“I’ll tell you why he’d lie,” Trix said. “Because he’s a little pimple. And because, when I first got to Hollister, he was always bugging me to go out with him, probably because every girl who already knew him had turned him down. But when I wasn’t interested, suddenly this rumor started going around school that I was having an affair with my English teacher, Mrs. Simpson.”
Audrey looked at her. “You never told me about that.”
Trix shrugged. “It’s not something that’s fun to talk about.”
But I’m like, “You know what? This shines a whole new light on things. I just assumed Nash made that story up because he’s such a phony liar—plus I never figured Tres would have enough imagination for something like that—but I’m starting to get a whole new picture of him, and it’s a twisted one.”
“Uh-oh,” Audrey said. “I don’t like that look on your face. You’re not thinking Tres was involved in his own sister’s disappearance, are you?”
“Maybe,” I said. “At least I’ve narrowed it down to two suspects. Of course, Nash is number one, but coming up hard on the outside is Tres Browning at number two.”
CHAPTER 39
That evening after dinner, I hopped onto my bed with my laptop to see what research I could do on Nash and Tres, only to find they and pretty much the rest of the Ganglanders had unfriended me on Facebook. About the only one who hadn’t was Rowan Adams.
Of course, I’d checked all his photos and posts plenty before, but now I was going over them to see if I could learn anything, not about him, but about my two top suspects. He still didn’t have any pictures of himself with Ashton, but Nash showed up in a handful of older photos with her and quite a few without her. Before last Saturday, I would’ve admired the confidence Nash put on display in every scene. Now, though, I couldn’t help wondering what scheme he had going on behind that big white smile.
Tres also appeared in a few pictures. The one that interested me most showed him and Rowan dressed up possibly for a night at Gangland. Rowan wore one of his gaudy blazers, and Tres wore a suede sport coat. The intriguing thing about it was—from the furniture, curtains, and wall hangings—I could tell they were in a girl’s room. Most likely Ashton’s. And most likely Ashton had taken the photo.
I studied the picture to see if I could get any new insights into her relationship with her brother. Her room was pretty orderly for a teenager’s, but I wasn’t sure that meant she was a neat freak or if she just had a maid. The more telling detail in the picture was Tres’s phony smile. He didn’t look happy at all. He looked more like a guy who was trying to pretend he hadn’t just crapped his pants.
But what did that mean? Did he have issues with his sister? Or did he just hate having his picture taken with a guy like Rowan who outshone him in every way except for how much money their daddies had? To get an answer, I’d have to do something I really didn’t feel comfortable with—I had to talk to Rowan personally.
I didn’t have his phone number, so I sent him a message online giving him mine. Just to make sure he contacted me, I also thanked him for helping me Saturday night. It meant a lot to me, I said, made me see that he was probably the only one who had enough of a conscience to really care about whether Ashton came back or not. I didn’t mention another thing I learned about him—that his smarmy vanity routine was more than likely just the act of a desperate character trying to save his place among all his using-user Hollister friends.
Still, the chances of him calling me seemed slim at best, and by the next afternoon when I got home from school, I was about to give up on it. That’s when the phone rang. Rowan sounded different. The master-of-ceremonies shtick was gone. I told him I wanted to talk about Ashton, and he said he was out doing some errands and could swing by my house in thirty minutes. This wasn’t what I expected. I really just wanted to talk to him on the phone—a face-to-face visit seemed like a serious infringement on whatever mojo I had—but since he made the offer, I said okay and gave him the directions to where I lived.
I didn’t want to encourage him to hang around till my parents got home from work, but at the same time I didn’t want to be a bad host, so I broke out the Dr Peppers and Chex Mix and laid them out on the kitchen table. Almost exactly thirty minutes after our phone call, the doorbell rang. No ironic blazer for Rowan this time. Instead, he wore a sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers. He looked almost like a regular guy. Although I’ll bet that sweatshirt cost three times as much as my Pink Floyd sweatshirt.
“Well,” he said with a smile, “it seems like everything worked out after all.”
“I guess,” I said, assuming he meant that at least my nose wasn’t broken.
In the kitchen we sat at opposite sides of the table. He looked around and goes, “So this is it—the abode of the master karaoke rapper.”
“This is it,” I said. “I’m sure it looks pretty small to you.”
“No,” he said, helping himself to a handful of Chex Mix. “I like it. It looks happy.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t unfriend me on Facebook like Nash and the others.”
“They did that?” He shook his head. “Wow. They probably felt guilty about that fifteen-minute-rumble thing. Hey, I feel guilty about it, and I didn’t even know Nash set you up for it. I promise—I didn’t know a thing about that.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I doubt they felt guilty. It’s more like they didn’t have anything else to use me for.”
Rowan leaned back in his chair. “You must have a pretty dim view of us. I can’t say that I blame you. I’m not so happy with how things have turned out either.”
He went on to talk about how Gangland had started as a lark, a way to make their senior year more interesting and fun. Then the competition set in. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I believe competition is a healthy thing, but it gets corrupt when people on top don’t think they have anything to fear if they lose.”
“It’s not so great for the people they trick into doing their losing for them either.”
“You’re right, of course. It took me longer to see that. Or maybe it just took a little misfortune of my own to start caring about it.”
“Yeah, I heard your dad’s been having financial problems.”
He smiled sadly. His Draco Malfoy qualities had lost their edge. “How news does get around. I suppose you also heard that I lost my stake in Gangland.”
“There was some talk going around about that.”
“It’s the bitter truth.” He took a sip of Dr Pepper. “You don’t know how it is to walk down the hall at school and know people are looking at you thinking, There’s the guy whose dad’s probably going to be filing for bankruptcy any day now. That’ll make you feel like a bottom-feeder very quickly.”
“You might be surprised,” I said. “I know the feeling all too well—in my own way.”
He looked at me and nodded. “But that’s also why I didn’t know anything about Nash’s plot to squeeze you into the rumble. No one tells me anything anymore. I’ve been relegated to master-of-ceremonies duties only. And I might not even have that if Tres wasn’t such a boring inept speaker without an ounce of charisma.”
“Yeah, I can’t picture Tres trying to announce the rumbles.”
“Hey, I wouldn’t have thought he could do much of anything, but it turns out he’s quite the little schemer. His dad’s bank gobbled up several of my dad’s properties for a song. You might think Tres would talk to him about at least letting us hang on to Gangland, but no. He’s always wanted it. I guess he thought it might garner him some respect for a change. But the funny thing is everyone still thinks he’s a little prick.”
“Better than being a big prick like Nash,” I said.
“I’m not sure about that. Nash, he doesn’t know any better. I’m sure he thinks everyone just naturally wants to do fifteen-minute rumbles for him—or dance ridiculously or sing bad karaoke. In his mind, using people is his birthright. I should know—I thought the same way. Funny how getting hit in
the face with a couple of disasters, like Ashton disappearing and this stupid financial situation my family’s in, can change your mind.”
He stared solemnly at the Dr Pepper can for a moment before going on. “But Tres? He never had any self-confidence. He’s always been eclipsed by his sister. She was always such a supernova. I really did love her, I suppose. But you would think Tres was adopted from the way his parents treated him compared to her. It really has turned him into a snake. And snakes might be little, but they can be very poisonous.”
“So,” I said, “you think he might’ve manipulated his dad into taking over Gangland so he could grab a little of the spotlight?”
“Oh, I have no doubt of that. He probably played like he was all broken up over his sister and got his dad to give him Gangland out of guilt. But to tell you the truth, for a little while there, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he hadn’t done something to get her out of the way himself.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. But maybe it was just bitterness over losing Gangland. After all, Tres doesn’t really have the intelligence to pull off something like that. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now with the way things have turned out.”
“What do you mean—the way what things have turned out?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “The fact that Ashton’s been found, of course. What did you think I meant?”
At that, I almost swallowed a whole mouthful of Chex Mix. “They found Ashton? Are you for real? When did this happen?”
Now it was his turn to be surprised. “You mean you haven’t heard this? It’s been all over the news this afternoon. That’s why I came over here. I thought you had something to tell me about it.”
“No.” I coughed a couple of times to clear my throat. “I called you last night. Nothing was on the news about it then.”
“I know,” he said. “But you being an investigative reporter, I thought you might’ve received a tip or something.”
He went on to explain that the police had located her around noon today, and she was safe back at home with her family.
“Do they have any suspects?” I asked. “Sure. They already made an arrest—the same guy who nearly broke your nose Saturday night—Alberto Hernandez.”
CHAPTER 40
Rowan was right—the story was everywhere. The local and even the national news couldn’t get enough of it, and over the next couple of days, I read and watched everything I could. Apparently, someone called the cops with an anonymous tip that led straight to Beto’s South Side apartment, where they found Ashton handcuffed to the plumbing in the bathroom. She had a black eye, but otherwise she was okay. After a trip to the hospital for a checkup, she was now home recovering with her family.
So far the media hadn’t been able to score even a half second’s worth of video of Ashton. The Brownings and their lawyer kept her under wraps, but apparently she had identified Beto as her abductor.
As for Beto, he didn’t have anyone to shield him from the press. His face looked out from the front pages of newspapers and websites from all over. TV news opened with his photo morning, noon, and evening. The cops arrested him at the body shop where he worked, and every TV station in town had a video of him in the police car and then as the cops dragged him from the car to the jailhouse.
On the way, reporters called out stupid questions like “Why did you do it?” and “Are you guilty?” and “Why didn’t you ask for a ransom?” He didn’t try to cover his face the way so many sleazebags do on their way to jail. Instead, he stared straight ahead and kept his mouth zipped.
Ashton’s parents didn’t have much to say either, except for a brief quote from Mr. Browning: “We’re glad to have our daughter back and hope that we will be left to heal in private as much as possible. We fully trust law enforcement to seek justice against the insidious criminal who could not conquer Ashton’s spirit.”
In all of this, nobody bothered to mention Hector Maldonado.
Sitting on Trix’s fancy patio Thursday afternoon, I told her and Audrey and Randy how that bugged me. “Beto was all about finding out who killed Hector,” I said. “He didn’t care about kidnapping anyone.”
Trix set her glass of Thai iced tea on the patio table. “Maybe he kidnapped Ashton as a way of getting revenge—or at least some information about what happened to Hector. Did you ever think of that?”
“Yeah, I thought of that,” I said. “But it just doesn’t go with what I know about Beto. It’s not in his character. I mean, the dude didn’t even want to hit me, and now he supposedly chained Ashton to a pipe and gave her a black eye? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe not,” Trix said. “But Ashton did give a statement to the police accusing him.”
“I know. And that’s weird. That makes things look bad. But maybe her parents forced her to say that to keep the cops from finding out what actually happened. What if Tres really was the one who nabbed her? They’d do anything to protect him. Or what if it was Nash? I’ll bet his parents are tight with the Brownings. They probably figured Beto didn’t matter. They’d easily sacrifice him to save their golden boy’s shining future.”
“Well, it’s in the hands of the police now,” Audrey said. “Looks like you can turn in your private detective license, Dylan.”
“No hundred grand either,” added Randy.
But I’m like, “That’s okay, I don’t care. I owe Beto.”
“But what can you do?” Audrey asked.
“I don’t know. I’m still thinking.”
We all picked up our glasses and took sips. That Thai iced tea was delicious.
“So,” Randy said, looking at Audrey. “On a different topic—have you and Trix done the nasty yet?”
Audrey’s mouth dropped open, but Trix just calmly goes, “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“Yeah,” Randy said. “As a matter of fact, I would. It’s just natural curiosity.”
Then Audrey’s like, “You’re such an ass, Randy. I ought to punch you right in the mouth.”
In response, Randy ripped a fart worthy of a crosstown cabdriver.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “I have an idea. We could pay a visit to Beto’s grandma, maybe see if she knows of an alibi for him. After all, wouldn’t it be more fun to see Tres or Nash go down for this thing than a guy like Beto?”
Audrey’s like, “Give it a break, Andromeda Man.”
But I wasn’t about to let it go. “Think about it. I can’t buy it that Beto had any kind of motive to kidnap Ashton—there wasn’t even a ransom—but like Rowan said, Tres had plenty of reasons to get rid of his sister, mainly that she got all the attention.”
“There’s one problem with that,” Trix said. “He didn’t really get rid of her, and now she’s getting more attention than ever.”
“Okay, then,” I said. “Let’s look at Nash. He used to date her, and maybe their breakup didn’t go as friendly as he makes out. He’s probably had a grudge against her this whole time. Taking her would’ve given him all sorts of leverage at Gangland. And he definitely has a motive for setting up Beto to take the blame after Beto knocked him on his butt. Maybe he took her and said he’d kill her whole family if she tried to get away or rat him out.”
“I don’t see it,” Trix said. “Sure, Nash is evil, but he’s not cartoon-villain evil. Besides, where would your friend Hector Maldonado come into this?”
“He just got in the way. And if Nash knew she started dating Hector—this Hispanic dude whose dad’s just a tile layer instead of a millionaire—that might’ve been too much for such an egomaniac.”
“Come on,” Audrey said. “Face it. The case is over. I know you wanted to solve it and get the reward and be a big deal and everything, but really there never was much of a chance of that happening. Just be happy with what you got—some good articles for the school paper. Now it’s time to move on.”
“Yeah,” Randy said. “I don’t see the point if there’s not going to be any reward.”
“But Beto di
dn’t do this,” I insisted. “I know him. He couldn’t have done it.”
“Do you?” Trix asked. “Do you really know him? You thought you knew Nash too, but look how that turned out.”
I couldn’t argue with that. Maybe you couldn’t ever really know anyone, not deep down. Not what they were truly capable of.
“So that’s it, huh?” I said. “It’s all over?”
Audrey patted my arm. “Sorry,” she said.
CHAPTER 41
The case wasn’t the only thing that was over. It looked like my series of articles on Ashton was finished too. With all the news coverage everywhere you looked, what did I have to add? That is, unless I took a whole new direction and wrote about how Beto couldn’t have really had anything to do with the kidnapping.
That idea excited me. I could go on a crusade. Save an innocent man. Up to now my motives for doing all this investigating weren’t so stellar. Audrey was right—I wanted the reward, the fame, the mojo. I wanted to stop being Body Bag. I wanted a future where I wouldn’t be just a speck of plankton whirling in the ocean. I never would’ve done anything to find out what really happened to Hector Maldonado because there wasn’t anything like that in it for me. I could change that now, though.
The problem was, sitting in front of the computer, I knew I didn’t have any real proof. I met Beto at Hector’s funeral, then again at their grandmother’s house, then again at Gangland, where he could’ve beat the hell out of me but didn’t. None of that would get him off. In fact, the cops might even use it against him. No, I’d have to find out more about Beto before I could write anything that would help him.
Tattoo-head Oscar might be a good candidate to talk to, but I didn’t know how to get hold of him or even what his and Beto’s exact relationship was. Were they friends? Cousins? Brothers? I decided to call Beto’s phone in case maybe his family had possession of it now, but nobody picked up. The phone was probably ringing and ringing somewhere in the police station where the cops stashed it along with everything else they had Beto empty from his pockets before throwing him in a cell.