I’m boiling with emotion, but keep my face blank. “I’ll stay in the car.”
“I promise, one hour,” he says. My lips tighten, proof that I don’t believe him, so he repeats it. “One hour.”
And then he’s gone.
This sucks.
I’ve done my homework.
Eaten dinner and dessert.
Run DNA.
Now what?
I call Spam, but her phone goes straight to voice mail. This doesn’t surprise me. When she plays her online games at night, she turns off her phone. Lysa’s parents have huge issues with her cell phone. She’s not allowed to bring it to the table during meals, and no calls after eight o’clock on school nights. I can only reach her through e-mail.
I check my laptop again. Still no Journey online. Lysa’s not on, either.
I glance at the clock, hoping Victor will be back soon … only to realize he’s barely been gone fifteen minutes.
I don’t want to think he blew me off. We were getting along so well. Then, out of nowhere, he got that distant look in his eye. I know it very well. It’s the same expression I get from most of the adults who have known me since I was little. It says, I know something terrible happened to you but I’m afraid I won’t know what to say if we accidentally start talking about it … so I’m never going to ever look you straight in the eye again. Instead, we’ll just pretend everything is normal.
From the very first moment I met Victor, he never gave me that look … until tonight. Now I’m pacing the kitchen exactly like him.
He says it helps him think. I think it’s making me paranoid.
I have to do something to stay sane for the next forty-three minutes and twelve seconds. I sit down with my shoe box full of evidence and take everything out, one piece at a time.
First, the shoe print from my bedroom. I never focused on it before, but it is the right shoe. And even though the heel of the print isn’t as clear as the toe, it does kind of look like there’s a smooth spot on the lower right-hand side, near the heel.
There’s definitely not a smooth spot up by the toe. So for sure this print didn’t come from Journey’s shoe. Realization mingles with fear because there’s a good chance this print was left by the killer! That psycho was bold enough to come into my room late at night. Who would do that? Who could do that?
The chief is dating Rachel, which means he knows the inside of our house. He might even have a key. In fact, Rachel admitted that he was here that very night.
The tie that brought Journey and me together links the murders of Miss P and my mother. Only the killer or someone with access to my mother’s evidence box would know that. Chief Culson had access to my mother’s evidence box.
The fingerprints in Journey’s van matched Chief Culson and the ink on the scrap of paper matched his special pen. Even the phone calls Miss Peters received in her final days were mostly from his private line.
Only the DNA didn’t match. Or at least that’s what Victor wanted me to believe.
Damn! Where is Journey? I check e-mail again. Are they making him work a double shift on his first day?
My frantic mind-hopping takes me from worrying about Journey to remembering that Chief Culson’s gym clothes are here. I peek into Rachel’s room; the gym bag is on the chair. I bring his shoes out to the kitchen. I’m both surprised and not surprised to see they’re also the Michael Jordan brand. What is it with these guys and Michael Jordan shoes?
I’m also not surprised to see they’re a size eleven. These guys are all about the same height, so I guess that makes sense. The soles are pretty worn on both shoes so it’s hard to tell what a print would look like.
I need to do a test.
I set the shoes on the table while I whip up a batch of fake blood. Miss Peters used fake blood for a class one time on latent evidence. I mix about half a cup of light Karo syrup with a few drops of red food coloring. Yummy.
Where should I do the test? Stamping fake blood on paper won’t look the same as a hard surface like a floor. But it has to be a place where Rachel won’t kill me if the food coloring stains a little. My choices are the garage or the back patio.
Grabbing the kitchen flashlight, I leave the shoes on the table but bring the fake blood and a couple of Popsicle sticks. As I head down the stairs, my movement activates the motion detector on our outdoor lights. They blink on, startling me and bathing the driveway in twin pools of light.
I freeze. What if the killer’s watching me?
No, wait. He’s off with Rachel.
Ugh! That makes me feel worse.
Scurrying to the side door of the garage, I swing it open. The creak is a mocking whine and the musty smell engulfs my head like a helmet.
I nervously bounce the flashlight beam around the garage. Everything looks normal. Rachel’s Honda Accord is parked in her spot. With my finger I dab a little fake blood on the floor, but the cement is too slick to get a good impression.
The patio it is.