Blur (Blur Trilogy) (28 page)

CHAPTER
SIXTY

Mia and K
yl
e were standing beside his Mustang waiting for Daniel when he burst out of the forest.

“Nicole’s in trouble!” he shouted.

“I think we were followed,” K
yl
e replied.

“What? Who?”

“A pickup.”

T
y?

His friends?

As if on cue, a maroon SUV rounded the corner in front of them. The same one Daniel had seen at the lake when he was there with Stac
y.

No, when
yo
u were there alone.

“We need to go.” Realit
y
seemed to be crumbling around him. “He’s got Nicole, and Stac
y’
s not real.”

“What are
yo
u talking about?” Mia asked. “Who has Nicole? And what do
yo
u mean, Stac
y’
s not real?”

The sound of an engine roaring behind them grabbed their attention and the
y
turned to see a pickup swerve around the corner.

Daniel hadn’t gotten a good look at the pickup that T
y’
s buddies had been driving Saturda
y
night when the
y
confronted him and Nicole, but he ventured a guess that this was the same one.

“Stac
y
Clern,” Daniel told Mia. “Sa
y
her name slowl
y—
S
ta
y.
Seek. Learn. That’s what she told me. That’s what I need to do: learn what happened.”

He was about to tell K
yl
e where Nicole was, but then remembered that the text from her phone had told him to come alone.

“You said he has Nicole,” K
yl
e exclaimed. “Who? Mr. McKinne
y?
”

“Yes. I think. I’m . . .”

Both the SUV and the pickup were closing fast.

K
yl
e threw open the passenger door of his car. “Get in, Daniel. We’ll go get her. We’ll take care of ever
yt
hing. Trust me.”

Daniel stared at him.

He wants
yo
u to trust him.

To—

All at once, ever
yt
hing Daniel thought was real began to shift, to fade, to swirl awa
y
in a sea of questions and doubt.

K
yl
e’s the one who found the phones.

He snuck them out of the hous
e—h
e could have snuck them in.

Daniel stood motionless.

“What is it?” K
yl
e asked. “What’s wrong?”

The SUV skidded to a stop in front of them, and the pickup rolled in behind. The
y
were blocked in both directions.

“Daniel,” his friend said, “we have to get out of here.”

He’s the one who suggested
yo
u go out to the grave
ya
rd in the first place. He knew that killers visit the graves of their victims. He could’ve set the flowers out there beforehand.

Emil
y
had a crush on him.

The text inviting her to the lake had his name on it.

He suggested T
y
might’ve done i
t—t
o make
yo
u suspect someone else?

He could have gotten into the locker room, placed the lens in
yo
ur locker. He could have put the necklace in Nicole’s—

Stac
y
said it’s not who
yo
u think it is.

“You?” Daniel said softl
y
to his friend.

“What?”

“How did
yo
u know someone had found Emil
y’
s notebook in her locker?”

“I heard it around school, like I told
yo
u.”

Daniel e
ye
d the SUV waril
y.
The windows were tinted and it was impossible to see how man
y
people were inside.

“Let’s go,” K
yl
e said.

T
y
and one of his buddies climbed out of the SUV. Two other gu
ys
exited the pickup.

“B
ye
rs and Goessel,” T
y
called. “I was hoping our paths would cross again this week. And, oh, look: the little emo girl too. I’m gonna enjo
y
this.”

She flipped him off. “Enjo
y
this.”

Thoughts flew through Daniel’s mind.

The
ye
arbook.

The girls.

It’s not who
yo
u think it is.

Those other girls had necklaces.

The girls died on the nights of
yo
ur awa
y
games.

The necklaces.

The photos in the
ye
arbooks.

The ones in the papers.

Girls d
yi
ng over the last two
ye
ars.

No, K
yl
e hasn’t been driving long enough.

It wasn’t him. Not at all. It couldn’t have been.

How could
yo
u have even suspected it was him?

How do
yo
u know what to—

T
y
approached them.

Daniel thought of Nicole at Wolf Cave. The text had said thirt
y
minutes. “I don’t have time for this, T
y.
”

“It shouldn’t take long.”

K
yl
e threw Daniel his ke
ys
. “Go. I got this.”

“Reall
y?
” T
y
and his friends scoffed.

“Reall
y,
” Mia replied, and positioned herself next to her bo
yf
riend.

Daniel debated for a moment if he should leave.

T
y
flicked out his switchblade.

“Is that the best
yo
u’ve got?” Mia whipped out a butterfl
y
knife and flipped it around in her hand in a smooth, well-practiced motion.

Oka
y,
that was unexpected.

Well, knowing Mia, ma
yb
e not so unexpected after all.

T
y’
s buddies backed awa
y
a couple steps, and the looks on their faces told Daniel that Mia and K
yl
e were probabl
y
going to be just fine.

“Go,” K
yl
e urged Daniel. “Find her.”

The killer has Nicole.

You have to stop him.

But as he turned toward the car, T
y
came at him. He swiped the blade and Daniel leapt to the side, but it grazed his left arm, leaving a narrow red slash behind. Not deep; he’d be alright, but it was enough to get Daniel’s attention. At school and out on the road near Nicole’s house, he’d held back from punching T
y.

Now he broke his streak.

He swung hard, left-handed, to protect his throwing hand, connected against the side of T
y’
s jaw, and sent him spinning around, off balance, but it took him onl
y
a moment to recover. He came at Daniel again with the knife.

But Daniel balled up his fists and swung them simultaneousl
y
at T
y’
s hand, hitting it the wa
y
his dad had taught him to do to knock a knife awa
y
from someone. B
y
hitting the nerve endings, the hand involuntaril
y
opens. And that was what happene
d—t
he knife went spinning across the pavement.

While T
y
was momentaril
y
stunned, Daniel landed another punch, this time an uppercut that put T
y
on the ground. Hard.

Go. Find Nicole.

“Get going!” K
yl
e retrieved the knife before T
y
could get to it. “We’ll be alright.”

Daniel jumped into the car and fired up the engine.

To get around the SUV blocking the road he had to drive half on the shoulder and smack the vehicle’s side panel to ram it out of the wa
y,
so he did. He didn’t care.

Right now he needed to get to the cave.

T
y
leapt up and hollered at him about the SUV, even chased him for a little wa
ys
.

Well, too bad.

Daniel phoned his dad and told him where K
yl
e and Mia were and that he needed to get over there.

“Are
yo
u with them?”

He didn’t repl
y,
just ended the call.

River Drive wasn’t far from school, his dad could be there in a couple minutes, and K
yl
e and Mia could take care of themselves until then.

His dad called back. Daniel didn’t answer.

Their house was on the wa
y
to Wolf Cave. If Nicole and her kidnapper were inside, Daniel realized he would need a flashlight to get to her. He swung b
y
home, rushed inside, grabbed his headlamp and caving gear, then tore out of the drivewa
y,
aimed the car east, and sped toward Wolf Cave.

CHAPTER
SIXTY-ONE

There was no official parking area near the cave, just a gravel pull-off near the trailhead.

As Daniel neared it, he could see that a car he didn’t recognize was alread
y
there.

It was a wild cave and
yo
u had to know what
yo
u were doing to make
yo
ur wa
y
through it. No overhead lights, no paved walkwa
ys
, nothing like that.

In addition to tight crawl spaces and loose boulders, there were pits and drop-offs to avoi
d—o
ne shaft that plunged more than 120 feet. The kids called it Devil’s Throat. An underground stream snaked through the west end of the cave. With the recent rains the
y’
d had, it might have risen, might be swift.

It was not a gentle cave.

It was an angr
y
cave.

He parked.

And looked in the window of the other car. Yes. Dog hair all over the black cloth seats. He’d seen this car at the funeral, had momentaril
y
taken note of it, but onl
y
now remembered. Onl
y
now made the connection.

Trevor was in the car. That’s what Emil
y
had said.

This gu
y
put him in here while he was with Emil
y.
He might not have known she would bring her dog along with her out to the lake. He needed to get her alone.

Though the text from Nicole’s phone had said to come alone, Daniel knew he would need his dad eventuall
y.
It would still take him a while to get here, so he texted him his location, then grabbed his pack of caving gear.

From the road it was a ten-minute walk to the cave.

Daniel did not walk.

As he sprinted through the woods he tried to thread ever
yt
hing together.

There were flowers on Emil
y’
s and Grace McKinne
y’
s graves.

But
yo
u don’t know Mr. McKinne
y
put them there.

Stac
y
said it isn’t who
yo
u think it is.

But Stac
y
wasn’t real, was onl
y
a figment of his imagination, an invention of his subconscious, so somewhere his mind held the answer. He needed to find that place, root it out, unriddle what he alread
y
knew.

The girls died on game nights. It has to be someone who was in those towns on those nights.

McKinne
y?

Ma
yb
e.

He neared the cave.

There was no game two weeks ago on the night Emil
y
disappeared. So ma
yb
e . . .

He came to Wolf Cave’s entrance and slowed to a stop.

The ground opened up in a tumbledown hole that descended
quickl
y
into thick darkness.

As he stood beside it tr
yi
ng to calm his breathing, he felt a breeze coming from the entrance, as if the earth were exhaling around him.

He knew it was from currents of air passing through the cave and meeting with the warmer air out here in the sun, but still, it gave the impression that the cave was some great living beast buried in the hillside, breathing on him.

Daniel put on his headlamp and started his descent.

CHAPTER
SIXTY-TWO

The path down was mudd
y
and strewn with moss-covered rocks, making the trek into the darkness even more slipper
y
and treacherous than it appeared.

Despite carefull
y
watching his footing, he slipped twice as he scrambled into the deepening shadows of the first room of the cave.

The sunlight bleeding down through the entrance was no longer warm, but was overpowered b
y
the cave’s cool interior.

Dank. Damp.

Smelling of lichen and mold.

From being in here before, he knew there were three main sections to the cave, but there were also numerous side tunnels that fingered off, some supposedl
y
making their wa
y
all the wa
y
down to the underground river that fed into Lake Algonquin.

Who is it? Who has her?

Where would she be?

The photos in Mr. McKinne
y’
s hallwa
y
showed two different chambers, both of which Daniel had recognized.

The first was close, just to the left.

To get there he needed to pass through a relativel
y
small roo
m—o
nl
y
about the size of two minivans. A narrow passagewa
y
on the other side of it led to one of the cave’s largest caverns, a sweeping, expansive room more than eight
y
feet long and fift
y
feet wide.

Daniel made his wa
y
through the small room into the larger one.

Massive stalagmites and stalactites rose from the cave’s floor or hung thick and heav
y
from the ceiling. A few columns reached all the wa
y
to the roof of the cave from stalagmites and stalactites that had met in the middle sometime in the distant past.

Someone had been in here burning candles on one of the boulders, and melted wax had oozed down the sides of the rock and cooled, making it look like some kind of artificial formation itself.

“I’m here,” Daniel called. No response save the echo of his own voice coming back to him. “I came alone!”

Alone . . . Alone . . . Alone . . .
the cave replied.

“Where is she?” The words reverberated eeril
y
through the cavern. “I know
yo
u’re in here.”

In here . . . In here . . . In here . . .

When the echoes faded awa
y,
the onl
y
sounds that remained were the rasp of his quickened breathing, the dribble of water seeping from the ceiling, and the rushing gurgle of the stream as it coursed through the cavern nearb
y
and then disappeared into the unmapped portions of the cave.

Alright, it didn’t look like the
y
were here. Ma
yb
e the other room from the photos.

To get there, Daniel had to slide sidewa
ys
through a series of tight squeezes that slanted deeper into the earth.

If her kidnapper had brought Nicole down here, it would not be good. This was the most dangerous part of the cave, the one that ended at Devil’s Throat.

Daniel had rappelled into it twice with his dad. The last time the
y’
d been down there the
y’
d discovered the carcass of a raccoon at the bottom. It seemed unlikel
y
for an animal to have found its wa
y
that far down the cave in the dark, and he’d wondered if someone had brought it in after it was dead and thrown it down.

The carcass was covered with spong
y-
looking white mold. It was a little hard to identif
y
the t
yp
e of animal because of the force of impact when it had landed on the boulder-covered bottom.

He adjusted his headlamp and worked his wa
y
through the passagewa
y.

A line of thin stalactites about a foot long hung from the ceiling. No large formations in here.

The sound of the stream became fainter and fainter as he moved awa
y
from it through the cave.

He got on his hands and knees and edged forward through a small crawl hole. From here it wasn’t far to the chamber that held Devil’s Throat. Just another fift
y
feet or so.

Daniel sorted through what he knew, tr
yi
ng to make sense of ever
yt
hing that’d happened since he arrived at the church for Emil
y’
s funeral.

The girls in the photos were wearing necklaces, all wearing the necklaces with the heart-shaped lockets.

Ma
yb
e
yo
u saw their photos in the news after the
y
died, and the pictures, just like the reference to Trevor, lodged in
yo
ur mind and onl
y
jarred loose when
yo
u heard about Emil
y’
s death.

Ma
yb
e . . .

The
y
sa
y
our brains record ever
yt
hing, and Daniel’s had alwa
ys
been able to notice things, to calculate things, that no one else seemed to be able to do—

That’s wh
y
Emil
y
held up the necklace for
yo
u at the game. Because
yo
u alread
y
knew it was the ke
y
to this.

She did it at a football game.

Then there was the photo of his offensive coordinator near that girl who’d died.

He thought of the photos of the football games.

Who would have been there from
yo
ur school?

The team. The coaches.

Roosevelt High.

Coulee High.

The press photos of the girls—

Who could have gotten access to
yo
ur things in the locker room?

Who could have seen
yo
u and K
yl
e enter Mr. McKinne
y’
s house while all the teachers were in their parent meetings at school?

The teachers were there. Yes, but not—

Oh.

Yes.

Daniel knew who it was.

He was at the prom. He could have seen
yo
u leave with Nicole.

He’s around students all the time. He could hear which kids like each other. He could have heard about Emil
y
liking K
yl
e.

He can enter and leave schools without an
yo
ne being suspicious.

Of course.

And he had to be at the games. It was his job.

Daniel shone his light forward.

He was almost to the cavern that held Devil’s Throat.

Football.

Yes, the
ye
arbooks, the football games, the photos all pointed to one person.

“I’m here,” Daniel shouted as he reached the edge of the crawl hole. “I know who
yo
u are!”

“Oh, reall
y?
” the man shouted.

Reall
y?
. . . Reall
y?
. . . Reall
y?
. . .
came the echoed repl
y.
It was distorted b
y
the acoustics of the cave, making it impossible to tell who was speaking.

But that didn’t matter to Daniel.

He alread
y
knew who was waiting for him in that cavern.

Yes, his offensive coordinator, Coach Jostens, had been there at those games.

But it wasn’t him.

It was the man who’d photographed him beside that Roosevelt High girl who’d died.

“Yes, I do,” he
ye
lled, “and
yo
u better not hurt her, Mr. Ackerman!”