Although…he wasn’t entirely convinced it was a student. Or even a group of students. It was more likely, he thought, that an adult, maybe one of Chet Yates’ listeners, had been pissed off by some imagined offense—his daughter dating someone Hispanic or his boy beaten out for varsity football by someone with brown skin—and had drunkenly stopped by the school last night and spraypainted his hate all over the campus.

Luckily, it was the weekend. It might be Sunday, but he could still call 911, let the law see what had happened, then call Raul the custodian and have it all cleaned up and painted over before school started tomorrow.

Dennis walked down the two steps from the walkway to the entrance of the administration building. Taking out his key, he unlocked and opened the door, quickly tapped the code for the alarm on the pad mounted on the wall to his right, and was about to switch on the lights, when he saw a yellow beam slashing across the floor in the center of the darkened hallway ahead.

The light, he noted instantly, was coming from open doorway of the new financial adviser’s office, and staring through the darkness at that illuminated beam made the hairs on Dennis’ arms prickle.

“Hello?” he called.

“In here!”

He hadn’t expected a reply, but he wasn’t surprised when he got one. Although he’d been hoping someone had just forgotten to turn off the light in the office, a part of him had known the adviser would be there.

How was that possible, though? The alarm had been on. Movement would have set it off. Had the man been sitting completely still at his desk since…Friday?

The goosebumps intensified.

Dennis could easily imagine that scenario, and he quickly flipped on the set of lights that illuminated the open area behind the front counter where the secretaries and registrar had their desks, before walking slowly toward the hallway.

“Didn’t know you’d be working on the weekend,” he called ahead, trying to retain some sense of normalcy.

There was no answer.

He reached the hallway, turned on the lights in the corridor. “Did you see all that vandalism out there? I’m calling the sheriff. We need to catch whoever did it.”

No response.

He was the principal, in charge of this school and, technically, the financial adviser’s superior. But since the first day the adviser had appeared on campus, that had not been the dynamic of their interpersonal interactions. The man had blatantly ignored the few rules Dennis had laid down and had exhibited nothing but disrespect toward him personally. For his part, Dennis was intimidated by the adviser’s aggressive self-assurance.