Page 65 of Final Escape
“He pulled out the old ‘moral turpitude’ clause, hinting that if I wasn’t involved, then I might be associating with those who are. So for the safety of the children and to maintain positive influences for them, I shouldn’t be there.” She managed a faint smile. “Though of course, if everything ends up well, hemaylet me come back. As if I’d want to work for him again.”
Penny sat on one of the benches and propped her elbows on the table. “That’s just so unfair. You should fight it, Carrie.”
“With what? I can’t afford to.” She wearily sank onto the bench opposite Penny, next to the cardboard box of her possessions. “If only my shotgun hadn’t disappeared. Talk about a red flag.”
Logan leaned a hip on the far edge of the table. “Agreed. But the BCI combed the murder site and far into the forest, plus the roadsides for several miles in either direction. They didn’t even find any shell casings.”
“Which makes it look like either you or I might’ve used it, then hid it very, very well.” She idly thumbed through the contents of the box at her side. “I am so going to miss my students. The scary thing is that I might never get to teach again. Even if I’m not charged with anything, I can only imagine what Ed Grover would say to any future schools looking for a reference.”
“And that you could fight, too. He’d have no right to do that...and I’m sure he knows it, too. You shouldn’t have to give up the career you love.” Penny leaned forward and peered at the top of the box. “What’s that? There—that piece of paper poking up behind the blue folder. Is that from one of the summer art projects you did?”
“This?”
“No—the one behind it. The one with the really fine detail. Pen and ink.”
Carrie twisted the box to face her and plucked out a sheet of paper, and laid it on the table. “This?”
Penny’s eyes widened. “Brother.Someone is into carnage here.”
“I didn’t realize I still had one of them. The older versions were in a folder that disappeared from my desk a few weeks ago.”
“Someone stole them? Why? I mean, every inch of the paper is plastered with detail and this must have taken hours, but it isn’t exactly a Monet.” She peered at it more closely. “And it’s kind of creepy, if you ask me. Who did them?”
“The boy’s family is pretty sensitive about his emotional issues, so I’m not really at liberty to say. The student left them on my desk one day after another, unsigned. I was afraid that the level of violence shown might be an indication of an abusive situation. The principal disagreed, though. He apparently thought I was nuts to be concerned.” She hesitated, choosing her words carefully. “The boy who drew them is indeed...troubled. I understand he has terrible nightmares, so it’s no surprise that he might express himself this way, poor child.”
Penny looked closer. “Look at it—the only thing in color is the river running red, so I suppose that’s blood. And those bodies...eeuuuww.” She looked away, then turned back and cocked her head. “Hey, Logan. Does this look at all familiar to you? Look at the precipice. And that waterfall.”
He’d been tuning out for the past few minutes, barely catching their conversation. Now, he shook off his thoughts about the Danvers case and glanced at the drawing. “Kids’ stuff.”
But then he took a second look. Leaned closer, and studied the detail. The angle of the cliff, the comparative height of the falls. The largest corpse, among many, was sprawled on the boulders at the base of the cliff.
His heart faltered.
He’d been on the search-and-rescue team the day after Sheryl’s murder. He’d been the one to find her body, and with nightfall looming and four-footed predators lurking in the area, he’d made a judgment call and photographed the scene with his cell phone from just one angle before a wave splashed him and ruined the phone. So he hadn’t been able to call for assistance, either.
Then he’d struggled to retrieve the body, and it had taken twenty minutes to load it into his two-man raft given the swift, changeable currents and turbulent water at the base of the falls.
A massive grizzly had lumbered into view just a minute later, grunting and sniffing the blood on the rocks.
No one had been there to help him.
No one else had seen her body, sprawled on those boulders.
But the child who’d drawn this had gotten every detail exactly right—and given the gory details on the rest of the page, had been terrified and deeply disturbed by what he saw.
He turned to Carrie and fought to keep his voice level. “Who drew this? Did you ever find out?”
She bit her lower lip. “I can’t say.”
“You can’t, or you won’t?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Ihaveto know, Carrie. Tell me.”
“There...was a lot of trouble over this. The child’s guardian was really upset when I tried to figure out who did it.”
“You had twelve students. If I have to ask every one of them, I’ll try to track them down.”
