The Watcher in the Wall (12 page)

He’d messed up bad. BlackDays, whoever he was, had pushed him into dangerous territory. He’d revealed too much of himself.

Gruber knew he couldn’t go back to the Death Wish forums. BlackDays would tell the administrators, report him to whomever would listen. Gruber’s IP address was blocked, untraceable, but the site wasn’t safe anymore. He would have to sign off for good.

Well, fine. There were other forums. He had other accounts. This wasn’t the first time a project had gone wrong, and Gruber figured it wouldn’t be the last. But he’d been planning to sell the XXBlackDaysXX footage. He desperately needed money, and he needed it fast.

Gruber paced the little house, listening to the trains rumble and shift outside. This was not an easy question. He’d sloughed off his old identity years ago, preferred to live under the radar as much as he could. Osing had paid him in cash, when he’d paid at all. The owner of the little house took cash the same, no questions asked. But arrangements like those were hard to find; they were risky. They didn’t just show up in the classified ads.

Anyway, Gruber was sick of working. Sick of cleaning up baby puke for less than minimum wage. He’d found his passion in life, and he wanted to pursue it. He was sick of the distractions.

He stopped in front of his computer. Studied the machine. On the hard drive, tucked away and encrypted, was footage of six deaths, all of it clear and of reasonable quality. Those files were assets, Gruber realized. He’d sold them once already, to SevenBot, reached a few hundred buyers. Surely there was a bigger market out there.

Gruber picked up his phone. Dialed a number he’d memorized a long time ago, a number he’d figured he would never call again. Tapped his feet on the floor as he waited, tried to tell himself it wasn’t nerves.

A man picked up on the third ring. “Yeah?”

Gruber paused. Let out his breath. “Let me talk to Rico,” he told the man. “Tell him it’s Randall Gruber on the phone. Tell him I have something he wants to see.”

<
46
>

Mathers was good.

“Earl Sanderson,” he told Stevens and Windermere. “Brought up on child abuse charges, some place called Elizabeth, Indiana, February 1993. An autopsy on his daughter revealed injuries consistent with blunt trauma and sexual assault. The girl, one Sarah Ashley Sanderson, had been found hanged to death in her bedroom closet in what was ultimately ruled a suicide.”

He was holding more printouts—the police report from the arrest, whatever clippings he could find. He handed the file to Windermere, who started paging through it.

“Here’s the interesting part,” Mathers said before she could get very far. “Sarah Sanderson didn’t have any stepsisters.”

“Ashley Frey’s pretty fixated on her sister, Derek,” Windermere said. “What makes you so sure this is our case?”

Mathers held up a hand. “She didn’t have any stepsisters,” he said, “but she
did
have a stepbrother, Randall Allan Gruber. He was fifteen at
the time, and it was his testimony that ultimately put Sanderson away.” He gestured to the file. “Seems this guy liked to get liquored up and beat on his nearest and dearest. Liked to do a little more to his daughter, apparently.”

Windermere flipped through reports from the police and the ME, a bunch of photographs: close-ups of bruises, black eyes, battered ribs. The autopsy photos from Sarah Sanderson’s inquest. Pictures of Randall Allan Gruber, too, his injuries similar to his sister’s.

“Cripes,” Windermere said. “Tell me this fucker burned, Mathers.”

“Served three years in the state pen,” Mathers told her. “Walked out and moved back to southern Indiana, not far from Louisville. Periodically gets himself busted for petty crimes, nothing major.”

“If karma was worth anything, he’d be in a shallow grave somewhere,” Stevens said, scanning, flipping pages. “Where the hell was Mom for all this?”

“Mom was Tammy Gruber, a former cocktail waitress,” Mathers said. “Guess she caught her share of Sanderson’s bad moods herself. Told the court she was pretty well terrified old Earl was going to kill them all.”

“Sounds like she had a valid case.” Windermere flipped until she found a picture of Randall Gruber. Some psychiatric assessor had taken it, when they’d brought the kid in after the murder. Gruber was small, gaunt, and hollow-eyed, Coke-bottle glasses and a shock of plain brown hair sweeping over his forehead. He gazed into the camera with a flat, empty expression.

“Says here Randall Gruber spent some time in psychiatric evaluation in Louisville,” Stevens read. “A period of years, not that you could blame him. The things he would have lived through in that trailer . . .”

“Sick,” Windermere said. “Sick and twisted. Where is this guy now?”

“Nowhere that I could find,” Mathers told her. “Mom, either. I’ll keep looking, but it seems like they skipped town about the same time Randall hit the age of majority.”

“People don’t just disappear in this country,” Windermere said. “They’ve got to be out there.”

“Roger,” Mathers replied. “You want to run this down in the meantime? Sort out whether this is really our guy-slash-girl?”

She studied the picture of young Gruber again. The vacant stare. The expressionless eyes behind those thick glasses. Really, the picture didn’t tell her very much. More than a few domestic abuse victims had suffered the same as Randall Gruber and his stepsister. More than a handful of victims had met ends like Sarah’s. As far as Windermere could tell, none of the victims had gone on to build successful careers luring teenagers to their deaths via suicide forums.

She put down the picture. “It’s a better lead than anything else we’ve got,” she told the men. “Let’s wander down to Indiana, see if we can track this guy down.”

<
47
>

They booked tickets
on a Delta regional flight to Louisville, left Mathers behind to continue the search for Randall Gruber from his cubicle.

“Good luck,” Stevens told Mathers as they walked out of CID. “If
this guy’s Ashley Frey, he’s been vigilant about protecting his identity. Probably not going to show up in the phone book.”

Mathers grinned. “That’s why they pay me the big bucks, isn’t it?”

“They pay you the big bucks?” Stevens said. “Cripes. I gotta talk to Harris.”

Mathers put a hand on Windermere’s shoulder as they reached the elevators, nudged her back into the cubicles a ways. Studied her with those blue eyes, his brow furrowed.
Like a worried dog,
she thought.
Solid and dependable and loyal. And completely oblivious to any complicated human emotion.

“I just wanted to make sure we’re okay,” he told her, glancing over her shoulder to where Stevens stood, waiting for the elevators. “I hate the thought of you skipping town without me knowing you’re all right.”

Windermere looked over her shoulder at Stevens, the elevator doors still closed, the damn car taking its time. “What is it with you two?” she said. “Every time I turn around, you’re asking me to
talk
. You have something you want to say to me, Derek?”

Mathers looked at Stevens, too. “We’re just worried,” he said. “This case—it’s messed up. I think it’s messing with all of us.”

The elevator doors dinged at last. Mercifully. “This is me you’re talking to,” Windermere told him. “I don’t get messed up.”

She turned for the doors. “I gotta go, buddy. Try not to miss me too much.”

She walked away, joined Stevens in the elevator, stared at the bank of buttons until the doors slid closed, until the car was dropping toward street level. Rode down to the lobby in silence. Rode out to the airport more or less the same way.

<
48
>

You haven’t told
anyone about us, have you?

Madison laughed to herself as she reread the message.
Who would I tell?
she typed.
My sisters? My mom? You think I’m going to tell them I’m talking to some dude on a suicide website? How crazy do you think I am?

LOL,
Brandon replied.
Just making sure. What about your friends?

Friends? LOL,
Madison wrote.
Dude, I don’t have any friends. You’re my friend. Why so paranoid?

Don’t want anything screwing this up,
Brandon wrote.
What we’re going to do, it’s too important to mess up by being careless.

I promise,
Madison told him.
I haven’t told anyone. I’m not as dumb as you clearly think I am.

Don’t think you’re dumb.

Whatever,
Madison wrote.
I GTG. Class is in session.

Do you really think I’m just some dude on a suicide website?
Brandon asked.

Madison glanced up at the blackboard, where Rhodes was blabbering on about Lewis and Clark.

Of course not,
she started typing.
I really like—

“Miss Mackenzie.”
This was Rhodes, finished with Lewis and Clark and fixing a thousand-watt death stare in her direction. “Would you care to share what you’re texting with the class?”

Madison felt eyes turning to stare at her. Heard Lena Jane Poole giggle from three rows over, felt herself blushing. Felt an undercurrent
of panic, too, as her mind flashed ahead to what would happen if Rhodes took her phone, if he read what she was typing, and to whom.

“No, sir,” she told the teacher. “Just inputting the date of the midterm into my calendar. I was listening, I swear.”

Rhodes glared at her. “You swear,” he said. “Well, since you were obviously listening, you’ll have no problem telling me the name of the member of the expedition who died first.”

Madison closed her eyes. Blew out a sigh. Of course she didn’t know the dude’s name. She wished she could run away to Brandon right now, find that Ferrari and that cliff and just be done with it.

“Miss Mackenzie?” Rhodes had his eyebrow arched, milking the moment, getting his money’s worth. Madison could tell from the smirks on the faces of the kids around her that everyone else was enjoying it, too. Lena Jane Poole had her iPhone raised, probably shooting video. Something to post online later, something for everyone to laugh at.

What else was new?

Rhodes waited. Madison didn’t answer. Just stared at her teacher as her teacher stared back, a standoff. Then someone whispered nearby.

“Floyd.”
It was Paul, the goofy guy who sat next to her.
“Charles Floyd
.”

Madison hesitated. Paul had his head in his textbook, his whisper barely louder than a breath.

“Uh, Charles Floyd?” she said.

“Very good.” Rhodes took a couple steps closer. “And how did he die?”

Madison stifled the urge to look at Paul. Waited, strained her ears for Paul’s answer.
“Appendicitis.”

“Appendicitis,” she repeated.

Rhodes nodded. “Very good,” he said. “Very good answers, Mr. Dayton.”

Paul’s head snapped up. He went red. “Pardon?”

“I’m not so deaf as to be unable to hear a whispered answer, Mr. Dayton,” Rhodes said. “It’s very kind of you to want to assist Miss Mackenzie, but she is going to have to learn to sink or swim on her own.” He turned back toward the blackboard. “For texting in class, Miss Mackenzie, I’m awarding you two days in detention. For helping her, Mr. Dayton . . .” Rhodes paused, gave it a dramatic flourish. “I award you the same. See you this afternoon.”

•   •   •

Ugh,
Madison messaged Brandon.
Sorry about the delay. History class. I just got a detention for texting in class.

Class was over. Rhodes had, mercifully, avoided picking on her for the rest of the period, but the damage was done. Detention, first off, and the embarrassment that came with looking like a fool in front of Lena Jane Poole and the rest of the class.

Not that it mattered.

I have to get out of this place,
she wrote Brandon.
Soon. I’m dying here, and not in the good way.

She pressed send and carried on down the hall, waiting for Brandon’s reply. Didn’t hear Paul coming up behind her until he was tapping her on the shoulder, saying her name.

“Hey,” he said, a sheepish expression on his face. “Sorry about what happened back there. I didn’t think Rhodes could hear me.”

“Never mind,” Madison said. “It is what it is. I was going to get a detention either way, I guess.”

“Yeah. Now at least you have company, right?”

“Right,” Madison said.
“Exactly.”

If Paul could sense the sarcasm, he wasn’t letting on. “Who are you texting, anyway?” he said. “You always have your nose in that phone.”

Madison tried to project a
Don’t bother me
vibe. “Why do you care?” she asked him. “What’s it matter to you?”

“You’re just always so, I dunno, antisocial,” Paul said. “Like you never talk to anyone or even smile or make eye contact. But you’re always smiling when you’re on your phone.”

“I’m talking to my boyfriend,” Madison said. “All right? Not that it’s any of your business, but there you go.”

Paul’s smile faded a little. His cockiness dissipated. “Ah,” he said. “Okay. I see how it is.”

“Yeah,” Madison said. “That’s how it is.”

She left Paul standing in the hallway, eating her dust. Pulled out her phone again and saw that Brandon had answered.

So you really don’t think I’m just some dude on a website, right?
he’d written.

Madison frowned. Boys were so needy. Still, it was kind of cute that he cared this much.

Of course not,
she replied.
You’re special to me. Thelma and Louise, remember?

The answer came fast.
LOL. I’m Thelma.

I still haven’t seen the movie,
Madison wrote. Realized she was smiling again, looked around to make sure Paul wasn’t watching.
I reserve the right to choose until I do.

<
49
>

Mathers had a location
for Tammy Gruber by the time Stevens and Windermere touched down in Louisville. But what he’d found wasn’t promising.