The Case of the Missing Mascot (A Sherlock Shakespeare Mystery Book 1) (6 page)

Ricardo slammed on the brakes. "I thought you understood we weren't talking about that."

"Okay. Your call. Just seems exhausting to pretend to be someone you're not all the time."

He opened his mouth to snap at me, but closed it before any words came out. After a long sigh, he said, "In my family, choice doesn't exist."

"Oh. Umm... I get that coming out would be hard and all, but your parents would come around. You're gay, not a serial killer."

"They would prefer that. Trust me." He eased the car into motion again. "Look, you can't tell anyone about any of this. My father can't ever find out."

"Yeah. No problem." I looked out the window for a while in silence before adding, "You know, your dad might surprise you. He'd probably even get used to Kiki after a while."

He let out a mirthless laugh. "I can see it now, Kiki hanging out with my father and his associates at the country club."

Maybe another five minutes passed in silence before I turned to glare at his profile in the moonlight. "Why the hell are you always hitting on me if you don't even like girls?"

This time, his laugh was genuine. "Because you're the only girl I'm one hundred percent sure will always say no." He shrugged and changed lanes. "A pointless exercise, I know. But if I want my trust fund, I've got to play the game and keep up the act for a while longer."

"Doesn't seem worth it."

"Only because you haven't seen how many zeroes are in that trust fund."

He had me there. I used to see Ricardo's parents sometimes when Tom would drag me up to the country club to have dinner with his parents, but it never occurred to me to think about trust funds and the expectations that came with them. As far as I was concerned, rich people were all nuts. For all the money Tom's parents had in the bank, they'd forced him to choose a college that would give him an athletic scholarship instead of just paying his tuition to wherever he actually wanted to go.

Huh. Would there have still been a blonde supermodel in his bed if I'd gone to visit him this weekend at the Oklahoma school he wanted to attend? Probably.

Asshole.

Luckily, Ricardo didn't let me dwell on that for long before he was talking again. "You never did tell me why you were getting cozy with those guys in the alley."

"Probably because it's embarrassing."

He parked across the street from my house. "I think I deserve to know why my date was ruined."

"Maybe another time. I should get in before my parents—"

"Bullshit. Everyone knows there's no curfew in the Shakespeare house." He grinned over at me. "Besides, Kiki's not here yet. He may have a quick mouth, but he drives slow enough that you can start at childhood and still have time to tell me everything."

"Fine." I dropped my head back against the headrest in defeat. "I suppose you heard about what happened with Tom this weekend."

"Yeah. Tough break."

"I needed a distraction tonight. I followed some guys on the rival football team to that coffee shop to see if they were the ones who took Champers."

"Champers?"

Finally! I knew I wasn't the only one who didn't know the stupid pig's name before today. "Our mascot. He's missing."

"I thought our mascot was dead?"

"You really don't pay attention to much, do you?"

"As little as possible."

"Okay. We've got a new mascot and it's a pig named Champers that went missing this weekend. Anyway. The gang guys met up with the football guys, so I followed them to see if they'd lead me back to the pig. They realized I was following them and started chasing me."

"Hold on, you're telling me you almost got yourself killed over a pig?"

"Well, it's not like that was the plan or anything."

"If you're going to go sherlocking around, Shakes, you really need to get better at this."

"Seriously. Solving mysteries has never been my thing."

"Clearly. If those two took your pig, they would've killed it and left it on the 50-yard line for all to see."

"Then why were they meeting up with a bunch of preppy high school guys?"

"You've never seen a drug deal go down, have you?" He sighed and added, "Outside of the movies?"

I almost hated to answer. "No."

"Life isn't like the movies. Bad things happen in real life to teenage girls who go looking around where they shouldn't be."

I was starting to figure that out. I wanted to say more, to somehow defend myself, as though my actions were defensible, but approaching headlights stole my attention. Just as well. Ricardo had a date to salvage and I wanted nothing more than to forget this night ever happened.

A good night's sleep would be the answer to all my troubles.

I wasn't sure why I was running, but I had the distinct feeling that my life depended on it. My surroundings were unfamiliar, but my feet seemed to know where they were going. That was weird. I'd never been the type of girl to spend a lot of time in forests.

But in this moment, I knew precisely where I was.

Somewhere behind me, the crunch of dry leaves and the snap of twigs let me know my pursuer was gaining on me. I lifted my heavy brown skirt a little higher and begged my screaming legs not to give out on me now. As it was, the violent pounding of my heart might cease to go on at any moment, rendering my legs useless anyway.

Was this what terror felt like?

This was all wrong. I could never outrun him; I knew that. In the moonless night, I might be able to hide from him. If I could find just the right shadow, he might run right past me and I could double back to safety. Not that home would ever be safe again now. I'd need to get to the train station unseen. Once aboard, my chances of survival would improve greatly.

I ducked to my right and glued my back to the rough bark of a large oak. My heart was still practically pounding its way out of my chest, but I was able to get control of my breathing. Although a large part of me wanted to give in to panic, I forced a serene sense of peace to fill my body. In dangerous situations, panic would always lead to death.

And this wasn't my first dangerous situation.

My pursuer didn't run right past me though. Instead, he slowed his pace as though he knew his prey was no longer on the move. He wasn't able to control his body as well as I was. I could hear him gasping and wheezing when he came to rest several yards away from me. He called my name softly into the darkness, as though I might come out of hiding because he claimed all was forgiven, as if I was the one who needed forgiveness after what he'd done.

A woman like me didn't get where I was by falling for foolish ploys. I stood firm. I stayed silent. If he wanted me, he'd have to do the work to find me.

When a soft breeze rustled through my hair on its way to him, I knew it was over. After all our time together, he would know my scent anywhere. If only there'd been time to wash away the perfume—the perfume he'd chosen for me—before my escape.

It was a risk, but a calculated one, when I started running again. I didn't know this part of the forest so well and low-hanging branches whipped me in the face and brush stung my legs during my hurried flight.

I didn't care. My body could take time to heal once I was safely away. Angels Grasp. Fitting. His angelic face had lured me in until I'd sacrifice anything to escape his ever-tightening grasp.

I was all but at the end of my strength when he caught me. The darkness made it impossible to make out the features of his face, but I knew the look he'd have in his eyes. With as many times as I'd seen it burn there, I knew it well. While I barely saw the knife move between us in the night, I certainly felt it.

My hands flailed uselessly against the knife's sharp edge. Even after I was on the ground, sticky and in tatters, the knife was unrelenting. My dress would be ruined, wholly unsalvageable. The last thought that flitted through my mind was that I should've worn my best dress when I left.

Then he wouldn't be able to give it to the next girl he destroyed.

I shot up out of bed and began patting down my body, desperate to stop the bleeding. But there was no blood. Just goofy cartoon pajamas soaked through with sweat. The glaring red numbers on my alarm clock told me it was 3:33, that special time of night when it was too late to still be awake and too early to get up for school.

I stumbled down the hall to the bathroom where I splashed my face with water and took a long drink from the tap. Through my nerves, the metallic mineral taste of our tap water barely registered. When I looked in the mirror, I was still me, still plain old Sherlock Shakespeare. No heavy brown skirts, no scratches on my face or legs from running.

Just my reflection. And the flash of a beautiful face behind mine.

I jumped around and pressed my back against the counter, ready to fight off whoever was there. Nothing. I pressed my face into my hands and fought to get it together. It wasn't like this was my first nightmare. I'd slept with my light on for a month after I watched a Freddy Krueger marathon for the first time.

Of course, Freddy had never seemed so real to me.

After I shut off the bathroom light, I tiptoed back to my bedroom. No sense waking up the rest of the house because my brain chose now to process what I'd been through earlier that night. Hiding behind a tree was just as stupid as thinking running into an alley was a good idea.

Even though the night was warm and humid outside, a wave of frosty air hit me when I crossed the threshold of my bedroom. That was wrong. It had been pleasantly warm when I left it. I hung back by the door, but the frozen air didn't change.

Movement was everywhere around me.

I flipped on the lights, expecting to find an intruder in my room. Nothing.
 

Except for a glimpse of a brown skirt from the corner of my eye.

My heart was thumping just as hard as it had been in the dream. Sleep apparently wouldn't happen tonight, especially now that my eyes and imagination were working overtime to drive me mad. I quickly retrieved my robe from the closet and my econ book from my backpack before heading down to the kitchen.

For the remaining hours before dawn, I stared at my economics text under the pretense of studying while I jumped at every noise the house made. No use. The chills never went away and I'd swear I could hear someone whispering my name in the distance.

Once the kitchen clock showed me it was the time I normally got up, I got ready for school with shaky hands and left the house as though it were any other day. At least school was totally uneventful. No calls or texts from Tom. No pervy comments from Ricardo.

No brown skirts or voices in my head chasing me wherever I went.

In fact, the day was utterly normal and calm in every possible way. Calm, that was, until the principal made an announcement during the second to the last class of the day. Champers was still missing and the school was desperate for any information about his whereabouts.

And just like that, anarchy ruled the school as students spent the last hour or so of the day wandering the halls and speculating about how one stupid lost pig would ruin all of Homecoming Week. If I'd gotten any sleep to speak of the previous night, I might've found all the speculation funny. One group suspected the rival football team, which was silly since they were all distracted by drugs and cheerleaders, as I'd learned last night. A group of stoners suggested aliens.

As far as I was concerned, Champers might as well be halfway to Jupiter in the mother ship right now. Everyone else could look and speculate as much as they wanted. If anyone was going to find him, it wouldn't be me.

I was terrible at solving mysteries and I was off the case.

Tuesday was fairly normal—for Devils Reach.

When I got to school, the convenience store across the street was ablaze and everyone was milling around staring at it as though fire was a shiny new invention. It was a tough break for all the stoners who spent half the school day hanging out behind it getting baked. They'd need a new hangout with equally irresponsible employees near the school. Considering all the empty fields and farmland surrounding the school grounds, their work would be cut out for them.