Love's Cruel Redemption (The Ghost Bird #12)(70)

Great. “Maybe we should be looking for him.” He remained stationary for a moment as a teacher moved from outside to the office, looking pale faced. Nathan suspected he was asked to go inside and answer questions. “We also need to know how his Jeep got there. Any cameras?”

“Victor’s working on that. They’re going through footage.”

Nathan could go through it, but maybe Victor didn’t need another person working on it. And unless they were willing to admit they had cameras installed in the school, then there wasn’t much chance they could turn it in as evidence.

“Let’s look for Luke, I guess,” Silas said.

Nathan retreated from the chaos at the front of the school. Silas joined him, and they took a long route around the school, crossing through the cafeteria and then on through hallways. Eventually they got to a stairwell. Most of this side of the school was empty, except for the classrooms.

Silas said nothing during this time, looking at his feet as they walked around. Now that they’d left the crime scene area, they couldn’t return unless they had a purpose. Mr. Blackbourne and North being in there alone irked at Nathan. He hoped it was going okay.

“How’d it go getting a cousin in?” Nathan asked.

“Hmmm,” Silas said, sounding sour.

“Can’t get one to come?”

“He’s wanting to call in a whole family.”

Nathan chuckled. “Do it. He’ll get lots of people to help.”

Silas shook his head, smirking. “It won’t deter him. He’ll want me to manage.”

“Get a cousin to do—”

Suddenly, Luke appeared at the top of the stairs ahead of them. His hair was pulled back in a clip. Once he saw them, he stopped, sat flat down on the very top step and flopped backward, spreading out his arms. He stage whispered, “Save me! I’m so tired. Get me out of here.”

Nathan took the stairs two at a time to get to him. He sat down on the top step, leaning over to check for any injuries. Luke had on all black from the night before and was barefoot, but he looked okay. “Are you hurt somewhere I can’t see?”

“No,” he said in an exhale. “I’m just exhausted.”

“What have you been doing?”

“I’ve been hiding,” he said. As he breathed, his chest lifted and fell. His hair was in a black clip, but a lot of locks had fallen out and brushed against the floor. “They’ve been all over this place since the smoke bomb. I’m not exactly dressed for an interview.” He sat up on his elbows. “I’m starving.”

Silas slid his bookbag around. He fished in it and presented a protein bar to him. “Will this work?”

“For now,” Luke said, sitting up and taking the bar from him. He ripped open the edge with his teeth and then took a big bite. He talked as he chewed. “Did you know there’s not a single place to sleep in here besides the nurse’s station? Even the couch in the main office is too short. All the floors suck.”

“Did you see who left North’s car out front?” Nathan asked.

“No,” Luke said. He swallowed his bite. “But it wasn’t here until sometime early in the morning, after a few people had shown up to unlock the school. Apparently, people dismissed it at first as someone who was breaking the rules not parking out front. When the police, who had been here all night, finally went to check it out, they found some smoke bombs inside.”

“Maybe whoever drove it is still here,” Silas said.

Luke lifted his hands in an I-don’t-know shrug. “If it was Volto, and he drove it up, he did it without the mask,” he said. “It would have been too suspicious. I couldn’t get out. Well, I could have, I think. Mr. Blackbourne thought it was too. Between the cops snooping around and Volto being out there...” He stopped and took another bite. “And I think he wanted me to stay here and watch anyway.”

Made sense. “Maybe we should go back to the music room.”

“Someone needs to go,” Silas said. “Dr. Green might get called away for this or for class. Someone’s got to keep Marie and Sang out of this and make sure Danielle finishes her test.”

“I need sleep,” Luke said. “I’m seeing double. Can I sleep? Where’s Kota to give me a time out?”

Nathan chuckled and stood up. With what Luke was wearing and being barefoot, it wasn’t like he could go waltzing around school, anyway. He needed to change and rest while he had the chance. Who knew what would happen next. “Guess I’ll go to the music room. Take Luke home?” he asked Silas.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Silas said. “I’ll stay with him. You go back.”

Nathan went back down the stairs, taking a different way to avoid the police at the front again. He kept his head down, slowly walking the halls as he went.

The only lead they had was that it was smoke bombs. North’s car loaded with a few smoke bombs for a supposed prank wasn’t going to land anyone in jail. Was this just because North had reported it stolen?

Or did they see it as connected to Mr. McCoy, who had been reported missing? From that, it was a springboard into the chaos happening in the office? Between McCoy and Morris and others on edge, it only took one nut to crack before the police might find some actual school violations on their part. It was likely the police would talk to a few people and hand this off to a school board and a single investigator working with a lawyer to see where any laws were broken.