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

      Dammit.

      “Do you want another refill?” she asked Sophie.

      Sophie glanced up from the sheet of notebook paper in her hands. “I’m good. We’ve got two more left. Let’s wrap this up so we can get out of here.”

      After they spoke to Gabby Deegan, the security guard had escorted them to the second-floor administration office and introduced them to Noreen Outen at the front desk. She’d looked up at them with a forced smile from behind glasses thick enough to leave the top of her nose red with their weight. Clair felt a headache coming on just watching her eyes strain.

      After identifying themselves, they’d sent her off on two tasks — round up the students on the rather extensive list Gabby provided them (sixteen names in all), then check the attendance records for the twelfth — they were looking for anyone who didn’t make it to class that day, any class, on the off chance a student picked up Lili and left with her.

      While the woman plugged away at her homework assignment, Clair and Sophie had begun interviewing the students lining up in the hallway outside the office. Now they were fourteen down, two to go. So far, none of the students remembered seeing Lili that morning, either walking to school or in the building.

      “Who’s next?”

      Sophie glanced down at Gabby’s notes. “Malcolm Leffingwell and Leo Gunia. Want to flip for it?”

      Clair tilted her head back in the chair. “Leo!”

      Sophie giggled. “Jeez, Clair. Do you have to shout every name?”

      “I love the way kids jump when they hear their name shouted out from the admin office. Every bad thing they’ve done since wetting their first diaper runs through their head. See? Look how white that kid’s face is.”

      Sophie glanced up at the boy coming through the door. “You’re a damn sadist, woman.”

      “Just keeping them on their toes.”

      Leo Gunia wore the same white shirt, navy pants, and blue striped tie as all the other boys they had spoken to. His black hair was neatly cropped, and he had the slightest amount of stubble growing under his chin.

      Clair suppressed a smile. Why is it all teenage boys think they can grow some form of facial hair? She had yet to meet one who actually could. Instead, they had these bitty shadows and patches of peach fuzz. She was tempted to send each one on his way with a razor and a bottle of testosterone. “Please take a seat, Leo.”

      Sophie explained who they were and why they were there.

      Leo held their gaze, nodding as she spoke. “The whole school is talking about it.”

      “Really? What are they saying?” Sophie asked him.

      The boy shrugged. “Only that somebody might have taken her on her way to school the other day. That 4MK guy.”

      “It wasn’t 4MK,” Clair told him.

      He shrugged again. “Well, somebody, then.”

      “Did you see her that morning?”

      The boy didn’t say anything. His eyes fell to the floor. He shuffled his feet.

      “Leo?”

      “I should’ve stopped. It was so cold out, she must have been freezing, but I had to get to class early to try and prep for a test. I had to work the night before and didn’t have time to study,” Leo said quietly.

      Clair leaned forward in her chair. “So you saw her? Where?”

      “On Sixty-Ninth, right before the overpass.” He glanced up, his eyes watery. “She was hunched over, walking against the cold. It was snowing kind of heavy, and I didn’t see her until the last second. I don’t know what happened. I thought about stopping, I think my foot even reached for the brakes, but that test came into my mind, and I looked at my clock and I was already five minutes late. That meant I only had about twenty minutes to study — by the time I parked and got upstairs, probably less. Anyway, I saw her at the last second. I couldn’t have stopped if I wanted to, and I didn’t have enough time to double back. I figured someone else would give her a ride.”

      Clair glanced at Sophie, then back to Leo. “Did you see anyone else stop for her?”

      Leo lowered his head. “No. I’m not sure I would have noticed even if the car behind me did. I wasn’t thinking, and with the snow . . . If I would have picked her up, she’d probably be okay right now. This is my fault.”

      Sophie asked, “What time was it when you saw her?”

      Leo sighed. “Seven thirty.”

      “You’re certain?”

      He nodded. “I needed an A on that exam, remember? I was counting the seconds all morning.”

      “What did you score?”

      Leo sighed again. “B minus.”

      Clair took down Leo’s contact information and gave him her card. They sent him back to class.

      Malcolm Leffingwell had not seen Lili all week.

      Noreen Outen poked her head back in. “That the last of them?”

      Clair stood up and stretched her back. “Yes, ma’am. Any luck with the attendance records?”

      Noreen pushed her heavy glasses back up her nose, then skimmed a small notepad. “We had two students out sick that day, both phoned in by their mothers — Robyn Staats and Rosalee Newhouse. Nobody late to first period, nobody unaccounted for. We have good students here; they wouldn’t get mixed up in any shenanigans.”

      Sophie nodded at the notepad. “Do either of those girls know Lili?”

      Noreen said, “Well, let me think. Robyn is a freshman, Rosalee is a junior. It’s possible, I suppose, but I don’t know for sure.”

      “We’ll need to speak to both of them too,” Sophie told her.

      Noreen nodded.

      Clair fell back into her chair. It felt like they were spinning wheels.

       18

       Porter

       Day 2 • 10:31 a.m.

      “Why does the captain want to meet us at my apartment?” Porter asked.

      He had both hands on the steering wheel, his knuckles white.

      The red and blue lights flashed in the corner of his eye atop the charger, and the siren wailed behind the throaty engine. He was doing eighty-one on I-94.

      Beside him, Nash held the Oh Shit handle above the door with his right hand and gripped the seat with his left. “He wouldn’t say. I tried to get it out of him. His exact words were ‘Get Porter back to his apartment now.’”

      Porter pulled the wheel to the left and circled around a gas truck. “Well, did he sound angry? Upset? Worried?”

      Nash shrugged. “He sounded like the captain always sounds. I couldn’t get a read on him.”

      “Fuck!” Porter slammed his hand into the horn and held as a blue Prius pulled into his lane. “Damn tree-hugger.”

      “Is there something at your place I should know about? Why would he want to meet there?”

      The Prius’s right blinker came on, and the car pulled lazily into the next lane. The moment it passed, Porter dropped the Charger into fourth and flew past, coming within inches of the car’s protruding mirror.

      “Sam?”