I didn’t need Will to babysit me and I didn’t need Alex’s help. I’d put the puzzle pieces together—alone—and I would find Alyssa—alive.
I sat at my desk, my back ramrod straight, hands clasped in front of me. I had each of the girls’ files spread out on my desk, the girls forever locked in open-mouthed joy. I revisited everything I knew about both of the girls—both abductions—in an attempt to force some kind of structure.
There were no witnesses to either of the girls’ abductions. The words “vanished” and “thin air” punctuated the reports, and each time I reread the words, my stomach, and my hope for finding Alyssa alive in the diminishing timeline, plummeted.
I sighed, resting my face in my hands, my index fingers rubbing small circles on each of my temples. I looked up and scanned the files as if something would have changed.
It didn’t.
I was biting my thumbnail and drawing little circles in my sparkly unicorn notebook when Janitor Bud pushed open my door.
“Oh,” he said when he saw me. “I didn’t know anyone was in here. Heddy said to bring these in.” The old man pulled a cart weighted down with yearbooks into the room. “Where do you want them?”
I stood up and Bud paused, then took a step back. “You’re not one of the regular teachers, are you?”
“No, no, I’m just substituting.”
He had a kindly smile on his face. “You look awfully familiar.”
I felt myself blush. “I was a student here myself. It was nearly fifteen years ago, but maybe—”
Bud wagged his head. “No, that’s not it.” His eyes cut from studying my face to the case files open on my desk. His smile dropped, his caterpillar eyebrows weaving together under his lined forehead. “Terrible thing about those girls, isn’t it?”
I hopped up on my desk in an awkward attempt to cover up the files. “Did you know the girls?”
Bud paused as if thinking. “I know all the girls here. Well, not by name.” He smiled again, one of those soft smiles that pushed up his cheeks into little fleshy balls. “Least I know them by sight. I know they were both good girls, though.”
I leaned forward. “Good girls? What do you mean by that?”
“Didn’t get in trouble much. Sometimes the girls come to me for punishment.”
Something shot through me. I looked at this man and had an instant image of his grin, terrifying and maniacal as hellfires shot up behind him in his basement quarters while he did unspeakable things to innocent girls. I was about to launch myself from my desk and into his chest for a severe pummeling when he continued.
“They get sent to me for cleaning supplies and they have to come back and clean up any graffiti or muck in the halls and classrooms.”
My heart flopped back to a normal beat. “Oh. That’s how they’re punished?”
Janitor Bud shrugged. “These girls aren’t like us, hon. Some of ’em have never seen a broom. They don’t like to see themselves as lowly folk like us. Put a mop in their hand and put them on display. Some of those girls will do anything to avoid ending up on my spray gang.” He pulled a spray bottle filled with blue liquid from his belt and pretended to shoot me. I could hear his laugh as he disappeared into the hallway.
I slid back into my desk chair and pulled my notebook closer to me, writing Suspects at the top of a blank sheet, with the name Janitor Bud right underneath. I chewed the top of my pen and wrote, Spray Gang. I felt quite accomplished and sleuthlike until I realized I had absolutely no idea how Windex and Janitor Bud fit into a ritualistic murder.
Feeling defeated, I pulled Bud’s cart of yearbooks closer and grabbed the one on top, paging slowly. I was looking at six smiling girls in a makeshift pyramid when a thought hit me. In a CSI-fueled stupor I remembered reading that in cases like this one, leads often come up well after the fact. Details that weren’t really anything—a slight memory of a car that looked out of place, a couple of kids rifling through a backpack they found shoved in the trash, a rivalry, a crush.
I went back to the file, shaking it now, willing something to fall out—a name, a location—anything that would rev me up, start me off, point me in any discernible direction. There was nothing. No screams. No strangers. Had Cathy known her attacker? Did Alyssa know her kidnapper? Trust him? It made my skin crawl just to consider the thought.
“Brought you a cuppa.”
Will’s cheery entry practically emptied my bladder and sent me to the ceiling. I clutched at my chest and tried to breathe.
“Holy crap, Will, you scared the crap out of me.”
Will stood there, holding two steaming paper cups, his brow furrowed, eyes sympathetic. I wanted to run to him and throw my arms around his neck, telling him it was okay.
I wanted something to be okay.
“Thanks for the coffee.”
“You sure you’re not going to go all meerkat on me again?”
I smiled and sighed, reaching out for the coffee. “Scout’s honor.”