Concrete Underground, Moxie Mezcal [best books to read for teens .TXT] 📗

all makes sense on the face of it, until you consider the hidden messages. Why would the blackmailers want me to know the identity of their next target?"

Violet thought about this for a moment, furrowing her brow, then said, "You're assuming that the blackmailers know about the hidden messages, but what if there are two different people responsible for the different messages?"

"I don't follow," I said.

"Say there was one person, one of your blackmailers, who dictated the message to a second person who actually made and delivered them. They needed someone who could make the paper and do the printing by hand in case you went to the police, so they couldn't be traced. Now let's say this second person wasn't completely on board with the blackmailers' intentions and wanted to help you, so she devised a way to warn you about their next target without arousing their suspicion."

"I hadn't considered that," I said meekly as my mouth hung open and my brain tried to process what she was telling me. "I suppose it would be fairly easy for this second person to accomplish, assuming she had a workshop set up with the necessary tools and materials."

Violet nodded her head and conceded, "It wouldn't be that hard at all."

"Of course," I added, "you would wonder why she wouldn't just reveal the blackmailers' identities to me, save me some hassle."

Violet smiled and shrugged. "She probably doesn't know them, or else she would have. She probably only has one single point of contact with them, someone very close who trusted her with the task, and someone she's afraid of enough that she would take such pains to hide the help she's been giving you."

"Like her husband?" I ventured.

"Like her husband," she agreed.

Eventually we exhausted the list of places we could think to look for Columbine.

"Where to next?" I asked.

"Well, there is one more place we could check. In a way it's the last place I'd expect to find her. But in another way, it should have been an obvious place to start."

"Her father's house?"

Violet nodded.

We rang the bell at McPherson's twice, but there was no answer, so I tried the door and found it was unlocked. Inside, loud music echoed throughout the house - Bessie Smith's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find".

We followed the sound down one of the hallways and into McPherson's study, where we found the old man sitting slumped forward over his desk, his head twisted around so that it was facing up even though the rest of him was facing down.

I moved closer to the desk, staring in morbid fascination at the way his neck bones poked out against his skin. The skin was pulled taught and creased around the protruding bone, looking pallid and plastic, almost synthetic. Then I noticed his left hand was clutching something. Kneeling down, I pried open his fingers and found Jacinda's ruby necklace engraved with the crown and globe sigil. I felt my skin crawl as a sense of déjà vu washed over me and filled me with the irrational conviction that there was a theaterful of people watching over my shoulder.

Suddenly, the music stopped. I bounced back up and saw Violet standing next to the stereo with her finger on a button, looking at me apologetically.

"We've got to get out of here," I said.

"Shouldn't we call the police?"

I shook my head. "The cops already suspect me of Lily's murder - probably Cobb and Jacinda, too. And I'm pretty sure they've got you pegged as an accomplice. If they find us here with a corpse, it'll be all over."

We tried as best we could to leave everything the way we found it and wipe away any fingerprints. As we got back into the Volvo and Violet started the engine, she said, "So I guess the note was wrong. Columbine wasn't the next one to die after all."

"No, the blackmailers didn't have anything to do with this," I replied. "Max was the one who ended up with the necklace, and I'm pretty sure this is what he was talking about when he asked you if 'it' was done."

As we drove out through McPherson's front gate, I noticed the surveillance camera perched above it.

"Where to next?" I asked.

"San Hermes River Park."

"Why there?"

"Because that's where my note to Col said to meet us," she explained.

---

Violet parked the Volvo in one of the lots near Millennial Bridge, and we began to trek down a particularly steep and uneven hiking trail. About halfway to the river bank, we realized that the trail wasn't actually a real trail, and we were in fact trying to navigate a shortcut through the undergrowth in the dark of night.

I was the first one to bite it, sticking my foot into a gopher hole and face-planting into the ground. When I came back up, my face was encrusted with dead leaves and dirt. Seeing me covered in shit somehow cut through the tension of the rest of the evening, and Violet broke out into hysterical laughter. She laughed so hard, in fact, that she didn't notice the watermelon sized boulder in front of her, and she went down too.

From that moment, we laughed the rest of the hike down, getting louder each time one of us stumbled or lost our footing. Coming down the last stretch, I wrapped my arm around her waist so we could lean against each other for support.

That was how we were posed when the ground leveled out and we saw Columbine sitting on a large fallen tree branch at the river's edge, watching our approach.

"Awesome. So what, you're just going to nail all of my friends, then?" she called out. "I can't wait 'til it's Anthony's turn."

"What's she mean?" Violet asked.

"He fucked Max," Columbine answered.

Violet looked me over in amused surprise. "Of course he did."

"Where have you been?" I asked, trying to change the subject.

"Around," she shrugged.

"Why weren't you answering my calls?"

"I guess I was a little sore," she said, her eyes downcast. "I tried calling you last night, and I think your pocket answered. I kept asking if you were there, but you never said anything. Then I heard a woman moaning in the background." She turned her gaze to Violet and added, "I guess I should have recognized the moans."

Violet's face sunk with guilt.

"Hey, check it out, it was still there," Columbine said abruptly, digging a small Russian doll out of her jacket pocket and showing it to Violet. It was painted like the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland and had bits of dirt still stuck to it.

"Is there anything in it?" I asked.

"There used to be a necklace. My mom left it for me when she passed. But I took it out a while ago."

"Col," Violet said gingerly, "honey, your father's dead."

Columbine looked down at the doll, turned it over in her hands a couple times, then said, "Good."

32. Just Another Game

The three of us checked into a motel off of Highway 77 a few miles out of town to the south of Hastings Airfield. The place was a run down sinkhole called The Motley Fool, which I'm sure had something to do with Columbine picking it.

I paid in cash and registered under a fake name. The clerk was a small Vietnamese woman who spoke in broken English and sat behind a window of bullet-proof glass; she didn't seem too eager to ask questions.

On the way over I had explained to Columbine about the notes and her possibly being targeted by the blackmailers. Once we settled into the room, I came up with some precautions we should take until we could be sure Columbine was safe.

"Leave the room as little as possible and stay close by. There's a gas station with a convenience store just across the street, and that should be as far as you'll need to go. If you absolutely have to travel, take public transit or cabs, and try to transfer a few times, make sure you aren't followed. Don't go anywhere you might be recognized."

"I could put together a disguise," Columbine offered. "Maybe a long black wig and a Russian accent - oh, and patch on my eye."

She cupped a hand over her right eye playfully, and I wondered whether this was just some weird coping mechanism or if the whole situation really was some kind of game to her.

"You probably shouldn't call anyone either - from the hotel phone or your cell," I continued. "Tomorrow I'll take the car into town and leave it parked at my place. It's not safe to leave it sitting out in front here. In the meantime, Violet should stay here in case anything happens. One of us should be with Columbine at all times."

"What about my job?" Violet jumped in.

"Look, it's up to you, but if Anthony's looking for you, that'll be the first place he checks. And if Max told him that I was at your house - and I'm sure he has..." I trailed off, feeling like I didn't really need to finish the thought.

Violet shook her head. "This is so surreal. I mean, are we really dealing with a matter of life or death here? It's hard to believe this is actually happening, it feels like at any second I'm going to wake up and realize this is all a dream."

None of us felt like going to sleep that night. I gave it my best shot, but couldn't manage to nod off despite my total exhaustion - both mental and physical.

Columbine spent the night laying on one of the twin beds watching late night TV. Violet sat up on the other bed, reading a dog-eared pulp detective paperback. I, meanwhile, sat cross-legged on the floor with my notebook, hoping that in reviewing the information I'd gathered, some kind of clue or explanation would emerge.

After chasing my own tail this way for an hour, I decided to take a break. I went out onto the catwalk outside our room and chain smoked while leaning over the guardrail. Somewhere in the middle of my third cigarette, Violet came out to join me.

"Are you okay?" she asked as she hopped up to perch herself on the guardrail.

"Yeah, I'm just trying to clear my head a little, get some perspective."

She took out one of her cloves, and I reached up to light it for her. "What's your plan for tomorrow once you get back into town?"

"Good question. I'll let you know when I figure it out," I replied with a shrug. "I mean, obviously I've got to find the blackmailers and, I dunno, somehow stop them from hurting Columbine. I guess turning them over to Max would do the trick, but I'd need a lot of hard evidence for that to work. My credibility with him is kind of low right now.

"As far as I know there are three of them left. One was the guy who attacked me the other night at the party; unfortunately, he's worn a mask every time I've run into him. The second is an older man with a ruddy face and a scar on his cheek who drives a blue 1950's Chevy. I've