Starved for Attention (The Otto Viti Mysteries Book 3) Read online

  “No, no, no!” said Ashlyn’s sister, who I think might have been Gracie. “There’s no time to explain. We have to go.”

  All three tugged Livy’s arm again, and she let them pull her outside. I followed.

  “Jill, you come, too,” Sophia said. “Please, can you come with us?”

  Before I could respond, Nico and Hunter were at my sides.

  “I don’t think this is a good idea,” Hunter said. “Liv, you can’t drive.”

  He was absolutely right. I couldn’t drive, either. We had far too much wine.

  “I’ll drive,” Sophia said.

  I looked at Nico. Even with the wine I knew that I didn’t want an emotional teenager driving me and Livy around. “Can you drive us?” I said to him quietly.

  Just as quietly, he said back, “Why are you going?”

  “Sophia said she wanted me to come. And I’m not going to let Livy go off by herself.”

  Nico looked at me as if to say this is not a good idea.

  “Is it really that big of a deal if we go?” I added.

  Nico looked over my head at Hunter. I turned to him, too. He shook his head, his lips pursed. Like Nico, he was not amused by the situation. I turned back to Nico, waiting for him to respond.

  “The Explorer has seven seats,” Nico said. “We all can go together. I’ll drive. Let me just pull it out of the garage.”

  I looked at Livy, silently asking if Nico’s plan was okay. She nodded.

  “I’ll lock up here,” I said. Hunter stepped outside and I closed the door behind him. “Thank you,” I called after Nico as he walked toward the garage.

  “I don’t like this,” he said over his shoulder.

  “Me neither, but we can’t let Livy go with them by herself.” I flipped the door’s lock and grabbed my cell phone, which, as it turned out, I had left on the entryway table. Catching up with Nico, I continued, “And I bet I know exactly what this is about. The girls snuck out on a school night, some of their friends were drinking, one of them passed out, and the girls don’t know what to do. Livy is a good buffer between them and their moms, and that’s why they came looking for her. She’ll soften the blow when the moms find out. You know how teenagers are.”

  We reached the door leading to the garage. Nico grabbed the doorknob and turned back to me.

  “I remember being a teenager. I went to school, went to soccer practice, did my homework, and then did it all over again the next day. None of this out-at-ten-o’clock-on-a-Sunday stuff.”

  Nico’s high school years sounded a lot like mine, and I saw his point. I couldn’t really defend the girls if my theory was correct, so I kept quiet.

  Nico pulled open the door and strode to the Explorer’s driver’s side. I hopped into the back so that Hunter could sit in the front—and so that Livy and I could talk with the girls while we drove. Nico backed the car out of the garage, and everyone else jumped in.

  “Where are we going?” Nico said.

  “Head toward Otto Viti,” Ashlyn said from the third row. “And we’ll tell you where to turn.”

  Nico shifted in his seat so that he could look back at us. “Can you just tell me where we’re going?”

  “We don’t know the street names,” Sophia said from next to Ashlyn. “We just know how to get there.”

  Nico caught my eye before facing forward again. His mood was getting worse by the second. Hunter stared straight ahead. I remembered Livy telling me he got quiet when he wasn’t happy. That was probably the case right now.

  Livy looked at Gracie sitting between us and then at the others behind us. “Can you tell us what happened since we’re on our way?”

  “We found something,” Sophia said. “The three of us were out with Victor tonight. We were just hanging around, and then Victor told us about something he heard from his older brother. He sort of dared us to check it out, and we did.”

  “Turn right at the end of the street,” Ashlyn interrupted.

  Nico did as he was told.

  “What did he tell you?” I asked. If I remembered correctly, Livy had mentioned a kid named Victor earlier. He was one who needed extra special help with his lines in the play.

  None of the girls answered. Sophia just shook her head.

  “Turn left at the big intersection,” Ashlyn said.

  Again, Nico obliged.

  “We got really freaked out,” Sophia said. “Victor totally took off and left us there. We didn’t know what to do, so we went to find you, Livy. Amy told us where you were, and that’s how we ended up here.”

  “You’re going to go straight until this road dead ends,” Ashlyn said.

  None of us spoke. The girls were evading specifics, the guys were probably too irritated by the whole ordeal to speak, and I was losing the motivation to press for more details.

  The street dead ended in front of a field. In the glow of the headlights, I could see a dilapidated old farmhouse that probably should have been torn down decades ago. It was set back from the street at least fifty yards.

  This was where we were going?

  “What’s here?” Hunter said as we got out of the car.

  Sophia started sobbing. Before I knew it, Gracie joined in as well. Only Ashlyn seemed to keep control of her emotions—though it looked like she was only holding on by a thread.

  “Is this the Old Everly Place?” Nico said.

  “Yes,” Ashlyn said.

  “How did you know that?” I asked.

  I had spent countless weekends and summers in OV, not far from that crumbling house, and I hadn’t ever heard of it. How did Nico know about it?

  “I read all about Temecula before moving here,” he said. “The Old Everly Place,” he nodded to the farmhouse, “it’s supposed to be haunted.”

  Great. A haunted house that had thoroughly freaked out teenagers. Nico and Hunter were right. This wasn’t a good idea.

  And my theory about a passed-out friend was seeming less and less likely.

  “Let’s go,” Nico said. He locked the Explorer’s doors and started across the field, crunching through the weeds. “Show us what you saw.”

  THREE

  As we approached the house, Gracie and Sophia’s sobs became more hysterical. Ashlyn let out a whimper every now and again, but she managed to maintain control. All seven of us had the flashlights on our phones trained on the Old Everly Place.

  “I feel like I’m living out a scene in some bad movie about teenagers seeking thrills and getting more than they bargained for,” Nico muttered to me.

  I couldn’t agree more. And I didn’t like it one bit.

  “Sorry,” I muttered back. It was my fault that we were here in the first place.

  “If I had the opportunity to relive my teenage years with you, I’d choose to be doing something else.”

  Before I could apologize again, Sophia had a complete meltdown.

  “I can’t do it,” she sobbed. “I can’t go in again. I can’t, I can’t!”

  Gracie melted down beside her. “I can’t either, please don’t make me!”

  The four of us grown ups looked at each other. Why would we make them go in? They dragged us here.

  “I’ll show them,” Ashlyn said, her voice shaky.

  “But I don’t want to be out here by myself!” Gracie sobbed.

  Nico’s tightening jaw betrayed his growing impatience. And the look on Hunter’s face mirrored Nico’s.

  Part of me nearly offered to wait outside with the girls, but I stopped myself. My morbid curiosity compelled me to go see whatever had scared them to death. Plus, standing outside the old house waiting in the dark would be unnerving in its own way.

  Nico held up his car keys and then threw them to Sophia. “Go sit in the car. Lock the doors. We’ll be back in a couple minutes.”

  Sophia and Gracie trudged back toward the Explorer, arms around each other, still sobbing.

  “Okay, where to?” Hunter asked Ashlyn.

  She nodded and pointed toward a door
barely hanging on its hinges. “Kids come here all the time to scare themselves since it’s supposed to be haunted.” She pulled on the door carefully and held it so we could all go inside.

  “This place should be condemned,” Livy said as we shined our flashlights all around us.

  She was one hundred percent correct. Maybe the place was condemned. It definitely should have been torn down already. Inside what appeared to be an old kitchen, the floor boards creaked. Holes peppered the walls, and a single light bulb hung from the ceiling. Dented soda and beer cans, empty chip bags, and candy wrappers littered the ground. I shuddered. Not only was the building falling apart, but it was also gross. Terrible.

  My buzz from the wine was all but gone.

  “Here’s the thing,” Ashlyn said with a shaky breath. “Most kids just come into this room or dare each other to go upstairs. And that’s it. But Victor’s older brother told him that there’s a secret passage leading under ground.” She gingerly crossed the room and kneeled down, running her hands over the floor. She hooked her pointer fingers under a notch in the wood and pulled up. “Here it is.” A square of flooring creaked as she pushed it all the way over, revealing the passageway below. The rest of us joined her and shined our flashlights into the big hole. A ladder was propped up against the side. I didn’t feel any desire to climb down it, and yet, I knew that I would.

  “You went down there?” Livy asked.

  Ashlyn wiped her face with her forearms and took another ragged breath. She nodded.

  Nico exhaled loudly and then lowered himself onto the ladder. Hunter followed, then Livy, then me, and then Ashlyn.

  Down below, the air was stale, but the earthen ground was clear of cans and chip bags. Clearly the passage was a secret. Or, nearly a secret, since we knew about it.

  The passage was wide enough for two people to walk side by side, but the ceiling was so low that Hunter and Nico had to stoop. Wine barrels were stacked along the walls.

  “Is this a wine cave? A cellar?” I asked.

  No one answered.

  We followed Ashlyn down the passage. I turned off my flashlight and turned on my camera. With the four other flashlights zigzagging everywhere, I could see well enough, and if what we found was nearly as bad as I was beginning to think it was, I wanted to have some pictures for evidence.

  Evidence for what? I didn’t really know. But in the last six months, our little community had seen two tragedies, and both times I had gotten too involved. I didn’t like that I had been so involved, but the experiences had made me develop the impulse to document anything that seemed even slightly strange.

  I lagged behind, snapping pictures—lots of pictures. Pictures of the wine barrels. Of the walls. Of the dead rat next to a barrel. Eww. Of the empty wine bottle next to the rat. Of the broken glass and corks further down.

  Ahead of me, Ashlyn half-gasped and half-sobbed. “There,” she said. And then she spun around and rushed back down the passageway, nearly knocking me over as she went.

  “Ashlyn, wait,” Livy called after her. “What happened?” She followed Ashlyn, and this time I moved out of the way to avoid a collision.

  I flipped on my flashlight again and watched Livy for a moment before my attention was drawn back to the guys. They were crouching down next to the brick wall at the end of the passage.

  “What the—?” Hunter said.

  “Is that—?” Nico said. He ran his fingers over the wall as though the bricks formed some sort of braille that he was trying to read.

  I approached them slowly, my light still illuminating the whole wall. “What?” I said softly.

  Nico stood and ran his hands along the top row of bricks. Once he moved, I could see that there was a brick missing low on the wall—and that was the spot he and Hunter had been staring at. Hunter was still shining his flashlight through the hole.

  “This is a false wall,” Nico said. “There’s a room behind it, and there’s someone in the room. Call 911.”

  Someone in the room? Hunter was still crouched next to the small hole, now running his hands over the wall—not trying to read brick braille but instead searching for loose bricks that could be popped out.

  My hands shook as I stared at my phone and tried to pull myself together. 911. I could dial that. I knew how to do that. 911. Just three little numbers.

  “Is the person dead?” I asked with a shaky voice. I dreaded the answer.

  But no answer came. Nico and Hunter continued looking for ways to get through the bricks.

  I tried 911 but couldn’t get through. I tried again, and again I couldn’t get through.

  “I can’t connect,” I said. “I’m going outside.”

  My announcement was met with silence.

  I hurried down the passageway, trying my best to avoid wine corks, broken bottles, and dead rats. Up the ladder and through the front door I scrambled, barely noticing Livy talking to Ashlyn a few feet from the house as I fumbled with my phone to call 911 again. I paced back and forth as the call connected and gave the emergency dispatcher the details of what just happened. From the corner of my eye, I saw Sophia and Gracie crossing the field toward us. Their phone flashlights zigzagged over the house, and as the light nearly blinded me once they were close enough, I felt frustration and incredulity growing in me. Why in the world hadn’t the girls called 911 in the first place? They shouldn’t have come for Livy. If they had seen a body behind a false wall, they should have called the police. That was all they needed to do.

  Ending the call, I looked at the girls who were now all sitting on the ground, their arms wrapped around each other as they sobbed. Livy was crouching down next to them, clearly trying to break through the barrier of sobs and arms to find out what exactly had happened. She was not having much luck.

  I couldn’t believe it. Just a couple months ago we had discovered a body—though under completely different circumstances—and I had been calling 911 about that. Having to do it again was surreal. Horrifying and unbelievable.

  I tried to take a deep breath and clear my head.

  What next?

  The detective.

  I needed to call the detective. I didn’t want to, but he was probably going to be called down here anyway. And it was probably a good idea to let him know I was involved. Again.

  He was not going to like this.

  I scrolled through the contacts on my phone and tapped Detective Fitts’ name.

  The phone rang twice before he answered.

  “Jill D’Angelo,” he said.

  “Hi,” I said dumbly. The detective and I often rubbed each other the wrong way, but the last time I got myself wrapped up in one of his cases, we kind of started to get along. Just a little. We weren’t friends, and it wasn’t like I was breaking bad news to someone I cared about, but I was still having a hard time finding the words to communicate what had just happened.

  “You only call me when something’s wrong,” he said. “And it’s nearly eleven o’clock. So what now?”

  “Have you ever heard of the Old Everly Place?”

  “Officers are sent to chase kids away from there all the time. That place is about to fall down. Dangerous.”

  “Did you know there was an underground wine cellar there?”

  Fitts didn’t respond right away. I could almost hear the wheels in his head turning. “What’d you find?” he said eventually.

  I told him the whole story. Throughout my retelling, he huffed and clucked. He was probably counting every wrong decision we had made over the last hour. Not calling 911 the second the girls showed up at our house. Not calling their parents right after that. Letting them take us to the Old Everly Place. Going into the Old Everly Place. And I’m sure there were ten other mistakes somewhere in there as well.

  When I finished, he said, “D’Angelo, why does trouble always seem to find you?”

  “I wish it didn’t,” I muttered.

  “Me too.” He sighed. “I’m on my way.”

  I pocketed my pho
ne and walked to the teenage girls and Livy.

  “I called 911 and Detective Fitts,” I said. “They’re coming.”

  Livy stood and flicked her eyes across the field, signaling that we needed to walk away from the girls for a private conversation.

  “What was down there?” she asked in a low voice.

  “A false wall with a brick missing,” I said in an equally-low voice. “And the guys said there was a room behind the wall with a body in it. I think they’re trying to find a way to break down the wall right now.”

  Livy pressed her fingers against her temples. “A body?” The news sunk in for a moment. Then her eyes grew. “Why are the guys trying to break down the wall? What if the bricks all fall on them or something caves in?”

  She turned and rushed toward the house. I was on her heels. Inside the disgusting kitchen, Livy and I both kneeled next to the hole in the floor.

  “Hey!” Livy called into the cellar. “Get out of there, you guys! The police are on their way, and we don’t need anything falling or collapsing on you!”

  No answer came, but I got the feeling that they heard her. If they didn’t respond or appear in thirty seconds, I was going down to get them.

  Livy looked at me. “The girls weren’t making any sense just now, but one word kept coming up.” She grimaced. “Fleming.”

  “The missing drama teacher?”

  Livy nodded. “They must think the body down there is Marcus Fleming.”

  FOUR

  It was a long night. The first responders had a lot of questions when they arrived. Fitts had a lot of questions when he arrived. Then after the girls called their moms, they had a lot of questions when they arrived. Understandably.

  I kept wondering why we hadn’t pushed the girls to tell us what was upsetting them so much before we got to the Old Everly Place. Maybe it was the wine. Nico and Hunter hadn’t had more than a couple sips themselves, but their cooler heads didn’t have the chance to prevail when Livy and I were simply okay with being dragged out by the teenagers. Plus, we just hadn’t had any idea what was coming our way. Never in my wildest dreams had I expected a body. I knew the girls had to be dragging us out for something bad, but I didn’t think it was going to be that bad. I assumed their hysteria was just normal, over-the-top high school dramatics.