The Fifth to Die: A gripping, page-turner of a crime thriller. J.D. Barker

she plunged beneath the water, the moment she . . . had she really drowned? She remembered breathing in water, consciousness pulling away. She remembered blackness.

      She remembered nothing.

      “I didn’t see anything. I think I passed out.”

      “You were dead.”

      “I . . .” Her words drifted off. She didn’t remember anything at all.

      He was staring down at her, his bloodshot eyes wide and wild, spittle dripping from the corner of his mouth.

      “I remember blacking out, then you waking me. Nothing else.”

      “You must remember something?”

      Lili shook her head. “Nothing.”

      He released her shoulders and sat back, his back pressed against the large freezer. He pulled off his knit cap and scratched at his head in frustration.

      Lili gasped.

      There was an enormous fresh surgical incision running across his bald head. It started above his left ear and trailed around to the back of his head. It was stitched together with black thread, the flesh raised and purple.

      He pulled the cap back down, covered up, and stood, favoring his right leg. Reaching down, he pulled Lili to her feet. The blood rushed from her head, and she swooned, her vision going white. He held her still until she could stand on her own, then led her back to the cage, guiding her inside. He tossed her clothes in behind her and slammed the door, then clicked both locks back in place.

      “You can get dressed. We’ll try again in a few hours. You will remember next time,” he told her.

      He started for the stairs, his right leg dragging slightly behind him. “Drink the milk. You’ll need your strength.”

      Lili eyed the glass, now warm. A fly had landed in it and drowned.

       15

       Clair

       Day 2 • 9:17 a.m.

      The security guard had ushered Clair and Sophie to the far corner of the school’s lobby, then made a few phone calls. There was a small sitting area with a black leather couch, two matching chairs, and a small sign that read: FREE WILCOX WI-FI — PASSWORD AVAILABLE AT SECURITY.

      Clair studied the leaf of a large potted tree. “How do they keep this alive indoors? There’s no light.”

      Sophie glanced over. “A ficus? They’re like the weeds of the tree world. They’ll eat up whatever light you cast on them. This one is probably sucking up the fluorescents overhead and whatever it can pull from the windows by the door back there.”

      “It’s like a frankentree. Looks completely healthy on a diet of artificial junk. I wish I could do that,” Clair replied.

      “The one next to it is a philodendron. They’re easy to maintain too — just water whenever the dirt feels dry. I’ve got a few at home. They’re near impossible to kill.”

      Clair glanced over. “Oh, I could kill it. My plant love leaves nothing but brown branches and shriveled blooms in its wake. I’m not fit to be a plant owner.”

      They heard footsteps from above and glanced up to see a teenage girl coming down the stairs with a purple backpack slung over her shoulder. Not very tall, about five feet or so, with shoulder-length brown hair and pink highlights. She slowed as she saw them, eyeing them warily.

      “Gabrielle Deegan?” Clair said, looking up at her.

      The girl nodded, descended the remaining steps, and rounded the corner to the sitting area. “Are you looking for Lili?”

      “We are,” Sophie said, gesturing toward one of the empty chairs. The girl glanced at the security guard, who offered a reassuring smile, then plopped down into the seat. Sophie and Clair sat opposite her on the couch. “I’m Sophie Rodriguez with Missing Children, and this is Detective Clair Norton with Chicago Metro.”

      Clair noted that Sophie didn’t mention she was with Homicide at Chicago Metro.

      “Gabby, call me Gabby. Nobody calls me Gabrielle but that guy over there.” She nodded at the security guard. “Captain Law and Order. I should be out looking for Lili, and he’s got these doors locked up tighter than his daughter’s chastity belt.”

      Clair exchanged a glance with Sophie, trying not to smile.

      “Do you have any leads?”

      Gabby wore the traditional school uniform, but Clair noticed her white blouse was untucked and her skirt looked like it had been hemmed up an inch or two from the norm. Her ears, eyebrow, and lip all had piercings, but she wore only a single set of small matching silver loops at each ear. No doubt dress code prohibited anything else— someone seeking individuality in a sea of the same would not be doing so here. Every time Clair entered one of these private schools, she recalled the scene from The Wall with all the identical students marching in unison into a giant meat grinder.

      “She’s been gone a full day,” Gabby went on. “She could be lying in a ditch right now or tied to a bed with some crazy psycho telling her to call him Daddy while he jerks off on her chest. If that 4MK guy took her, who knows what he’s doing to her. You need to find her.”

      “When was the last time you spoke to her?” Clair asked.

      “Wednesday night. She was working,” Gabby said. “She texted me from the gallery.”

      “What did she say?”

      “She didn’t say anything, she just sent me a picture of a new Mustang. Cherry red. It was gorgeous. Her dad said he’d buy her a car when she graduates next year, so we’ve been doing this thing where we send each other pictures of cool cars when we find them. She’s not sure what she wants yet. But her dad said if she graduates with straight As, he’ll buy her whatever. He’s a doctor, so I think he’s serious. I told her she should get a Maserati, but she doesn’t want to take advantage of him. She’s trying to find something cool but still affordable. I keep telling her to break the bank if she can, so she sent me the Mustang pic, and I sent her this one.”

      She held up her phone. Clair leaned in closer. “What is that?”

      “A Tesla Roadster. They don’t make them anymore, but it’s a way cool car. Fully electric and can do zero to sixty in two point seven seconds. It will even get a few hundred miles per charge. They stopped making them in 2012, but the specs are much better than anything else out there, even the new electric cars. You can find them for around seventy thousand now, even though they went as high as a few hundred when they first came out.”

      Clair thought about her seven-year-old Honda Civic parked down the street and made a mental note to call her dad and ask for a car. Apparently that route was much more fruitful than saving pennies followed by a visit to the buy-here pay-here lot. “May I see that?”

      Gabby handed her the phone.

      Clair scrolled through her text messages. No actual words were exchanged with Lili, only photos of cars over the past few weeks.

      Gabby went on. “She was hoping to get her license soon and maybe talk her dad into buying the car earlier. She’s had straight As since finger painting in grade school. That’s not gonna change between now and graduation. We thought it would be cool to drive to school every day, even though it’s only a few blocks.”

      Clair returned the phone to her. “Do you have a license?”

      Gabby shook her head. “I don’t really need one, not now anyway. I get along fine on the bus or the train. Parking in the city can be a bitch. I figured riding in someone else’s car was the