Chapter 5

Mara found Hank Pruitt in the basement, where the boilers clanked and the hallway smelled like old mops. He was sixty-one, skinny, with a silver mustache and hands scarred from decades of fixing things nobody noticed until they broke.

I came down with Rhonda behind me. Hank looked at me like I was a bomb he had been told not to touch.

“I don’t want trouble,” he said.

“Neither do I,” I said. “I want to know about a lock.”

Hank’s eyes went to the door. Then he pulled a ring of keys off his belt and used the smallest one to open a metal cabinet. Inside were maintenance logs, carbon-copy forms, and a half-eaten bag of pretzels.

He flipped through a notebook and stopped on a page. December fifth. Supply closet, east gym hallway. Request: new keyed lock. Signed L. Vance.

“He said kids were getting in there,” Hank said. “Said he needed it locked for safety.”

“Was it scheduled?”

“No. He asked me to do it off the books. I told him I had to log it. He said he’d handle the paperwork.” Hank’s mouth twisted. “He never did.”

“How often was the closet locked?”

Hank shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s not my floor after three. But I saw him go in there sometimes. With the girl.”

My hands curled at my sides. Rhonda put a hand on my shoulder.

“Did you ever see him lock her inside?” she asked.

Hank’s face went gray. “I saw him close the door. He had that whistle around his neck. I didn’t think-I didn’t know.”

“Would you testify to that?”

He shook his head before she finished. “I can’t. I got a pension. I got a wife with MS. Lyle knows people.”

“So do I,” I said. “My sister’s a paralegal. My lawyer’s right here. We can protect you.”

Hank laughed without humor. “You can’t protect me from a man who parks outside my house at night.”

He pulled out his phone. His thumb shook as he scrolled. The photo was dark, taken through a window. A car sat at the curb under a streetlight. I recognized the shape, the color, the small sticker on the rear bumper: a soccer ball with a swoosh.

“Last night,” Hank said. “I went out to bring in the trash. He was just sitting there. Didn’t roll down the window. Didn’t say anything. Just watched.”

Rhonda looked at the photo. “Can I send this to myself?”

Hank hesitated. Then he nodded.

I stared at the car. Lyle had been at the school all evening. But the night before, he had been outside Hank Pruitt’s house, making sure the old man knew what would happen if he talked.

“He’s not going to get away with this,” I said.

Hank put the phone back in his pocket. “Maybe not. But I’m not going to be the one who buries him.”

“You might be the only one who can.”

He looked at the maintenance log, then at me. “I’ll think about it.”

That was more than I had ten minutes ago. I took it.