Todd Strasser - Kill You Last

Strangely, I could. “Two years… three months… four days.”

Whit cocked his head curiously.

“It was the week I turned sixteen. I wanted him to take me to get my driver’s permit, but he couldn’t leave the studio early because he had to break in the new office manager. I wanted to kill her… I mean, in a manner of speaking.”

“Why couldn’t your mom take you?”

“She was helping him at the studio. He’d just moved it from the city. There was tons to do.”

“Just curious, why’d your dad decide to move his studio up here from New York?” Whit asked.

That was a good question, and I wasn’t sure I knew the answer. It had happened very quickly, and I’d always assumed that he felt he could do just as well in Soundview, but without the commute. But when he’d been in the city, there’d been lots of work and he’d never had to resort to shooting menus.

“I don’t really know,” I said.

Whit scowled and looked at the paper. The lines in his forehead deepened. “You sure about that date?”

“Totally. I was so PO’d about not being able to get my learner’s permit until the weekend.”

“So Janet had only been living here in Soundview a few weeks when she got hired,” Whit said.

“I’m sure Dad didn’t know who she really was,” I said. The alternative was far too upsetting to consider. If Dad knew who she really was, then once again he’d lied to me. He’d said he’d fallen into the scam gradually and by accident. But if he’d knowingly hired Janet, that implied he’d known exactly what he was doing from the start.

Then I thought of something else. “But why would that make Janet a suspect? Isn’t it a stretch to go from Internet scams to murder? And what would her motive be for killing the girls?”

“Think about it. She was living here under a false identity. She knew that if the girls complained to the police about the scam, she might get caught. And with her record, if she got caught for identity theft, she’d be going straight back to prison.”

I thought back to the day the police first came to Dad’s studio and how agitated Jane/Janet had been.

“But there were so many girls who fell for the scam,” I said. “How does killing just three keep her out of prison?”

“Maybe they were the only ones who threatened to go to the police after they realized they’d been scammed. I mean, you’ve probably got some girls who didn’t even realize it was a scam, and some girls who figured it out and just shrugged their shoulders and moved on. But there had to be a few who got mad and demanded their money back, or threatened to turn your dad in.”

“And those would be the ones Janet was concerned about,” I said. The muscles in the sides of my head began to tighten and throb. Had Whit really figured out who the killer was? If it wasn’t my father, I should have felt elated, right? But if he’d knowingly wanted Janet to help in the scam, then wasn’t he indirectly responsible for what happened to those girls? I felt torn with mixed emotions. And there was one more question: “So why haven’t you written a story about it?”

Whit gazed at me with his steady green eyes. “I’m going to. But I’d feel a lot better if I knew what your dad knew and when he knew it. Because once this story gets out, everyone’s going to think that he hired her precisely because she has experience with scams. If that’s true, then the public has a right to know. But if it’s not true, I’d like to be able to say so…”

“Because you don’t want him to be unjustly accused?” I asked.

Whit nodded, and I had to appreciate him for that, because any other journalist would probably have run the story immediately. It was a good scoop and would undoubtedly bring glory to whoever wrote about it first.

“Any ideas?” he asked.

“The answer could be somewhere in the studio,” I said.

“But the police have already been there twice. They must have seen all kinds of papers and records.”

Whit had been honest with me, and now I was going to be honest with him. “Yes, but both times, they were in the office… Janet’s office.”

He gave me an uncertain look.

“Dad has his own files. He keeps them in his photo studio. If the police haven’t found Janet’s fake resume yet, then it might be there. It’s the only way I can think of to prove that Dad hired her without knowing about her criminal background… How long are you willing to hold off on publishing this story?”

His forehead wrinkled. “It’s hard to wait, Shelby. I feel like at any moment someone else is going to figure out what’s going on.”

“Would you wait until tonight?” I asked.

He gazed back at me. “Only if you let me go with you.”

That evening I slipped on a light jacket. “Going out, Mom,” I called, then went out the door.

I’d just gotten to my car when I heard, “Shels?” Her silhouette was in the doorway. “Where are you going?”

“Just out.” I immediately regretted that I hadn’t been more specific. It sounded made up and feeble.

“Out where?”

“To Roman’s. I won’t stay late.”

Mom was quiet. I couldn’t see her expression. She closed the door.

Whit was waiting for me in the dark parking lot behind the studio, with two small flashlights. He gave me one. “You have the keys?” he asked.

I nodded, and we walked toward the back door. “Doesn’t it feel like we’re in a movie?” I whispered.

“All we’re doing is going into your dad’s studio.”

“At night with flashlights?”

I was just about to slide the key into the back-door lock when I noticed a flat piece of plastic stuck in the doorjamb. The kind of plastic that milk containers are made out of. Someone had put it there to keep the door from locking.

I stiffened and whispered to Whit: “Think someone’s in there?”

He reached past me and slowly pushed open the door. “Let me go first.”

I followed him inside, my nerves tingling and heart rattling. The building was quiet and dark, and we flicked on our flashlights. As we made our way slowly down the hall toward the photo studio, Whit whispered, “Usually, when someone puts something like that in a door, it means they’ve left and want to be able to get back in later. So let’s make sure we keep our ears open in case they come back.”

Still, he shone his flashlight into the kitchenette, the broom closet, even the bathroom, just to be sure. If anyone had been there, they’d gone.

We went into the photo studio, and I swung my flashlight at the cabinets lining the wall.

Thump!

The unexpected sound came from behind me. I spun around just as Whit collapsed to the floor… and a dark figure sprinted out of the studio.

“Whit!” I knelt beside him. He was sprawled on the floor, his eyes squeezed shut and a grimace of intense pain on his face. His hand went to the back of his head and he moaned. “Aw, jeez…”

He tried to look at his hand in the dark. I shone my flashlight on it. There was no blood. Next I aimed the flashlight through the doorway to see if the person who’d hit him was still there.

But he-or she-was gone. I turned back to Whit, who’d propped himself up on one elbow. “Are you okay?”

“I guess.” He pushed himself up to a sitting position, touched the back of his head again, and winced. “Ow! Man, that hurts. You sure I’m not bleeding?”

I looked at the back of his head. A bump was already starting to bulge. “Is it bad?”

“Worse than you’d imagine from watching TV.”

“Whoever it was must have been hiding behind the door.”

“Male or female?”

“I couldn’t tell. It happened too fast.”