Page 57 of Vengeance of Childhood Proportions

Name after name, face after face, my eyes traveled from the window on my left to the whiteboard in front of me.

The attack, in and of itself, was cruel and heartbreaking, the senseless act of hormonal boys. They all deserved what wascoming to them as far as I was concerned. Rape was never a ‘one and done’ crime. It was nevervictimless.

What I did not understand was the coverup. The logical conclusion was that the hockey team couldn’t play in the tournament if ten of their players were sitting in jail. But it wasn’t like this was the NHL team with millions of dollars on the line. This was ahigh schoolteam. Sure, there were college scouts at those tournament games, but was that enough to cover up a gang rape? Amurder? Because as far as I could tell, every single one of the fifteen had had a hand in Holly Marteen’s death. They might as well have put the noose around her neck themselves.

I looked to the window and saw the photos of Atelihai Valley’s suspicious deaths for what they were: practice runs. Whomever the killer was, they’d been seeking vengeance for Holly’s attack far longer than recently. They’d just been a lot quieter about it.

My eyes went down the line of photos. All the people who should have protected Holly. Even if they couldn’t have protected her from the initial attack, they should have been with her every step of the way afterwards. Guiding her, helping her heal… But they hadn’t. From the medical personnel who had treated Holly to her own fucking parents, all had failed her.

And for what? A fucking state championship trophy?

I couldn’t swallow that. There had to be more to it. Therehadto be. I would lose my faith in humanity otherwise.

I noted the missing names from the window where I had the pictures of the people who were already adults at the time of the attack. I could think of three more that were not yet reported dead: Gary Hagley, Clyde Renfrew, and Jason Kadeer, the janitor. I knew where Hagley and Renfrew were, but we were still looking for information on Kadeer.

I looked over my shoulder at Holly Marteen’s yearbook picture, an apology on the tip of my tongue. She was dead andburied, her life cut too short by the selfishness of her peers. She wasn’t around to avenge herself, but someone else was.

From what I’d discovered about Holly, she’d been a quiet girl, shy to a fault. Her old Facebook page had the occasional post, but it was mostly about the books she read. If she’d had a boyfriend at the time of the attack, I couldn’t find evidence of it.

I turned back in front of me. Her father was dead. This should have beenhiscrusade, to avenge his little girl’s life. But it wasn’t. I didn’t believe he’d shot his wife before turning the gun on himself, but I did believe that he hadn’t done anything to help his daughter. Herfucking father!I didn’t have kids and I didn’t want them, but I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I wouldkillfor my daughter.

Who was left?

Was it one of the fifteen attackers? Had one been so wracked with guilt that he or she had decided to pay penance for their actions?

A teacher, maybe? Who would do all this, go through so much time and energy for Holly?

I did not doubt Holly was worth the blood being spilled in her name. I would never claim she was only ‘one person’ to all these faces currently staring back at me. I did not believe that her life was valued less because she’d been a shy, nerdy girl compared to the adults who were once the popular kids and were dying now. Those thoughts never even crossed my mind.

To me, Holly was the true victim. The rest were finally having to pay the piper. That we knew of, no one else was getting hurt. The killer had not killed any spouses or children. Hell, he’d saved Cordelia Young’s dog before killing her. They were slow, methodical, and brilliant, every action planned down to a fault.

I was of a mind to let them continue, but the badge in my pocket demanded otherwise.

Who the hell loved Holly Marteen so fucking much that they would do all of this to avenge her?

I looked at the sonogram next to Holly’s photo. If the child had survived, they’d be the perfect suspect, but there was no way a fourteen year old could do all of this. Especially when the first practice-run murder happened when they were four years old.

No, it wasn’t the kid, if he or she was even alive.

A grandparent, maybe? An uncle? Who was left from Holly’s life?

I needed to know more. I needed to know everything from the moment Holly Marteen had been born to the second she stepped off that chair in her bedroom with a noose around her neck.

Tapping on the glass door behind me had me turning in time to see Mira poke her head into the room. “You want the good news or the bad news?”

Fuck. I wanted to be back in bed with my little owl, but that didn’t seem to be a current option. “Bad news.”

“Two more are missing. We sent agents to collect everyone, but they came up empty.”

I turned back to my board. “Which ones?”

“Alicia Cohen and Jerald Kelly.”

I nodded slowly. “The other four?”

“Well, get this, Kaylee Collins has been under house arrest for the past four months while awaiting trial. We have to wait for a court order to bring her down, but I have agents on her as we speak.”

That was interesting. “What are the charges?” I asked.

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