What Janie Saw(23)
And look beautiful doing it.
He shook his head, trying to clear the wayward thoughts that were taking his mind off the case. He couldn’t afford the distraction. And she was distracting. From the elegant way she held her chin, so stubborn, to the way she crossed her long legs. Again he wondered why he’d not called her for a second date. A date didn’t mean committing to eternity. Maybe they’d have found common ground and built, if not a relationship, then a friendship.
“Tell me,” Rafe said, bringing himself back to the case, “did Derek share his drawings or writing in class? Is it possible that he showed it to another student?”
She took a moment; her face scrunched in concentration.
“No, I don’t think he showed it to anyone. Amanda’s the only one who ever showed any interest in his drawings. I doubt any of the other students even glimpsed the one he turned in last Wednesday,” Janie said. “It was a new art book. It only had those six pages altogether.”
“What do you mean, it was new?”
“All semester he’s been handing in an art book. It was full of ideas, projects and such. This time he gave me a brand-new one. I thought maybe he’d misplaced the one he’d been working on previously...” Her words tapered off as Rafe pulled off the road and swung the vehicle around again. This time he didn’t wait for a spot on the side of the road, he just did a U-turn, scaring up dirt and revving the engine.
“Hey!” She slid slightly toward him, her left hand reaching out to gain balance. It brushed against his knee. Rafe barely noticed—he knew when a lead was handed to him.
It took only a moment to get Derek Chaney’s parents’ address from the system.
“We’re heading to Adobe Hills,” he told Janie. “You’d recognize the previous art book. Maybe he added something to it, something we need to see! If we can get Derek’s parents’ permission, maybe we’ll have some new information within the hour.”
He was of two minds about taking Janie along. He hated involving a civilian. On the other hand, she knew what the art book looked like and could save him a lot of time.
Next, Rafe phoned Nathan to get his go-ahead. After all, they’d be on the other man’s turf. No luck there; Williamson’s number went right to voice mail. The deputy who answered the main number took a message and promised Nathan would return the call. Rafe neglected to tell the deputy exactly what was going on or why the call was necessary. The second call he made was to Derek’s parents. More luck there. They were eager to talk to anyone who might shed light on why their son had died. After hanging up, Rafe quickly called his office and got someone to do a background check on the Chaneys.
Janie seemed confused. “Don’t we need a search warrant to go through Derek’s stuff?”
“Not if the person in control of the property gives us permission to search.”
She checked her watch. “It’s two o’clock. I usually don’t help on Thursday night, but an instructor asked if I’d come in. You should take me back to BAA so I can get my own car.”
After returning Janie to where she lived and seeing her safely to her vehicle, Rafe spent the whole drive, nearly an hour, checking to make sure she was still behind him, and getting the dirt on Derek’s parents—there was none, and none on Derek’s much older brother, either.
In the early afternoon, there wasn’t much traffic on Interstate Ten. There was a slight slowdown because of Nathan’s accident that put them in one lane for a while. Nathan didn’t even notice them drive by. He was pacing while looking at a clipboard, talking on the phone and giving orders to a patrol officer.