“Looks like Riverbend High had quite the party last night,” she commented.
Lucas looked at her oddly. “Riverbend?”
“Yeah. Your homecoming opponent. Surprised they actually used spray paint on the building.”
“This wasn’t done by Riverbend,” the one custodian said. “This was Tejeda Springs kids.”
She felt her eyes go wide. “What?” She couldn’t believe what she just heard. “Why would they trash their own school? And why add vandalism to the raid?”
The second custodian shrugged and got back to work, pulling toilet paper from the tree limbs. “They’ve done this for years” was his only reply.
“The spray painting is new though,” Lucas added.
“And you allow this?” she asked incredulously. Immediately, she regretted the rash question that sounded more like an accusation. “My apologies,” she tacked on. “Uncalled for. I’m just surprised that the students here did this. I’m going to get inside and start looking at camera footage to see if I can identify some of these kids.”
She got about five steps and turned around, her finger pointed at the custodians. “Stop working on this. You have more important things to do. I need you and your crew to disperse around campus and take photos of everything they did last night. And I mean everything. Every trash can dumped out, every picnic table turned over, every window broken, every sign they vandalized, absolutely everything! Thoseare your priorities. I’ll meet with Principal Vaughn and the superintendent about the vandalism issues with the spray paint and broken windows. As for the mess, the kids who did this are going to clean it up.”
Lucas raised an eyebrow at her, and at first, she thought he was mad at her for giving orders over him. However, there was a twitch at one corner of his mouth, showing that he was actually amused by her indignation. Apparently, he approved of her response.
“See you in your office shortly, Officer Hookstead. I’ll be able to help you identify the kids you don’t know. Even have a sneaking suspicion who some of them are.”
THE CIRCLE OF STUPID
ELYXANDRE
As soon asthe first bus arrived, the student body began buzzing with gossip over who was involved in the raid on the school. She particularly watched the ones who were pretending like nothing had happened. She laughed to herself. Fools. If they wanted to hide their involvement, they should have acted like everyone else, all agog with curiosity at who the brave souls were who participated. Instead, the ones they weren’t able to identify on camera were broadcasting their guilt as loudly as if they were standing under neon arrows with the word “Guilty” above them.
In the end, they were able to most of around thirty who’d been on school grounds early in the morning, raiding the property, but they selected seven who were the most popular in school to serve as the examples. Lucas wanted them all dragged in, but she convinced him that this method would have better results.
She shook her head. They might have gotten away with it since the outdoor camera footage was grainy. But the fact that someone then posted it on social media, and a student brought it to their attention? Yeah. Now double circle of stupid.
She was very happy to see that Ezra Vaughn was not among them. She’d been concerned because Ryker Sealy, the superintendent’s son, appeared to be the ringleader, and Ezra was somewhat friends with him.
While he could have been one of the kids they couldn’t identify, Lucas was able to assure her that his son had been home, asleep on the couch, face-first in a calculus book. He even showed her the picture with a timestamp, which he had embarrassed the boy with at breakfast.
Once the school bells rang to start the day, she and Lucas formulated a plan to handle the seven destroyers. Now they were about to put their little play into performance.
“The students you asked for are being collected as we speak.”
Elyxandre nodded at the assistant as she passed through the swinging gate that connected the waiting area to the rest of the school’s front office. “Thank you, Juliette. Please make sure their escorts bring them back to the conference room right away, and when the last one arrives, let Dr. Vaughn know.”
Frowning, the woman asked, “You don’t want to keep them separated?”
“No. I’ll be in the room waiting for them.”
Juliette smiled, a twinkle of glee in her eyes. “I like your thinking, Officer Hookstead.”
She continued down the hall, slowing as she approached the principal’s office. Principal Vaughn sat behind his desk, a scowl on his face as he stared at his computer monitor.
For a moment, she longed to draw her fingers across the bones of his face, smoothing out where his irritation created the creases and grooves. It wasn’t that he rarely smiled. He did… often. But in these few short weeks, she had learned that when something puzzled him, he looked more grumpy and unapproachable.
She knocked on the doorframe. When he looked up, the scowl remained for a few seconds, then it was wiped clean to a blank mask.
“What’s wrong?” she asked
“What do you mean?”
“Your face. It was all mad, and then when you looked at me, it went blank.”
