Blood Red (33 page)

“Not always for the better.”

“Sometimes, though.”

“Come on, the only reason Mundy's Landing is even on the map is because a lot of ­people died horrible, bloody, violent deaths here.”

“It's on the map because it's a historic place.”

“It's a tragic place.”

“A lot of historic places are.”

“But these were heinous, bloody crimes. Unsolved crimes. That casts a pall.”

“So now you're on the bandwagon with all those ­people who think Mundy's Landing is cursed? Mom and Dad always said that was ridiculous. How can you—­”

“I don't think it's cursed. I just think it's depressing. You can't argue with that.”

Rowan could, and tried. Unsuccessfully.

“So what are you saying?” she finally asked Noreen. “After today, you're never coming back here again?”

“There's nothing to come back to.”

“Mundy's Landing will always be home to me. It's your home, too.”

“Not anymore.” Not with their parents gone and the house on the market and a burgeoning life on Long Island.

A perfect life.

For a while, anyway.

Rowan was right. Places change, just like ­people.

Not always for the better, but sometimes . . .

With a sigh, Noreen reaches for her cell phone and dials her sister's number.

Rowan snatches it up on the first ring. “Noreen?”

“I just got to town.”

“Okay, go over to my house and let yourself in. There's a key hidden under the pot on the back steps. I'm on my way over to the high school.”

“Why?”

“I just have to . . . take care of something. I'll be home as soon as I can.”

“Okay. Where's Rick?

“He just texted that he's on his way to my house.”

“You told him where you live?”

“No. But obviously, he's figured it out, because he didn't ask me for an address. If he gets there before I do, just . . . deal with him.”

“Deal with him? What does that mean?”

“I'm sorry, I've got to go.”

Rowan might as well have said,
You're the big sister. Just do whatever you have to do to fix things and get me out of trouble.

Noreen hangs up with a sigh.

Yes, some ­people change—­and some never do.

T
rying not to panic, Mick sits in Mr. Goodall's office under the watchful gaze of the principal and a man he's been addressing as Coach Calhoun since his youth soccer league days. Today, however, he's not wearing a red team shirt and a whistle around his neck; he's in uniform as the chief of police here in Mundy's Landing.

That Brianna is missing is a nightmare. That anyone thinks Mick could possibly have something to do with it is crazy.

Coach—­Chief—­Calhoun asked about the gifts he left her, though he didn't come right out and say Mick is suspected of being anything other than a stupid, stupid, stupid Secret Santa. But why else would he be here, with the other cop, Officer Greenlea, standing guard just outside the door?

The office is unbearably hot and stuffy despite the window being cracked open a few inches. Snow is falling outside.

In the distance, a salt truck rumbles, but the room is so silent he can hear the two men breathing and swallowing. By comparison, his own breathing and swallowing sound deafening.

He wishes they'd say something, or even interrogate him like they do in movies, but they seem to be waiting for Mom to get here.

He keeps wondering if he should just come right out and proclaim his innocence. Or maybe ask for a lawyer.

But that might make him seem guilty of . . .

What? What the hell is happening?

Where's Brianna?

The dread that something terrible has happened to her mingles miserably with terror over his own predicament, so acute that any second now he might pass out or throw up, or—­far worse—­start to cry.

At last, the phone on the desk rings. Mr. Goodall answers it, says, “Okay, good. Have her wait right there,” hangs up, and looks at Mick. “Your mom is here.”

He can only nod mutely as a surge of emotion mixes with the lump of nausea threatening to burst from his throat. If anyone can fix this, it's his mother. She'll set them straight, whatever it is that they're thinking.

“Let's have a word with her alone,” Chief Calhoun tells Mr. Goodall. “Son, you can step out and wait there with Officer Greenlea.”

Mr. Goodall opens the door, gesturing for Mick to make his exit. As he steps over the threshold, he sees Mrs. Dunlop, the young cop, and his mother clustered in the small reception area.

“Mick! What's going on?” Mom is windblown, red-­faced, wide-­eyed.

He finds his voice. “I don't know, but I—­”

“Officer, this young man is going to sit here with you,” the chief cuts in.

This young man
—­as if Mick is some juvenile delinquent off the street instead of the kid Coach Calhoun affectionately called Striker because of his skills on the soccer field. Bile pitches and rolls in his empty stomach.

“Mick, are you okay?”

There's no easy way to answer his mother's question. He shrugs and bows his head to avoid the confused concern in her eyes, afraid she'll see the tears that have sprung to his. All he wants is to escape this overheated little room, but it's his mother who gets to do that, ushered away into the principal's office.

Hearing the door close, Mick lifts his head at last. Mrs. Dunlop is back at her desk, shuffling papers around as if she's suddenly very busy, or just pretending to be. Officer Greenlea gestures at a chair.

“You can have a seat.”

“Can I . . . I don't . . .” Vomit is pushing into his throat. “I'm going to . . .”

He lurches toward the wastepaper basket beside the desk, lowers his head into it, and retches as Mrs. Dunlop cries out in dismay.

Miserable, he looks to see Officer Greenlea wordlessly holding out a handful of tissues. He accepts them and mops his mouth, and then his eyes. If he could speak, he'd probably feel compelled to explain that they're watering because he's sick. But you shouldn't lie to a cop and anyway, another tide of bile is pushing ominously at his throat.

“Here . . .” Mrs. Dunlop pulls a key out of her desk drawer and hands it to Mick. “There's a faculty restroom right outside the door. You can use it.”

“Come on, kid.” The officer puts a hand on Mick's shoulder and propels him away from the offending wastebasket, toward the hallway.

He's relieved to see that the corridor is deserted. Everyone is in class right now, so there's no one to see him let himself into the faculty restroom as a police officer stations himself right outside.

Locked inside, he tosses the key on the sink, kneels in front of the toilet, and vomits again. Then, racked by dry heaves, he thinks about what's waiting for him beyond the door, and he thinks about Brianna.

This is crazy. If he could just find her, everything would be okay. More than okay: he'd be her hero—­hers, and everyone else's.

He stands on shaky legs, reaches out to flush the toilet, and hesitates with his fingers on the handle, noticing something.

There's a window above the sink.

It's propped open with a stick and it's large. Much larger than the high, small windows in the boys' restrooms in the building's newer wings. Large enough for someone to climb through?

Conscious of the police officer stationed outside the door, Mick makes another loud retching sound as he walks over to examine the window. In his own house, they use propped sticks to keep some of the old windows from crashing down, and others are almost impossible to open at all.

Mick tugs to see if it will open wider.

It does.

Without stopping to consider the wisdom of his newfound plan, he scrambles onto the sill, climbs out, and hits the ground running.

E
ither Rick's stepson forgot about his promise to check in on him, or he did check in on him, but forgot to update Bob afterward.

Those are the two conclusions Bob drew as he spent the morning on the endless errands that are necessary after a long absence. He went from the bank to the pharmacy to the post office to the dry cleaner, with long lines at every stop, then met a ­couple of friends for a late breakfast that stretched past lunchtime.

Now he's home again, checking the voice mail in the futile hope of finding a message that will put his mind at ease.

Frustrated, he tries—­yet again—­to call Rick. No answer.

Bob scrolls through his recent calls, finds the number he dialed last night, and hits redial. So what if Rick's stepson thinks he's a pain in the ass?

The phone is answered with an automated outgoing message.

At the beep, Bob says simply, “Casey, it's Bob again. Did you check in on Rick? Call me back as soon as you can.”

T
he Gravitron spins on.

An hour ago, Rowan would have bet her life that there was nothing—­absolutely nothing—­that could make what had happened with Jake, and with Rick Walker, seem insignificant.

She'd have lost.

Visiting the high school principal's office for the first time in thirty years, she's reverted right back to the bad old days: full-­blown denial.

“No,” she says, shaking her head vehemently. “No way. Absolutely not. There's just no way.”

“Rowan, we have a witness,” Ron Calhoun, the chief of police, gently tells her. They've known each other all their lives; he graduated with her brother Danny and was both Braden and Mick's soccer coach. He doesn't want to believe this any more than she does, and yet—­he seems to. So does Joe, who is saying very little and nervously toying with a pen.

Beyond the closed door, Mick is waiting in the reception area with Officer Greenlea, who was once a fourth-­grader known as Ryan G. There were two other Ryans in Rowan's class that year: Ryan K. and Ryan L. Ryan G. was the round-­faced one who lisped and smelled like Fritos.

Now, in a bizarre twist, he's armed with a badge and standing guard over her son.

Of course, Rowan didn't realize that when she walked in. Her heart lurched when she saw the cop, but she assumed Mick had done something mischievous, not . . .

Not what they think.

This is crazy. There's no way.

“One of the neighbors was out walking her dog,” Ron is saying, “and she saw Mick lurking around the Armbrusters' house late Monday afternoon, looking suspicious.”

“He has other friends who live on Prospect Street. It doesn't mean that he—­”

“He was on their driveway, and when the neighbor spoke to him, he was acting strange and evasive.”

“He's a sixteen-year-­old boy! They all act strange and evasive around adults.”

“Look, no one is saying that he's responsible for Brianna's disappearance,” Ron says. “But a clerk at Vernon's confirmed that he bought the beads that were anonymously left for Brianna.”

Spinning . . . faster . . .

Back against the wall . . .

“But you said yourself that they were from a Secret Santa!” she protests.

“As far as anyone knows, Brianna wasn't involved in any kind of Secret Santa exchange.”

She remembers the day she explained to Mick what a Secret Santa is; remembers the bizarre gift supposedly left by her own Secret Santa . . .

What if . . .

Can Brianna's disappearance possibly be connected to Rick?

It seems crazy, but right now, what doesn't?

Spinning . . . faster . . .

She'll have to tell Ron about Rick Walker. Just in case. Privately. Now that Jake knows.

Oh God. Jake knows. He knows about her and Rick—­but not about Mick's trouble at school.

She'd tried calling him as she drove over here from the elementary school parking lot. It went directly into voice mail every time. She didn't leave a message, not wanting to tell him there was a problem with Mick until she knew how serious it was.

Dammit. It may be more serious than she ever imagined.

Spinning . . . spinning . . .

She needs to be with her son. She needs to hug him and let him know that someone is on his side, and . . . yes, and hear what he has to say for himself. And after that, she can pull Ron aside and tell him about Rick.

Rick, who's on his way to her house right now.

Noreen can deal with it.

She can deal with anything.

So can you.

“All right,” she says abruptly, “I think it's time we get Mick in here and hear his side of the story.”

“He admitted he was leaving gifts for Brianna.”

Okay. Deep breaths.

“That doesn't mean he had anything to do with her disappearance.”

“No, it doesn't.” Ron nods. “But—­”

There's a sharp knock on the door, and then it jerks open. A voice—­Mr. Goodall's secretary—­calls, “He's gone! Hurry! He took off! Ry—­ Officer Greenlea went after him. Hurry!”

A
fter letting himself into the Mundys' empty house with the key hidden beneath the flowerpot, Casey picks up the orange prescription bottle sitting on the kitchen windowsill.

He noticed early on in his surveillance that the first thing Rowan does every single afternoon when she walks in the door is take her ADHD medication.

Casey has been sneaking capsules out of the bottle over the last few months. Not enough for her to miss, but enough to suit his purposes.

Now, he dumps the contents of the plastic bottle into his pocket and replaces them with the identical capsules he'd stolen from her. He'd emptied their contents and refilled them with the same medication—­the so-­called date rape drug—­he'd slipped into Rick's drink the night he died, to make things easier on both of them.