Three
—Crime Hive podcast
My heart beat furiously like a rabbit trying to escape a snare as I glared at the Wagoneer’s tinted windows, trying to get a look at the driver behind the wheel.
My fight-or-flight instinct kicked in, and spoiler alert, it was almost always fight.
“Hey, asshole!” I yelled. I ran right toward the car, focused on the shadowy shape of someone in the front seat.
The Wagoneer screeched away from the curb so quickly that he nearly careened into a nearby minivan, causing the driver to slam on the brakes and honk.
The Wagoneer kept going, speeding away down the street.
I trotted to the gate after it, trying to snap a picture of the back of the car.
Was that an H on the license plate? HM… P?
S? Or an 8? All I saw was a blur of rust.
I watched as the Wagoneer took a hard right at the end of the block and disappeared.
I pulled up Oscar’s contact info and pressed my phone to my ear.
“Hey, Ella. Everything okay?” Oscar asked.
“I need you to run a partial plate,” I said without preamble. Adrenaline still thrummed in my veins. My palm felt sweaty against the phone.
“Wait. Slow down. What happened?”
“I think there’s a Jeep Wagoneer stalking the house.” Stalking me, more like. “And I got another message from CanceledKill.”
“You haven’t blocked him yet?”
“No, but—”
Oscar groaned. “Block him. Immediately. And it’s probably nothing. But send me screenshots, anyway.”
“Okay, sure. Can you look into this Jeep, too? It’s been looping around Koi and acting all weird when I came toward it.
I got a partial plate from this picture.
” I texted him the blurry shot I got of the tinted windows and roof of the Wagoneer and maybe the first three letters of the Illinois plate, HMP.
The tinted windows obscured the driver almost completely.
Could Oscar get something from a partial plate? An address, something. The car sped off, but something told me it’d be back.
“I can barely read any of that plate,” Oscar said. “Any markings on the car? Anything unusual?”
I tried to think. “Very dark tinted windows,” I said. “That’s about it.”
“Okay. I’ll see what I can find out. Also, I left a message for my friend at the FBI.
I’m waiting to hear back. In the meantime…
” Oscar sucked in a breath. “Try not to let all of this get into your head, okay?” Oscar’s worry about me came through in his voice, and I wondered who he was trying to convince: him or me.
“It’s hard not to freak out when I’ve got three skull emojis on my socials,” I pointed out.
“What does that mean?” Oscar’s tone went flat and serious.
“It’s the Canceled Killer’s calling card,” I explained. “It’s a threat he leaves on all his victims’ accounts.”
“Ella.” Oscar sounded stern. “You should’ve led with that.”
“Well, I’m mentioning it now.” My voice got high and defensive.
The line suddenly went quiet, and I could almost hear Oscar thinking. I already knew he wasn’t going to share any of those thoughts with me, either.
“Did you talk about the skulls in general on the podcast?” Oscar asked at last.
“If you listened to it, you’d know.” I couldn’t help being salty about that. Oscar seemed to only ever pay attention to me when things were dire. “But, yes, I did.”
“Okay.” Oscar’s voice sounded steadier. Calmer. “Good. Well, if a lot of people know about it, it might not be the threat it sounds like, then.”
“Or it might be.”
Oscar groaned. “You’re starting to sound like Mom.”
“I am not like Mom!” I cried, offended. Mom sees one Dateline about a serial killer drifter who uses freight trains and then vows never to cross railroad tracks for a year.
“You sure about that?” Oscar said.
I wasn’t. Could I be like Mom? Was I prone to conspiracy theories and falling down dark rabbit holes and then completely overconfident that I was 100 percent right? Huh. Was I actually like Mom?
“Remember the time after she saw that crime documentary about the disguised serial killer and she made every guest at Koi show her they weren’t wearing a wig?”
I laughed a little. “And she made them open their trunks. Just in case there were bodies in there.”
It reminded me of all the summers Oscar and I worked at Koi together, trying to keep Mom, Dad, and the guests all happy at once. We never succeeded. That’s probably why Oscar eventually ditched us and worked his last two college summers at Camp Lake Sanguis with Jude.
“Can we get back to you promising to take it easy, keep calm, and let me see what I can find out?”
I grunted.
“That sounds like you plan to do something rash instead.” Oscar clearly didn’t approve.
“Who me? Rash?” I blinked innocently, even though Oscar couldn’t see me.
“Remember swim lessons?”
“Not when you don’t let me forget,” I groaned. While everyone else was dog-paddling in the shallow end of the pool on kickboards, I decided at age three it would be a fantastic idea to head to the springboard at the deep end and belly flop into ten feet of water. “Fortune favors the brave.”
“There’s a fine line between brave and foolish,” Oscar chided. “Will you promise me that you’ll let me handle it?”
“Okay. Fine. I’ll let you handle it.”
“No, you won’t,” Oscar said, and sighed, sounding weary. “But I love you anyway.”
As much as I hated to admit it, Oscar’s skilled use of reverse psychology had its intended effect.
Instead of fixating on the Canceled Killer, I decided it might be a good idea to visit the full-sized punching bag at Irene Levinson’s Krav Maga studio off Main Street.
I wore leggings and a sports bra, my dark hair high up in a messy bun.
Thwack. That kick was for the Jeep Wagoneer, which I knew was up to no good.
Smack. That punch was for all the trolls online. Hate you right back. Smack. Smack.
Slap. This jab for Jared Gatta, who’d been the perfect Canceled Killer suspect until he wasn’t.
A loner who trolled online trolls, lived equidistant from all the murder victims, and was the perfect suspect until Jared’s attorney pointed out he was out of town visiting his parents in New York during two of the murders.
Slap. Slap. Those last two were for me. Because I should’ve crossed all my t’s before I launched into the theory of Jared being the killer. I should’ve pushed harder to get him to respond even when he was ignoring all my calls and DMs.
Sweat trickled down the side of my neck.
Thud. Thud. Thud. This knee and this knee, oh, and this knee, too, was special, just for the Canceled Killer. Right in the babymaker. Thud. Thud. Thu—
“Whoa, Thin Ice, ease up, or you might hurt that bag’s feelings,” Irene said when the heavy black-and-red bag hanging from a chain went lumbering toward her wall of mirrors.
Irene was the one person I didn’t mind calling me Thin Ice, because when she said it, it sounded affectionate.
With her curly dark hair streaked with silver and her distinctive red reading glasses, she looked like she ought to be a fifty-something librarian and not a self-defense instructor.
But she’d make you eat ground if you were impolite.
She also let me essentially live in her self-defense dojo in high school.
Other girls in my class fretted about what dress to buy for homecoming, while I tried to learn what headlock was best when someone was trying to steal your purse.
“Want to spar with Trevon?” She nodded back toward the six-four, bald, ex-Marine who also happened to have a black belt.
He raised his eyebrows in alarm and slowly shook his head at me, mouthing “Please, no” behind her back while he put his palms together in prayer.
“I don’t think Trevon wants to,” I said, and Irene whipped around. “The last time we sparred, he tore his ACL.” Also, not to brag, but I was eighteen.
“Come on. You don’t want to spar? Seriously?”
“No, of course I do,” he said, in his gruffest voice. Then when she turned back around he shook his head slowly and pressed his palms together again in a silent plea.
“He really doesn’t,” I said.
“What’s wrong with you, bruh?” asked the new guy, standing up from behind the register at the front desk. He ran his hand through his floppy blond hair. “She’s like a buck twenty soaking wet.”
I glanced at the newbie and his overly cut triceps, knowing already he spent too much time on arm day, none on leg day, and did zero cardio.
He no doubt obsessed with his bulk and cut cycles so much that he probably couldn’t jog around the block without getting winded. I would eat him for breakfast.
“You want to try her, Eric?” Trevon asked.
“Might be a good time,” I said. And it would be. For me.
“You’re tiny,” he said. “It wouldn’t be a fair fight.”
Oh, goody. Underestimate me. This will be fun.
“Uh-oh, Irene. She’s smiling,” Trevon said. “It’s never good when she smiles like that.”
“You might want to wear pads,” Irene suggested.
“I won’t need ’em,” Eric said, smug.
“Your funeral.” Trevon cackled with laughter. Eric frowned at him.
“Bruh, you’re losing a step,” Eric chided, kicking off his shoes so he could come on the sparring mat.
“I’m losing a step?” Trevon scoffed. “You’re about to lose your teeth, bruh.” Trevon shook his head, pity on his face. “I hope you have a good dental plan.”
“You ready, sweetheart?” Eric asked me in the most condescending way possible.
“Anytime you are.” This was the happiest I’d felt in weeks.
Eric lumbered at me, a clumsy and weak attempt at an attack. I pivoted easily, then before he knew what happened to him, I’d kneed him twice in the solar plexus. This took the wind out of him but—bonus—spared his no doubt tiny testicles, which in my mind was a mercy.
I finished with a swift roundhouse kick to the side of the head—since I was limber enough to raise my leg that high in close quarters and angry enough to want to give his cheek a nice tap with my toes.
He lay prone on the mat, wheezing, as he cupped his bloody nose.