In comparison, Ramon’s missing-persons photo had been of a baby not even forty-eight hours old.
Compassion warred with fatigue across Janie’s face.
Brittney’s white-blond hair streamed past her shoulders. A gray, sleeveless blouse hugged curves that hadn’t had time to mature. In her right arm, she clutched a brown-and-white spotted dog, maybe just a puppy, that stared happily at the camera.
Janie leaned forward and began re-creating.
While she worked, Rafe logged onto CopLink and learned more about the late Derek Chaney.
The kid’s rap sheet was long enough to make Rafe grind his teeth. However, nothing but petty crimes were listed. And yet, judging by the names of those alongside Derek during his criminal activities, the boy was capable of finding himself in the middle of a murder.
Rafe would love to give Brittney’s parents some good news. But Derek’s involvement only pointed to bad news. For everyone.
He’d just noted the absence of sound, the lack of pencil scratching against paper, when Janie asked, “Do you think Derek died because of the art book?”
“Anything I say would be speculation, and this early in the case, I’d rather not speculate.”
She gave him an indignant glare that spoke louder than words. “But if—”
“If is a pretty powerful word,” Rafe returned.
She gripped the pencil tightly, scratching out words on the paper as if she had to get them out, away from her. Finally, she finished, but not before whispering, “I’m afraid.”
“I understand,” Rafe said. “I’ve not slept a full night since Brittney disappeared. Neither have her parents.”
She let out a deep breath and turned the last paper so he could see it. “I’ve re-created everything I remember.” She finished by tapping on the last paper. “When I got to her name and then the blood in the dirt, I stopped and headed for my division chair.”
Blood in the dirt...
He’d have to, in some form or another, repeat this information to Brittney’s parents, so they didn’t hear it on the news. Reporters were like cockroaches, they showed up where they didn’t belong and were hard to get rid of.
No matter how much Rafe wanted to handle Brittney’s case without sensationalism, the media would get involved, would push the envelope, wouldn’t care whose emotions got trampled as long as their ratings soared.
“And you’re sure you’re done?” He nodded toward the paper on his desk.
She glanced again at Brittney’s photograph on the flyer and then picked up the pages she’d created. Four in all. Slowly, carefully, she examined each one. After about fifteen minutes, only erasing a few things or adding a detail here and there, Janie scooted the paper across the desk and settled back in her chair. “I’m done.”
It took him just two minutes to scan the haunting sketches.
“This is it, all you remember?”
“There wasn’t that much more, but after I got to this, I stopped and went to see Patricia.”
It had been the right move. The moment she realized what she had in her hand, she should have turned it over to the authorities—too bad it hadn’t been the local police. Rafe could only imagine the grief Nathan was giving the campus cops over the art book’s disappearance.