responded: YOU’VE SOMEHOW FROZEN ME OUT. UNEASY WHEN UPDATES DRY UP.
She typed back: TOLD YOU TO STAY OUT OF IT.
His response came quickly: USUAL SOURCES SURPRISINGLY UNRESPONSIVE.
She smiled and typed: SURPRISING TO GREAT AND SELF-SATISFIED ADAM LYNCH, PERHAPS.
HMM. PROBABLY DESERVED THAT.
PROBABLY?
OKAY, DEFINITELY. WHAT DID YOU DO?
ONLY WHAT THE PUPPETMASTER WOULD HAVE DONE.
ONCE AGAIN, NOT APPRECIATING USE OF VAGUELY INSULTING NICKNAME.
She laughed out loud in the back of the car. She responded: INSULTING PERHAPS, BUT NICKNAME ACCURACY NOT IN DISPUTE. WILL CONTINUE TO USE.
WONDERFUL. NOW HOW DID YOU ENFORCE BLACKOUT OF ALL TRUSTED SOURCES?
Kendra hesitated before revealing her strategy. She shrugged. Surely, he knew already. She typed: THREATENED TO WITHHOLD ONE THING OF VALUE TO THEM.
His response was immediate. She imagined his fingers flying across his phone’s keyboard: OF COURSE. YOUR ASSISTANCE IN FUTURE INVESTIGATIONS.
BINGO.
EXACTLY WHAT I WOULD HAVE DONE. AFRAID YOU’VE BEEN CORRUPTED BY MY BAD INFLUENCE.
NO WORRIES. BAD INFLUENCES PREDATED ADAM LYNCH BY MANY, MANY YEARS.
RELIEVED TO HEAR. MUST TELL ME ABOUT THEM SOMETIME. I ALWAYS LIKE TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR WILD DAYS. SO WHERE TO NOW? UNLESS BLACKOUT STILL IN EFFECT.
She thought for a moment. No harm in telling him. ON WAY TO ACADEMY.
WITH METCALF?
NOT TODAY. WILL ACCOMPLISH MORE ALONE.
WISH I WAS THERE WITH YOU.
She had a sudden wish he was, too. He was everything that was entertaining and amusing and always exactly on her wavelength. But there was no way she’d tell him that.
WHAT PART OF “ALONE” DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?
UNDERSTOOD PERFECTLY. JUST NOT CRAZY ABOUT CONCEPT.
I’LL BE FINE. NEARING SCHOOL NOW.
GOOD LUCK. LOOKING FORWARD TO HAVING BLACKOUT LIFTED.
She smiled and typed: NOT IN FORESEEABLE FUTURE.
HMM…PERHAPS IF I RAMP UP CHARM OFFENSIVE…
YIKES, WOEFULLY UNDERMANNED ON THAT FRONT. ALTERNATIVE STRATEGY RECOMMENDED.
She closed the conversation.
Typical Lynch. He knew she was still angry with him but thought he could make her forget with a little humor and his sheer force of will.
And for an instant he’d almost done it.
But you’ll have to do a lot better than that, buddy.
She looked up at the academy’s main house as her car rolled up the long driveway. The stone finish had recently been cleaned, and the shutters had been given a fresh coat of paint since her last daytime visit. She, like the other blind students who had attended Woodward, had no idea how stunning the campus was. It wasn’t until Kendra had gained her sight that her mother had told her it gave her great sense of peace to drop her daughter off in such a beautiful place—though she regretted that Kendra could not see it. But there was more than visionary beauty here; there was also the wonderful scent of the flowers over which Ronald Kim had labored. There was the sound of the surf and the wind in the trees, and there was the friendship and challenges of teachers like Elaine.
The car stopped in front of the building, and Kendra climbed out and tipped the driver through the phone app. She looked around. She knew she should probably check in at the front office, but she wanted to take another look at the crime scenes without a school administrator hovering over her.
She started at the south lawn where Ronald Kim’s body was found. Nothing she hadn’t already seen the night before except for a few more shoe impressions on the outskirts of the scene. Probably from school employees venturing out to the spot to see where their colleague had spent his last moments on Earth. It was a common phenomenon at crime scenes, one that often led to flowers, cards, and other small mementos being left in tribute.
She looked over the short wall at the access road that for some reason had captured Ronald Kim’s attention in the minutes before his death. Was he waiting for someone?
She walked back, making an ever-widening arc as she scanned the ground. Nothing of note.
She crossed the campus to the Slide, where the lowest railing post still had not been replaced since its uprooting two nights before. She sat on Big Rock, trying to imagine Elaine Wessler’s battle to survive on this grassy slope. What in the hell had brought her out there in the middle of the night? Had she sat on this very rock, waiting to meet her killer?
Or had she been chased from the campus above?
What am I not seeing here, Elaine?
“Hello, Kendra.”
Kendra whirled to see Allison Walker descending the steps behind her. “Dr. Walker…Allison. Hi. I wanted to get a better look.”