1st Case - James Patterson Page 0,14

here’s the thing. Hackers work in collectives all the time,” I said. “The price of admission is usually some kind of showboat move. Something to prove your skills. Maybe in this case, that means getting a new target to load the app on her phone. Or maybe even a murder.”

“Sure,” Keats said, a little more noncommittally now. “It’s all on the table.”

Fair enough, I thought. I hadn’t proved anything.

“Does that mean you’re looking for other cases like these?” I asked. “Because I was wondering if I might be able to get a look at those files—”

He stopped me with a flash of eye contact that read like a perimeter alert. Apparently, I was treading into questions above my pay grade—not about the case itself, but about how far into it I might be allowed.

“Okay, okay, I get it,” I said, and went back to reading the file on my lap. There was plenty to absorb in there, anyway.

“For what it’s worth, I’d be asking the same things,” Keats told me. That was good to hear, but it didn’t stop my mind from crawling with curiosity. What was there to know about these other families who had been killed? What kind of digital signature had—or hadn’t—been left behind in those cases?

And meanwhile—

“One more question,” I said. “Can I ask why you brought me along this morning?”

Billy reached over and flipped off the stereo. We were just pulling into the high school parking lot.

“You’re closer to Gwen Petty’s age than anyone else on this team,” he told me. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll see this place in a way that I wouldn’t. But that’s all you’re coming to do. Watch and listen. Understand?”

“Aye, aye, captain,” I said.

Basically, I was down with anything that kept me involved in this case. I’d give it my best shot, anyway. Keeping my eyes open was no problem.

As for keeping my mouth shut? Not exactly my strong suit.

CHAPTER 15

WALKING INTO THAT high school was like some kind of eerie flashback. Even the smell of floor cleaner mixed with cafeteria food took me back to those four awkward years I’d spent waiting to go to college.

We followed signs to the main office, where you could feel the quiet pall that had come over the place. Evidently, everyone was still in shock about the Petty murders.

A sense of not belonging settled over me as we passed through the halls. My own uncomfortable memories of high school started swirling in with the fresher images in my head from that horrendous quintuple homicide crime scene. I wasn’t sure what to make of it all, but when I realized I’d slowed down enough to fall behind, I hurried to catch Keats and followed him into the main office.

The principal, Vic Oppel, was waiting for us when we came in. He was a strange bird right off the bat. Not suspicious, but not very generous with the eye contact, either. He looked at my shoes when we shook hands.

“I’d be happy to answer any questions,” he told us. “But I’m sure our head guidance counselor will be more useful. She knew Gwen quite well.”

He gestured us back out of the office and we started walking up the hall. I didn’t see anyone going through the usual paces. There was nobody lingering around the bathrooms. No one sitting in the hall scribbling some last-minute assignment. No real signs of everyday high school life-as-usual—at all. It felt more like a funeral home, and something told me it wasn’t just about the fact that Gwen Petty and her family had died. It was very much about the way in which it had happened.

Weirdly enough, the exception to that was Mr. Oppel himself. Whatever he might or might not have been feeling, he was self-contained on the outside, to say the least.

“Can you tell me a little about Gwen from your own perspective?” Keats asked. “Whatever you know about her.”

“She was an excellent student,” he answered. “Three point four grade point average. President of the math club. Band, orchestra, model UN. Quite popular, I’m told.”

It was all dry facts, like he knew the gravity of the situation but the emotion of it was beyond him. I couldn’t tell if he was just geeky-awkward, or maybe even a little bit on the spectrum. Either way, it made me like him more. I have a soft spot for geeks.

Oppel answered more of Keats’s questions as he gave us a factoid-filled tour of Gwen’s classrooms, eventually coming around to her locker,