Janey was here.
Can you hear me?
The last one sent a chill up my spine, and I thought of Rain.
Of Jasmine and Nia.
Can you hear me?
“You okay?” Jagger asked softly.
I nodded. “Yeah. They feel close here. My dad… my mom.”
I climbed on top of the desk and stretched to reach the foam panels in the drop ceiling. There were several over the desk, each one about a foot square, and I started pushing them upward, feeling around, looking for whatever my parents had left behind.
I was on the third panel, being around the dusty frame of the ceiling, when my fingers brushed against something: a lump contained in a smooth swath of paper.
Dust spilled around me as I pulled it out.
I coughed, my eyes watering, then looked down at the object in my hands.
An envelope not unlike the one Anna had sent me before her death.
Before her murder.
But this one was plain and unmarked.
I hopped off the desk and tore open the envelope, dumping the contents onto the desk.
There were only two things: a key and a mini-recorder, the kind journalists and writers used in old movies, before everyone used their phone for everything.
The key was nothing special, just a plain silver key, on the small side, with a thin metal key ring, the kind someone gave you when they expected to never see it again.
I picked up the voice recorder, my heart thumping.
“Might need new batteries,” Hawk said.
I pushed play and my mother’s voice — slow, like the batteries on the recorder were wearing down — filled the room.
“If you’ve found this, something has gone wrong.”
I turned it off, my stomach churning, my pulse racing.
“It’s my mom.” I needed to say it out loud.
A declaration that part of her was still here.
With me.
Hawks hand came down on my shoulder.
“We’ll take it home,” he said. “Listen to it there, are sure we have fresh batteries.”
I slipped the key on one back pocket of my jeans and put the recorder in the other.
And that was when we heard the sound of metal on concrete — a shuffle, a screech — from the end of the hall.
52
