Eat Crow (Cheap Thrills 6)

Pretty much.

“And has the body been identified yet?” Garrett asked. “You guys said it was Jordy’s friend, Ashesh Morash, but it could still be Cullan Watts.”

There were a lot of differences between the two men, so I was able to answer this. “Cullan Watts has ginger hair, pale white skin, is roughly five feet and six inches tall and weighs about one-twenty. Ashesh has dark brown hair, is six feet tall, and weighs about two-eighty. Trust us when we say—it’s more likely to have been Ashesh or someone else who was part of their group.”

“It was Ashesh,” DB confirmed, looking at a piece of paper. “Fingerprints match, but they’re going to run DNA just to confirm, and his mom’s coming from Alabama to identify him. A preliminary autopsy shows ligature marks around his neck, but nothing else has been reported so far. We also have an update on Jordy’s autopsy—the shot to his chest happened hours after he died, so that’s what we think was the shot to get residue on Cinder’s hand.”

None of this was a surprise to any of us, but it still didn’t give us

many answers.

Shuddering at the mouthful of coffee he’d just taken, Mark put the cup down and pulled a face. “Any idea where he was killed?” he choked out, covering his mouth with his hand afterward. “Jesus, that’s disgusting.”

“No, we don’t know where he was killed yet. Cinder’s breathing by herself, but she’s not in the clear yet. Her brain activity is looking okay and normal, though, so we just have to stay positive. Her detail is being passed over to Palmerstown P.D., who’ve offered their assistance with her and the investigation. This frees us up to have a look around for the place Jordy was killed and to figure out what’s going on with the Kirkwoods and their involvement with this.”

Standing up, Alex hit a button on the laptop that was sitting on a table in the corner, attached to a projector.

“My turn. I’ve compared the specs given in the magazine of Dirk Kirkwood’s house to the original plans. We also have updates that were filed, like the extension he had added twenty years ago. I’m not going to draw it out because we don’t have time, but here are the plans from the magazine placed over the original plans.”

Pictures of the three levels of the house appeared on the wall.

“The original plans are in black, the new layout is in red,” he explained, moving around the table to stand next to the image. “If we discount the extension from it and focus on the original three floors of the property, you can see that on the second floor, the study’s smaller than the original measurements. There’s also an anomaly in this room here, which is marked as bedroom number four.”

There were definitely significant differences between the measurements if this was all correct. One area stood out to me, though. At the bottom of both plans was a note about the basement having a habitable layout.

“There’s something on both plans about the basement. What’s that about?”

“Oh, you can use it for more than storage because of a damp course and things like that. Sometimes people chose to cut corners back then so that it was cheaper, and a damp course was one of those. It led to problems with foundations, rotting boards, subsidence, and big structural issues. The person who filed these made sure to point out they hadn’t cut corners and that the basement would be suitable for habitation by someone, to increase the value and, I guess, the notoriety of the property at the time.”

I couldn’t ever have done a job like that. There were too many issues and avenues that needed to be dealt with to make sure houses were safe.

I wonder if Bex’s family had done that when their house was built? I’d never been into the basement, maybe I should check it out?

I was about to ask another question when the door burst open, and Naomi came running in.

“Call from the school. Someone’s shooting at it.”

Chapter Twenty

Bexley

When I’d first heard the shots, I initially thought someone was banging a door or one of the lockers. Then the alarm started to shriek, and it went from a confusing situation to one of the most terrifying ones of my life.

We got trained for instances like this, but never once did I ever think it would happen until the alarm started. The kids had all recognized the particular tone we had for the situation, we’d only just shown them this morning for Christ’s sake, and the fear on all of their faces was gut-wrenching.

“Don’t panic,” I said quickly, holding my hand up. “We’re going to do this the way they told us to. Close the curtains in case they’re outside, and if some of you are feeling strong, help me move the filing cabinet and everything else we can in front of the door.”

Running over, I locked it and moved right over to the cabinet to push it in front of it.

“Here, I’ll help,” Lamar, one of the best students I’d ever taught, offered as he nudged me out of the way. “Once we get it in place, we need to tip it on its side because it has wheels, and that’ll make it harder to move if they get through the door. I think the big bookcase there is on wheels, too, so if we do the same with that, it should be enough weight to stop anyone coming in.”

Smiling gratefully at him, I stood back as he and some of the other kids moved it over and laid it on its side.

Once everything was in place, I turned the lights off and waved the kids over to the far corner of the room.

Every three minutes, an automatic update was texted through to teachers' phones, so I’d put mine on silent so that it didn’t draw attention to our room.

The next update came through just as one of the girls asked what was going on.