Page 30 of Girl, Unmasked (Ella Dark #28)

Spaulding High. Ella had done her time in places like this, and she had the emotional scars to prove it.

The walls still exhorted ‘DARE To Resist Drugs’ while, she’d bet, some teacher probably had a dime bag business on the side.

Funny how some things never changed, even as the world kept right on turning.

She approached the intercom bolted to the old gates and jammed the buzzer, waiting for the inevitable tinny squeak. A professional voice came through instantly.

‘Spaulding High, how can I assist you?’

Ella leaned close enough to tongue the speaker. ‘Hi, I’m working with the Norwalk Police Department. I’m here to see one of your teachers. Roger Blackwood.’

There was a pause long enough for Ella to wonder if the intercom had shorted out. Then, ‘One moment, please.’

In cop-speak, that either meant ‘we're scrambling to hide the evidence’ or ‘we're calling our lawyers.’ Neither boded well for a smooth interview.

After what felt like an eternity but was probably closer to two minutes, a harried-looking woman in a sensible pantsuit appeared at the gate. She eyed Ella with the weary suspicion of someone who'd seen too many teenagers try to sneak cigarettes onto school grounds.

‘Detective,’ she said, her voice matching the one from the intercom. ‘I'm Angela Mercer, Vice Principal. May I ask what this is regarding?’

Ella flashed her badge. ‘I'm afraid that's confidential, Ms. Mercer. I just need a few minutes of Mr. Blackwood's time.’

‘I see. And you can't elaborate on the nature of this... matter?’

‘Afraid not.’

‘Is it about… Martina? Miss Payne?’

Of course. Everyone in the city had seen the news by now. Pictures of Martina’s strung-up corpse were on every front page from here to Japan.

Ella pursed her lips and let the silence speak volumes.

‘I see. Well, we haven’t made any official statement yet, but these kids with their smartphones – they all know.’

‘I’m sure they do,’ Ella said.

‘Well, come on through.’

Angela put the passcode into the keypad and pulled it open.

Ella stepped through and followed the vice principal down the path, into the building, and through a labyrinth of hallways that smelled of industrial cleaner.

A minute later, she was back outside on the other end of the school.

The grounds were suspiciously empty. No kids sitting on chairs outside classrooms, no loiterers nestled behind the bike sheds.

It was like a neutron bomb had gone off, leaving nothing but the architecture behind.

‘Mr. Blackwood's classroom is in one of the portables,’ Angela said. ‘Budget cuts, you understand. We had to get... creative with our space allocation.’

Then she heard it. The bell. That ear-splitting electronic shriek that marked the end of one academic hostage situation and the beginning of another.

And right on cue, the floodgates opened.

Students poured out of doorways like ants boiling out of a kicked-over hill.

A seething mass of raging hormones crammed into plaid skirts and stretched khakis.

Ella watched them jostle and jockey, feeling like an anthropologist observing the mating rituals of a primitive tribe.

Ella knew these kids. Had been these kids, once upon a buried adolescence.

The shy girls hugging the walls, the peacocking boys with their chests puffed out.

The calculated body language, the furtive glances and whispered asides.

A complex social ecosystem built on cafeteria politics and who wore it better.

Even now, the lone cop drew more than a few whispers and side-eyes in her direction.

She closed in on a lone trailer at the back of the blacktop. A hand-lettered sign was taped to the scratched plastic door: ROOM 13B – RELIGIOUS STUDIES.

‘Last stop, detective,’ Angela said, rapping twice on the door before shoving it open without waiting for an answer. ‘Mr. Blackwood? You have a visitor.’

A muffled voice from within, then the door creaked open to reveal a man who looked like he'd been designed by committee, and not a particularly talented one.

Roger Blackwood was noncommittal incarnate – tall but stooped, thin but somehow soft around the edges.

His face was a roadmap of worry lines and poorly concealed tics, framed by hair that couldn't decide if it wanted to be gray or just give up entirely.

But it was his eyes that caught Ella's attention. Small, watery things that darted around like frightened mice, never quite settling on any one spot. The eyes of a man with something to hide.

‘Can I help you?’ Blackwood asked.

Ella stepped forward. ‘Mr. Blackwood? I'm Detective Dark. I'd like to ask you a few questions.’

Those black button eyes swiveled to her, then darted away. A muscle twitched in his jaw, right above the knot of his nicotine-stained tie. ‘Can I ask what this is about?’

‘May I come in? This isn’t a doorway conversation.’

Blackwood's eyes darted to the gaggle of teenagers who'd stopped to gawk at the spectacle of a cop on campus. With visible reluctance, he stepped aside to let her in.

Ella stepped inside, took in the surroundings. Posters lined the walls – Biblical verses and heavy metal album art intermingling in a jarring collage. But perhaps most concerning was the graphic depiction crucifixion scene in miniature form behind Blackwood’s desk.

‘Mr. Blackwood,’ Ella said, turning her attention back to the increasingly nervous teacher. ‘Does the name Martina Payne ring any bells?’

The effect was electric. Blackwood's already pale face went chalk white, and a fine sheen of sweat broke out on his forehead. ‘Yes. What about her?’

Blackwood reached the sanctuary of his desk, but he didn’t sit. He laid his hands on the table and hovered.

‘Seen her around today?’

‘No,’ Blackwood snapped. ‘Of course not.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘You know why. I mean, I don’t see what this…’ Blackwood shook his head and trailed off mid-sentence.

‘You seem awfully nervous, Mr. Blackwood,’ Ella observed. ‘Any particular reason for that?’

Blackwood's eyes darted between her and the exits, reminding Ella of a cornered animal looking for an escape route. Electricity surged through her veins with every sly glance, every twitch of his nose. Roger Blackwood was hiding something.

‘I don't... I'm not comfortable discussing this without a lawyer.’

Ella subtly shifted her weight, positioning her body to block the most direct path to the main door.

‘A lawyer? Why would you need a lawyer?’

‘I know my rights,’ Blackwood insisted. He stepped back from his table. Behind him was a fire door that looked solid as a rock. ‘I don't have to say anything without counsel.’

‘Alright, Roger,’ she said. ‘Let's dial it back a notch. I’m not here to accuse you of anything. I just want to understand what happened between you and Martina. I heard there was some…’

She was about to press further when Blackwood's eyes suddenly widened and a look of horrified realization dawned on his face.

Then, faster than she would have given him credit for, Blackwood lunged for the fire door behind his desk.

He slammed his hand down on what Ella quickly realized was a fire alarm, shouldered through the fire door and escaped out onto the school grounds. There and gone in a blink, with the fire door slamming shut behind him.

Adrenaline surged. Ella leaped to her feet, hauled ass over the desk and pushed through the same door as the alarm blared overhead.

Innocent men didn't run. And Ella Dark had never been one to let prey slip through her fingers.