As expected, everyone at Alex’s is pretty buzzed. Half the team is there, and for a while it feels like it could be any Saturday night out of the last few years. Still, I spend the few hours I’m there sipping on the same warm beer just in case I need to keep my wits about me. No one seems to notice that I never need a refill as long as I’ve got a red plastic cup in my hands and mime drinking every so often.

When it starts to get a little late, I sneak out the back and to my dad’s truck. I don’t bother saying good-bye to anyone—tomorrow morning no one will remember what time I left, and I’ll get a text or two talking about hangovers and asking if I got home okay. I’m about to start the truck when I realize there are extra keys on Dad’s ring. One for our old house. One for my grandmother’s. And a few more with rubber around the tops: the keys to the police station.

The hair on the back of my neck stands on end as I consider the possibilities of what this could mean.

From what my dad’s told me, the FBI is basically working on-site at the school. That means at this time of night there are only a couple of officers at the station. Maybe a few agents too. But I know my way around pretty well up there. If I were to drop by, I could probably figure out a way to sneak past the front desk and get into my dad’s office, where all kinds of files might be kept. Even if the FBI’s taken over, there must still be initial reports at the station. Whatever it was that my dad and his officers saw when they arrived on scene that night.

If I could get my hands on some of those, maybe they could shed more light on the investigation.

I drive towards the police station before I can talk myself out of it.

CHAPTER NINE

TODD’S THE ONLY OFFICER ON DUTY. I THINK I’m the luckiest guy alive until he rolls his eyes and gives me a long, drawn-out sigh as I walk in.

“Go home, Mark,” he says curtly.

“Todd, man, what are you doing here all alone?”

“Someone mentioned that I was talking to civilians while on duty yesterday, and I got switched to the graveyard shift. That’s what.”

“Oh,” I say. Oops.

“Plus there’s been some kind of electrical fire on the outskirts of town that everyone was raring to get to.” He inhales and wrinkles his nose a bit. “Jesus. You smell like a bar.”

I’m not exactly surprised. Alex’s house smelled like it had been sprayed down with cheap beer. Still, this electrical fire is great news for me.