Game of Fear (Montgomery Justice #3)(20)

“The kids in the POE car?”

“Yeah.” Gabe opened another folder and turned several pages, until he found the one he wanted. “Here’s a picture of them with the car.”

Deb leaned in closer, her breath warm on his cheek, her body pressing against him. “That looks a lot like the car on the bulletin. Why are they all wearing black?”

“They were geeks. According to their parents, they wore black long before Goth became a way of life. With POE on the vanity license plate, people speculated they were fans of Edgar Allan Poe, but the kids’ parents didn’t think so.”

“You don’t believe it, either.” Deb sent him a side glance. “I can hear it in your voice.”

“No, I don’t.” Gabe tried to focus, but Deb’s proximity distracted him. His body tensed with awareness. He wanted to grab her hand. This was a story he hadn’t been able to share with anyone since it had happened. He hadn’t realized until this moment how much looking at this file over and over again had worn him down. “One of the boys’ fathers thought it stood for a video game or one of the character avatars. Something like that. Shannon and the guys loved to play video games. She was especially good at it.”

Deb’s hand went to Gabe’s leg, her nails digging into his jeans. “Like Ashley. Oh God. She plays P.O.E. It stands for Point of Entry. She plays with a team of other kids, too, and Justin was one of them.”

A strange sense of déjà vu settled onto Gabe. “The POE license plate could be an acronym for Point of Entry. The game’s been around a long time, and they keep putting out new versions every year.” Gabe grabbed a small bound set of papers that had been assembled into a mock-up of a book. “This is a copy of Shannon’s journal.” He flipped a page, and gave up another memory that had been etched into his brain. “With her last words, Shannon mentioned a game and then she whispered something weird about stopping it.” He turned a few more pages. “Point of Entry sounds familiar to me, too. It could be one of the games they played.”

Deb grabbed his wrist. “Look!” She pointed at a notation in the lower corner of one of the pages.

Gabe looked down. Bingo. Point of Entry. His father had underlined it twice. “I knew I’d seen it somewhere.”

“How could a girl who was killed years ago and three kids shot in the mountains of New Mexico tie into Ashley’s disappearance? And Justin’s?”

“I don’t know, but there are too many similarities not to explore the possibilities if she doesn’t call soon.” He still hadn’t told Deb about the other kids his father had been investigating. Kids who had never been found.

Deb stood up and paced the room, her energy frenetic. She whirled around. “Why did Shannon come to Denver after being attacked? What was she doing here?”

Gabe didn’t like where these questions might lead, but she had a right to ask. He’d brought up the connection. “To get help from my father. He was a cop. He was supposed to protect her.”

“Why not just go to the local New Mexico authorities?”

“She did, but they brushed her off. They thought the attack was random and her friends had skipped town.”

“Like Justin.”

Gabe nodded. “A . . . friend of hers . . . contacted my father and asked if they could come to Denver to hide. Shannon was gunned down when she arrived.”

He could see the speculation in her gaze. No doubt the wheels whirred in Deb’s head. She recognized there was more to the story. But in Gabe’s mind, his sister, Whitney’s, identity wasn’t relevant. Not really.

Deb bent over and tapped the folder. “There’s more in this accordion folder than just files on Shannon and her teammates. It’s way too thick. What else was your father looking into?”

Gabe took a deep breath. He so didn’t want to get into this now. He kept his gaze lowered. Deb saw too much.

“He identified a loose pattern of teenage disappearances, a few here and there, all across the country, over a period of several years. At first, I couldn’t see the tie-in. After all, a lot of kids run away at that age, but it was obvious my father obsessively tracked certain ones.” He sat back and sighed, shaking his head. “I always thought he was traveling down a rabbit hole. Until today.”

Deb sagged onto the couch next to Gabe. “Why today specifically?”

“Because the few disappearances he starred in the files were all supersmart kids who supposedly ran away, often with an equally brilliant friend.”

“Oh God. Ashley. Justin.” Deb reached forward and grabbed Shannon’s file. “I need to read these.”

“Wait—”

She flipped open the folder and gasped. Spread out before her were the horrific crime scene photos from Shannon’s shooting.

“Oh my God.”

Gabe snatched the folder from Deb’s shaking hand and closed it. “I didn’t want you to see those.”

“This can’t be related to Ashley.” Deb sat stiff, her entire body screaming don’t touch me.

Gabe ignored the message. He put his arm around her, and even though she pulled away, he tugged her closer, stroking her back, cursing his stupidity. Even her tour in Afghanistan hadn’t prepared her for the gruesome photo of someone who looked so much like her sister.