Leave Her Hanging: A Noir Thriller

Chapter Twenty-Six

I was a zombie at school the next morning. I’d barely slept the night before. Now I sat in homeroom class, seeing Ella, her laugh, her life. Then I’d see her taking her clothes off while Malcolm Barker watched, a video camera in his hands. I remembered the underwear I’d found in Ella’s drawer, pink and frilly. Had she worn those while they filmed her?

I tried to pretend it didn’t make sense that she’d do what she did. She’d never let anyone use her like that. She was strong, forceful even. No one pushed Ella Lewis around.

But then I remembered that night on top of Mount Eden, when she told me about her plan to leave town. I remembered the pain on her face after I’d injured her father. How badly she must’ve wanted to get away, away from her family, away from school, away from me. Bad enough to go back to a life she’d left behind. Did she want to get away badly enough to cover up what she’d done and put a belt around her neck?

No. Not like that. Never like that. No matter what Alex—no, Stephanie—no matter what Stephanie said, I wouldn’t believe that Ella killed herself.

But what did that leave me with? Maybe I could call Detective Reihana, tell him what Stephanie had told me. And then what? Best case scenario, the cops shut down this child porn thing, maybe get the kids under the care of Child, Youth, and Family. And they’d be so busy patting themselves on the back they wouldn’t want to risk their reputations looking into what seemed like an open-and-shut suicide. They could add “sexual abuse” to their list of evidence that Ella was a troubled, depressed young woman. And everyone would be happy. Everyone but me.

I would tip off the cops. Even if it brought Malcolm Barker and his friends gunning for me, I’d do it. But not yet. I needed Malcolm and his friends to talk.

“Jack?” A voice shook me out of my thoughts.

I looked up from my desk in the corner of the room. The rest of my homeroom class was staring at me. I glanced down and saw that I’d carved a groove in my desk by scraping my pen back and forth along it. I was gripping the pen so tight I’d nearly lost feeling in my palm. I forced my fingers apart and put it gently down on my desk.

Mr Harvey was watching me from behind his spectacles, concern etched into the wrinkles of his face. I realised it’d been him who said my name as he called the roll.

“Sorry,” I said. “Here.” I should never have come to school today, but if I missed any more classes I was going to start drawing attention to myself. Not that acting like a psycho and carving holes in my desk was doing me any favours.

Mr Harvey frowned, shook his head slightly, and returned his attention to the class roll. He called the next name on the list, and I slipped back into my thoughts.

The bell rang ten minutes later. I stood up automatically with the rest of the class. It didn’t bother me that everyone else avoided me anymore. I slung my bag over my shoulder and made for the door.

“Jack,” Mr Harvey said from his desk. He nodded to his side. “A word?”

I ignored the looks of the last few stragglers leaving the class, pulled up a chair, and sat down next to Mr Harvey. A few seconds later the door closed and we were alone.

“You look terrible,” Mr Harvey said to me. “When was the last time you slept?”

I shrugged and looked at my hands. “I caught a couple of hours last night.”

“Something is eating at you. I told you I would try to keep the principal off your back while you got yourself straightened out. But I can’t do that if you’re skipping class and turning up with bruised knuckles.”