The actual contents of a crime lab must remain mysterious to the public at large.
—VICTOR FLEMMING
“So who left the lab door open?” Lysa asks.
“Blankenship?” Spam says.
“She used the key,” I say. “And she wasn’t surprised to see the globe back together.”
“She never seems surprised by anything,” Lysa says.
“It is suspicious that she went straight into Victor’s lab, though,” I say. “Victor was perfectly clear, everyone is supposed to stay out of there.”
“Maybe she’s like you, Erin,” Spam says. “Rules don’t necessarily apply.”
I glare at Spam. Yes, I’m tense and irritated because when this blows up, I’ll be the one getting blamed. “Me? What about your flaky—oh, no, wait—sketchy boyfriend?”
Spam backs up and points her finger at me. When she does, a ball of paper falls out of her hand.
“You can’t blame me for this. And you shouldn’t blame him, either,” Spam says. “You of all people know how it feels not to know things about your life that you should know.” Her intensity loses steam and winds down. “You know?” Her voice cringes with apology.
I do know. And that’s the hardest thing about this situation. I don’t blame Lyman. Not one little bit. I bend down and pick up the wad of paper that Spam dropped.
“What’s this?” I ask.
Spam waves it off. “I don’t know. It was with the stuff on the counter from the globe. I kept it out because I didn’t remember it being in there with our stuff.”
“That’s because it wasn’t.” I smooth it out. It’s actually a cocktail napkin with scalloped edges and purplish stains on one side. On the other side a message is scrawled in thick black ink: A COWARD DIES A THOUSAND DEATHS … but YOU ONLY ONCE!
“What the—”
I hold the napkin up for Lysa and Spam to read.
“That’s from Shakespeare,” Lysa says.
Spam smirks. “She’s delusional. That’s a Tupac lyric.”
“It’s totally Shakespeare,” Lysa argues.
“Tupac!”
“You guys are missing the point. This is clearly a threat. We need to figure out why it’s here and who it’s for.”
“We need to go back to Spam’s and work this out,” Lysa says.
I tuck the napkin into my bag and we slip out of the storage room, across the classroom, and up the stairs. After carefully peeking around corners and confirming that the school is deserted, we make a mad, panicked run to Lysa’s car, jump inside, and slam the doors, without running into anyone.
All I want to do is race to the safety of my attic and collapse onto the sofa. But the threat penned on this napkin has me shaking. It’s as if catching my mother’s killer made no difference at all. The terror is as fresh as it ever was.
Something bad is about to happen. I can feel it.
* * *
While I roll the whiteboard out of the storage closet, Lysa retrieves the laptops and tablets from the chargers and Spam brings us down an array of fruit and chips for snacks.
“You have to promise not to say anything about Lyman to anyone until I have a chance to talk to him,” Spam says.
“Trust me. I’d prefer not to say anything about Lyman to anyone ever,” Lysa says. “But you have to promise to stay away from him until we figure this out. He could be dangerous.”
I mime zipping my mouth closed and locking it with a key. I don’t even want to think about how Victor would react to knowing people were in his lab.
The first thing I google are the words on the napkin. “Okay, you’re both right. The threat is derivative of a Tupac lyric…”
“I told you. It’s the opening of ‘If I Die 2nite,’” Spam says. “Which, I’ll admit, is creepy.”
Lysa opens her mouth to protest but I hold up a finger, silencing her.
“Which is derivative of a quote from Shakespeare,” I say.
Lysa makes a face at Spam.
“The question is, who is it for?” I say. “Victor? Journey? Me?”
“Miss P?” guesses Lysa.
“She’s already—” Spam whispers.
“Right. We have a lot to figure out,” I say. “Let’s get to work.”
A hush and the blue glow from all the devices settles over the room. Spam spins her chair to face the television. She logs on to her game to try to hook up with Lyman.
Lysa and I start by searching the name on the wanted poster: Todd Jenkins.
It’s too common. There’s an actor, a doctor, and a photographer named Todd Jenkins, to start, and none of them is Lyman.
“Not finding anything,” Lysa says.
“Me either,” I agree.
“Go back and plug in the date from the poster. Look for news stories about the kidnapping,” Spam calls over her shoulder.
Lysa and I split up the task. I search for news articles about child kidnappings around that time and she searches his name around Columbus, Ohio, where the missing person notice says he was born.
I receive a text from Journey that he and Victor made it to Salem and managed to get all the stuff into Victor’s car. He says they’ll be on their way home soon.
YAY, I reply. Then I text: SO IS THERE ANYTHING COMPROMISING IN THE LAB?
He writes back: WHAT DO YOU MEAN?
Not really thinking this through, I continue: YOU KNOW. ANYTHING COOL, LIKE EVIDENCE OR???
WHY? he writes back.
Of course he wants to know why, I’m asking bizarre questions. JUST FANTASIZING ABOUT ALL THE COOL STUFF YOU’RE LEARNING ABOUT.
THE CONTENTS OF A CRIME LAB SHOULD REMAIN MYSTERIOUS TO THE PUBLIC AT LARGE, he writes. THAT’S WHAT VICTOR SAYS, ANYWAY. BTW, HOW WAS THE MOVIE?
“You guys, we never decided what movie we saw,” I say.
“We didn’t see a movie, remember?” Spam says.
“Yes, but everyone thinks we saw a movie, so we need to get our stories straight.”
Lysa shakes her head. “I suggest we stick with the truth.”
“Oh, I see. So we should just tell everyone you borrowed a designer leather thing from your mom without permission and left it in the storage room, and when we went back to get it we watched the creepy principal violate Victor’s rules and enter his lab. Only to then figure out our friend also broke into the secret, uber-secure lab to run his own fingerprint, proving he was an abducted child. But we didn’t want to tell anyone because we’d get in trouble.”
Spam and Lysa adopt similar “yeah that’s not good” expressions.
“Exactly,” I say. “Lying about a movie is so much easier.”
Suddenly Lysa gasps. “I found something.”
Spam and I move to look over her shoulder.
Lysa covers her mouth with her hand, reading ahead of us. Then I get to the spot and cover my mouth with my hand too.
It’s an article from fourteen years ago about a couple who were found dead in their home from a drug overdose. And the same night, their toddler son went missing.
Spam looks between me and Lysa, tears welling up in her eyes. “His parents are dead? How awful.” She thumps down into a chair. “He probably just found all of this out a few hours ago. And he’s alone.”
“With a kidnapper,” I add.
Spam gives me a grim look.
Lysa searches off that article, finding more details. “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Okay. So, yes, Lyman’s parents were known to have drug problems.”
I lean over Lysa’s shoulder to read the article along with her. “They had both been in rehab several times. But not in months after their son was born.”
Spam shakes her head. “Poor Lyman.”
“Have you met his mom?” I ask.
“You mean the kidnapper?” Spam asks.
“Yes. The one you called the hover mom?”
“Not yet,” Spam reports. “Why?”
“Because, according to this article, there’s a good chance that she’s his real aunt.” Lysa swivels the laptop so Spam can see the article. “She disappeared the same night.”
“Wow,” Spam says. “I can’t imagine what he must be feeling right now.”
I know what Lyman’s feeling.
“He’s feeling like his whole world just blew apart,” I say.