KILLER T, Page 3

  ‘Have a good one, Harry Potter,’ Rie said cheerfully as he got out of the Audi.

  ‘Cheers for the ride, Sofia,’ Harry said, then to Matt, ‘Wanna go for a run this evening, when it cools down?’

  Matt shook his head. ‘Sorry, pal. Seeing a film with Ciara tonight.’

  The Sinatra Executive Apartments was a five-storey complex, made of two horseshoe-shaped blocks with a sun deck and pool in the space between. The woman on reception realised Harry was out of school early, but didn’t care enough to ask why as he walked past and tapped a plastic fob to access the elevator.

  Aunt Kirsten jested about the moody teenager Harry had turned into, but the reality of that hit as he opened the apartment door. Fifteen minutes earlier, Harry had been happy about making eight hundred bucks, with a hot chicken taco and the girls heaping praise. Now he felt like dirt.

  He worried that Vegas Local was a sleazy website that would never pay the eight hundred bucks. He had mounds of homework and imagined himself spending the night at his desk, while Matt got frisky with Ciara at the Summerlin Regal.

  Harry shouted, ‘Anyone home?’

  He expected no response and didn’t get one.

  Harry’s aunt, Kirsten Channing, had moved to Vegas to open a swanky restaurant inside the newly built Algarve Casino. The food critics had been kind and tables were booked weeks in advance. This meant Kirsten was crushing sales targets and earning big bonuses, but had little time for her nephew and even less for house hunting.

  Eight months after emigrating, they were still in a short-stay corporate apartment. It was twice the size of their old place in London. It had floor-to-ceiling windows with electrochromic dimming glass, a jet tub with sixteen modes and a fridge you could fit a car inside.

  But it was a place to live, not a home. Harry loathed the bland abstract art and the smell of the cleaning spray used by the housekeeping service. He couldn’t paint his bedroom or put up posters, and the building manager buzzed the intercom when he played music too loud.

  Kirsten worked six nights a week and Harry didn’t know anyone outside of school, so unless he was hanging with Matt the hours between school and bed were lonely.

  It was approaching two in the afternoon, leaving eight and a half hours to bedtime. Harry grabbed sparkling water and a plate of random tapas-type things out of the fridge. He sat on a stool and flipped the lid of a battered MacBook that lived on the kitchen counter. Kirsten had been using it while working on a recipe and the screen had icing-sugar fingerprints and a whiff of orange essence.

  Harry’s first thought was to transfer the photos he’d taken earlier and see them on a decent-sized screen. But when the iris scan unlocked his phone, the screen showed the notes he’d made while everyone gossiped in Sofia’s car.

  JJ Janssen Backup quarterback, 11th grader

  Obvious suspect (too obvious!)

  Threatened to kill Deion in locker room on Monday

  Dad is Jay Janssen Sr, $$$ minted businessman & former drug dealer

  Fawn Croker JJ’s fiancée.

  25yo!!! Money grabber?

  Charlie Croker Fawn’s brainy kid sister

  8th grader

  Made explosives for show and tell!

  Did science project with Matt

  Making eight hundred bucks had knocked Harry’s focus away from the locker mystery, but when he read the notes, the thing that stuck out was Matt’s personal connection with Charlie Croker. JJ and Fawn would be suspects, but the cops didn’t have Matt’s personal knowledge, and Harry wondered if they might take a while to learn about Charlie’s explosive-making.

  Harry dialled Matt’s number.

  ‘That Charlie Croker,’ Harry began, ‘the one who makes her own explosives. Did you ever go to her place when you did that science project? Did she have a lab, or a shed, or something where you worked?’

  Matt sounded patronising. ‘Still playing Joey-the-journalist?’

  Harry grunted. ‘Can you help me or not?’

  ‘She always came to my house because it’s nicer,’ Matt said warily. ‘But I rode in the car one time when my dad dropped her home. I don’t know the road name, but it’s the corner with the big CVS pharmacy, off North Rainbow.’

  ‘The CVS we pass on the way to school?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Matt agreed. ‘North Pine Road or Lonely Pine. Something like that. Just after you turn off Rainbow, there’s a tire place, then you come to a double-wide trailer home. Blue grey colour, sorta like someone mixed all the leftover paint together. But this was back in seventh grade, so they might have moved since.’

  Harry tucked his phone between shoulder and chin so that he could use Google Maps on the MacBook.

  ‘Found it,’ Harry said jubilantly as he switched to street view and saw the trailer home, like Matt had described. ‘1680, Leaning Pines.’

  ‘How you gonna play it?’ Matt asked. ‘Knock on the front door and ask Charlie if she’s blown anyone up?’

  ‘Check the area out, I guess,’ Harry said uncertainly. ‘I’ll grab my good camera. Have a little snoop. Maybe there’s a shed with burnt shit, or something. It’s a ten-minute taxi and I’ve got nothing else to do.’

  ‘You need a girlfriend, Harry,’ Matt said affectionately. ‘Try not to get shot or blown up.’

  6 RAINBOW ROAD

  Harry googled Charlie Croker as he rode in the back of a Prius taxi, with stained seats and a screen blaring ads for Kanye West at Caesar’s Palace. Seven hundred and seventy-four search results were topped by a Mr Charlie Croker who sold farm machinery in Iowa and a sweatband-clad Pilates coach. Narrowing the search to Charlie Croker Rock Springs proved more productive.

  Local Girl Wins National Tech prize

  Eleven-year-old Charlie Croker beat out more than 600 rivals, including many high schoolers, to win a $750 prize and a tour of the world-famous materials lab at the California Institute of Technology.

  The accompanying photo showed Charlie with athletic build, coarsely chopped blonde hair and a green sponsors-logo T-shirt that reached her knees. Her most striking features were giant blue eyes and no-brand sneakers, with a big toe poking out the front.

  There was a link to another article, but the phone started vibrating and Harry recognised the Vegas Local number.

  ‘It’s Ellie Gold,’ the voice said, packed with cheesy cheer. ‘Just wanted to let you know your video is clocking ninety views per minute. USA Network and Cox News want a national TV exclusive. I’m playing them off against each other, but the bidding is already up to seven thousand buckaroos!’

  Harry’s jaw made a clichéd dive towards the floor of his taxi. ‘I get half of that, right?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Ellie said. ‘And I’ve put your photos on a news syndication site. Nobody has bought that beautiful bloody-helmet shot yet, but the watermarked preview has had sixty downloads, so it’s gonna sell for sure.’

  Harry was excited about the money, but sounded wary. ‘When am I gonna get paid?’

  ‘Don’t you trust me?’ Ellie said, roaring with laughter. ‘Vegas Local wouldn’t last a week if I didn’t pay my sources. Bounce me some bank details. My minion Sue-Ann will email your paperwork, and as soon as it’s signed you’ll get the eight hundred.

  ‘The rest will take time. Big news outlets take months to pay their bills, but people are loving the mystery of the blown-up quarterback and your gore-fest stretcher footage has the visual punch to make it a national story. When the dust clears, your cut on this could be well into five figures.’

  ‘Seriously?’ Harry gawped, imagining how jealous Matt and his mates back in London would be if he made ten big ones …

  ‘You must have a talent for this stuff. Anything else like this happens, you’ll call Ellie first, won’t you?’

  ‘Sure,’ Harry said.

  ‘Stay in touch.’

  Wow-bloody-wow! National story! I can handle some flak from school and Kirsten for ten grand. I can afford a light field camera. Drop a grand at the mall. All new
running gear, maybe a better laptop. Bet Kirsten will go sensible and make me save at least half for college …

  The cab had just turned off South Rainbow and they were passing the lot of the big CVS. Harry had used Kirsten’s Lucky Cab account and given the 1680 Leaning Pines address, but he could hardly get out right in front of the Crokers’ double-wide trailer and start poking around.

  ‘CVS,’ Harry spluttered. ‘Drop me here.’

  Harry wasn’t trying to be rude, but it came out that way and the dome-headed driver flicked bitterly at his sat nav. ‘It says sixteen eighty.’

  ‘My ma asked me to get some shopping,’ Harry lied. ‘I forgot. I didn’t mean to snap at you.’

  The driver stopped sharp, and Harry stepped on to the kerb and pulled on a backpack bulked with his pro-spec Nikon camera.

  The CVS had a couple of hundred parking bays, but it was mid-Thursday afternoon and the big pharmacy’s only customers were parked in a single row, keeping car interiors cool on the shady side of the building.

  Harry pushed on sunglasses as he strode across marked parking bays. The CVS lot ended at a knee-height fence. Matt had mentioned the tire-repair place beyond, but it looked like the Tire Maxx franchise had been closed for years. The corporate logos had blown out of the tall roadside sign, the main glass door wore heavy chains and the sand-blown lot was strewn with beer cans and perished rubber.

  Sweat trickled down Harry’s back as he upped to a jog. The dirty-blue trailer home came into view as he rounded a self-service car wash with a caved roof. The upbeat feels from Ellie’s call hadn’t lasted and Matt’s question resurfaced: How will I play it when I get there?

  What am I hoping to find? Why not turn round, buy a Mars ice cream in CVS and go home? But it sucks being home alone … If Mum was alive, would she approve of this? Why do I want to do stuff to impress a mum who was never around much even when she was alive? Do I want to be a photojournalist, or have I been telling myself that for so long I’ve not considered anything else?

  Harry’s train of thought got diverted at the far side of Tire Maxx. There was a blackened wall and a saucer-like crater, part filled with litter. The asphalt in the base of the crater had weird ripples, and screws and bolts stuck out, clearly having sunk in when the surface was molten. Harry took out his Nikon, taking time to snap the metal shards and cracks in the wall.

  He got a fright when a gust set a Coke can clanking down near the road, and remained spooked as he got close to the 1680 lot.

  You’re not a real journalist. You’ll look a total fool if this turns bad …

  But Harry didn’t give in to his doubts.

  There was no boundary between Tire Maxx and the trailer home. The land alongside the house had evolved into a junkyard: faded sections of a kids’ plastic garden fort, an enclosed towing trailer with two flat wheels, the rusted hulk of a washing machine and enough other junk to give decent cover.

  Harry snapped a couple of wide shots, thinking someone might want pictures of the house if it turned into an important part of the story. The spinning fans of roof-mounted air-conditioners ran full blast, but their grumbling wasn’t enough to mask the kid bawling inside.

  He edged further round the junk, trying to glimpse the far side of the house. Harry’s idea – that he’d get here before the cops – blew up as he saw two parked police cruisers. One had a plain-clothes officer sitting with the passenger door open, finishing off a cigarette.

  The trailer’s aluminium door crashed as Harry raised his camera. A cruel-looking cop came out, hands over her mouth as she jumped two wooden steps to the ground. Harry aimed his camera round the side of the trailer, flipped to continuous shooting and took a dozen shots as she bent forward, dry heaving.

  ‘You want some water?’ the smoking cop said, grabbing a bottle out of the cruiser’s door and striding to her aid.

  ‘Stank in that dump to start with – now the crazy kid has shat himself.’

  ‘Are you kidding me?’ the smoking cop moaned, shaking his head as he stubbed his cigarette out under his shoe. ‘Where’s child welfare? They should be here already.’

  A third cop came out, gasping for air as a huge scream erupted and something heavy thudded against the wall inside.

  ‘Kid just screams no attention and that he wants Charlie, over and over and over,’ the new arrival said. ‘Gimme that bottle of water.’

  The cop drained the water, then flung the plastic bottle away, which landed in the junk a few feet from Harry.

  ‘What a day! What a day!’

  The cop paced angrily towards Harry’s hiding spot, hands on hips as he hacked phlegm in the dirt. Harry buried his face, gulping as the cop turned back towards the cruisers, two steps from where he’d have noticed Harry’s trailing leg.

  This isn’t worth the risk. That lieutenant at the school seemed suspicious, and if they catch me here … At the very least they’ll arrest me. Kirsten’s face would be a picture at the police station.

  As the cop strolled back to his colleagues, Harry retreated at a rapid crawl. When he reached the disused car wash, he got to his feet, his expensive camera in one hand and one knee smeared in black, oily, God-knows-what.

  Stupid idea coming here.

  Harry moved round the back of Tire Maxx, but only got halfway when a shadow loomed from above. The bright sun silhouetted the figure leaping off the roof. Harry’s legs buckled as the body hit him, one arm scraping the metal siding as his palms tore through grit.

  A cloud of dirt filled Harry’s mouth as he inhaled, setting off a coughing fit as the figure landed on his back. It was a girl, a full head shorter than Harry. She locked a strong arm round his waist. Harry fancied his chances of throwing her off, but before he could move a pistol tip jammed into his cheek.

  ‘Why are you sniffing around?’ Charlie Croker demanded. ‘Who are you?’

  7 BEAUTIFUL FREAK

  ‘Quit your whining,’ Charlie said, looking over her back, hoping the cops hadn’t heard Harry’s coughing fit.

  ‘I …’ Harry gasped, but the dirt trapped in the back of his throat made him hack noisily again, and grit was scraping around in his left eye.

  ‘Inside,’ Charlie ordered, standing up but keeping the gun aimed right at him.

  Her voice wasn’t confident. Harry wondered if nerves made her more or less likely to shoot him.

  ‘Inside,’ she repeated, dragging a piece of metal sheet to expose a tire-propped fire door behind it.

  Harry realised his palm was bleeding as he crawled in. Charlie took a final glance towards the house, crouching behind him and pulling the siding back over the doorway

  The space was gloomy. A metal roof and no air-con made the heat unbearable. It had once been Tire Maxx’s employee break room. There was a wall of lockers, a long-dead drinks dispenser and a shift rota on the wall, over which some joker had inked, We broke! Ya asses all FIRED!

  Charlie stripped a bottle of water from a pack of a dozen CVS branded bottles and passed it to Harry with a gruff, ‘Here.’

  Harry gulped desperately, swallowing some and spitting the rest on chequered floor tiles as Charlie threw him a grubby cloth.

  ‘To wipe your hands.’

  It took a minute to blink grit, wipe bleeding palms and get the violent coughing down to an occasional hack.

  Charlie had run a wire down from a portable solar panel on the roof. It powered an abused laptop, a desk lamp and a fan that pushed heat from one spot to another. She put the gun down, and started inspecting Harry’s camera, just as his vision cleared enough to get a proper look at her.

  The picture Harry had seen online was two years old, and puberty had kicked in since. Charlie had let her hair grow, framing a face still dominated by huge blue eyes. She was around average height for thirteen, built on a broad frame, and she’d sweated in the heat so that her black bra showed through her pale blue T-shirt. Her chunky legs had a line of scabs from a fall and she had the tough, blackened soles of someone who liked going barefoot.


  ‘So, you’re a photographer,’ Charlie said as she found the replay button on the camera and flipped through his pictures.

  Harry eyed the gun. He was a good runner, but it still wasn’t far enough from Charlie’s reach to try to escape.

  ‘Is this where you’re from?’ Charlie asked, turning the camera round so that Harry could see a view of a sunset over a cityscape.

  ‘You’ve gone past the end to the first pics on that memory card,’ Harry explained, trying to tame the fear in his voice. ‘I got the camera for Christmas, and took it on a Boxing Day walk with my dad. It’s the view over London from the top of Hampstead Heath.’

  ‘Nikon,’ Charlie said, inspecting the lens. ‘Must have cost plenty.’

  Harry nodded. ‘It was my main Christmas present two years ago, and I saved money to buy extra lenses and stuff.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Harry.’

  ‘Smirnov?’ Charlie replied sharply. ‘You made the video of Deion.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Harry admitted, stifling a cough with more of the tepid water. ‘That footage is on my phone.’

  ‘Did you follow the cops here?’

  Harry shook his head. ‘I asked around. People said you made some explosives …’

  ‘It’s not hard,’ Charlie said, nodding. ‘Swiped most ingredients from CVS next door, and found the rest online.’

  ‘Mixing explosives sounds dangerous,’ Harry said, intrigued that Charlie seemed keen to talk.

  ‘The trick is to practise with tiny batches. The guys who get their hands blown off are the ones that throw sacks of chemicals in bathtubs before doing proper tests.’

  Harry laughed, at least as much as you can laugh when your throat is scratchy and the person you’re talking to is two feet from a gun.

  ‘But it’s been more than two years since I mixed a batch.’

  ‘Why’d you stop?’

  ‘All kids have their phases,’ Charlie said dismissively. ‘Some get obsessed with guns or knives. Boys light trash on fire, or torture frogs. I was the science geek who blew stuff up.’