The Suicide Club (16 page)

“Know much about snakes, Steve?”

Jace wasn’t sure why he was pursuing this. Using every standard he knew to evaluate when someone was telling the truth, Byrd looked like a choirboy. Still, something bothered him about the boy’s attitude.

“It’s Steven.”

“Okay, Steven, you know anything about snakes.”

“
Snakes?
No, sir. Not much. I had a couple of ringnecks when I was a kid.”

“No rattlers?”

“No, sir,” the kid said with a grin, which faded pretty quickly when Jace didn’t respond to it.

“How about Andrea Moore? What do you know about her?”

The boy’s face settled into a properly serious expression. “She was a junior, so we didn’t have any classes together. She was always quiet. Didn’t come to a lot of extracurricular things at the school. I mean she was nice and all, but…” He shook his head. “I didn’t really know her that well.”

“Got a computer?”

“Yes, sir.”

Again, there had been no reaction other than a slight puzzlement. Jace was beginning to feel he was making a fool of himself. “Know anything about manipulating images?”

“Like photographs, you mean?”

Jace nodded.

“A little. I can add a background and stuff.”

“Put people in and out of the picture?”

The kid acknowledged his ability with a quick tilt of his head. For the first time since Jace had begun asking questions, Steven looked uncomfortable.

“You have a page on ‘My Place’?”

“Everybody at school does.”

Definitely defensive. And despite Lindsey’s desire not to advertise Andrea’s profile to her fellow students, Jace needed to follow up on that reaction.

He’d already called the company to have the page taken down, but he couldn’t be sure it had been. And he couldn’t afford to let the boy regroup. He needed to press him right now on what he knew.

Besides, there was always the possibility that Lindsey was wrong about Andrea’s character. And he knew damn well she wouldn’t like that idea, either.

“Did Andrea Moore have one?”

The flush started along the sides of the kid’s neck, moving slowly into his cheeks as he tried to decide whether or not to lie. In the end, he made the right decision.

“Yes, sir.”

“You read it?”

“Everybody did.”

“I didn’t realize she was that popular.”

“It wasn’t that.” The kid again seemed to be weighing his answer. “It was pretty graphic. Her profile, I mean.”

“As in having a lot of pictures?”

“No, sir. As in being sexually explicit.” The color in the kid’s face deepened, emphasizing every blemish of his skin.

“Was she that kind of girl, Steven? That’s not the impression I’ve gotten.”

“Like I said, I didn’t know her all that well.”

“You remember the central picture on her page? The big one of Andrea?”

Byrd nodded.

“You think it was manipulated?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Andrea’s head imposed on someone else’s body.”

The blue eyes considered the idea, but after a moment the boy shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“But you know people who could do that.”

“Some.”

“Name them.”

“Sir?”

“Who do you know that could manipulate a picture like that?”

Byrd laughed, shaking his head at Jace’s naivety. “At least half the senior class. Probably lots of other kids, too.
Everybody
does that kind of stuff.”

“Could you tell if somebody had?”

“If they had done it to Andrea’s picture, you mean?”

Jace nodded. He wouldn’t mind seeing what kind of setup Byrd had. Maybe he could tell something about his level of expertise from his hardware. And maybe glean some information about the boy’s personality from his room.

“It’s possible,” Byrd said.

“Now?”

“You mean…I told you. My mom’s asleep.”

“Maybe we should wake her up. Tell her what happened last night. And about Andrea’s profile. See what she thinks.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

Jace knew he’d finally punched the right button. He could almost feel the panic emanating from the kid. He just wasn’t sure if it was because of last night or because of Andrea Moore.

Part of his theory about the church fires had, from the beginning, been that whoever set them off had a curfew and someone checking up on whether or not they kept it. The fact that Byrd was so concerned about his mother knowing what was going on set off Jace’s radar.

“We can go back to my room,” the boy said. “I’m no expert—don’t claim to be—but I can take a look at the picture for you. Maybe figure out if it’s been shopped.”

“Thanks, Steven. I really appreciate your offer to help.”

“
T
he kid didn’t claim to be an expert.” Jace’s accent seemed more pronounced over the phone. “But he doesn’t think the image was doctored. We printed a copy, and I’m going to show it to Andrea’s mother to see if she recognizes the picture.”

“You think that’s a good idea?”

The woman had just lost her daughter. Lindsey couldn’t imagine that she would be concerned right now about a picture of her that had been posted on the Internet.

“Steven said that everyone knew about that site.”

“Oh, my God, Jace. If that’s true…Do you think that’s why she did it? Because people were looking at that and saying things about her?”

“I don’t know. I do know that I want to find out who put it up. If someone else did it, then I want to know who.”

“
If
someone else did it?”

“We won’t know that until we hear back from the company.”

“Can they tell you?”

“They’ll give me what information they have. Whether or not we can trace it to the computer that was used to put the stuff up is a different question.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We’d have to have pretty compelling evidence of who was involved to confiscate computers.”

“Is that what you’d have to do?”

“I don’t know. And I won’t know until I find out what information the Web site host can give me. In the meantime, I’m going to see if this picture is really Andrea.”

“I don’t think her mom is going to like seeing it.”

“Considering that her daughter is dead and this site may have played a role in her death, I think she’d want to know. With suicide it’s the not knowing that’s the hardest.”

“Not harder than the loss.”

“No, but feelings of guilt can make
that
harder to bear. In this case, it looks as if the mother did everything she was supposed to. I think she’d like to understand that it wasn’t any failure on her part that precipitated this.”

“You’re right. Will you let me know what you find out?”

“I’ll call you later this afternoon. The invitation’s still open, by the way.”

“Invitation?”

“My place. Tonight.”

It sounded like a date, except they both knew it wasn’t. “You have to sleep sometime.”

“I thought I’d catch a few hours on the couch. If you’re comfortable with that.”

He meant if she were comfortable with him not staying up to keep watch. And she was. She knew she could sleep just knowing Jace and that gun were in the apartment. Whether that was a good idea or not was another thing entirely.

“Can I think about it?”

“All day.”

“Thanks. And thanks for last night. For letting me stay,” she added, wondering if he’d think she meant the fire. Not that she wasn’t grateful for that. “Thanks for everything, actually.”

“I think I liked it better when you didn’t trust me. Or like me.”

“I never said I didn’t trust you.”

He laughed. “I notice you didn’t deny the other.”

She couldn’t. She’d been physically attracted from the start, but liking him had taken a while. “Fishing?”

“For compliments? Yeah, all those nice things you’ve been saying have confused me. I don’t know how to act anymore.”

“How about like a detective?” she suggested. “And let me know what you find out.”

“I’ll call you,” he said again. “And Lindsey?”

“Yeah?”

“Watch your back.”

“What does that mean?”

“Until we figure this all out, just be aware at all times that someone thinks you know something that’s dangerous to their well-being.”

She nodded as if he could see her. And then the connection was broken. She held the phone to her ear for a few seconds as Jace’s warning reverberated in her mind.

Someone thinks you know something that’s dangerous.

And if she did, she had no idea what that might be.

Although the video game he was playing usually calmed him—primarily because it allowed him to commit acts he couldn’t get away with in reality—its virtual violence wasn’t working today. Right now he needed to actually feel flesh split and bones crack and to know he’d caused that. This wouldn’t suffice. Not for the level of his fury.

Shit-for-brains was going to get them all caught. And he

couldn’t afford that. He couldn’t afford to lose everything he’d worked for because of some puking, totally juvenile garbage.

He knew now that he should never have allowed himself to become vulnerable to someone else’s stupidity. In the beginning this had all seemed like a game. Just like the one playing out on the screen in front of him. With what had happened last night, however…

Why the hell had that fucked-up asshole ever thought he could get away with something like that? They’d issued their warning, taking as much care with it as they had with the churches.

That…that had been something else. Impromptu. Careless. A petty act of jealousy that was going to bring the whole thing down around their ears. Just when it had been going so well.

He threw down the controller, walking around the room as he tried to think how to minimize the damage. It was too late to back away. Other targets were already in play, and once the campaign started, it tended to take on a life of its own.

That had been the beauty of the whole Suicide Club scheme. The fact that all they had to do was set things in motion and then let the forces they’d unleashed on the losers take over. There would be no one to blame. No one for the authorities to come after. Not until that idiot had pulled that boneheaded stunt at the stadium.

As long as he’d been in control, things had worked exactly as planned. And that was the key, of course. Being in control. Making the decisions. Manipulating everyone. What he needed to ensure would happen from here on out.

If he couldn’t…If he couldn’t, then he knew he’d have to take control of that, too.

Lindsey pushed the bell again, before she glanced at her watch. Twenty after eleven. Surely Shannon was up by now.

Of course, it was entirely possible she’d missed her. After what Dave had said about trying to get in touch with her last night, Lindsey had known she had to get over to her parents’ house before they heard about the fire.

Although she’d downplayed the seriousness of what had happened and hadn’t even mentioned the locked door, her mother had still been upset. Apparently neither of them had heard about the snake yet, so at least she hadn’t had to deal with explanations about that.

She was about to try calling Shannon on her cell when the door opened. It was obvious by the nightshirt she was wearing and her bare feet that Shannon hadn’t been up.

“Sorry,” Lindsey said. “I thought you’d be awake by now.”

“What time is it?” Shannon yawned, covering her mouth with her palm.

“Nearly eleven-thirty. You okay?”

“A.m. or p.m.?” Shannon stepped back to allow her to enter.

“A.m. You knew that.”

“Yeah, even I’m not that far gone. You mad?”

“About what?”

“That I ditched the game last night.”

“You can buy my forgiveness with a cup of coffee. All my folks had was decaf.”

“You’ve already been over there?” Shannon threw the question over her shoulder as she led the way to the kitchen.

“Duty visit.”

“Aren’t they all?”

“So what happened to you last night?”

“I came home, had a couple of drinks, took some Klonopin, and went to bed.”

“Not the smartest combination,” Lindsey warned, easing up onto one of the tall stools on the opposite of the breakfast bar from where Shannon was measuring coffee into a filter.

“It was last night.”

“Seriously, that’s dangerous and you know it.”

“Okay. No need to stage an intervention. I’ll be good. So did you go?”

“To the game? Somebody had to sell tickets.”

“You’re a better woman than I am.”

“You have no idea. Almost before I got out of the car, the cheerleaders met me, wanting me to ask Dave to okay a moment of silence for Andrea. They’d bought candles and everything. They wanted me to read a poem, but I told them I couldn’t do that.”

“Oh, God.” Shannon’s voice was rich with genuine sympathy. “I told you mine was the smarter choice. What did Dave say?”

“What could he say?”

Shannon inserted the basket into the coffeemaker before she turned to ask, “Was it awful?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see it. I stayed in the booth.”

“Wise move.”

“Not really. Somebody piled trash in front of the door and set it on fire.”

Shannon had been in the act of taking mugs out of one of the upper cabinets. As Lindsey’s words penetrated, she turned, her mouth open. “Are you kidding me?”

Lindsey shook her head. Although she’d discussed the incident with her parents, she’d made it sound as if it had all been an accident. Putting into words the reality that someone had deliberately endangered her life had more of an emotional impact than she would have believed.

“Who would do something like that?”

“Maybe whoever put the snake in my house.”

“Okay, that’s enough of this shit. You call the police?”

“Jace was at the game. He’s the one who put out the fire.”

“So what did Sir Galahad say about the fire?”

“Don’t call him that. He got burned in the process and ended up in the emergency room. If he’d waited for the fire department to arrive…” She shrugged.

“That’s what the county pays him to do, Linds. Save lives. It’s his job.”

“Yeah, well, in that case, he earned his pay.”

“You don’t really believe somebody was trying to kill you.”

“They locked the door, so yeah, I think maybe they might have been.”

Her friend opened her mouth again and then closed it as she absorbed the information. “Shit,” she said finally.

“I swear I’m not paranoid, but if you put this together with the other…”

“
Why?
Why would anybody want to hurt you?”

“Jace says they think I know something.”

“About what?”

“The church fires. Andrea. I don’t know.”

“Do you?”

“Not that I’m aware of. Jace says I may have been the last person Andrea talked to, so maybe…”

“You said she
didn’t
talk.”

“
They
don’t know that.”

“
They
who? Who does your detective think ‘they’ are?”

“He’s not
my
detective. And that’s what he’s trying to find out—who they are.”

“Well, you know, he needs to get a freaking move on. You want to stay here? You know you’re welcome.”

It was tempting. As Jace’s offer had been. “He feels guilty because he got me into this.”

“Jace? He didn’t have anything to do with Andrea coming to see you.”

“No, but he targeted me as a source of information because he’s convinced my kids were involved with the arson.”

“Maybe he’s right.”

“I didn’t think so, but…You said you suspected someone from the beginning.”

“I didn’t say that.”

Lindsey couldn’t remember her exact wording, but the implication had been that Shannon could believe what Jace was saying. “Words to that effect. You thought someone in the program was capable of that kind of mischief.”

“Great and wise counselor that I am.”

“You’re a very
good
counselor.”

“So good that one of my students went home and cut her wrists, and I didn’t have a clue she was going to do it.”

“Nobody did, including her mother. How could you have?”

Without answering, Shannon turned, finally taking down the mugs and setting them on the counter beside the coffeemaker.

“How could you possibly have known, Shannon?” Lindsey repeated. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“Do you know what I did all last week? I made out remediation schedules for all the turds who’ve sat on their asses for twelve years, doing no homework, ditching school whenever the mood struck them, acting like idiots in the classroom, and who now can’t pass the grad exam.
Those
are the kids who got my attention last week.”

“That’s your job.”

“So is knowing what’s going on in the heads of the ones who need help the most. Like Andrea.”

“None of us knew Andrea was vulnerable. We couldn’t have. We weren’t told.”

“If I’d done my job, I might have found out. I could have called her in to talk about how she was doing. I might have established some kind of relationship with her besides asking which science course she wanted to take this year.”

“She was seeing a therapist. You’re a high school counselor. One with too far many kids to be responsible for—”

“
Responsible.
Bottom line. I was responsible for Andrea.”

“No more than the rest of us. I was her special ed teacher. I filed an individual education plan for her every year. Met with her mom. Feel guilty if you want to, but don’t think you have sole ownership of that.”

“Oh, you’re right. There’s plenty of guilt to go around.”

“And if we wallow in it long enough, we’ll let the next one slip through the cracks.”

“Not me,” Shannon said.

“Meaning?”

“I can’t do this anymore. It’s not what I signed on for.”

“None of us signed on for watching kids commit suicide.”

“I don’t mean that. It’s all the other crap they’re giving us to do. Testing, schedules, remediation plans. I swear I haven’t had time to sit down and talk to a kid this year.”

“It’s always this way at the first of school.”

“And it used to get better. Now it doesn’t. We run from one test to the next. From one set of reports to another. I got into this because I wanted to work with kids. All I am now is a paper pusher.”

“So what are you going to do that’s better?”

“Wait tables. Be a greeter at the Wal-Mart. Anything but what I am doing.
Pretending
to help kids.”

“Give it a few days. Give yourself a few days. You’ll feel differently—”

“After the funeral?”

The word lay between them. In the aftermath of personal threat, Lindsey had almost forgotten the next emotional battle.