Chapter 24
Kinsley
Chapter Twenty-Four
I had no idea how none of us thought about the library before. It turned out that Cora’s mother worked there, and she told us they stored all kinds of old papers, which is why we all agreed to meet there tomorrow.
“Do you have any theories?” Connor asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.
We were in Thomas’s room, sitting on his bed while he checked every window and door in the house to make sure that they were locked. I brought over the three notes from the guest room—the two we found in Lizzie’s notebook and the one left for us on the door—and laid them out on the sheet alongside the picture and the letter.
“No,” I shook my head. We learned about all kinds of cases, but there was almost always a giveaway. But this was a strange one.
“I still can’t believe everyone wanted to help,” he added.
I couldn’t either. There had to be something more to this. I thought back to when I had lost sight of Braxton and Samantha, but I went into the house before we started playing, and I didn’t see the picture on the coffee table then. It had to have been placed there later. Most likely while we were playing hide-and-seek. Nobody was paying attention then; we were all busy hiding and?—
I felt my cheeks blush and I pressed my lips into a hard line.
“We took the oath of secrecy, Kins,” Connor said, as if he was sensing my doubtfulness, and I arched a brow at him.
“We colored our fingertips with ink and pressed them onto a white paper. That’s not really the oath you think it is.”
“We also signed them,” he reasoned, and I sighed. We only took that oath to not talk about this with anyone outside of the eight of us. It wasn’t a lie detector, and it still didn’t cross out the possibility that?—
I thought back at what I learned in class about the basics of criminal profiling.
“Do you know where he stores his papers and pens?” I asked, and Connor walked to Thomas’s desk. He pulled out the upper drawer and held up a piece of paper and a pen. Made sense. Thomas was neat. I almost never found my pens where I left them. He put them down in front of me, and I laid onto my stomach, writing down what we already knew. I pressed my lips into a line as I concentrated.
“What about the eyewitnesses?” I asked, playing with the pen in my hand. “Thomas mentioned someone spotting Lizzie at the bus stop the day after she went missing.” I glanced back at Connor, who was sitting behind me, his legs crossed.
“He said they were unreliable. But I don’t know who they were.”
I scribbled down to ask Thomas, then pulled out the folded town map from my pocket and drew an arrow pointing at the bus stop. It wasn’t far away from here, just up on the highway.
“Why would the same person who wants Josh here threaten us to leave? If they know something about your mom and were willing to tell Josh what they know, why wouldn’t they be willing to just tell us?” I muttered to myself, thinking out loud, then turning toward Connor.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged.
“Do you remember your dad having any friends or enemies here?” I asked, pressing the question.
Connor shook his head. “I was eight, Kins.” He gave me a sad smile before he stood up and hurried out of the room. “I will be right back,” I heard him say, and I turned back to the paper that was lying in front of me. I wrote down the names I knew from the town so far.