The Competition - [28]

Nancy, a petite brunette in leggings and a long sweater that fetchingly exposed one shoulder, asked, “Is he kind of tall, has long, black, greasy hair?”

Bailey, who had pulled his school yearbook photo, said, “Yeah. You know him?”

“He sat behind me in my English lit class last year. He was always bitching about something. The other kids in the class, the homework, the teacher.” She shook her head. “What a loser-”

Carrie, who’d been groggy from taking antihistamines for her allergies, sat up. “Oh, is he the one who told you-”

“Yeah. One time, I asked him to keep it down and he told me to go fuck myself and said the next time I gave him shit, he’d shut me up forever.”

“Did you report that to anyone?” I asked.

“No. I didn’t take him that seriously. I thought he was just being an asshole.”

He was at least that. “Did he ever talk about guns? Or about shooting people?” I asked.

“He never said anything about guns,” Nancy said. “But he was always talking about how much he hated the school and how the kids were all loser assholes.”

“Who did he hang out with?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I didn’t exactly go looking for him.”

Interesting that no one reported seeing Carson act like that in science class. I wondered what his project had been. If it was how to make a Molotov, that might explain his good behavior. All kidding aside, his project might’ve had some subtle connection to explosives. I made a mental note to check with Liam.

We kept at it for a while longer, but there was nothing more-from Nancy or any of the others.

I passed the tattoo photo around. Nobody recognized it.

Still, Bailey and I left Dale’s house feeling better than we had since we’d picked up the case.

When we got into the car, I looked at Bailey. “Okay, now I can say it: Carson James is looking good.”

“He is,” Bailey said. She pulled out her cell. “Let’s get ahold of Carson’s English teacher. See if we can get a few writing samples.”

We shared a grim smile.

15

A few phone calls later, Bailey had a meeting set for five thirty at the teacher’s house in Tarzana, which would give us just enough time to drive through a fast-food joint and pick up a very late lunch.

“Feel like Taco Bell?” Bailey asked.

“Always.”

“She had no trouble remembering Carson,” Bailey said.

“She say why?”

“No, but the way she said, ‘Oh, yes,’ I’ll bet it wasn’t because he volunteered to clap erasers,” Bailey said.

“No one does that anymore.”

“Whatever.”

“They use whiteboards now,” I said. Bailey shot me a look. “Just saying.”

We found a Taco Bell on Ventura Boulevard, and Bailey pulled into the parking lot so she could eat without getting it all over herself.

I savored a big, crunchy bite. “Taco Supreme-the best fast food has to offer.”

“There’s also In-N-Out-” Bailey’s cell phone buzzed. She answered it with a mouthful of taco. “Keller.” Her chewing slowed, then stopped as she listened. When she ended the call, she wadded up her taco wrapper and threw it against the dash. “Son of a bitch!”

“What?”

“They found Carson. He’s in a hospital out in Santa Clarita-”

“Why the hell is he all the way out there?” That was at least an hour away from the school.

“His uncle’s a resident. His parents had him transferred straight out of the ER. They’ve been at his bedside this whole time.”

Which is why no one answered the phone or the door. But maybe he was just hiding in plain sight. Maybe he was just acting like a victim to fool us. “What’re his injuries?”

“Two shots to the gut. He’s stable, but they’re still worried about possible peritonitis. They couldn’t get all the shrapnel out of his intestines.”

That seemed a bridge too far. I could see shooting himself in the hand or the foot, but not in the gut. It was too dangerous. But if he was one of the shooters and his buddy did that to him, he might just be pissed off enough to talk to us. “Can we see him?”

“The uni said yes, but we need to get going. She said visiting hours for nonfamily end soon, and traffic’s going to be a bitch.”

Bailey canceled the meeting with Carson’s English teacher, and we headed for the Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Valencia. The place was a labyrinth. It took less time to get there than it did to find Carson’s bed. He had just been moved out of ICU and into a private room. The natural light flowing in through his window softened the harsh glare of the standard fluorescent bulbs, but even candlelight couldn’t have masked the gray pallor of Carson’s face. His doctor (uncle) warned us not to push him, said he was not out of the woods yet-can no one think of a new cliché?-and told us we had fifteen minutes, max.

His parents insisted on staying for the interview, his mom hovering on one side of his bed while his father glowered at us from the other and pointedly looked at his watch. There was no time for open-ended questions, so I went straight at it.

“Where were you when you got shot?”

“In the gym.” His voice was thin and strained.

I asked him to be more specific. At the top of the bleachers? The bottom? I had him describe who sat next to him, what class he’d been in that morning-questions designed to tell me whether he could’ve been a shooter. The answers would be easy to verify. If he was lying, I’d know soon enough. But seeing him now, I had a strong feeling they’d check out. “Can you describe the shooters at all?” I asked.