“Where did you find that?”
“Desk drawer.”
He grunted like he wished he’d thought of looking there himself, then grabbed the key. Which, I was happy to see, slipped easily into the lock.
Chase turned it, and the file drawer slid open, revealing every test that Mr. Tipkins had ever given.
“Bingo,” I said. “Anyone could have broken in here.”
Chase nodded, handing the key back to me. “Anyone with YouTube and a credit card.”
“Or a driver’s license,” I pointed out, putting the key back in Tipkins’s drawer.
My phone buzzed in my pocket again.
“Geez, hold your horses, Sam,” I muttered as I pulled it out.
Only this text wasn’t complaining about the cold weather.
someone coming!
Uh-oh.
“Uh, Chase? Sam says someone is-”
But I didn’t get to finish as Chase grabbed me by the arm, pulling me to the floor. “Someone’s coming,” he whispered.
Sure enough, the light in the hallway outside flipped on, and I heard the click of footsteps echoing through the corridor.
And stopping just outside Mr. Tipkins’s classroom.
Chapter Sixteen
MY EYES WHIPPED AROUND THE ROOM FOR SOMEWHERE TO hide. Under a desk? At the back of a cabinet? Behind the poster of the seven different types of triangles?
Chase must have done the same thing as he grabbed me by the arm. “Quick. In here,” he said, pointing to a supply closet at the back of the room. Thank God it was left unlocked at night, and the door opened easily as Chase shoved me in front of him then stepped inside, quickly closing it behind him.
Just as we heard the door to Mr. Tipkins’s room open.
I sucked in a breath in the stuffy dark space. It was small, just big enough for the two of us to fit, though not big enough to afford either of us any personal space. Meaning Chase’s body was right up against mine, creating a warm, unsettling feeling in my belly that felt very… personal.
As I tried to decide if I liked the feeling or not, the classroom light turned on.
I shifted to look through the crack in the closet door, feeling Chase do the same beside me. (Very close beside me, causing his leg to rub against my leg in a way that had me leaning slightly closer to a “liking it” decision.)
A figure moved across my field of vision, and for a quick moment, I thought maybe we had been lucky enough to catch the cheat stealer in the act. But as he shifted to the right, I saw a familiar plaid, short-sleeved, button-down shirt and pair of baby-poo brown corduroy slacks cross the room.
Mr. Tipkins.
I closed my eyes and said a silent prayer that he didn’t need any supplies tonight as he moved to his desk and sat down. He grabbed the stack of uncorrected papers I’d seen earlier and shoved them into a brown leather briefcase with scuff marks along the edges. He opened his top drawer and grabbed a couple red pens. Then he pulled a couple papers from the desk, uncapped a pen, and started marking.
Oh no. Please tell me he’s not settling in for a night of correcting papers here!
I shifted, my right leg rubbing against Chase again.
The air in the closet was getting warm. It was dusty and smelled like old wood.
Though I noticed, as the minutes stretched on, there was another scent mingling with the old closet smells, too. Fabric softener, soap, and a faint woodsy smell that was surprisingly like the men’s department at Macy’s. Cologne? Body spray? Deodorant? Whatever it was, I found myself not entirely hating being stuck in the closet with Chase.
He shifted, his body pressing up against mine, and I felt the lean muscles of his chest against my arm, his breath warm on my neck. Irrationally, I started thinking of all the things we could do in a dark closet together to pass the time while Tipkins corrected.
I wasn’t sure how much time passed, but my left foot was starting to fall asleep (crowded up against a stack of textbooks), and the air in the closet was getting seriously warm (or maybe that was just me. Was it my imagination or was Chase leaning closer?), when I felt Chase’s breath tickle my skin.
“Tipkins is moving.”
I looked through the crack in the door, forcing myself to focus despite the way too personal quarters. Chase was right. Mr. Tipkins had gotten up from the desk and was moving… toward the filing cabinet.
“You locked the cabinet, right?” I whispered.
I felt Chase shake his head. “I didn’t have time.”
Oh, fudgecakes.
I watched, dread curling around in my belly as Mr. Tipkins leaned down to unlock the cabinet. He stuck the key in the hole, turned, then frowned. His bushy eyebrows furrowed together as the realization hit that the cabinet was already unlocked.
He straightened up, glancing over both shoulders, surveying the room for a possible answer as to why it was open.
I shrank as small as I could, hoping he didn’t see the guilt emanating from the closet.
Luckily, he simply shoved the key into his pocket and opened the cabinet. He removed a couple sheets of test answers, stuck them in the briefcase, then shut and locked the cabinet. He dropped the key back in his desk, then gathered the briefcase in his hands and walked out of the room.
A second later the light went off, and I let out a sigh of relief as I heard footsteps retreating down the hall.
“That was close,” I whispered.
“Yeah,” Chase said. I could feel his breath coming hard beside me.
“Think it’s safe to leave the closet?”
“Probably.” But he didn’t move.
“So… do you want to?”
“Not really. I kinda like it in here.”
I rolled my eyes in the dark and shoved him out ahead of me.
Even though part of me kinda agreed.
Fifteen minutes later, we were outside again, jogging around the far side of the school to where Sam and Kyle were still standing under the oak tree. Though it was hard to distinguish one figure from the other as they were firmly stuck together at the lips.
“Ahem!” I said in an exaggerated throat clearing.
Sam detangled her tongue from Kyle’s long enough to look up. “Oh. Hey.”
“Hey,” I said. “You guys are supposed to be our lookouts not make-outs.”
Sam blushed in the moonlight. “You guys were taking forever. We had to find a way to keep warm out here.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Besides,” she pointed out, “we did warn you someone was coming.”
“Did he see you?” Kyle asked.
I shook my head, relaying our brush with Tipkins.
“But you found the test answers?” Kyle pressed when I was done.
Chase nodded. “Yeah. The custodian is the way in. As long as you go in a door he’s opened, it’s unlocked. I’m guessing it’s the same every night.”
“And the file cabinet was easy to get into. The key is in Mr. Tipkins’s desk.”
“So, really, the only lock you’d have to pick is the one to the classroom,” Chase added.
“And Chase got in there, no problem,” I said, telling them how he’d used his driver’s license.
“So, anyone could have stolen the answers?” Sam said when I was done.
I nodded. “Right. Meaning any one of our suspects could be the person who killed Sydney over them.”
Which left just one very important question: Which one was it?
Chapter Seventeen
THAT QUESTION PLAGUED ME THE ENTIRE WALK BACK HOME as I considered the info we’d gathered over the last week. Clearly the test answers were the key to who had killed Sydney. But how had she found out who was stealing them? Did she know the thief personally? Was it one of her friends? Or an enemy? Clearly I was missing something here, and the empty spot where that something should be was burning a hole in my brain.
The next day, Mom agreed to drop me at the front entrance of school and not walk all the way in. (Thank God!) I felt slightly guilty that her trust in me was based on the erroneous assumption that I’d been tucked up in my room all last night like a good prisoner. But only slightly. (She had, after all, tortured me with Bon Jovi at top volume the whole ride to school.)