Merciless Crimes: A Thrilling Closed Circle Mystery Series (Merciless Murder Mystery Thriller)

by Tikiri Herath

  “Guys, I have to get back to the office,” said Win. “Do you need anything else from me?”

  “We’re good for now,” I said. “Awesome work, Win. Thank you.”

  “Hey, Tetyana was with me when I did this job last night. She said if anyone comes knocking on our door, she’ll take the hit for it.”

  “Good on Tetyana,” I said. “But let’s hope no one comes knocking.”

  “It was a government site. They have lousy security. Took me four and a half minutes,” Win said, a note of glee in her voice. “I erased all my tracks so no one will ever know. Don’t worry.”

  After saying goodbye to her, and assuring her we were fine, Katy and I went downstairs. There was one person I needed to talk to next, and I knew exactly where to find her.

  “Ms. May is having breakfast in her office,” said Cathy, placing a jar of strawberry jam in front of us. “She said to go ahead without her.”

  “We just had a chat with her,” said Katy, picking up her orange juice. “She didn’t look like she was in the mood for breakfast, or anything social for that matter.”

  “Aye, that she isn’t,” replied Cathy, lowering her voice. “Has us all on our toes today, to tell you the truth.”

  “How do you stand it?” I asked, turning to her. “Sounds like she treats everyone horribly.”

  Cathy blinked rapidly.

  “It’s not easy,” she said, looking down. “She doesn’t make it easy for us at all.”

  “Hey, Cathy.” I lowered my voice. “Do you have a few minutes to talk today?”

  She looked at me, her eyes narrowed.

  “It’s about the runaway girl, isn’t it?”

  I nodded. “What do you know about the mayor of this town?”

  Cathy’s face turned pale. “Why do you want to have anything to do with him?”

  “What do you know about him?” I asked.

  She was silent for a minute, her head bowed. When she spoke again, her voice was so low, I had to strain to hear.

  “Be careful. He and Ms. May are good friends. She has him in her—”

  The sound of a loud crash nearby startled us. Cathy jerked her head back as if she’d been shot.

  “Just a kid who dropped her orange juice,” said Katy, pointing at a student at the next table over, who looked like she was about to burst into tears.

  “I, er, really should get back to work,” said Cathy, clutching her apron nervously and turning around. Without another word, she bustled toward the kid.

  Katy and I exchanged a glance. It was too risky to talk out here in the open with the girls and teachers walking by, anyway.

  “This gets more convoluted by the hour,” whispered Katy.

  “We’ll try Cathy later,” I whispered back. “She knows more than she’s saying but I think we can get her to talk.”

  Other than the broken glass of orange juice, the dining hall was subdued that morning.

  Even Ruby was eating quietly at her table, alone this time. I wondered if Jayden’s dismissal had already made the rounds among the staff and students.

  Katy and I finished our toast and tea and walked back up to the third floor, ready with our gloves and Brianna’s spare room key.

  The evening before, after making sure Isabella and her posse got back in their dorm rooms, Katy and I had returned to our own to get ready for bed. We had a full day of work cut out for us and we needed our rest.

  Jayden had another couple hours of patrolling to do, so we had left him at the main entrance. There could have been no way for him to come up to our floor and harass the girls afterward, because we’d have heard him.

  Isabella and her friends were clearly covering up their own crime by accusing him first.

  “Poor Jayden,” said Katy as we walked over to Brianna’s room. “What a horrible thing to happen to such a nice guy. I shouldn’t have pushed him to go into the sports center.”

  “You did the right thing,” I said, putting on my gloves. “And he did his job as a responsible teacher.”

  We were on the west wing of the third floor now. At the end of the corridor was a large double door that led to the common living room.

  Ten rooms in this wing, just off the common area, had been designated as singles for the lucky few fast enough to snag them.

  We knew Isabella had a room up here. So did Brianna Madison.

  That was where we were headed.

  When we reached her room, I put the key in the keyhole and pushed the door open.

  Katy and I stood on the threshold and gaped.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The closet doors were flung wide open, but it was empty.

  Clothes were scattered on the floor, slung over chairs, and some hung out of her still half-unpacked suitcase.

  Everything Brianna wore was black. Black leather jackets with chains and spikes, black T-shirts with anarchist messages, black lace dresses, and even black underwear and socks.

  A dozen funky handbags and about twenty platform boots lay in a heap next to the bed. How many Doc Martens does a rich girl need?

  Plastered on the walls were enormous posters featuring heavy metal and punk bands, and one with a mullet-wearing werewolf with fangs dripping in blood.

  “She’s obsessed with goth,” said Katy. “Just like Bibi.”

  “Bibi wears some color,” I said, feeling slightly claustrophobic.

  Scattered on the desk next to the window were textbooks, notebooks, and a laptop, lying haphazardly, like Brianna had dumped her schoolbag on the desk and left everything wherever it fell.

  “What a mess,” whispered Katy, as we surveyed the scene. “Do you think someone came in here looking for something after she disappeared?”

  “I wonder if this is how she lived,” I said.

  I stepped in gingerly, to not disturb anything, and Katy closed the door behind us.

  I walked up to the desk and scanned the textbooks. They looked like they’d hardly been cracked open. Using my gloved hands, I picked them up one by one, looking for Brianna’s note. I flipped through the pages but found nothing.

  Did Martha lie about that message?

  It was when I picked up the tablet that I spotted the mobile phone lying underneath it. I held it up.

  “Hey, Katy?” I said. “What kind of teen runs off without taking their phone?”

  Katy had been bending over the bedside table, scrutinizing the contents of a drawer. She straightened up to look.

  “I keep telling you,” she said. “She didn’t run off. A sick creep lured her away. And that sick creep is the mayor of the town.”

  “If the mayor took Brianna, someone in this school knows about it and doesn’t want us to find out,” I said. “That would explain those anonymous messages to us.”

  Katy frowned. “How do we know Martha May isn’t in on this too?”

  “Why would she hire us to find the girl, then?”

  Katy shrugged and turned back to her drawer.

  “This case gets weirder by the hour, and we haven’t even been here more than a day,” I heard her mumble.

  I looked down at the devices in my hand.

  Did someone force Brianna to leave these behind? Or did she leave them because she didn’t want anyone tracking her?

  Win was the only person I knew who could turn off tracking on any device. But her self-taught hacking skills had been augmented by a computer science degree at Stanford and experience at the cyber security company she worked in now. But Brianna? I wondered if she had the same knowledge.

  “Did you find that message yet?” asked Katy, pulling open the second drawer.

  “I’m on it,” I said.

  There were no loose papers or notes on the table. The books had mostly illegible scribbles and doodles. I flipped open the laptop and turned it on, praying the girl hadn’t been astute enough to use a strong password. Win could help me out if I needed, but I didn’t want to bother her again so soon.

  To my surprise, the screen flickered, and
the desktop appeared in front of my eyes. I didn’t need to call Win for help after all.

  “She didn’t even have a password,” I muttered as I clicked open the main documents folder.

  But Katy had moved into the en suite bathroom now. I heard the shower curtain being pulled open.

  I turned back to my screen and clicked on the email app.

  All the files on her laptop, tablet, and on her mobile now were accessible. Most of her messages were on the phone, mostly texts to her friends. I scrolled through the jokes, memes, and selfies, to see if there was anything that would tell me what had happened to her.

  There were a series of emails between Brianna and an Aunt Becky.

  Who was Aunt Becky? Her father’s sister?

  Her messages were short but came with inspirational quotes, cute GIFs, and offers to pad the weekly allowance Brianna got from her father.

  What an amazing aunt, I thought, as I scrolled through the messages. What a lucky girl.

  “Wait,” I muttered as I checked the dates.

  There was an email from Brianna to her aunt on Sunday evening.

  “Holla, Aunt Becky. Saw your interview on CNN. Super proud of you. Hey, can u bring Mom’s blk pearl necklace when u come? It’s for the school Halloween party. Don’t tell Mom. Thank U. Love U!!!”

  A line of happy emojis ended the email.

  I distinctly recalled Sally and Martha telling us the girl had disappeared on Saturday night. If Brianna had left all her devices in her room, how did she send that last message?

  Did she walk into a cyber café and log on to her email? Did she use a friend’s phone?

  If she’d been planning on attending the school’s Halloween party, that meant she didn’t run off. Something had happened.

  I scrolled back to reread that last email when I heard Katy cry out.

  “Asha!”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  “What is it?” I called out, my heart racing.

  I pushed my chair back and ran into the washroom.

  Katy was staring into the interior of the medicine cabinet installed on the wall above the toilet.

  “Look,” she said, pointing at the back of the mirrored lid.

  I stepped closer.

  “Is that blood?” I said, feeling the hair on my arms stand up. I peered at the red letters bleeding on the white painted wood in the back.

  Katy held up a small triangle-shaped bottle.

  “Nail polish,” she said, opening the lid and waving it under my nose. “Same color and same smell.” She pointed at the message on the cabinet door.

  I read it out loud.

  “Don’t come looking 4 me. Pls don’t tell Mom & Dad. B back soon.”

  Katy turned to me, an eyebrow raised. “Is this the message Martha talked about?”

  “The only message I’ve seen so far.”

  Katy frowned. “Why use nail polish in this hard-to-find nook when she could have easily scribbled it on a piece of paper and left it on the desk?”

  “Too obvious?” I said, surveying the squiggly red lines on the wood. “This makes it a tad more believable that she ran away.”

  I paused.

  “That, or whoever took her worried about being caught and came back to write this hasty message. That way, it looks like an oversight by anyone who came here to look for Brianna on Sunday morning.”

  Katy stared at the message. “Is there any way to find out if it was really Brianna who wrote this?”

  “Hang on,” I said, slipping back into the bedroom and walking over to the desk.

  I flipped through each of the books again.

  School had already started, but it looked like the girl hardly took notes. Either that or she did everything on her laptop. After foraging for several minutes, I found a piece of paper stuck under a textbook I’d missed the first time round. On it was a handwritten birthday gift wish list.

  Brianna must turn sixteen soon, I thought as I grabbed the note and walked back into the bathroom. I stepped toward the cabinet and held it next to the message.

  The difference was startling. The B’s and P’s on the nail polish message had a curve to them, while the same letters on the note paper were straight.

  “It can’t be her,” said Katy.

  “I’ve never written a message using nail polish, but you’d think a message written in liquid varnish would have more plain strokes.”

  Katy pointed at the note in my hand. “Are you sure that’s Brianna’s writing?”

  I shook my head. “It could be a friend’s list for all I know.” I paused and stared at the message. “Wait, why do I feel like I’ve seen that B and P before?”

  I reached into my vest pocket and pulled out the anonymous note, the one that had been shoved under our bedroom door the day before. I unfolded it and placed it next to the message on the cabinet lid.

  “My goodness,” said Katy with a gasp.

  “The same person who sent that note wrote this message,” I said.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  “But why would anyone take Brianna?” said Katy. “Her family has no scandals. Her father is a bland Silicon Valley tech CEO who does philanthropy work.”

  “If this was a ransom kidnapping,” I said, nodding, “they’d have called her parents or the school demanding money by now. It’s strange they haven’t.”

  “It has to be the mayor,” said Katy. “He’s luring these girls one by one.”

  “Brianna doesn’t look like a docile kid who’d follow anyone obediently,” I said. “She’s a rebel. She’d put up a fight if someone tried to take her forcibly.”

  “Stockholm syndrome,” said Katy. “An older man who’s prominent in the community can have a lot of sway over these kids. He convinced Brianna to climb out of her room, then climb the fence, and voila, he’s got her in his car, a captive. And no one knows.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “The mayor has Brianna in his full power,” continued my friend. “She does anything she tells him. She wrote this message because he told her to.”

  “You seem sure.”

  “Do you have a better theory?” asked Katy.

  I shook my head and stepped over to the door. The more I thought about this case, the less I felt I knew the truth.

  “I’m going to go over her emails to see if I can find more clues,” I said.

  Katy nodded.

  “I’ll check the rest of the room.”

  We kept busy for the next hour, taking notes and pictures, trying to piece the puzzle together.

  I read through the emails, but there was no sign she had any nefarious outside connections.

  She’d been mad at a teacher who’d given her class extra homework. She’d been upset her favorite midnight goth hair dye was being discontinued and frustrated that her lips were unattractively thin. It was the usual teenage angst that flowed through her inbox.

  But it was her notes to Isabella that made me raise an eyebrow.

  Brianna was devoted to the older girl and seemed to be part of her posse. I couldn't imagine a goth girl being this chummy with the mean girl in school.

  “Strange,” I said, scrolling through the inbox. “Goth girls don’t normally hang out with the bullies, do they? They’re the ones who get bullied for being different. It doesn’t add up.”

  “Hmm…”

  I turned to see Katy hunched over Brianna’s suitcase, only partly paying attention to me.

  I closed the laptop with a sigh to give my eyes a break when Katy tapped on my shoulder.

  She was holding a nested Russian egg doll in her hand.

  “Cute,” I said. “Where did you find that?”

  “In her suitcase. Wrapped in a pair of panties and stuck inside a tampon bag which I found in a small compartment at the bottom of the bag, hidden under her underwear.”

  I sat up.

  “Sounds like she didn’t want anyone to find it.”

  Katy placed the doll gently on the laptop.

  �
�Open it.”

  I stared at the hand-painted wooden doll, clad in a red babushka dress and scarf. Tetyana would have loved to see that.

  I looked up at my friend.

  “There’s something inside, isn’t there?”

  Katy nodded, her eyes shining.

  I picked up the doll and twisted the top off. I placed the top half on the side of the desk and pulled out the second doll. It took four tries to get to the smallest figure in the middle.

  As I pulled it out, Katy leaned across the desk, her fingers drumming impatiently on the wood.

  “You could just tell me what’s in here, you know,” I said as I twisted the top off the final figurine.

  “You’ve got to see it for yourself,” she said.

  I peeked inside.

  Something twinkled from the bottom case of the babushka doll. I flipped it over and an enormous blue stone fell into my palm.

  I gasped.

  “A sapphire pendant?”

  “It’s a beauty, isn’t it?” said Katy.

  “What a find,” I said, holding the piece to the light.

  “How much do you think it’s worth?”

  “I bet you all the money in our bank this is a real royal sapphire,” I replied. “It’s worth a good chunk of change, that’s for sure.”

  I stared at the sparkling jewel.

  “What’s with all this jewelry? Remember that precious diamond piece I thought was Sally’s, but turns out it wasn’t. Then, that girl loses an heirloom earring on the school grounds. Now, this sapphire stone.”

  Katy took the pendant back, slipped it inside the case and began to put the babushka doll together again.

  “Here’s another theory for you,” I said, as she twisted back the doll pieces. “Tell me what you think.”

  Katy nodded.

  “What if someone’s stealing these jewelry pieces from these rich girls and they were looking for this pendant in Brianna’s room?” I said, leaning back in my chair. “They knew she had it on her. Maybe it’s a famous family piece and maybe she boasted to everyone about it at dinner.”

  “Then the thief,” said Katy taking over, “whoever they are, couldn’t find it, so they kidnapped her to force her to tell them where it is.”