Step one, collect all the evidence and let it give you the road map to step two.
—VICTOR FLEMMING
We climb the dark basement steps in a crush and spill out into the daylight. The fabric of Spam’s sweater is still balled in my grip and Lysa is clinging to my arm as if we’re about to board a roller coaster.
“Ugggh.” I groan.
Lysa swivels around to face me even though that means she’s now walking backward. We stroll slowly, in this position, toward the parking lot. Lysa’s finger is in my face. “Okay. This isn’t Journey’s fault,” she says.
My shoulders sag. “I know. I’m not mad at him. And I get why Victor would hire him as his intern. I truly do. It makes sense, right?”
“It’s the same reason he’s hiring us to work at the camp,” Lysa says. “He trusts us.”
I nod. But making sense has nothing to do with how completely stabbed in the back I feel. After my biology teacher was murdered and I found her body, Rachel asked her FBI criminalist brother, Victor, to come home and make sure I was safe. She had no idea he was my idol.
“It’s just I got to watch him work. We worked together. We bonded. It was amazing. I know I can’t be his intern … I’m still in high school. But why Journey? I just feel swept aside.”
“But hey, CSI camp. Focus on that.” Spam pries my fingers off her sleeve. “You guys will probably be doing crime scene s’mores and roasted weenie body parts or something super cool like that.” She turns her attention to her phone.
“She’s right,” Lysa agrees. “CSI camp sounds like a lot more fun than being Victor’s intern.”
“Don’t forget butt monkey.” Spam grins, wrinkling her nose.
We come around the side of the Administration building and pause at the sight of the wrecked car crushed by the flagpole. A reminder of how close we came to disaster.
“At least no one was hurt,” Lysa says.
A young police officer stands out near the parking lot, keeping an eye on things. He notices us and smiles.
We smile back.
Our shoes crunch over the broken glass. Spam stops at the spot where we were nearly killed less than an hour ago. She stoops to pick something up off the ground.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“A token,” she says. “From Family Fun Arcade.”
“You and your gamer crew,” I say.
“Yeah, but this isn’t mine. It is from my favorite game, though.” She tucks the token into her pocket and steps in front of me, lowering her voice. “Do you have your kit?”
I pat my messenger bag. “Always. Why?”
“The skateboarder pushed off the front of that lady’s car.”
“Yeah…” I’m not sure where she’s going with this.
“Look.” She nods at the shiny hood of the car. “His fingerprints are like right there.”
Lysa and I exchange confused looks. “And…?” I say.
She rolls her eyes, a little exasperated. “And you can just grab one. Whoosh. Like that. Lysa and I will distract the cop.”
“Okay. I can … but why do I want to?”
“Because…” Spam turns her phone to show us the latest news alert. It’s barely been an hour and already: SEARCH ON FOR SKATEBOARDER AS SCHOOL TALLIES PROPERTY DAMAGE.
I gasp. “You want me to lift his prints so we can turn him in?”
This is very un-Spam-like.
“No,” she says. “So we can find him.”
I give her a hard look.
“He needs our help.” I look at her phone again, then at her. There’s got to be more to this for Spam.
“What?” She balks. “Okay, he’s supercute, he got me to model for him, and he called me shortcake.” She flashes a devilish smile. “I kinda liked that.”
There it is. I hesitate, not sure about this.
“According to the chief he could be in a lot of trouble,” Lysa says.
Okay. I go into my bag for my fingerprint kit, which, for a girl like me, just looks like extra makeup. “I can grab the print easy-peasy, but without access to Detective Sydney’s AFIS computer there’s not much I can find out about it.”
“Remember what you always say,” Lysa says. “Step one, collect the evidence and let it give you the road map to step two.”
“This isn’t Cheater Checks, right?” I say, thinking out loud. I promised Rachel.
Spam nods. “It’s definitely not.”
“But … are we tampering with evidence?” Lysa asks. “We can’t do that, either.”
Spam rolls her eyes. “Hold on. I’ll find out.” She strides over to the officer and strikes up a friendly conversation. She asks him when the crime scene guys are coming.
He shakes his head. “This isn’t that kind of a crime scene.”
Spam looks knowingly over her shoulder.
“But so why are you here?” she asks.
“Oh, I’m just waiting for the tow truck,” the cop replies.
I raise my eyebrows at Lysa. “Sounds like we’re good to go.”
She wanders over to help Spam with distraction.
I quickly bring out the brush, powder, and a square, two-inch hinged fingerprint lifter card that Victor gave me to practice with. The car looks freshly washed and shiny so the skateboarder’s prints are all very clear. I determine his thumbprint to be the best one.
I kind of huddle to one side and pretend like I’m checking my makeup. I even use my compact mirror to monitor Spam and Lysa and the cop behind me.
I slip my left hand into a glove so I don’t contaminate the print with my own. Then I load a supply of red fluorescent fingerprint powder onto the brush and sprinkle it over the area. I dab lightly to allow the super-fine grains of powder to drift into the ridges of the print, defining it.
With great detail and flamboyant hand gestures Spam is describing her favorite video game to the cop. Turns out he plays it too.
Thanks to the hinged lifter I can almost pull this off one-handed. The lifter contains two parts, connected in the middle. One side is a smooth, shiny card where the actual fingerprint will be preserved. The other side is sticky lift tape. I spread the hinged part open and carefully peel off the protective film, revealing the sticky side.
I say carefully because I’ve learned that if it actually sticks to the glove it will not come off.
Holding the sticky part by the edges, I firmly apply it over the print and smooth it down with my gloved hand. Then I peel the whole thing off in one smooth move.
Once the print is removed from the hood of the car I close the sticky side against the shiny side and the print is sealed inside forever.
I’m just sliding all my tools back into my bag when Journey ambles up.
“Erin, what’s going on?” he asks.
“Nothing. Just a little makeup fix.” I swirl my finger around my face. “I was—you know—breaking out.”
Dang. I just lied to Journey and I’m not even sure why.
He blinks, nods, and frowns all at the same time, which means Okay, girl stuff. “So, you aren’t mad at me over this Victor thing, are you?”
Sigh. Yeah, the Victor thing.
I shake my head. “I’m happy for you.” I reach out and grab the hem of his jacket and pull him toward me because I really am happy for him. “I’ll admit that I maybe got a little disappointed there for a minute. Because you know how I feel about Victor.”
He nods. “I do know. But he just came at me out of the blue and offered me this job. I didn’t know what to say.”
“I know. You’re fine. It’ll work out,” I say.
“So, I really do have to get to work.” He gives me a peck on the cheek. “And I don’t have time to take you home now. I hope that’s okay.” I nod and give him a hug and he strides off across the parking lot just as the tow truck arrives.
The cop guides the tow truck driver into backing up to the wrecked car. Lysa, Spam, and I watch as the tow truck driver hooks up his rig to the damaged car. Within minutes he’s sliding his hands all over the area where the fingerprints were, so now I don’t feel bad about lifting one.
Lysa and Spam resume debating who should drive me home, and Victor strides toward us.
“Why don’t you just ride with me?” he says.
We all shrug. Perfect. It’s settled.
Victor waits while I quick hug first Lysa and then Spam. But as I follow him to his car the unsettled feelings close in around me, like storm clouds. The ride home won’t take long, but it will be just the two of us.
I don’t even understand why I’m having these feelings all of a sudden, which means I’m nowhere near ready to talk about them.