Merciless Crimes
A Merciless Murder Mystery Thriller
Tikiri Herath
Other Titles by Author
The Red Heeled Rebels universe of mystery thrillers, featuring your favorite PI, Asha Kade:
Merciless Murder Mystery Thrillers
Merciless Legacy
Merciless Games
Merciless Crimes
Merciless Lies
Merciless Past
Red Heeled Rebels Thrillers - The Origin Story
The Girl Who Crossed the Line
The Girl Who Ran Away
The Girl Who Made Them Pay
The Girl Who Fought to Kill
The Girl Who Broke Free
The Girl Who Knew Their Names
The Girl Who Never Forgot
The Accidental Traveler
An anthology of personal short stories based on the author's sojourns around the world.
The Rebel Diva Nonfiction Series
Your Rebel Dreams: 6 simple steps to take back control of your life in uncertain times.
Your Rebel Plans: 4 simple steps to getting unstuck and making progress today.
Your Rebel Life: Easy habit hacks to enhance happiness in the 10 key areas of your life.
Bust Your Fears: 3 simple tools to crush your anxieties and squash your stress.
Collaborations
The Boss Chick’s Bodacious Destiny Nonfiction Bundle
Dark Shadows 2: Voodoo and Black Magic of New Orleans
Contents
Title Page
Other Titles by Author
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Message on the Girl's Bathroom Cabinet
MONDAY
1. Chapter One
2. Chapter Two
3. Chapter Three
4. Chapter Four
5. Chapter Five
6. Chapter Six
7. Chapter Seven
8. Chapter Eight
9. Chapter Nine
10. Chapter Ten
11. Chapter Eleven
12. Chapter Twelve
13. Chapter Thirteen
14. Chapter Fourteen
15. Chapter Fifteen
16. Chapter Sixteen
17. Chapter Seventeen
18. Chapter Eighteen
19. Chapter Nineteen
TUESDAY
20. Chapter Twenty
21. Chapter Twenty-one
22. Chapter Twenty-two
23. Chapter Twenty-three
24. Chapter Twenty-four
25. Chapter Twenty-five
26. Chapter Twenty-six
27. Chapter Twenty-seven
28. Chapter Twenty-eight
29. Chapter Twenty-nine
30. Chapter Thirty
31. Chapter Thirty-one
32. Chapter Thirty-two
33. Chapter Thirty-three
34. Chapter Thirty-four
35. Chapter Thirty-five
36. Chapter Thirty-six
37. Chapter Thirty-seven
38. Chapter Thirty-eight
39. Chapter Thirty-nine
40. Chapter Forty
41. Chapter Forty-one
42. Chapter Forty-two
WEDNESDAY
43. Chapter Forty-three
44. Chapter Forty-four
45. Chapter Forty-five
46. Chapter Forty-six
47. Chapter Forty-seven
48. Chapter Forty-eight
49. Chapter Forty-nine
50. Chapter Fifty
51. Chapter Fifty-one
52. Chapter Fifty-two
53. Chapter Fifty-three
54. Chapter Fifty-four
55. Chapter Fifty-five
56. Chapter Fifty-six
57. Chapter Fifty-seven
58. Chapter Fifty-eight
59. Chapter Fifty-nine
60. Chapter Sixty
61. Chapter Sixty-one
62. Chapter Sixty-two
63. Chapter Sixty-three
64. Chapter Sixty-four
65. Chapter Sixty-five
Back in New York
66. Chapter Sixty-six
Merciless Lies - Chapter One
Exclusive Deleted Scenes!
The Merciless Murder Mystery Thrillers
The Red Heeled Rebels Thriller Series
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
Message on the Girl's Bathroom Cabinet
“Don’t come looking 4 me. Pls don’t tell Mom & Dad. B back soon.”
Written in blood-red nail polish on the back of the bathroom cabinet door in the missing girl’s dorm room.
MONDAY
Chapter One
Private. Keep out. Violators will be prosecuted.
Katy and I stared at the large, red-lettered sign nestled in between the two pine trees.
We had stopped in the middle of a lonely country road that curved its way through a secluded part of the forest.
I’d already double-checked the locks and made sure the windows were rolled up.
Three times now.
“Is it me, or is it creepy here?” I said, pulling my jacket closer around my shoulders.
“You’re such a big city girl, Asha,” said Katy. “Any place with more trees than towers scares you.”
My best friend was in the passenger seat next to me, exhausted after her driving shift from New York to Boston. I’d taken over the last leg of our road trip as we headed north of the city to our destination.
We were twenty minutes from the Red Lake Academy, where I had an urgent appointment with my latest client—a client I hadn’t yet met.
Katy clutched my arm, making me jump.
“Did you see that?” she hissed.
“What is it?” I asked, swiveling my head, my heart beating a tick faster.
“I thought I saw something move over there…” Katy trailed off, staring into the shadows among the trees.
I peered over her shoulder, but saw nothing.
“Was it an animal? A person?” I asked.
Katy rubbed her face.
“Just my tired eyes, I guess,” she mumbled. “All that driving has me beat. I really hope they have a nice place for us to sleep tonight at the school.”
I was exhausted too, and a migraine was coming on. It always did when I felt uncertain in my surroundings.
Uncertain.
And uneasy.
I glanced around me.
Massive oaks and maples lined the road. The trees were in their shedding season, preparing for another long and cold winter, typical for this region. Their twisty, gnarly branches pointed up at the gray sky, as if they were calling to the gods above.
Other than a frightened white-tailed deer that had crossed our path ten minutes ago, we hadn’t encountered any life for miles since I took the last turn on the road.
What an isolated place for a girls’ school, I thought as I peered through the windshield.
The calls for help that came to my private investigation firm were usually unconventional, and my upper-crust clients were always idiosyncratic.
But this call had been downright peculiar.
How does a girl vanish from the most upscale boarding school in the country?
I checked the windows again and instinctively reached up to feel the roof of my cabriolet. I was glad I’d put the top up and secured it before we left Boston. I’d have hated to drive through the
se dark woods exposed to the elements.
And who knew what else?
A strange rustle above made me look up.
“We have company,” I whispered, pointing through the windshield.
Katy craned her neck to see what I’d spotted.
Half a dozen black crows perched on a naked tree branch just above the sign, their beady, intelligent eyes watching us.
Waiting.
For what?
I felt a shiver go down my back.
Suddenly, the entire brood flew off, cawing loudly enough to awake the dead. It was like they were warning us.
“A murder of crows,” I whispered to myself as I watched them take to the stormy gray skies, flapping their dark wings.
A murder of crows.
I wasn’t the superstitious type, but I couldn't shake that feeling. Like a premonition of what was to come.
Chapter Two
I took my foot off the brake and maneuvered around a sharp corner of the road with yet another ominous no trespassing sign along the side.
“Peace and I have been talking about a good private high school for Chantelle,” said Katy. “This might just be the place.”
“Did you see the prices on their website?” I said. “School fees are almost forty grand a year. It’s crazy.”
“Chantelle’s only eight,” said Katy thoughtfully. “We have time to save up.”
It seemed like that was all my thirty-something-year old friends were thinking about these days: where to send their kids to school. Thank goodness, I didn’t have that problem.
Peace, Katy’s husband, who was also my business attorney on retainer, had a high-paying job in Manhattan. My friend wasn’t doing too badly herself, as the financial controller of my own baby, the Red Heeled Rebels bakery in New York.
Still, these kinds of school fees weren’t anything to sniff at.
“Why would anyone set up a school in such a remote area?” I said. “It’s too lonely out here.”
“To keep the riffraff away,” said Katy. She waved her phone in the air and blew an exasperated raspberry. “I just wish wireless reception would work here. They had better be connected at the school.”
“The principal’s assistant emailed me with directions, so they should have Internet,” I said, giving a side glance at my friend, wondering how little Chantelle would feel to be stuck in such a faraway place.
But Katy was dreaming.
“There’s an Olympic-sized pool, a basketball court, tennis court, a squash court, plus a natural lake for the girls to go rowing,” she said, speaking more to herself than me. “They have a one-hundred-acre plot of land. How amazing is that?”
“That’s a lot of space for two hundred kids,” I said.
“This is where all the moneyed families send their children. Diplomats from overseas and even Hollywood stars.”
“Jet-setters,” I said, wishing I’d worn a warmer jacket.
It was only mid-afternoon, and we were still in that part of fall where an Indian summer could be just around the corner. But the deeper we penetrated these dark woods, the chillier I felt. Right to my bones.
“Jet-setters who probably wear diamonds for supper,” said my friend, her voice slightly in awe. Katy was a sucker for anything with a tinge of celebrity or fame.
My GPS pinged loudly.
We were arriving at our destination.
I eased my foot off the gas and slowed down, keeping my eyes peeled for an entrance, a driveway, a fence—
I turned one last corner when my jaw dropped.
“Wow,” gasped Katy, as I pulled up to a large steel double gate.
It was like we had time-traveled back a century.
There was no placard or name plate on the gate, but this place looked exactly how I’d expect an exclusive all-girls’ boarding school to look.
Many yards behind that steel fence sat a sprawling Victorian mansion in the middle of an immense manicured green lawn. The steep gabled roof, the tall turrets, and the stained-glass windows told me this structure had been built in an era when corsets and crinolines were common.
It was the type of building you’d find in an iconic British mystery.
Or an old horror flick.
A white door at the far end of the building had a red cross on it. A clinic?
In front of the building was an empty tennis court and a small parking lot with a handful of mid-sized cars scattered across it.
The school was enclosed by the ten-foot black steel fence. The woods grew thick around the perimeter, casting dark shadows on the grounds.
“It’s fabulous,” breathed in Katy. “I love it.”
“Looks like a creepy movie set to me,” I said, staring through the thick bars.
Katy jabbed a finger on my shoulder.
“That is a true heritage building,” she said in a scolding voice. “Those tall glass towers in New York are nothing compared to this. This place is steeped in history.”
I scanned the grounds. Set on the west end was a row of brownstone row houses.
“Those must be the staff quarters,” I said.
“I bet you that’s the principal’s house over there. Absolutely gorgeous,” said Katy, indicating the white manor set against the woods further away from the school. She swiveled her head around. “Where’s the lake? The Red Lake?”
“Behind the building?” I said. “Gosh, where is everyone? It’s so quiet here.”
The anonymous phone call that came in yesterday sprang to my mind.
Stay away from the Red Lake Academy if you value your life.
Only Katy, my security expert Tetyana, and I knew of that call. If Peace or David, my fiancé, had heard anything about it, they’d have got worried sick and tried to convince us to not take the job.
I pushed that strange call to the back of my mind, but this place was giving me a sense of foreboding. I wondered if I’d made a mistake to come and bring my friend along too. Maybe I should have asked Tetyana to join us.
I turned to Katy.
“Please don’t send Chantelle here.”
“Why?”
“There’s something depressing about this place.”
“Your imagination’s running away from you as usual,” she replied, her voice firm. She pointed at the gate. “Can we focus on how we get in? Why don’t you honk?”
“This doesn’t look like a place where you honk,” I said, pulling my mobile out of my purse on the backseat.
“We have reception,” I said, relieved to see the green bars light up on my phone.
“Thank goodness for that,” said Katy, checking her own mobile.
“They must have a cellular booster at the school,” I said, as I scrolled through the email thread I’d exchanged with a Nick Davies.
Nick was the principal’s assistant. He’d made our accommodation arrangements and had set up the meeting with the school principal today.
I read and reread the emails.
“Strange. He doesn’t give a phone number.” I smiled and nudged my friend. “Ready to climb the fence?”
“Bad idea,” said Katy. “Check out that wire on top. It’s electrified.”
“My goodness. This is a fort. How ever did a girl run off from here?”
Katy slapped my hand.
“Look! They know we’re here.”
As we watched, the black gates opened silently in front of us, as if unseen hands were at play.
That was when I spotted the camera on top of the fence. It was turning slowly, panning the area. The gate had to be automated or controlled by someone inside. I wondered if anyone was watching us from a security screen right now.
“Smile,” I said. “We’re on camera.”
“We have to mind our manners here, Asha,” said Katy, as I nudged the car through the open gates. “I bet you everyone’s supposed to dress up for supper and be all prim and proper—”
She didn’t get to finish.
Two pa
le, bony hands slammed on her window.
Chapter Three
Katy screamed.
I jumped on the brakes, my heart hammering.
“What was that?” I said, glancing around in panic.
A high-pitched, maniacal giggle came from nearby.
There.
I saw the culprit.
It was a schoolgirl in a short tartan red skirt and a white shirt. She was walking quickly, away from our car. She knew we were looking as she gave us the finger without even turning around.
Within seconds, she slinked into the woods and disappeared from view.
I turned my eyes back on the road.
“What a way to welcome us.” I shook my head.
“I nearly got a heart attack,” said Katy, as I drove down the red bricked driveway toward the Victorian mansion. “I’ll be complaining to the principal.”
Just as I pulled up to the main building, I spotted a tall man standing at the threshold of the front entrance, his unsmiling eyes locked on our car.
Is that Nick Davies?
I parked my little convertible next to a Mercedes van with the fancy Red Lake Academy logo splashed on the side. I guessed this was their upscale version of a yellow school bus.
“He doesn’t look too friendly,” I whispered, as we unbuckled and reached for our handbags from the backseat.
“Let’s keep an open mind,” said Katy, getting out.
We walked toward the main doors, feeling the man’s eyes on us. Something about the way he was watching us made me feel uneasy.
Did he have to stare like that?
Next to him, a wizened security guard slumped on a metal chair near the doors, eyes fully closed. There was a black handgun on his belt, but he looked barely capable of using it.
“Not much of a guard, is he?” whispered Katy as we walked up. “Sleeping on the job.”
“Must be eighty at least,” I whispered back.
A hissing sound from the corner of the building made me swivel around. Three schoolgirls in their red-skirted uniforms were leaning against the wall, watching us.
They stood, arms crossed, sullen looks on their faces, like we were unwanted pests invading their personal space.
What an unfriendly place this was.