Even then, they all waited a few moments. Silas left the living room and then returned. “She’s gone.”
“What are you two doing here?” Nathan asked, sound grumpier than he meant to. It wasn’t them. It was Danielle making things weird.
Victor shot a look over at Silas and then back to Nathan. “I need to ask you a few questions. About what happened the other night.”
Nathan groaned and dropped his feet off the coffee table, starting to sit up. “I don’t want to talk about Lily,” he said.
“No, not about that,” Victor said. He crossed the room, sitting on the coffee table in front of Nathan and putting his bag on the floor. “I mean about Volto driving North’s Jeep.”
“I want to hear about Lily,” Silas said, remaining closer to the fireplace on the far side of the room. He stood in front of it, hands in his pockets. “But I’ll wait.”
Victor pulled out his laptop and turned it on, waiting for it to boot. “Volto was the one driving, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah,” Nathan said. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “What’s this about?”
Victor looked at his screen. “According to the reports, someone leaned out the passenger side. Ms. Johnson said there was someone sitting in it.” He turned the screen around, showing the highlighted portion of a witness report.
Nathan carefully read the neat cursive handwriting detailing seeing a face and the arm that threw the smoke bomb. “She didn’t recognize him?”
“You were following the Jeep,” Victor asked, gazing at him over the laptop screen he was showing him. “Do you remember seeing two people?”
“No,” Nathan said. “I only saw the Volto mask the driver was wearing. And I thought he somehow threw the bomb out the other window.”
“It would have been more difficult to do,” Victor said. He flipped the laptop around again. He started clicking around. “But here’s the weird part. Check out who I found coming into the school with the Jeep.”
When he turned it around again, it was showing a camera view angled at the front of the school. The lighting was bad because the sun was low in the sky. But it showed the Jeep pulling in up front near the flag pole. There was a cop car there as well, empty at the moment but parked off on the grass.
A man got out of the Jeep, heading into the building, but the camera only captured the top of his head.
Nathan leaned in, squinting, hoping to see a face. “Who is that?”
Victor reached around, pressing a key to open another window, another video. It showed the inside of the school, near the front office, the time stamp in the corner a few seconds after the first video. This one had a clear image of Mr. Morris walking in the front door.
Nathan frowned. “It couldn’t have been him in the Jeep when Dr. Green and the others were attacked. He was on the other side of the school when it all went down.”
“Yeah,” Victor said. “And check this out. Do you remember the car that you said was there? You said Mr. McCoy jumped out of one, but then another car was there. That one drove off right after the smoke bomb.” He reached over again.
The screen changed video feeds when he pressed a button. It showed the area behind the school, where the busses came in. The car that had been in the lot on Dr. Green’s side pulled in. Mr. Morris walked out of the school, got in the passenger door and they took off.
“I can’t see the driver,” Victor said. “But the car is registered to Mr. Morris.”
He had a second car? They would have recognized his normal car. “And somehow they got hold of the Jeep?” Nathan asked. “Are you saying they took it back from Volto?”
“I’m not sure what to believe,” Victor said. “Either they got the car from Volto, or Volto’s working with them. In any case, why drop it off at the school?”
“It’d make sense that Volto had someone around and in the school on his side,” Silas said. “Remember when he smoked out the stadium? It’s hard to believe he got all that stuff out there and set up without anyone else noticing. He’d have to get someone in on it. People in faculty so they won’t say anything.”
Nathan rubbed at his face, trying to come up with a possible explanation for it all. “So we’ve got a passenger in the Jeep with Volto. We’ve got Mr. Morris. And we’ve got the driver of whoever picked up Mr. Morris at the end there.” He picked up his head to face Victor. “You know who might know. McCoy. He drove in with whoever was in the one car. And he may have seen who was in the passenger side of the Jeep.”
“I don’t think we’re getting answers from him,” Victor said. “He’s under investigation for all the dirt Mr. Hendricks had in a file about him regarding his behavior toward students. He’s been charged with a couple of things already to keep him locked up. Besides, he’s not going to tell us.”
“Who can we get to visit him and ask him?” Nathan asked. “He’s the only one who will know.”
“Maybe we should ask Morris,” Silas said.
Victor and Nathan twisted to look at him.
Silas shrugged. “He’s not under arrest, is he? Do you think he’ll talk?”
Victor closed the laptop and set it aside. “I guess it is either him or try to find a way to talk to McCoy. We don’t have another option here.”
“We could show someone,” Nathan said. “Maybe to them, Morris or McCoy. Convince them to talk to us or we’ll give it to the police.”
“We can’t,” Victor said. “They may tell the police we have it.” He frowned. “The problem is, he knows all of our faces. We need someone else. I know who to ask. But it’ll cost us favors. Anyone got some?”
“I might have a couple left,” Nathan said. “After my dad...”
“Same with me,” Silas said. “One or two I might have left. I lost a lot with my brother.”
“When I move out, it might take a couple of favors,” Victor said. “And that might happen soon. Trying to spare some. I don’t know when we can earn any more at this point.”
“We may have three between us,” Nathan said. “Is that enough?”
Victor picked up his bag and shoved the laptop in. “We’ll check in with him and see how difficult this might be.” He jerked his chin toward Nathan. “Are you coming along?”
Nathan nodded and stood up. He’d had enough of being idle and dwelling. This was the first thing the rest of the team had come to him about in days. He’d avoided them for this long. In a way, it felt like he’d grounded himself. He was done. He needed to get out of it.
Was he with them or not? “Count me in.”
Calamity
Sang
My brain was overloaded by school operations, budgets and questioning what I was doing acting as an assistant to Mr. Blackbourne while he studied for certifications.
The information wasn’t difficult. It was just a lot.
We’d pulled in office chairs from other offices and set up a second folding conference table for me along one wall of the principal’s office to act as a temporary desk. I sat at it while Mr. Blackbourne sat behind the main desk. Sometimes we switched it up, depending on what we were working on.
I’d seen barely anything or anyone except him for days, and we did nothing but research and study.