OMG, A CUL8R Time Travel Mystery (25 page)

Wendy’s hand paused, mid-air and stared down at the polish brush. 
“I suppose.  I’ve put him off so far, and he really hasn’t pushed me . . . really.”

“Is that why he was yelling at you at the Avalon
earlier this week?”

“Sort of.  H
e gets upset when we can’t be alone.  There’s always someone around.  And then he found out Austin had asked me to the dance.”  She shrugged.  “He wasn’t too happy about that.  He thought about benching Austin, but he wanted to win the game too much.”

“Would you be really upset if he didn’t want to see you again?”

“Sure, wouldn’t you if you were in my place?”

“Enough to commit suicide?”

Wendy looked shocked.  “God, no.  I would never do that.”

Zoey sat back and tried to digest that information.  She started to question her further when the little pink Princess telephone on Wendy’s nightstand rang.  Wendy bounced across the bed and grabbed the phone before the ringing woke her parents.

“Hello.”  Wendy smiled as she listened. “Yeah, we’re hungry.  We didn’t really eat anything at the dance.”  She listened again and nodded even though the caller couldn’t see her.  “Sure, I missed you.  I wish you’d been there.”

Zoey
could hear a faint male voice talking to Wendy.  She had a bad feeling about this.  If only there was some way she could get in touch with Scott or Austin or even Kelly.

“Zoey and I are just sitting here, talking.” 
Wendy glanced over at Zoey.  “I’m sure she’d like that.  Yeah, the three of us.”  She listened.  “Okay, give us five minutes.”  She hung up and turned to Zoey.  “That was Andy.  He wants to apologize for the way he acted tonight.  He’s really nice.  I want you to get to know him like I do.”

That was not something Zoey wanted to do.  But she had promised not to let Wendy out of her sight.  Actually, the fact that there would be two of them against one of him would keep things safe and innocent.  Surely, he wouldn’t try anything with Zoey right there.  “Yeah,
I guess I’m sort of hungry.”

CHAPTER S
EVENTEEN

SATURDAY

It was after midnight.  Scott stretched and tried to stay awake.  This neighborhood was so quiet, he could hear the blood pulsing in his ears. 
“You doing okay, Austin?

“Just so I don’t breath
e.  What’s happening?” came the voice from behind the wall.

“Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.”
Scott picked up his radio and was about to call Kelly when he saw an old pickup truck slowly moving down the street. The headlights were off.  “Holy crap.  It’s Decker!”  He pressed the button on his walkie-talkie.  “Kelly, come in.”

“Yeah, do you see what I see?” Kelly responded in a whisper.

“What’s going on in the house?”

“Nothing.  The bedroom light just went out.”

The truck stopped in front of the house.  Two dark figures ran down the front walk and got into the truck.

“
They sneaked out the front,” Scott spoke frantically into the radio.

“You’re kidding me!”  Kelly jumped out of the shadows of the shrubbery and saw the truck slowly pulling away.  She knew she couldn’t run after them and keep up.  She looked around and
saw Wendy’s brother’s bicycle lying in the front yard.  “I’m going after them.”  She tucked the radio in her waistband, picked up the bike and was on it and pedaling down the road after the truck before he could respond.

“Kelly, don’t do it,” Scott yelled, not even bothering with the radio.  Austin had scrambled stiffly to his feet.  Scott turned to him and repeated in the same loud voice as if Austin wasn’t about three feet away.  “She did it anyway.  They’re
all
going to die.”

“
Then we’ve got to follow them,” Austin stated flatly.  He was clearly not in any condition to run, but he wasn’t going to abandon his friends.  “What are you waiting for?”

“We’re going to run?” Scott squeaked. 
Too late as Austin had already jumped over the stone wall and was running down the street.  Scott could not come up with a better plan than to follow him.

Kelly peddled as fast as she could and had no difficulty keeping a block or two behind.  She caught up at one traffic light and
considered jumping into the back of the truck.  But that would completely take away any element of surprise she might have.  She doubted that Decker would even notice her, a dark figure on a dark bike in the dark of the night.  Plus, the light changed, and she lost her opportunity.

T
he speed limit increased to 30 mph and she fell farther and farther behind.  She coasted into a gas station having lost sight of Decker’s truck but knowing that he had pulled into the Sandy Beaches neighborhood. She pulled her radio out. “Scott, you there?”, she managed to gasp out.

“Hey (pant, pant)
did he (pant, pant) lose you?” he asked, breathing heavily between every other word.  He still hadn’t caught up with Austin, but he wasn’t far behind.

“Sort of.  H
e turned into the Sandy Beaches neighborhood.

“Man
, if (pant, pant) only we (pant, pant) could Google (pant, pant) his address.”

“
Oh, I have an app for that,” Kelly assured him.  “Just get to the Hess station at Estero and Elm.”

“
But you can’t . . .”

“Just hurry,” she said and tucked the radio back in her waistband.

Five minutes later Austin, followed by Scott about a block behind, jogged into the Hess station.  Austin doubled over, trying to catch his breath while clutching his bruised ribs.

“What app
?” Scott demanded as he collapsed onto the asphalt.

“There are two of them,” she said as she pointed to the phone books hanging from the pay phones. 
Kelly held up a piece of paper with an address written on it.

“Twice in two days.  Phone booths were pretty handy before cell phones and the internet stole their thunder,” Scott commented.

“That’s sick,” Austin moaned as he grabbed his ribs.

“
560 Beachwood.  Is that far?” Kelly asked.

“One
or two blocks in and to the right.”  Scott told her.

“Let’s go see
what we’re up against.” Austin stood.  He was trying really hard not to breathe too deeply, but the run had clearly gotten the best of him.  “You two go on.  I’ll catch up.”

“You take the bike,” Kelly said, leaning it toward him.  “Scott and I can run.”

“Jog . . . or maybe a fast walk,” Scott gasped.

They took off at a
slow jog, and Austin swung onto the bike and rode next to them.

ZOEY HESITATED IN
the doorway, reluctant to enter the coach’s house.  Wendy was all giggly and excited.  It was clear that she had been here before.

“Come on, Zoey.  We won’t stay long.  I just want you to see what a nice guy Andy is,” Wendy encouraged.

Zoey stepped inside and Decker closed the door behind her.  She noted that he didn’t lock it, so she relaxed a little.

“Wendy, why don’t you get us some sodas?” Decker suggested.  “I want to show Zoey some of my trophies.”

Wendy happily complied, heading into the kitchen.   Zoey watched Decker warily, but he gave her a charming smile and nodded toward a trophy case.

“I know how much you like competitions.  Here’s the award I won for coaching a cheer squad in college.”

“Really?  I’m hoping to get a cheer scholarship,” Zoey said.

“I have some connections at the U.  Maybe I could put in a good word for you.”

“That’s my first choice,” Zoey told him with enthusiasm.  But she knew his recommendation would do nothing for her in 2013.  Still it was nice of him to offer.

He turned to look at his trophy case and Zoey felt silly for not trusting him.  She
walked over and looked at the shelves filled with trophies and plaques.  She was just starting to relax when suddenly and with no warning, she felt a sharp blow on the side of her head, and the whole room went black.

MINUTES OR MAYBE
hours later, Zoey forced her eyelids open.  Her head throbbed, and she could feel something warm and sticky trickling down her forehead.  She tried to move, but couldn’t.  It took her a few seconds for her groggy brain to figure out that her feet were tied to the legs of the chair and her hands were tied behind her.  Where was she . . . and how did she get here?

She looked around her and saw that she was in what looked like a small bedroom.  A bed was against one wall and there was a tripod with a camera on top, pointed at the bed.  The door that led out of the room was shut, and there was a window on the opposite wall.  But it was the wall to her left that caused her blood to
turn cold as ice.

Neatly mounted in rows were Polaroid pictures of dozens of girls.  The room was dimly lit, and her vision was a little blurred, so she had to squint to focus on them.  Girls in bikinis, girls in sexy nightgowns, even some girls that were totally naked.  Zoey was about to look away when she saw, at the end of the bottom row, photos of Wendy . . . and of herself!  Zoey sucked in such a big gulp of air that she almost choked.
  She looked down at herself and confirmed what she had seen in the photo . . . she was wearing nothing but her bra and panties.  Decker had taken off her clothes and had taken pictures of her while she was unconscious.

A groan from behind her startled h
er and sent her heart pounding erratically in her chest.  She twisted and turned until she could see Wendy, also tied to a chair, was back-to-back with her.  Wendy’s head was drooping forward, indicating that she was still not awake.   It wasn’t until that moment that the stark reality of the situation hit her.

Probably Wendy had heard her fall or perhaps she had come looking for them, and Decker had knocked her out,
too.  Zoey struggled to free her hands or her feet while trying not to make any noise.  She could feel her wrists starting to bleed from her efforts, but she couldn’t stop trying to get away.

She sensed Decker was just on the other side of the door, and she didn’t want to do anything to make him come back into the room.  She had watched too many detective shows on TV to know that this wasn’t going to end well.  Her gut told her that the next time he came into the room, it would be to rape her . . . or kill her
. . . or both.

Zoey was reminded of the newspaper article that Kelly had told her about stating that Wendy’s body had been found under the pier.  It had been ruled a suicide, but Zoey was now convinced that Wendy had been murdered . . . by Coach Decker
who must have slashed her wrists to make it look like a suicide.  Zoey sighed.  She had foolishly thought she could fight him off or outsmart him or something.  But as cautious and as sure as she had been that he wouldn’t try anything if she had come with Wendy, it was now obvious that she had been wrong . . . dead wrong.  The headlines that had proclaimed that a female body had been found under the pier would now say that there were two.

IT DIDN’T TAKE
but about ten minutes before they were in front of his house.  The neighborhood was only about fifteen or twenty years old, and most of the houses had been well-maintained.  Decker’s, not so much.  There were more sandy patches than grass in his yard and the palm trees had dozens of dead fronds hanging forlornly from their trunks.  There was a carport in front, under which the old truck was parked.

Scott
crept forward and tried to look in the front windows, but the draperies were drawn, allowing only a sliver of light out from where they met in the middle.  Kelly quietly slipped around the side of the house.  The first room was dark and she couldn’t see anything inside.  But the second window had Venetian blinds that had been bent and didn’t close completely.  Thin beams of light leaked out into the night, drawing Kelly to it.

She stood flat against the house, then slowly leaned over and adjusted her position until she could see into the room.  It wasn’t a clear view or a broad one, but she could see what looked like two girls, wearing only their underwear, tied to chairs.  She found a wider crack in the blinds and moved to look through it.

It was definitely Zoey and Wendy.  Zoey appeared to be awake and alert, but Wendy wasn’t moving.  Kelly’s gaze searched around the room, looking for Decker.  It was a small room, and unless he was under the bed or in the closet, she felt sure that he wasn’t there.  She was about to tap on the window when a hand clamped down on her shoulder.

Kelly
whirled around and the hand moved from her shoulder to her mouth, smothering the scream into a muffled oomph.

“It’s me,” Scott whispered.

Kelly’s legs almost buckled beneath her.  “You nearly scared the bejabbers out of me.”

Later you can tell me what a bejabber
s is.  Have you found them?”