Текст книги "The Survivor"
Автор книги: Sean Slater
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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 29 страниц)
Fifteen
Courtney and Raine walked southward through the mall. Earlier in the day, both had dumped their St Patrick’s school uniform in their locker before getting into their usual attire – white Capris and a red half-top for Raine; standard blue jeans and a white v-neck for Courtney.
They stopped near an aisle kiosk. Raine pulled out her phone, tried to call someone, got no answer, then hung up.
Courtney’s face lit up when she saw the cell. ‘You got an iPhone?’
Raine raised an eyebrow. ‘Like, so totally not. My mom got pissed my minutes were over, so she put me on a shitty prepaid plan. Now my minutes run out, like, the first week of every month. So I got to use this one for the rest.’
‘But how’d you get that?’
‘It’s not mine, it’s a friend’s. Here, I’ll put the number in your phone.’
Courtney felt suspicion rise in her chest. ‘What friend?’
‘Oh my Gaaawd, look at those things.’ Raine gave Courtney back her phone then ran up to the aisle kiosk, grabbed a pair of earrings and held them up. ‘These will go perfect with my nurse costume!’
Courtney just nodded. Across the way from them, a group of twenty or more people huddled and murmured near the television sets at the Sony store. The news was on. The group made a collective shocked sound.
‘Something must be happening,’ Courtney said.
Raine shrugged and tried on the earrings. ‘Something’s always happening around here. It’s Vancouver, Court. How do these earrings look? Hot?’
Courtney looked. ‘Super-hot. Like everything looks on you.’
Raine smiled. She pulled out a wad of twenties and bought the earrings.
The jewellery kiosk sat across from a small Cinnabun shop, and the whole area smelled of sticky-hot, gooey cinnamon and melting cream cheese icing. It made Courtney’s stomach rumble, and she realised how long it had been since they’d eaten. She checked her watch. It was two.
She looked at Raine, who was holding a pair of black hoop earrings up to her ear and trying to see herself in the small mirror the kiosk offered.
‘Those cinnamon buns smell so good, we should get something to eat.’
‘We will be soon, we’re meeting someone.’
‘Who?’
Raine got frustrated with the mirror, turned to buy the earrings.
While waiting, and trying to divert her mind from the hell she was going to get from Dad when she got home, Courtney opened up the black Warwick’s bag and stared at the Little Red Riding Hood costume Raine had bought for her. A twinge of guilt fluttered through her stomach when she thought of the cost. Two hundred bucks was a lot of money; she shouldn’t have let Raine pay for it. It was too much.
Raine counted her leftover cash. Stuffed it in her purse. ‘You’re gonna look delicious in that costume, Court. Bobby’s gonna be drooling all over you.’
‘If I can keep him away from you.’
Raine laughed. ‘Bobby’s nice, but he’s yours. I’m into older boys myself. Men.’ She spoke the words softly, giving Courtney a quick sidelong glance.
And then Courtney caught on. The phone, the money, the avoidance. ‘Who are we meeting?’ she asked, almost cautiously.
Raine flashed a mischievous smirk. ‘What can I say? I’m weak.’
‘Oh Gaaawd no, not him.’
‘Uh huh.’
‘Quenton Wong?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘You’re with Que again?’
Raine let out a nervous laugh. ‘For real this time.’ She leaned closer to Courtney, then, and as if everyone else in the mall was eavesdropping, she whispered, ‘We did things last night. I did things for him.’
Courtney knew what things Raine was talking about, but she still had to ask. ‘Things?’
‘With our mouths. You know.’
‘You mean . . .’
Raine smiled. ‘We’re going all the way tonight.’
Courtney said nothing at first. Aside from her heart skipping a beat, she felt divided. Part of her was excited, turned on. She knew Raine was still a virgin – hell, she was a virgin herself, hadn’t done anything so far. And how depressing was that? She wanted to know more, to hear all about it, the things they did, how it felt, what he said to her, how he touched her. She wanted it all, too. Just thinking about it made her body hot and tingly, and her thoughts turned to her supreme fantasy.
Bobby Ryan.
But another part of her was scared about this whole thing. The first time was exciting and all, but this was Que Wong they were talking about. He was a dropout, and three years older than them. And you knew for sure it wasn’t his first time. Que had already broken up with Raine two times over the last three months, and Courtney had little doubt that the moment he got into Raine’s pants, he’d be gone for good, leaving her brokenhearted again.
‘You sure you want him to be your first?’
‘Come on, Court, don’t get all nerdy on me,’ Raine said impatiently. ‘You’re starting to sound like a man-hater. Like my mom.’
Courtney bristled. ‘Your mom?’
‘Yeah. She hates any guy I like. Hates my dad, too. She’s always trying to get me to go against him. That’s why she gives me so much cash lately. As if she could buy me. Right.’ Raine thought it over. ‘Man, I don’t even wanna go home now because of it. I’ll just sit there and listen to her bitch.’
Courtney said nothing for a moment, the image of Que intruding into her thoughts. Every time she saw the guy he was either showing off his new tattoos, or flashing the wads of cash he always had spilling out of his wallet, despite the fact he had no job. And he was always touching her, especially when Raine wasn’t around. Brushing his arm against her side. Touching her cheek with his hand. Just little things. Subtle things. But enough to creep her out.
Courtney opened her mouth to say more, but before she could speak Raine let out a squeal and waved. Coming up the walkway towards them was Que. He was a short guy, just a few inches taller than Raine, maybe five foot seven at most, but he was broad and muscular, built like a gymnast. On his lower body, he wore a pair of baggy black jeans with a Chinese dragon snaking down each side from the hip to the knee. Above, he wore a designer hoodie – white, with pistols and skulls stencilled in gold across the front and back.
Totally cheese.
Raine hurried down the walkway towards him, her quick skips seeming light and giddy in contrast to the determined strides Que was taking. He was always like that. Each thing he did seemed to have purpose, every movement calculated.
Courtney moved slowly up the walkway, keeping behind Raine and studying Que as he approached. His round face was divided only by the tuft of hair under his lower lip. A soul patch. His dark eyes were covered with bright green contacts. Last time he had worn blue. The contacts made his eyes stick out like little lights as he turned his head left and right, studying the mall like he was searching for something or someone other than them.
Raine finally reached him. She flung her arms around his neck and gave him a long hug, followed by a deep probing kiss. He gave her one back, his eyes never finding hers but instead roaming the mall.
When Courtney caught up to them, he said, ‘Hey, Creamy.’
She hated it when he called her that.
‘Quenton,’ she replied, because she knew he hated that, too.
‘We’re starving, babe,’ Raine said. She rubbed her fingers down the side of his face, then pointed at a small bamboo restaurant called Yoki’s. ‘Sushi?’
Que took less than a second to scan the place and shake his head.
‘I got a place,’ was all he said.
He steered them towards the east wing of the mall, his head constantly turning left and right, his green contacts searching for something that just wasn’t there. Courtney watched him closely, felt like bad news was on the way. Like something was wrong. Had it not been for Raine, she would already have left the situation.
But Raine was her best friend.
What was she supposed to do?
Sixteen
When Striker entered the teachers’ lounge, the air inside was chilly, and the smell of old, burned coffee was strong. At the far end of the room, the window had been left wide open, and Striker’s first thought was that a student might have escaped through it.
This thought, and the cold, made his skin mottle with goose bumps. He reached behind him for the door knob, but the wind picked up and slammed the door shut. The noise was sharp and unexpected, and it startled him.
But Megan Ling didn’t so much as flinch. She wavered where she stood, in front of the open window, staring outside with the freezing wind ruffling her burgundy school dress. The only thing remotely Halloween-like on her attire was the earring that hung from her left lobe – a jack-o-lantern with an angry smile. The one from her right ear was missing, lost somewhere in the chaos.
Striker stepped closer, noticed small splatters of red on her white shirt.
‘Hello there, Megan,’ he said softly.
But he got nothing in return.
The girl was zoned out. Completely. So Striker moved forward, slowly, because the last thing Megan Ling needed after all she’d been through was someone sneaking up on her. He got to within ten feet of her, stopped, and stared out the window to where she was looking.
Out front, parked all over the main road and on the school lawn, were litters of emergency vehicles – ambulance, fire, police. Red and blue lights flashed in the midday mist, tinting everything red and blue. Lines of crime tape ran everywhere, draping from post to post, tree to tree, car to car. Like yellow Kerrisdale Day banners.
Striker moved forward, reached out and closed the curtains. It turned the window into a plain white tapestry.
‘Megan?’ he said again.
When she didn’t respond, he gently touched her arm. She flinched.
‘Megan?’
She finally blinked, nodded slowly. Like she was there, but not there. In and out. When she spoke at last, her voice was quiet, raspy. ‘My father died last year . . . in a car accident. On Knight Street. There was a lot of blood. In the car. A lot of blood.’
‘I’m sorry for that.’
She didn’t reply; she just turned her head and looked back at the window, as if she could see through the white drapes. Striker gently ushered her away from the windowsill, to a chair at one of the lounge tables. She dropped into it, folded her hands in her lap, and looked down as if she were some demure Japanese exchange student, and not a kid born right here in Vancouver, Canada. Her pretty face showed not a glint of emotion. It was as if an off-button had been pushed.
Striker sat down opposite her. He chose his words carefully. ‘You’ve been through a lot today, Megan. It’s been a very bad day, the worst day of your life. But you survived. And things are going to get better from here on in. All that matters now is that you’re all right. Your mother has been contacted and she’s already on the way down. My partner is meeting up with her as we speak.’ He gave her time to let this information digest. ‘But all that will have to wait, Megan. Right now, I have to talk to you about the bad stuff. The stuff you probably don’t want to remember . . . I have to ask you about what happened here today.’
The girl twitched, as if she had just come out of a bad dream.
Striker waited for her to say something – anything – but she remained silent. He got up, crossed the room, plopped the last of his change into the drinks machine and hit the Coke button. The machine let out a loud mechanical cha-chunk and the bottle dropped. He brought it back with him and placed it on the table in front of her.
Megan made no move to touch it, and suddenly spoke. ‘They were shooting . . .’
‘Everyone, I know.’
‘No. Not everyone.’ She shook her head but continued looking down. ‘They were asking . . . asking for people. Specific people.’ Without raising her head, she reached across and grabbed the bottle of Coke. She didn’t open it, but held it tightly between her hands.
Striker leaned closer across the table. ‘Who exactly were they asking for?’
‘Conrad MacMillan.’
‘Conrad MacMillan?’
‘And Tina.’
‘Tina?’
‘Tina Chow.’
The names rolled over Striker like a cold wave of water. He knew them.
Conrad used to live down the road, before his family moved to the Dunbar area just over a year ago, and Tina had been on Courtney’s dance team when the two were children. He hadn’t seen them for years now, but that didn’t soften the blow. Images of the two kids flooded him as the ice he’d formed around his heart melted. He wondered: had they made it out alive?
‘That’s all I know,’ Megan whispered.
‘That’s okay.’
‘I want my mother.’
‘She’s on her way. Be here real soon.’ Striker reached out and placed a hand on her hand, but she flinched away from him. ‘You did good today, Megan. You did real good. No one could’ve done any better.’
He’d barely finished speaking the words when the lounge door opened and Ich poked his head into the room. He caught sight of Striker and swallowed hard, his enormous Adam’s apple rising and falling in his throat.
Striker looked up at him. ‘We’re doing an interview here, Ich.’
‘Sorry, but I just had to let you know. You were right about the different cameras. It’s a whole new system.’
‘Meaning?’
Ich smiled. ‘We got video.’
Seventeen
It was exactly two fifteen when Ich pointed to the bottom row of monitors. They all showed frozen-framed, black-and-white scenes of the school cafeteria. No date marked the tape, no legitimate marker of any kind. Just a generic time string starting at zero and ending at 451. Striker wrote down the numbers in his notebook, then looked over at Ich.
‘So what we got, Ich?’
‘The video security system was definitely deactivated by the gunmen. Of that there’s no doubt. But that would be the old system, the VISION 5 by SecuCorp – the analogue one.’ Ich let out a soft laugh, one that held no joy. ‘Turns out you were bang on right about the two types of cameras. The school was in the process of upgrading to digital. Keeping up with the times, right? I mean, shit, this is Saint Patrick’s High. A private school. How could they not? And they couldn’t have picked a better time to do it.’ He tapped the closest monitor of the bottom row. ‘That’s why these three screens were all blank when we first got here. They weren’t turned off or disconnected – the loop was in the process of cycling.’
Striker scratched his head. ‘You’re talking nerd again, Ich. What does it all mean?’
‘What it means is we’ve got evidence. Those new cameras you found in the auditorium weren’t the only ones, there were some in the cafeteria, too. It’s a good thing you pointed those cameras out when you did, or else everything would’ve been erased and recorded over before we figured it out.’ He pointed to a small black box that sat up high on one of the office shelves. ‘Hard drive’s in there. Friggin’ terabyte times two. An image raid.’
‘Sure, a raid, whatever. Is it backed up?’
‘Of course. And I’ve already disconnected the drives from the rest of the system, so they can’t be erased or tampered with.’
Striker put his hands on the desk and leaned closer to the wall, where the series of monitors hung. He stared at the still image on the screen: there were two figures wearing hockey masks, one holding a long gun, the other a handgun. Exact models were difficult to tell.
Striker took a closer look. From this detached viewpoint, the physiques of the shooters looked solid. Lean, wiry, but in no way dangly or awkward. There was muscle beneath those clothes. If he had to guess, the shooters looked full-grown and strong.
Not boys, but men.
It made no sense. Why would some adults break into St Patrick’s High and start shooting everyone? A disgruntled kid on drugs made some sense. So did a mentally ill outcast. But not this. It fell completely outside of what was expected. And Striker felt his fingers ball into fists.
He studied the still-shot of the cafeteria, then the auditorium, and searched for a third suspect. He couldn’t find one. Sweat slicked his palms and he quickly became aware that this thrown-together security room was too hot, too small, and it still held the menthol stink of Caroline’s second-hand cigarette smoke.
‘Just make sure everything is backed up, Ich. We can’t afford any mistakes on this one.’
‘Like I said, it’s already done.’
‘Then do it in triplicate. We need this feed.’
Ich held up a Blu-ray disc, smiled. ‘You can run the feed anytime you want, Detective. Just hit play.’
Just hit play. The words sounded so simple.
Striker looked at the keyboard for a moment, took in a deep breath, reached his finger out to tap the Enter button, and hesitated. Once he hit that button, the gunfight was on again. Bullets would be flying, and kids would be screaming. Bleeding. Dying. Once he hit that goddam button.
Ich shuffled in his seat, and gave him an odd look. Striker caught it. He forced his hand forward, hit the Enter button –
– and the images on the screen came to life.
There was no sound. Just a silent horror show. Two men in hockey masks, shooting everyone everywhere they went. With the film being black and white, it was difficult for Striker to make out which one was which some of the time. Not that it mattered overly. The feed went on for what felt like an eternity, and Striker watched it without moving or saying a word.
Near the end, a boy, aged about sixteen and dressed as the Joker, made a break for it. He raced across the cafeteria for the exit, didn’t make it, and dove underneath the nearest row of tables. The two gunmen approached him from opposite angles. They yanked him out, pointed their guns in his face, and shook him. It looked like they were demanding something. The boy mouthed some words, then they pushed him back down. Took aim. Shot him in the side of his head.
The tape continued.
The two gunmen marched across the cafeteria towards a girl who was huddled in the corner. She wore no Halloween costume, just the standard school uniform – a pleated skirt, drab in the black-and-white footage, and a white shirt, school emblem embossed. The gunmen shoved their weapons into her face, and again it looked like they were demanding something. She opened her mouth to say something, cried out, raised her hands in futility. One of them pulled a different handgun from his waistband and shot her twice in the chest, then once in the head. She fell face down onto the cafeteria floor. No twitching, no spasms, no movement at all.
Just stillness.
Striker felt off balance as he watched. Everything looked fake on the small screen. Like kids playing. Children falling over and lying still. Sprays of black liquid colouring their clothes and the tables and the floor, looking more like motor oil than blood. And the longer the video played, the deeper and darker the fascination became. He just couldn’t look away.
The gunmen stood above the fallen girl, facing each other as if the dead girl did not exist. As if she were nothing more than a lump of clothes or a discarded gym bag. They seemed to be talking under their masks. Communicating. After a long moment, they turned as one and marched on through the cafeteria, shooting students, seemingly indiscriminately. Striker counted five kids go down as he waited and watched, desperate for the image of him and Felicia to appear on the screen.
But it never did.
And then, abruptly, the feed ended.
He looked up, startled. ‘Ich, what happened?’
The previously smug look on Ich’s face was replaced by a sick expression. ‘What? Nothing happened. That’s all we got.’
‘All we got?’
Ich shrugged. ‘The system is brand new, Detective, and in the process of being configured. The cameras were set up only as a trial run. A test. They were never intended to be used as anything else. Hell, it was a fluke they were even recording when the shooting started.’
Striker gripped the back of the chair and cursed. ‘The sound. What about the sound?’
‘All we got right now is a garbled mess. Totally useless. I’ve forwarded a copy to my assistant in Forensic Video to see if we can clean it up. I’ll check on it when I’m done here, but it’s gonna take a while. This is Com-Tech material. They use their own digital codecs—’
‘You’re speaking geek again, Ich.’
Ich sighed. ‘Simply put, it’s not just a matter of the feed needing to be uncompressed and transcoded – it’s totally garbled.’
Striker looked at his watch. ‘How long is “a while”?’
Ich shrugged helplessly. ‘Days.’
‘We don’t got that kinda time. Shit, I thought you were the Bill Gates of this stuff?’
‘More like Steve Jobs,’ Ich corrected, and failed at forcing a grim smile. ‘Look, I’m sorry, but that’s what it takes. It’s all math, compressed data, and number crunching. You can’t make miracles out of numbers. They are what they are.’
Striker leaned back on the desk and studied the screen. The programme used a graphical slide-bar for time control. He reached down and grabbed the mouse. Used it to scroll back through the timeline until he got to the moment where the two gunmen yanked the boy dressed as the Joker out from under the table.
The tape time read 362.
Striker replayed the scene until the two gunmen shot the girl.
The finish time was 451.
He wrote down both times in his notebook, then copied them onto a piece of paper and handed it to Ich.
‘Make a second copy of the feed, using only these time intervals. Get me audio here, during this time period, that’s what’s most important. The rest can follow later.’
Ich said nothing. He just nodded and wiped the beads of perspiration off his long hooked nose and swallowed hard, like his throat was as dry as Striker’s. He grabbed another Blu-ray disc from the top shelf, stuck it in the disc drive, then initiated the burning programme.
Striker headed for the door, then stopped. He turned and waited for Ich to meet his stare, and didn’t speak till he had the man’s full attention.
‘Let me know the minute – the second – this thing is done, Ich. Got it? That tape is crucial, my best lead. I need to find out who these guys are. Whether they’re even students or not. And I need to know what they’re saying to each other, even if all we get back is a word or two.’
‘It’ll be done, Boss.’
‘And I need to know who that kid is.’
Ich looked at the screen, confused. ‘You mean, the boy they talked to? The kid dressed like the Joker?’
‘No, the girl,’ Striker corrected. ‘There’s no doubt about it. She was targeted.’
