Rite of Passage Read online

  “The mall shooter,” Dean prompted.

  Bobby picked up his notepad. “Shaun Benton,” he said. “McClary checked him for priors. Couple domestic disturbance calls, bar fights, assault and battery.”

  Dean frowned. “McClary—d’you trust him?” he asked Bobby suddenly.

  “Reason I shouldn’t?”

  “No reason,” Dean said. When the Leviathan can look like anybody, he thought, anybody could be a Leviathan.

  “This Benton guy admitted he had anger management issues,” Sam said, “but something pushed him over the edge.”

  “Or someone, pushing his buttons,” Dean said. “Bowler guy was definitely there, at the mall.”

  “So, maybe instead of pushing the shooter physically, he pushed him mentally,” Bobby suggested,

  “Could be this guy has no pattern,” Dean said. “No plan. Just create random friggin’ havoc.”

  “Distracted and sleep-deprived drivers,” Sam said, thinking out loud again, “careless chainsaw operator … It’s like that expression: an accident waiting to happen.”

  “Except bowler guy’s tired of waiting.”

  “We can’t predict when, where or who. So maybe we can figure out how, or why.”

  “He enjoys it,” Dean said grimly. “When he was swinging his cane on the bridge, I swear he was smiling.”

  “We’ll get this sumbitch,” Bobby said. “I’ll ask McClary to check every video feed he’s got. Guy in a bowler hat with a cane should stick out like a stretch limo at a muscle car convention.”

  “Good,” Dean said, “because we got no clue what’s next.”

  Eleven

  “Bomb threat,” Ryan Bramble scoffed. “Load of crap, more like.”

  The entire student body of Laurel Hill High School— the beige brick monstrosity, as he thought of it—had been evacuated to the open field across the street from the school and its parking lot. Each teacher tried to keep his or her students corralled in a separate area, matching faces to names on their attendance sheets to make sure everyone had left the building, but friends inevitably strayed across the imaginary lines to talk to one another.

  Standing with his balled fists shoved into the pockets of his black jeans, Ryan faced the entrance of the school, where two regular cop cars and two K-9 SUVs occupied the bus lane, and couldn’t help feeling irritation at the intrusion.

  “What’s your theory, Ryan?” Sumiko Jones, his girlfriend, asked as she pointed her cell phone camera up at him. They shared a government class that period so they wouldn’t catch any flak for hanging out during the evacuation.

  He flipped a strand of cobalt-blue hair out of his eyes and raised a hand in front of her camera lens. “Don’t record me for your blog.”

  “Okay, Mr. Crankypants,” she said, smiling. “You’ll be an anonymous source. Tell me what’s going on?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “Bomb-sniffing dogs searched the perimeter of the building and now they’re checking inside,” Sumiko said and pursed her lips. The fire-engine-red lip gloss matched the outer layer of her black and red top. Her pitch-black hair was styled in a pixie cut, though he preferred her hair long, as it had been when they first started dating in junior year. “I’m going out on a limb here, but I’m gonna say they’re searching for a bomb.”

  “That’s what they want you to think,” Ryan said. “Actually, it’s a drug sweep.”

  “Why search the exterior?”

  Ryan placed his hands on her shoulders and looked down at her with a shake of his head. Even wearing her three-inch black platform boots with all the buckles, she was almost a foot shorter than his six-five frame. He had always been taller than her, but had gone through a six-inch growth spurt in the last year, while her height had probably maxed out. Sometimes he felt like a clumsy ox around her. Coaches for the various Laurel Hill Lions sports teams took notice of his size, but he wasn’t graceful or athletic. “They want to keep us off guard.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Are you worried about something in your locker?”

  “You’d know if I had anything.”

  “Ha!”

  “Like I can keep secrets from the Lion Truth blogger.”

  “Shh!”

  “What? It’s not a secret. Your name’s on the blog. You’re live-blogging the evacuation now, aren’t you?”

  “True, but if I keep reminding everyone, they get nervous and stop talking.” She typed furiously on her cell phone as she spoke to him. “And … posted!”

  “Writing about me?”

  “No,” she said. “And I’m not posting your theory either. I don’t buy it, Bramble.”

  “Why not?”

  “Haven’t you been reading my blog?”

  “Who can keep up?” he said. “You know, you could write for the school paper.”

  “Nah,” she scoffed. “Too structured. Nothing but puff pieces. I write what I want when I want to write it. And you haven’t been reading it. All the strange accidents happening around town the last couple days. Totally bizarre.”

  “I don’t watch or read the news,” Ryan said. “I’ve got my own problems. Besides, why do you even care about that stuff?”

  “Maybe it’s happening here, now,” Sumiko said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder toward the school.

  “We could use some excitement,” he said sullenly.

  “Wow,” she said, shocked. “I thought you were joking, Ryan. But you really don’t have a clue.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

  “Wait, there’s Rachel Barish,” Sumiko said. “I heard she was in the principal’s office when the bomb threat call came in.”

  Ryan trailed after her, exasperated. “How could you know that?”

  Sumiko held her phone up over her shoulder and waved it toward him, as if he could read the display while she jogged away. “Kassidy Barish, her sister, texted me. Rachel signed in late. Orthodontist appointment.”

  “Mr. Bramble, where do you think you’re going?”

  “Nowhere,” Ryan said, stopping in his tracks.

  Mr. Detrick, his government teacher, was a real hard ass, especially where Ryan was concerned. Sometimes it was like he was looking for an excuse to have Ryan suspended. In fact, all of his teachers watched him as if they expected him to go postal. With his size and dyed blue hair, he would never be inconspicuous. Maybe that was part of the problem. Sumiko, on the other hand, could run laps around the entire student body or jump rope in the middle of the street and none of the teachers would raise an eyebrow. She always seemed like she had a purpose. At one time, Ryan thought he might be college bound. Up until this year, he’d had good grades and attendance. He hadn’t aced every course like Sumiko, but he held his own. Lately, though, his academic efforts had come up short. As and Bs had drifted down to Cs and now a few Ds. He tried to study longer, reviewed material repeatedly, but that only produced tension headaches, not better grades. Sumiko tutored him in the classes they shared and that helped to a degree, but he continued to fall behind. Maybe he knew, subconsciously, that it was futile. His father worked two jobs, but could never afford to send Ryan to college. More likely, Ryan would need a job to help out with household expenses. Or maybe the thought of losing Sumiko had triggered a defeatist spiral. He simply couldn’t keep up with her. After this year, she would attend some prestigious university somewhere far from Laurel Hill, leaving him behind to flip burgers for minimum wage, completely forgotten.

  Adding to his growing isolation, he hardly ever saw his father lately, and when they were together, they never talked. Not really. Ryan could feel his life slipping away and each day the frustration grew inside him, building up so much pressure he wanted to scream and pound his fists against the wall. Maybe his teachers sensed it. Maybe they were right to be wary of him.

  Sumiko slipped back beside Ryan the moment Detrick looked the other way.

  “You’re like a ninja,” he whispered.

  “Are you being racist?” she
asked, smiling to take the sting out of it.

  “Cat burglar, then,” he said. “Get anything bloggable?”

  “Nothing good. Rachel was there when the call came in. They called the principal to the phone. She heard some whispering. One of them grabbed a procedural manual off a shelf. Someone else called the police.”

  He leaned over so he could talk to her privately, without the rest of his government class eavesdropping. “Miko, do you think … ?”

  “What?”

  “I mean, is something wrong with me?”

  “Well, if you don’t stop growing, I’ll need a stepladder to kiss you.”

  “I’m serious.” He looked around nervously. “Ever feel like you don’t belong?”

  “It’s called being a teenager, doofus.”

  “Do you—?”

  The sounds of angry shouting were coming from two classroom groups away. Ryan saw somebody shove someone. “Get away from her, creep! No! I don’t care! That perv was sniffing her hair!”

  Of course, Sumiko was instantly filming the skirmish.

  In the blink of an eye, she had turned her attention somewhere else. Maybe it was just as well. He doubted he could have told her what he was feeling, because he wasn’t sure himself. Trapped and desperate summed it up.

  “That’s Tyler Shackleford, one of the Lion’s linebackers, shoving and shouting at Dalton Rourke, who’s been suspended more often than a busload of avid bungee jumpers,” Sumiko said, speaking for the microphone, not for Ryan’s benefit.

  “Bungee jumpers travel in buses?” Ryan wondered aloud, knowing she would ignore him while she was live-blogging.

  “And the strawberry-blonde tresses in question belong to the statuesque Jennifer Martin, who’s been dating young Tyler since last year’s Holiday Ball.”

  Tyler pushed Dalton again, then a third time, shaking off gym teacher Mr. Gadsen’s restraining hand. At first Dalton, who was at least Tyler’s equal in size and build, took the abuse, but his face was rapidly turning beet red from his neck to his buzz-cut red hair. Looking at him, Ryan knew Dalton was about to explode.

  “Don’t do it,” he whispered.

  But, as Ryan had expected, the next shove triggered Dalton’s retaliation. He roared and lunged forward, striking Tyler high on both shoulders while hooking one of his ankles with a heel. Tyler fell back onto the grass and, in a second, Dalton had dropped to a knee beside him and raised a fist to punch him in the face.

  Mr. Gadsen hooked Dalton’s elbow before he could strike. Then Mr. Detrick grabbed Dalton’s other arm. Together they pulled him away. As Tyler climbed to his feet, looking abashed at having lost the upper hand, Gadsen barked, “Both of you report to the vice principal’s office when we’re done here.”

  “It’s his fault,” Tyler said, placing a possessive arm around Jennifer’s shoulders. “That freak was sniffing her hair like a dog. Right, Jen?”

  Looking embarrassed, Jennifer hugged her elbows tight against her body and nodded slightly.

  “This is bullshit,” Dalton said. “I was defending myself.”

  “True that,” agreed zombie-pale Jimmy Ferrato, one of Dalton’s few friends.

  “The vice principal’s office,” Gadsen repeated, pointing at Dalton and Tyler, his hands cocked like six shooters. “Both of you.”

  The teachers made them separate, but Tyler looked back and pointed at Dalton, mouthing the words, “You’re dead, punk.”

  When his back was turned, Dalton flipped him the bird.

  “Posted!” Sumiko said. “That will generate a lot of hits tonight.”

  “And that matters because … ?”

  “If I get enough hits, I can monetize,” Sumiko explained. “Feed my tech needs, clothes, car, exotic vacations.” She shrugged with an impish grin. “The sky’s the limit.”

  “That’s what you care about?”

  “No, Bramble,” she said. “I want to get the worrying-about-finances part of my life out of the way, so I have time for the stuff I really care about.”

  “And what stuff is that?”

  “I’ll have the rest of my life to figure that out!”

  Everyone started talking at once. Ryan looked up and saw the police and K-9 units come out of the school. One of the cops spoke with the principal and vice principal, who had been standing in the school parking lot during the search, before heading to his cruiser. The principal waved to the students to return to the building. The mass slowly walked forward, waiting for a cop to stop traffic while they crossed the street.

  “Jackrabbit,” Sumiko said.

  “What?”

  She pointed.

  Dalton Rourke and Jimmy Ferrato were sprinting in the opposite direction, turning out of sight behind a row of houses. Of course, Sumiko caught their escape with her cell phone camera.

  The moment they were gone, Sumiko bumped into Ryan with her hip and nodded toward the far side of the crowd, where a young man with a shaved head and earrings, wearing a battered leather coat, jeans and black boots, was watching the students and teachers. He winced as he massaged his temples. It looked like a bad hangover. As the students returned to the school, he took a perpendicular course toward the row of houses, away from the cop at the intersection, head bowed.

  “That’s Jesse Trumball,” Sumiko said, intrigued.

  “Yeah. So?”

  “So, he dropped out months ago,” Sumiko said. “Why’s he at a school evacuation?”

  “Because he misses us?”

  “As if,” Sumiko said, simultaneously tapping away on her touchscreen keyboard. “Nope. Mr. Trumball called in the bomb threat.”

  “Miko! You can’t post that on your blog,” Ryan said. “That’s slander.”

  “Written defamation is libel,” Sumiko explained. “What I just said was slander.” She reached up and wrapped her hand around the back of his neck, tugging him down for a quick kiss on the cheek. “But you won’t turn me in, will you, sweetie?”

  “Of course not,” he said, but she had already turned back to her cell phone.

  He hardly ever had her attention anymore, and even then she divided her focus between him and the phone. Every day the scale seemed to be tipping further out of balance with her and he felt helpless to stop it.

  They walked back inside together, but Ryan might as well have been alone.

  Twelve

  Bobby called ahead and met Sergeant McClary in his Laurel Hill Police Department office. McClary leaned back in his office chair, one hand clicking on a mouse as he scanned his computer monitor, the other holding a clear plastic cup containing a banana-strawberry smoothie, which he sipped through a thick straw. When he saw Bobby, he grinned sheepishly and waggled the cup. “To ward off low blood sugar.”

  “That’ll do it.”

  He motioned Bobby to a seat in front of his desk. “What can I do for you, Agent Willis?”

  “Couple things,” Bobby said. He opened the folder he was carrying and removed the grainy traffic cam photo of the man wearing the bowler hat from the top of the stack. “Consider this gentleman a person of interest.”

  McClary leaned forward in his chair. “I remember him. He stood there during the massive pile-up. The guy might be guilty of retro fashion sense and incredible apathy toward human suffering, but nothing illegal, surely.” McClary took a long sip of his smoothie while Bobby stared at him. “What? You think he’s part of the burglary ring?”

  “Same guy walked by the triple roofer accident.”

  McClary set his cup down. “Really?”

  “According to Michelle Sloney,” Bobby said, neglecting to mention that the Winchester boys had been the ones to interview her, and leaving Dean out as a witness on the overpass. “My advice, pull every video feed you’ve got. See how often this guy shows up near trouble.”

  “Good idea,” McClary said, nodding. “Maybe we’ve got evidence of him doing … something to set these things in motion. You know what’s weird?”

  “All ears.”

  “
We had all kinds of makes and models of vehicles involved in that hellacious pile-up—foreign and domestic, models spanning fifteen years, give or take—and not one airbag deployed.” McClary said. “Not a single damn one. Logistically, how is that even possible?”

  Unless every airbag in town is a malfunction waiting to happen? Bobby thought. Not a theory he wanted to test personally— or suggest to McClary. He’d lose all credibility with the man.

  “Maybe some kind of EMP device that disables impact sensors.”

  “Who knows? I’ll get this cleaned up if we can’t find a better photo,” McClary said, indicating the traffic cam shot. “Release it to the press. Bring him in for questioning, if nothing else. What’s the other thing?”

  “The bus crash,” Bobby said. “I’d like to interview a couple of the passengers.”

  “That crash happened about a half-mile away from the pile-up,” McClary said. “D’you think they’re related, other than by timing?”

  “That bus stops at that intersection,” Bobby said significantly.

  “But it wasn’t involved in the …” McClary stopped mid-thought. “Maybe the guy in the hat rode the bus to that stop.”

  “It’s a thought.”

  McClary exhaled forcefully. “I don’t know,” he said. “The bus was checked for mechanical failure. The brakes worked fine. The driver simply keeled over. I don’t see how they connect.”

  “Not a big fan of coincidences, sergeant.”

  “Okay,” McClary said. “We’re spinning our wheels—no pun intended—so I’ll ask the county M.E. to treat the bus driver as a possible homicide. They’ll check the body for punctures or anything that might not show up on a routine tox screen.”

  “I’d like to talk to a few of his passengers, and covering our other bases, anyone who witnessed the pile-up.”

  “Sure,” McClary said. “We got statements from a few people who were closest to the driver. It seemed like another unfortunate but unconnected accident at the time. As far as the pile-up, we talked to one woman walking her Yorkie, but she took cover pretty quick.” McClary clicked his mouse a couple of times, typed briefly on his keyboard. “Hold on … Printing the names now. Be right back.”