Poisonous: A Novel by Allison Brennan Page A

education wing: four large trailers on the school’s southern edge. She’d learned the special ed kids were let out thirty minutes before the high school general population. When Max had spoken to Tommy last week, he’d told her that he rode his bike home from school every day. She kept her eye on the bike rack.
    She’d sent him a message that she was in town, and was surprised when he hadn’t responded. Odd, considering his stepbrother Austin had gone to her hotel.
    Meeting Tommy spontaneously would benefit her. Give her an edge to determine his real motives in sending the letter, and whether he was as simple as he had sounded over the phone.
    Max rarely, if ever, doubted herself. Yet sitting outside the high school, waiting for Tommy Wallace to leave, her confidence waned. She’d received one letter and had a brief conversation with a mentally challenged teenager, yet she’d devoted considerable “Maximum Exposure” time and resources to this investigation. Ivy Lake’s murder was intriguing, but it wasn’t her typical case.
    Yet … she hadn’t been able to get Tommy’s letter out of her mind. From the moment she opened the envelope—odd in this day and age that he mailed her a letter—Max couldn’t get his words out of her head. An unfamiliar emotional weight had filled her, propelling her to put aside a half dozen other missing persons cases she’d been considering for her next show, and instead latching on to a cold murder with little allure. Usually, Max was drawn to a case because of the victim profile—the need to see justice served, the need to punish the killer. This time … she had yet to develop any real affinity toward Ivy Lake. Instead, it was Tommy Wallace, and an overwhelming need to find out what happened to Ivy for him. Max was here because a teenage boy had written her an honest letter.
    When she took a cold case, several things went into her decision, but she could never fully explain what drew her to choose one case over another. To Ben Lawson, her producer, Max would sell him on the ratings—that a particular case would be interesting to their audience. Sexy in some way, compelling, unusual. To David, she’d explain that it was the victim’s family that drew her in—that she wanted to give them justice.
    Both things were unequivocally true.
    Still, Max would never have taken this case if it weren’t for the letter from Tommy. In Max’s estimation, Ivy wasn’t an innocent victim. She’d used social media as a weapon, had bullied her peers, and her actions had a direct or indirect impact on a girl’s suicide. There were no special circumstances to her murder—no sexual assault, no unusual violence, no repeat crimes, no serial killer, no threats, no suspect. The police had done a competent job investigating, so not even the allure of exposing an inept police department was an enticement for Max to investigate.
    Now that she had a research staff and David, her traditional monthlong prep and research was done in a matter of days. Still, Max profiled three major cold cases each month for the show, which meant she realistically could only spend one week on-site for each case. If she couldn’t prove or disprove a suspect in a week, if she couldn’t find the missing person dead or alive, Max had to move on.
    It was the one thing she regretted about her agreement with Ben Lawson and NET. In the past, Max could stay on an investigation until she wanted to leave; now, business commitments pulled her in multiple directions.
    Turning off the car radio, adjusting her seat, she checked her e-mail again, but there was nothing from Tommy or any of the others she wanted to interview. The only good news was a message from Grace Martin that her chief hadn’t put up any barriers to Graham Jones and his people coming down to review the forensic evidence. Max e-mailed Grace, thanking her, then forwarded the note to Graham.
    When she looked up, she saw kids pouring out of the special education