Rafe reentered the room as Janie was bending to check an unzipped backpack that was stuffed to the side, books and papers spilling out. Janie riffled through it for a moment, then she pulled an art book from a side pocket and flipped it open. Derek’s inked name was on the cover. She thumbed through the pages.
He touched her arm and angled her so he could read over her shoulder.
“This is his, this is the right one. He’s done most of these thumbnails or scrapped them. No writing yet, but maybe there’s something at the end, some reason he didn’t want to turn this one in to me.”
He noticed how carefully Janie held the book—for a witness, she was getting too involved.
It only took her a moment to make it to the final pages, but it felt much longer to Rafe. Then her face turned white. He took a step toward her. She didn’t notice; she was focused on the art book, not on him.
Derek’s final drawing told Rafe exactly how much danger Janie was in.
Two dark trees, lots of dirt, and an open grave with a body in it. Derek had penned a few words underneath:
I have to tell somebody. I can’t live with this. But if I confess, whomever I tell will be in as much danger as me.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE OLD ART BOOK went into another baggie, which, to Janie, looked like an oversize sandwich Ziploc.
“I’m toast,” she whispered.
“No, there’s a chance they haven’t a clue Derek’s even—”
“They! I’ve got to worry about a they? As in, more than one?” This was going from bad to worse. She’d been thinking of who might be responsible. What kind of person would have access to the school’s safe? But it might be a who all was responsible, a what kind of people.
“You don’t know that for sure. All this could just be foolish fabrication.”
“Oh, right,” Janie said snidely. Since this morning, he’d been a man on a mission. No way could he shift his beliefs now. “Even if the art book hadn’t been taken from the school’s safe, I’d have a hard time believing you,” she finished.
Rafe’s hand went to his chin and he rubbed his thumb on stubble she’d not noticed before. It was dark, the same color as the circles under his eyes.
“So, what are we going to do?” she insisted. “Last night I was nervous about what I read. Today I’m nervous about who knows what I read. This is getting crazy.”
He didn’t disagree, and he kept rubbing for a moment. Finally, he said, “Everything points to the college. It’s where Brittney was last seen. It’s where Derek turned in the art book and where the art book went missing. We need to find a friend of Derek’s who’s willing to talk. And we also need to find out whose shoe is under his bed, and why it’s there.”
He finally stopped rubbing his chin and lifted the mattress, looking at the mess underneath: old food, socks, a girlie magazine.
Scattered there, too, were a few pieces of Lego bricks—red, blue and yellow. Finally some real color. Nearby was a well-worn baseball glove. Derek Chaney had been a boy, just like the ones who came to BAA and put their fingers in their mouths and made faces at Candy the spider monkey, and who fed pellets to the giraffes while being grossed out by the giraffes’ long tongues, and who dreamed about jumping into the pool with Aquila the black panther.