Throttled Page 7

  Doryan stared at her.

  “Don’t worry, she’s not going to say anything.”

  “Uh, yeah. I was at the party. You saw me there,” Doryan said. I guess she figured if she was going down, her friend would go down with her.

  The girl in the cheerleading outfit blushed. “Can you tell her if you saw anything strange happen? With Alex?”

  “I didn’t see Alex there,” Doryan said.

  “You didn’t see Alex there? Didn’t you see the breakup?”

  I stood quietly and listened to them talk.

  Doryan shook her head. “I got there late. Debbie and Jordan were hanging out by the time I got there.”

  “Were Debbie and Jordan together the rest of the night?” I asked.

  Doryan shrugged. “Don’t know. I don’t really keep tabs on them. I was preoccupied with my own stuff.”

  “She has a boyfriend,” the girl in the cheerleading outfit said as if that justified everything.

  “Do you know anyone else who was there?” I asked.

  Doryan nodded. “Basically everyone standing over there.” She pointed to the group of people watching us from the corners of their eyes. “Jase, come over here,” she yelled.

  A boy who looked younger than the two girls walked over. “Yeah?”

  “She’s trying to figure out what happened to Alex and Jordan. You were at the party. Did you see anything strange?”

  Jase looked like he might vomit.

  “It’s okay. I’m not a cop. I don’t really care what you were doing.”

  He nodded. “Jordan and Alex were together most of the night.”

  “No. Alex left,” the cheerleader said. “After he and Debbie broke up.”

  Jase shook his head. “No. I know I saw them drinking together. I didn’t see Debbie at all.”

  Doryan rolled her eyes. “You were probably too drunk to realize what was going on.”

  “I wasn’t too drunk to see the awesome snowmobile show,” Jase said.

  “Snowmobile show?” I asked.

  “Right as the party was dying down, a snowmobile came out of nowhere doing tricks, jumping over snow banks, and racing around like nobody’s business.”

  Doryan gasped. “That was Alex wasn’t it?”

  “It could have been. It makes the most sense,” I said. “What time did this snowmobiler show up?”

  “Probably three or four in the morning,” Jase said. “I don’t know. I was pretty drunk.”

  “Did anyone see who Jordan left with?” I asked the three of them.

  They all shook their heads. “Hey,” Doryan yelled to the group. “Any of you see who Jordan left with after the party?”

  The teenagers looked shocked that she was yelling about an illegal party in the presence of adults.

  “He left with me,” Debbie said walking up next to Doryan. She wore her cheerleading outfit with the leather jacket over top and held a handbag bedazzled with tiny stars that probably cost more than a month’s rent on that apartment. “I took him home. He was too drunk to drive.”

  Everyone stared at her.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” I asked.

  “It didn’t seem important or whatever,” Debbie challenged.

  “So you were the last person to see Jordan before he ended up half-naked on the frozen beach?”

  Debbie shrugged. “I guess. But why does that matter? Jordan was an idiot. He probably undressed and walked to the beach.”

  “Does he live near there?” I asked.

  “He could have driven.” She shrugged.

  Except we hadn’t found his car.

  “Did anything happen between you and Jordan?” I asked.

  “Of course not. I’d just broken up with his best friend.”

  “Um, pretty sure he broke up with you,” Doryan said.

  “Yeah.” Another boy from the group walked over. “And I totally saw you and Jordan making out in your car before you left.”

  Debbie’s cheeks flushed. “You don’t know anything. You were all drunk.”

  She turned and stomped back down the hallway.

  “I’m sorry,” a doctor said in the doorway of the room. “I’m going to need everyone besides the patient’s mother to step out of the room, please.”

  I turned toward Nikki with a questioning look. She looked terrified.

  “My family can stay too, right?” Elaine asked in a small voice.

  “If you’d like them to, yes,” the doctor said slowly.

  What was she going to tell them? Was Alex going to die?

  Nikki and her mother and father joined Elaine in the room while I stayed in the hallway with the teenage entourage.

  “Why weren’t all of you at Jordan’s bedside?” I asked Jase.

  “Jordan’s a douche,” Jase said. “No one likes him. He’s always just been Alex’s tag-along.”

  “Do you think Jordan did that to himself?” I asked.

  Doryan shook her head. “He was an idiot, especially when he was drunk, but to strip down and lay on a frozen beach and nearly die? Even he’s not that stupid.”

  Alcohol made people do crazy things. I’d seen it way too many times on the fire department. And it made you think you were warm when your body was freezing. It was plausible he had done it to himself. But how did he get there? His feet weren’t torn up, and he wasn’t wearing shoes.

  When Alex’s door opened Nikki stood on the other side, her face paler than usual.

  “What did the doctor say?” I asked but Nikki’s eyes locked onto the group of teenagers.

  “Which one of you punks gave Alex drugs?”

  12

  The entire hallway was silent, everyone waiting for someone else to say something.

  “I know it was one of you.” Nikki pointed her finger.

  “That’s enough, Nikole,” Nikki’s dad said in a deep voice.

  Nikki’s fury turned to tears as she leaned into her dad.

  “Do you know why Alex would have been taking drugs?” I asked Doryan quietly.

  “Alex never took drugs,” Doryan said. “He knew it would get him kicked off the team.”

  But if he didn’t want to be on the team anymore . . .

  “Plus, after Barry died a few years ago, Alex swore to never do drugs. Barry was his best friend, before Jordan.”

  “Maybe he’d had a bad night and decided to take something?” I offered.

  She shook her head. “If he had drugs in his system, someone put them there.” She looked around at the others. “Do you think it was one of them?”

  “It could have been. Or it could have been completely unrelated.”

  “But it probably happened at the party, right?” she asked.

  “It seems likely,” I admitted.

  She wrapped her arms around her. “I knew those parties were a bad idea.”

  “Who would have wanted Alex dead?” I asked.

  “Dead?” Jase asked. “I don’t think anyone wanted to kill Alex. I mean, who would have known he would have gotten on a snowmobile and driven it all over the place?”

  He had a point. “Then what do you think it was.”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” he asked.

  My head hurt, and I was exhausted. Nothing was obvious right now.

  “Football. If he even had a trace of drugs in his system, he would be kicked off the team,” Jase said.

  “Jordan,” Doryan and I both said at the same time.

  Jase nodded. “He had the most to gain from Alex getting booted. Especially with the championship game coming up.”

  “They’ll have to cancel it now,” Doryan said. “We don’t have a third quarterback.”

  “Can you please tell me where Alex Ward is?” A girl with an unkempt braid of mousy brown hair and glasses asked at the nurse’s station.

  The nurse pointed to Alex’s door as if it were obvious.

  No one seemed to notice her slip into the room. Elaine, Nikki, and Nikki’s parents were huddled together talking to
the doctor. The other teenagers seemed unlikely to notice someone who wasn’t part of their clique.

  “Thanks for your help,” I said.

  When I walked in the room, the girl was sitting where Elaine had been, holding Alex’s hand with her forehead on the bed beside him. She looked like she was praying as her body jerked with every sob.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be this way. We were supposed to go to college together,” she whispered. “Why would you do this?”

  “Why would he do what?” I asked quietly so as not to startle her too much.

  She stood dropping Alex’s hand and pushing her glasses up on her nose. “Nothing. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t even be here.”

  Before I could get her name, she pushed past me and disappeared down the hallway.

  “Who was that?” I asked Doryan when I came back out.

  “Who was who?” she asked.

  Ugh. Popular kids.

  I ran down the hallway after the girl. If nothing else, I’d catch her in the parking lot. She seemed to have more information than anyone else.

  I punched the elevator numbers over and over again as if it would help the elevator come more quickly.

  When the silver doors opened, Luke stepped out. “Hey, Ry.”

  I didn’t have time to talk to him. “I have to go. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “Hold on,” he said. “What’s the rush?”

  “I need to speak with someone who just went down on the last elevator.” I punched the ground floor button on the inside wall. “I’ll come right back.”

  Luke nodded and moved his hand from preventing the doors from closing.

  The lobby was empty when I got off the elevator. I ran outside only to find the girl in the glasses driving away in a silver Jetta. Her eyes widened when she saw me chasing after her and hit the gas.

  Before I could get a full license plate number, she turned the corner nearly spinning out on the ice. The first two letters were K and H. It shouldn’t be too hard to find her car at the high school. I’d catch up with her later.

  Luke had his arm wrapped around Nikki when I got back upstairs. “Did you find who you were looking for?”

  “No,” I said. “She got away.”

  “Please tell me you’re not investigating,” Luke said.

  “I’m not investigating?” I said.

  “You’re a terrible liar,” Luke said. “What have you found out?”

  “Maybe we should talk somewhere else,” I said looking around at the teenagers. “I need a ride back to my car anyway.”

  “Me too,” Nikki said.

  I sat in the back again, not that I would have dared try and take the front from Nikki. I thought she was going to punch me when I’d asked Luke for a ride back to my car. So much for not being jealous.

  We told Luke everything we knew. I may have left out what I heard from the girl in glasses, but that wasn’t anything . . . yet.

  “What about you?” I asked. “Do you have any information?”

  “When Nikki texted me about the drugs in Alex’s system, I had the rangers pull the trash bags with the cups from the dumpster. We’re going to run them and see if there are any traces of drugs inside. If we find drugs, we’ll be able to deduce that he ingested them at the party. The phone message with the girl sobbing was a dead end. We couldn’t trace the number.”

  Luke didn’t say anything about him being drugged, just that he would have ingested them.

  “The best thing we can hope for is that both Jordan and Alex wake up and tell us what happened.”

  Nikki stared out the window. “I still think it was Debbie. She gave him the drugs. She was mad that he broke up with her and wanted to ruin his life.”

  “I think Jordan had more to gain from Alex’s fall from grace,” I said.

  “But how did Jordan end up as a victim as well?” Luke asked.

  I shrugged. Nothing was clear. Nothing was easy. “I think we should talk to Dave.”

  “Jerry and I already talked to him. I know.” He held up a hand. “I said you could come with us, but you were a bit preoccupied.”

  “And? Did he say anything?” I asked, my voice less irritated than I felt.

  “Just that he saw some lights from outside the gate. He was driving by or something,” Luke said. “He was lying, obviously, but that’s all we could get out of him.”

  “What time did he see the lights?” I asked.

  “Three or four in the morning,” Luke said.

  Nikki and I looked at one another.

  “Then Alex couldn’t be responsible for what happened to Jordan,” Nikki said.

  “Unless someone isn’t giving us the entire story. What happened to Jordan could have been quick,” Luke said.

  Nikki crossed her arms over her chest.

  “But you’re probably right,” he said quickly. “I don’t think Alex had anything to do with what happened to Jordan. Not directly anyway.”

  Luke and Jerry may not have had luck talking to Dave, but I would. Every part of my body was screaming for rest, but this was more important. I’d rest right after I talked to Dave.

  13

  Dave was where he was every day. In his pop-up ice fishing tent in Muddy Water Cove.

  I announced myself before unzipping the flap. “Dave, it’s Rylie—the park ranger. I’m off duty, but I want to chat with you.”

  “Yeah, come in.”

  I stepped inside where a bead of sweat instantly appeared on my forehead. I pulled off my beanie and smoothed down my hair. “It’s hot in here. Aren’t you afraid you’ll melt the ice and fall through?”

  “Not as afraid as you, apparently.” He snickered at the huge float coat I wore. A float coat is a personal floatation device built into a jacket made to keep you warm and safe on the ice.

  “I already talked to the police,” Dave said. “I wasn’t trespassing.”

  “They told me that’s what you said. But come on, Dave.” I raised my eyebrows.

  “I saw some lights. That’s it.”

  “Where were you when you saw the lights?” I asked.

  “I was outside the gate, of course.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “Dave, you know the only reason you’re not in jail right now is because of me, right?”

  “Yeah, I heard something from Carmen but—”

  “And that I almost died trying to clear your name?”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “So I’m going to ask again.” I channeled my best cop voice. “Where were you when you saw the lights? I’m not going to do anything about it, I just need to know.”

  Dave looked down into the hole where his fishing line was motionless. “I may have been somewhere I shouldn’t have been.”

  Finally, we were getting somewhere. “And can you tell me anything else about what you saw?”

  “There were people on the ice.”

  “How many?”

  “I don’t know. Two? Three? Five.”

  “Where were they exactly?”

  He pointed toward the center of the reservoir. “Out in the middle somewhere. They came from that walk-in gate.” He pointed in the direction of the gate nearest Marina Cove.

  “And what were they doing?” I asked.

  “They were being idiots. Running around with their flashlights yelling and screaming. One was definitely a man, he was yelling like nobody’s business.”

  “Like panicked yells or happy yells?”

  “How am I supposed to know? Honestly, I thought it was you guys at first, so I took all my stuff and was getting ready to make a run for it, but then I realized it was probably just some stupid kids. I left anyway because I figured they’d be called in and I didn’t want to be caught as well.”

  “Why didn’t you call them in?”

  “That’s a little hypocritical, don’t you think?”

  “Do you think it’s safe being on the ice at night?” I asked.

  Dave raised an eyebrow. “Now you care about my safety?�
��

  “I care about everyone’s safety. I’d hate to come in and find you like I found—”

  “Stop worrying so much. The ice is solid. It’s been freezing cold.” He stomped his foot in the inch of slush he’d created from his heater.

  I shook my head. “Let me know if you remember anything else. And stay out of the reservoir at night.”

  When I walked into my parent’s house, the only thing I could think about was a warm bath and sleep—not necessarily in that order.

  “Did you hear about the teenagers they found in the parks?” Mom asked. The news was on in the background, and Alex’s football picture filled the TV screen.

  “I found them. Both of them,” I said.

  My father turned from his chair and looked at me. Mom’s mouth was partially open.

  “Are you okay?” Mom asked when she finally snapped out of her momentary shock.

  “It’s been a crazy couple of days,” I said. “I’m tired.”

  “They said he’d been doing drugs.” She returned to stirring a big pot of soup on the stove.

  “We’re just trying to figure out if he did this to himself or if someone did it to him,” I said.

  She stopped stirring. “What do you mean if someone did it to him?” Panic flooded her eyes. “You don’t think this was another crime? You’re not investigating another crime, right?”

  “It’s not the same as the last one.”

  Or the one before that.

  “It’s some sort of weird high school drama. I’m not going to get hurt. I promise.”

  She eyed me up and down and then changed the subject. “Did you say you have to work Christmas Eve?”

  We had been over my schedule no less than five times. Each time I told her I had to work Christmas Eve and each time she’d given me a guilt trip about it.

  “I do, but I’ll be home by eight. The boys don’t even go to bed until ten so we can do our one gift when I get here.”

  “What about dinner?” she asked.

  “You can eat without me. Just save me some of your famous stuffing.” I smiled. Flattery usually helped these situations.

  “What about Garrett? Is his mother coming into town?”

  I hadn’t even thought to talk to Garrett about his plans. “I don’t know.”