Page 154 of Don't Say a Word

“It wasn’t jewelry, or not just jewelry. It was a jangle of keys. But...”

“Don’t stop. Spill it. You’re safe here,” Cal repeated.

“Mrs. Webb always has keys around her wrist. She’s the vice principal. Mr. Borel didn’t give me shit when he saw me, but she would have. But I didn’t really think about it when I heard it, it was like... I don’t know, I just knew it was her but didn’t consciously think about it until now.”

“You heard her. Did you see her?”

“No.”

“Do you remember what she said?”

“I don’t...” Angie paused, squeezed her eyes shut. “Give me five minutes.”

“She was talking to someone and said, ‘Give me five minutes’?”

“Yeah.” Angie opened her eyes. “Then I heard heels coming down the hall... Oh, my God!”

I knew it almost before she said it.

“Mrs. Clark! She wears heels, they were her heels. I heard her walking down the hall toward her office as I left.”

“So Mrs. Webb, who you recognized by the keys jangling around her wrist, and maybe her voice, came into the building with Mrs. Clark, they parted ways, and Mrs. Webb said to give her five minutes.”

As if she would be meeting her in five minutes.

Which gave Lena enough time to call me before Melissa Webb came back to kill her.

After Cal called in a protection detail for Angie, we leaned against the wall outside her room as we waited for her bodyguard to arrive.

“It’s all set,” he said to me. “I’ll hang until they arrive. Shouldn’t be more than an hour.”

“You did great with Angie,” I said.

“She’s a great kid. A little too smart and sassy for her own good, but who doesn’t love a smart-ass?”

“Most parents.”

He laughed. “Well, I’m not a parent.”

We stood there in silence and it wasn’t uncomfortable. “What’s your story?” I finally asked him.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we’re waiting here for a guard for who knows how long. Why DEA?”

“Why not?”

It was a flip answer, and I didn’t believe him. “Your sister?”

“Hitch blabbed.”

I didn’t respond.

“In part,” Cal said, and that was it. For now.

“Where you from?” I asked.

“All over.” He glanced at me and raised his eyebrows. “Army brat.”