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“Hey Danny!” I said, closing the creaky driver’s side door.
I pulled my jacket closer to my body to keep the winter air from chilling me any further than my daunted bones already ached.
“Well Jules, every time I see you, you just get prettier and prettier,” he said before turning to me. “You’re gonna’ have to break ‘em off with a stick Elliott!”
“That’s actually kind of why we’re here Danny,” I said.
His eyes turned serious.
“What’s goin’ on?” He asked, furrowing his brow.
Uncle Danny was no longer there. We were now speaking to officer Danny.
“Well,” I said, pulling the flaming note from my pocket and handing it to him, “Jules found this note in her messenger bag this morning.”
He unfolded the note and read its words, then looked at us in silence.
I continued, “And basically, it’s not something we’d have wanted to involve the police in but we think the person who put it there had broken into Jules’ bedroom to do it.”
“Wait. Wait, now. You said it was in her messenger bag. It could have been any of the kids at school. This could very easily be a joke.”
“Well, unfortunately we’ve run into a few issues with some people at school so we know it’s not a joke. Also, I thought it had to have been put into the pack this morning but Jules said the messenger bag hadn’t been near anyone at all that morning except herself and myself, that it hadn’t been in there last night when she was doing her homework and when she found it this morning she knew the only way it could have gotten there was some time while she was sleeping.”
He sat for awhile and deliberated what his next steps would be.
“Chances are it’s just mean teenager crap but I’ll follow up on it either way. I better call Principal Rudolph at her home and just fill her in. Who are these people giving you trouble Elliott?”
He looked at me suspiciously but decided I wasn’t the type he’d easily associate with trouble.
“Uh, Jesse Thomas,” I said reluctantly.
“Jesse Thomas? Your best friend Jesse Thomas?”
“Ex-best friend,” I corrected.
“But it could also be Taylor Williams. She hates me too. We’re just not sure which one,” Jules laughed nervously.
“Okay,” he said shaking his head, rubbing chin stubble between his thumb and forefinger. “I’ll be right back.”
Jules and I heaved ourselves onto the hood of my truck. The heat from the engine was a comfort. I made sure she sat closely so our skin would stay in contact and it’d keep me calm. It was freezing but neither of us made an attempt to go inside because our contact kept us a balmy ninety-eight point six, maybe warmer. I don’t think we wanted to hear the conversation he was having either. We remained silent, keeping a conversation within ourselves.
I tried extremely hard not to imagine Jesse sneaking into Jules’ room, slithering his way around, going through her stuff. I also tried not to think about all the different ways I’d kill him when I found out for sure that it was him. I tried not to think about what I was going to say to him at school the next day as well. I did think about avoiding him altogether and skipping school but I had to see for myself the way he acted around me, around us. I knew him well enough to recognize when he was acting shady, though Jesse 2.0 might be a little harder to decipher.
Jules squeezed my hand tightly into hers to ease my restlessness. She was reading me. It worked. I closed my eyes and let the sleepy current soften my rigid torso. I took a deep breath through my nose and nearly drowned from the heavenly delirium that was Jules’ perfume. I fought past that and could smell dark smoke, most likely from a couple miles ahead of us at the Miller’s house. They always started burning old wood from the prior winter seasons first and I could smell the burning of dormant kindling.
I looked up and saw my Uncle Danny hanging up the phone. He swung his coat over his shoulders and stomped his heavy boots across the old wood floor of the station and out onto the little covered porch.
“I’ve let the Principal know. She promised to keep an eye on things. I’ve decide it’d be a good idea if we took a ride over to the Jacobs’ residence and search around the property for any signs of forced entry.” He paused and stared at our distressed faces, “I’m sure it’s not a big deal kids. I’m just taking the necessary precautions.”
Danny came close and patted me on the shoulder. His kind words did nothing to alleviate my fears and I was positive it didn’t help Jules either. We knew Jesse and Taylor and either one of them was capable of jumping the line of rationality, we’d seen it with our own eyes, but we never thought it could come to this. My money was still on Jesse though.
Jules and I jumped into my truck and followed Danny to the Jacobs’ house, again, as quiet as before. When we arrived, Danny walked us around Jules’ house and asked her where her window was. She pointed at the windows that belonged to her room and Danny moved in closely to the one at the back of the house.
“I see no signs of entry here, let’s check the other window at the side of the house,” he said.
We rounded the corner and saw one of the most painfully terrifying things I’d ever seen. Two sets of old foot prints, barely visible in the snow leading from the brush to the side of the house and back. The prints were so faded I had no idea how large they actually were and therefore unable to figure out whether it was Taylor’s or Jesse’s prints, or both. Did Jesse come to the window twice or once with an accomplice?
Against the wall laid two cinder blocks, one right next to the other, the longer sides parallel with the side of the house. When we looked closely at the window the paint had been freshly scratched where the intruder had pried open the bottom of the ancient window, probably with a crowbar from the width of the scratch. I watched Jules start to lose it a little bit so I grabbed her and held her steadily against my side.
