Hispanic guy in bicycle gear with a haze around him.
“Hi Kissy. What’s up?”
“Hey Jorge. How’s your. . . How’s Raymie? Is she your girlfriend today?”
“Alas, not today.” The man smiled. “But she was last night.”
“Mind if I use the room?” Kissy asked.
Jorge backed up, holding the door. “No. No. Come on in. I’ve got to get changed anyway.”
Kissy leaned on the door as Jorge went back in to gather his things. Tim waited for the smoke in the room to dissipate before he stepped inside. The room was filled with state of the art electronic surveillance equipment. Tim looked at a bank of six screens that blinked between different views of the restaurant. Two screens were dedicated to the kitchen, parking lot, and work areas. Two flipped through views of the front patio and restaurant seating areas. And two flipped through at least six different views of the circular bar where Tim had dosed Koehler with Rohypnal. He swallowed hard and looked for recording equipment. Jorge was clearly not in here to watch the action but that didn’t mean that someone wouldn’t review the footage.
Kissy asked the kid, “Aren’t you at the end of your shift, Jorge?”
“Yeah. Going home.”
“On your bike.”
“You know it! I got a new helmet since my crash last week. So cool.”
“Yeah, I know.” Kissy nodded. “You’re wearing it.”
“Dude. I already changed. Cool.”
“See you Thursday, Jorge.”
“You bring your guitar. We’ll play together. You promised.”
“I know. I can’t wait.” She hugged him and looked into his eyes for a moment. “You’ll be careful getting home, right?”
“Always, man.” Jorge turned and hugged Tim. “Nice to meet you dude. Be good to Kissy. She’s got brothers here. You know what I’m saying?”
Tim pretended he’d been properly threatened. “I will be a gentleman.”
“Not likely,” Kissy muttered as she shut the door on the cyclist. Then she turned on Tim. “He may be a jerk but that doesn’t mean you get to decide he should die.”
Tim took a breath. “There are no cameras in here?”
“No,” Kissy affirmed. “We call it the Big Brother room.”
“Wouldn’t that be a room filled with cameras?”
“This is Big Brother’s room. Nobody watches Big Brother.”
“Right.” Tim smiled. “Is the footage recorded?”
“The owner is fourth generation cop. What do you think?”
Tim started looking through the equipment to see if he could figure out how to erase the last fifteen minutes at the bar. “Is that how you got the job? Your cop boyfriend?”
“Avi and I are just friends.”
“With benefits.”
“Would you have a problem with that, Timothy?”
Tim stopped searching for a moment. “I’ve decided I like it when you call me Timothy.”
Kissy crossed her arms. “I do not date murderers.”
He smiled, thinking of the garlic salad he’d been about to eat when she’d kissed him in Julia’s kitchen. “You just make out with us.”
He sauntered towards her. She backed up.
“No, Tim. I am not interested in you.”
“Really?” He slid his arms around her waist when she hit the wall and couldn’t back away any further. “Because your pupils are awfully dilated for someone who isn’t interested.”
“Tim.”
He leaned in and kissed her neck. “Should I go eat some garlic first?”
“Brit?” Kissy’s voice was husky even as she tried to sound mad.
“I don’t think she’s the garlic type.” He took one of the hands pushing on his chest and gently bit her wrist.
Kissy stopped talking. Her chest rose and fell enticingly as she turned her head away and shut her eyes. Tim slid his long pinkie nail along her cheek, slipped the hand under her hair, and cupped the back of her neck. He waited until she looked back at him. He felt himself smiling as her beauty struck him again. Her eyes made him feel like a man. He leaned closer.
“Do you want me to erase this footage or not?” Kissy barely whispered but it was enough.
Tim let her go.
Eight
Avi shook his head clear and in seconds he was on his feet racing towards the science wing. He pulled his radio from his belt and called in to the station as he ran.
He heard Ralph and Terry running behind him and when he reached the point where the science wing connected to the open central common area, he stopped. Smoke was billowing down the hall and there was an awful chemical smell.
“Terry. You can’t come down here. I’ve called in the fire department. Go to the front doors and lead them in.”
Terry was no idiot. He nodded and headed across the commons. But then he stopped. “Hold on, guys.” He pulled a simple white breathing mask over his head and handed it to Ralph. Then he pulled a blue checked bandanna from the back pocket of his coveralls. “Wish I had two respirator masks,” he said as he pressed the cloth into Avi’s hands.
“No. This is great. Thank you.”
Avi turned and headed down the hall into the smoke as he tied the bandanna around his face. He pulled his sunglasses out of his breast pocket and slipped those on, wishing he had better gear for this sort of thing and trying not to worry about the sixty year old man beside him.
They crept down the hall, visibility severely limited, until Avi felt something crunch under his foot. Glass. He looked to the classroom door on his right. The small window in the door had been blown out and from the state of the wall it looked like the door had been blown open and slammed shut again. He was stepping over to look through the door’s little window when he heard a gathering whoosh that sounded like fireball. He turned and threw Ralph to the ground just as a burst of steam broke out the last bits of glass and tore the door off its hinges.
The physical chaos in the hall was matched by the sounds coming from the room. He heard several panicked voices yelling to each other and a girl screaming. Raising himself carefully off of Ralph, he glanced around at the debris littering the hallway. There was glass everywhere but nothing seemed to be on fire or melting as he feared from a chemistry teacher’s classroom. But there was smoke and the air was filled with debris. Avi helped Ralph struggle to his feet. As the security guard brushed himself off, Avi stepped carefully through the mess, sliding glass aside with his boots on his way to the doorway. He kept his head down, a hand holding Terry’s handkerchief against his mouth and nose. He made it to the doorway just as he was overcome with a coughing fit.
Before he could recover, Ralph made it to the wall on the other side of the door.
“Come out with your hands up or we’re gonna start shooting,” the school security guard yelled through the smoke billowing from the chemistry classroom.
“No,” Avi coughed out. He shook his head at the old man and held his hands clear of his belt. “We’re not.” He had a Glock 9mm holstered on his hip which he had no intention of drawing. “We’re trying to deescalate the situation, Ralph,” he said.
“Those kids built a bomb. They don’t understand anything but violence.”
“Ralph, you don’t even have a gun,” Avi pointed out, trying to work the odds on walking into a cloud of dangerous chemicals versus getting those kids to safety
, especially the one whose screaming was getting weaker with every breath.
As he blinked the grit from his eyes, trying to see through the mess, he remembered the girl with the Stingray. The little redhead had said she was going to find her cousin who was working on a chemistry project. “Kimi!” he yelled. “Kimi, are you in there?”
“Avi?”
Good. She wasn’t the kid who was screaming. “Do you know what happened?”
“Their volcano blew up.”
An image of the sad paper maché volcano he’d built in sixth grade came to his head. “Was it a baking soda volcano?”
Another voice answered, “Kinda.”
“Shut up, Jacob!”
“Jacob. Is that you screaming?” Avi needed to get Jacob to explain himself but he knew he couldn’t go about it directly with a friend pressuring him not to talk.
After a moment’s hesitation, Jacob yelled, “That’s Emily.”
“Sounds like you hurt your friend real bad, Jacob,” Ralph sneered from his hiding place beside the open doorway.
Avi held a hand up to him and add quickly, “Is she bleeding?”
“Don’t tell him!” The mindless piercing scream morphed into words as Emily spoke up. “I’m fine.”
“We can’t see her, Avi,” Kimi yelled.
“Use your bike light, Kimi.” Avi had seen her take it off the handlebars. She’d taken the ten dollar light with her, leaving the thousand dollar Grape Krate laying against the curb.
Staring into the debris-filled gloom of the classroom, Avi saw a small pinprick of light shine out. It turned and illuminated a small cone of the mess in the room. It panned past overturned stools, scattered papers, and a remarkably unbroken beaker, until it settled on a huddled figure.
Emily squeaked and tried to crawl out of the light. She moaned and pulled her hand to her chest. Even from where he was, Avi could see the blood.
“Jacob! I need to get to Emily. Is there any chance there’s poison in the air?”
“I shaved magnesium into the volcano.” The boy sounded like he was crying. “I’m so sorry Emily.”
“Asshole!”
Avi knew magnesium and baking soda alone could not have caused this kind of explosion. But he decided he had to get the girl out of the room. He told Ralph to guard the door and ducked through the doorway, carefully pushing aside books and overturned desks as he followed Kimi’s small light. The smell made his eyes water but he tied the handkerchief more tightly around his face, put his head down, and kept walking.
When he reached the girls, Kimi was comforting the older girl, murmuring that everything was going to be okay. Emily was babbling nonsense.
“Moira was supposed to be here. He meant this for Moira.”
“Emily, he likes her. He doesn’t want to kill her.”
“He likes Emily too, Kimi!” the angry boy’s voice hissed in the dark.
Jacob yelled, “Shut up, Conner!”
“What if he found out what we did?!” Emily wailed.
Avi crouched by the girls. He spoke firmly, “It’s going to be okay. I can help. I’m a cop.”
Emily, her face mutilated by terror and chemical burns looked into his eyes and screamed again.
Nine
Tim and Kissy stood quietly in the Big Brother room listening to the humming of the CPUs and each other’s pounding hearts. Tim shook his head ruefully. He sighed and walked away to the rolling chair in front of the monitors. He spun it twice and then sat, facing Kissy.
“Yes,” he admitted. “I would like you to erase the evidence that I tried to roofie an asshole.”
She shook her head. “You tried to kill him.”
“Nope.” He swung in the chair a little. “It’s just Rohypnol. At the speed he was downing those Tanq and tonics it’s unlikely anyone would notice a difference in his behavior.” He played with the orange hair on a blue troll doll sitting on the console. “We’ll be out of here before it kicks in anyway. I wouldn’t kill him where the body could be examined. Not this guy. He’s too well known.”
“No. You don’t get to make that decision,” Kissy insisted. “I will only erase the footage if you promise you won’t kill him.”
Tim surprised her by acquiescing instantly. “I promise.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I promise you I will not kill Coach Kevin Koehler.” He stood and offered her the seat.
She took the seat and pulled out a sliding extension holding the keyboard. She quickly punched in the sequence of passwords she’d guessed on the third try. As she pulled up a list of file structures on one of the screens and scanned the footage represented, Tim strolled over and leaned against the section of wall that had been warmed by her body.
“Because after you hear why I’ve been hired, you’ll kill him for me.”
Kissy stopped typing. She spun the chair to face him, ready to argue. But what she saw in his eyes chilled her. She paused for a second and then turned back to the keyboard. She glanced up at the screen focused on Coach Koehler tossing back his drink.
After a moment, she changed the view to the law student, Davis and turned to the file list. She continuing deleting the relevant views. “So tell me.”
“He’s touching his students. The girls.” Tim watched her carefully.
She pulled up a second data stream and worked on re-sorting the files. When she spoke, she didn’t look at him. “They should talk to an adult about it.”
“They talked to me.”
“A responsible adult,” Kissy amended.
Tim picked his next words carefully. “Isn’t that what you did sophomore year?”
Kissy looked at him in shock. “What do you know?”
He looked up at the monitors to avoid her eyes. “I know you were playing soccer in long sleeves and sweatpants in ninety degree weather.” When she didn’t respond he went on. “All the guys in that class saw how he treated you. How he touched you. They tried to keep him away. They tried to help you.”
Kissy spoke almost to herself. “Greg Nerko said I should tell Ms. Frazer.”
Tim sighed, knowing the answer. “And what did she do?”
Kissy punched some keys and one monitor held steady on the view of Kevin Koehler getting up from his seat. He walked out of the shot. Kissy pulled up a stack of files and deleted them. Then she pulled up a view of Brit hunching over her empty glass. Kevin stalked closer to her, smiling.
Tim barely heard Kissy’s reply as he raced out the door. “She told me I was imagining things.”
Ten
Kissy sat in the Big Brother room watching the monitors and thinking about the gym teacher who had targeted her in high school. Girls never talked about it but they stretched differently when he was around. They dressed differently in his classes. Mostly they didn’t take his class more than once. Except Julia. Kissy’s BFF was the only girl to ever request his class. She took floor hockey for gym Senior year. Every Tuesday and Thursday she pretended to have lousy aim. Every Tuesday and Thursday she’d swipe the stick with all of her strength at the puck and miss, more often than not hitting the teacher who never figured out it was all deliberate.
But he didn’t do anything that a girl could really report. Kissy wasn’t even sure he was doing anything wrong until Ms. Frazer blew her off. Then she knew. Her heart told her that she shouldn’t feel ashamed for simply being a girl. She’d had Julia. She’d had Greg.
Now the girls who suffered this Kevin Koehler had Tim.
Kissy watched the monitor as Tim interrupted Koehler’s conversation with the beautiful young Brit. She saw Tim walk Brit out of the restaurant, Koehler staring at them until a family approached him. Mom, Dad, and a teenaged daughter. Kissy watched as Koehler maneuvered himself between the parents and the girl.
She stood up from the rolling chair. Quickly she closed the reorganized file structure and reset the screens for random surveillance. She stepped outside the Big Brother room and punched a sack of flour. Then she strode as fast as could stil
l be called a walk back to the bar.
“Coming in!” she called out as she swung under the bar. “Thanks for the break, Jessica. You go ahead and take fifteen if you want.”
“Thanks! Just refilled everyone. Shawn finally finished his Glenfiddich. Kevin bought him another one.” Jessica rolled her eyes. “There’s a new trio talking to Kevin. They said they were good but you might want to check again. He’ll want another drink soon.”
She air kissed Kissy and swung on the brass rail out of the bar. Kissy grabbed a rag and wiped the bar as she worked her way around, thinking. As she passed Shawn, she pulled the glass of whiskey out of his hand towards her side of the bar. She looked him in the eye for a second and then moved with purpose around to where Koehler was sliding his hand along the daughter’s lower back.
Kissy pulled the work tablet from her apron and swiped open Kevin Koehler’s tab. She quickly added a couple of expensive drinks to it and shouted out as his fingers dipped south of the girl’s belt.
“Kevin!”
He turned and his hand moved up to her shoulder blades again.
Kissy smiled at the parents. “Excuse me. I hate to interrupt. Kevin, your tab passed a hundred. Freckled Dog policy, we just need a quick signature.”
She handed the entire pad and stylus to Koehler so that he would have to use both of his hands. He looked confused but he took the stylus and signed where she pointed. The instant he removed his hand from her back, the girl headed for the exit.
She muttered to her father, “I’ll get the car. Can I drive?”
The father laughed and gave Koehler’s hand a quick pump before he followed her out. He called over his shoulder, “Hope your confirmation goes smoothly. Although I’m sure Sarah will be sad to lose you as a teacher.”
The mother shook his hand for longer. She didn’t seem to notice the teacher watching her daughter’s ass. But Kissy did. She tucked the tablet in her apron and turned her attention to the non-whiskey drinking young man.
She planted her hands on the bar in front of him. “Shawn.”
“Yes ma’am?”
Killer on Call 6 Book Bundle (Books 1-6) Page 7
