Chapter Fifteen
Micah
JANINE HAS TO GO TO A PARENT-TEACHER CONFERENCE at Charlie’s school, so she’ll be joining us at Legacies later. Now that we know she’s not a Peeping Tom insisting Dani and I share a bed just because, her cheeriness doesn’t creep me out as much.
Dani and I spend a good chunk of the car ride to the center plotting our revenge on Victor. Though I won’t tell Dani this, I’m actually proud of the old man for pulling a prank on us. I wasn’t sure he had it in him.
Dani yanks on the lockbox again, but it doesn’t budge. We’ve been fidgeting with it since we found it, inputting any code we could think of.
“I mean how many combinations could there be?” she asks.
“Literally thousands.”
She cuts her eyes over to me as another code fails her. “There has to be another clue at Legacies,” she insists.
I just hope we’re not overlooking something.
Legacies has a lot more kids during normal business hours. According to Janine, most of the kids come right after school, but some are too young for school and their parents can’t afford daycare. It reminds me a lot of Our Place.
I knew Tanya and Chi Chi would’ve been great friends.
The volunteers at Legacies are kind, and they don’t hesitate to put us to work when we offer our services.
Dani is swept away helping a few of the kids get a snack, while I’m putting together an arcade-style basketball hoop for some of the older kids.
Tavion floats to the forefront of my mind.
He’d enjoy doing stuff like this and helping kids—without beating the shit out of bullies—could be a good outlet for him.
I wonder if Sammy would be okay with him working at Our Place.
I’ll have to check in with her when I get back, whenever that’ll be.
One of the kids stands out. He was here when we first showed up, sitting in the corner by himself, his nose tucked into a sketch pad, and he’s still sitting there drawing.
Every so often, his gaze floats over to a little girl who’s playing classroom with a few others.
Something about this kid feels like a magnet.
Once I finish with the basketball hoop, I ask one of the volunteers about him.
“Oh, that’s Kenji. That’s his normal spot. He really doesn’t engage with us too much, but he comes every day to look after his sister, Raena.”
I think that’s why I’m so drawn to this kid: his protectiveness. “And he just sits there by himself every day?”
She confirms, cementing my decision to talk to him.
“Mind if I sit?”
He gestures for me to join before focusing back on his sketchbook.
“What are you working on?”
He sighs in frustration, turning his work toward me rather than speaking.
He’s drawing a comic. The figure in the sketch looks more antihero than hero, but he’s cool as hell all the same.
Instead of a traditional superhero costume, this guy has on street clothes and sunglasses.
He’s got a knife in his hands, his fingertip pressed against the sharp end, but no blood falls to the ground.
Perhaps he’s not one hundred percent human.
“Where’d you learn to draw like that?” The details—from his slate-gray-and-muted-gold palette to his use of shadowing to add density—scream of a professional.
I don’t expect him to answer me, but his deep voice catches me off guard. “My dad.”
“Is he an artist?”
“He was. He’s locked up now. Won’t let us come see him.”
Ah. That’s a feeling I can understand. When you lose the person who inspired you to do what you love, it’s hard to figure out where to put your anger. Sometimes the only place is in the thing you’re most passionate about.
“That’s shitty.” There’s no sugarcoating it. He doesn’t want an apology, and he doesn’t want an explanation. He wants his dad.
He looks surprised but seems to soften a bit. “Yeah. It is.” He waits a beat before speaking again. “Are you an artist?”
“I paint, yeah.”
“Cool.”
I have to fight to stay composed. Don’t get all cheesy on him now.
“Have you ever thought about sending your comics to your dad?” His dad may not want his son to see him in prison, but I’m sure seeing his son’s art would make his time there a whole lot easier.
It might make Kenji feel better too, to know his dad has seen his stuff.
“I thought you could only send letters.”
I won’t pretend to know all the rules of prison mail, but it’s worth investigating. “I could help you look into it.”
He nods his head slowly at first and then quicker, his eyes wandering back to Raena for a moment with a small smile. “That’d be cool.”
“You got it.”
“You, um, wanna read what I have so far?”
“Hell yeah.”
I don’t know how much time passes while I look through Kenji’s comics and he tells me about the world he’s built before Dani taps me on the shoulder.
“You okay?” she asks me while smiling at Kenji.
“I’m great.” I look back to Kenji. “Kenji, do you mind if my friend Dani sits with us?”
He looks her up and down with mild disinterest before going back to his sketching. “I guess.”
“Thank you for letting me in your space.” Dani looks like she’s won the lottery as she slides into the seat across from Kenji.
She lets him set the pace, staying quiet while he feverishly adds to his drawings.
His sister runs over to Dani for help tying her shoe, and when she leaves, Dani gushes about how sweet she is.
Kenji doesn’t speak up to say that’s his sister.
He doesn’t even give an indication that he heard us, he just rips out a piece of paper from his sketchbook and passes it over to Dani with a pack of colored pencils.
Dani doesn’t understand this sudden inclusion, but she can barely contain her excitement. When she shows him the dog she attempted to draw, he silently takes his pencil to it and makes some adjustments for her. How did I get bumped from the best buddy category already?
That’s the power of Dani Jenkins.
Kenji shares the next panel of his comic with me as Dani gets up to find some construction paper. When she comes back, the volunteer who told me about Kenji walks over to us.
“I’m sorry I got caught up. Did you need help with anything else?” I ask.
“Oh no, we’re fine. I actually came over because I noticed your key,” she says to Dani. The key we dug out of Janine’s yard has been hanging from her belt loop since we found it.
“What about it?”
“I’ve seen that symbol before. Come with me.” She leads us to the back office, where there’s a small safe that has the same strange owl symbol as the key.
“Oh shit,” Dani exclaims.
“Do you know what the symbol is for?” I ask.
“Honestly? I don’t think it stands for anything. This safe has been here since I started and only one random guy has ever come and opened it.”
Of course.
Dani sticks the key in the safe and turns.
Inside the safe there’s a broken watch, forever frozen on the time 12:05. Next to the watch is one of Tanya’s notes that says, “A broken clock is right twice a day.”
“Tanya said she would always remember the exact time her heart stopped beating,” Dani says in a hushed tone.
George must’ve been wearing this watch when he fell. I’ll never forget Tanya telling me about the day George died. They were in the grocery store when he collapsed. She rushed him to the hospital, and he never left. Heart attack.
I run out to the car to grab the lockbox. “Do you think that’s the code?”
Dani looks at me with a haunted stare. We both know it’s the right code. We’ve learned the hard way during this scavenger hunt that there’s no way to prepare ourselves for what Tanya has left behind. All we can do is face it together.
She types the four digits into the lockbox and it pops open.
There are two things in the box. Our next clue, written on the back of a deposit slip from some random bank in Chicago, and a marriage license. Dated after George’s death. For Tanya. And another man.