Page 34 of Make No Mistake

Ten

I wason my way to class when my phone started buzzing in my pocket. Mr. Jowett’s name caught me off guard. I’d turned in my article with plenty of time yesterday.

“Hello?”

“Mckayla. I need you to come in to the lab.”

His voice sounded strained. He was always stressed out, but something in his voice made me pause.

“I have a class …”

“I’ll email your professor to excuse you. I need you here now.”

He hung up and I didn’t waste time walking across campus. When I walked into the lab almost everyone on the paper was gathered. A very rare sight.

Jay waved and pointed to the seat next to him. When I sat down, I leaned over and whispered. “Do you know what’s going on?”

It wasn’t a normal staff meeting. Those were on Wednesday mornings, and even then, not everyone was required to show. This was something major.

“I’m not sure.”

I bit my lip to keep my focus away from freaking out. If Mr. Jowett hadn’t told Jay, it could mean one of two things. Either it was huge or nothing. But he wouldn’t have pulled everyone out of classes for nothing. Crap.

A few more people trickled in before Mr. Jowett stood at the front of the room. Everyone fell silent, not even needing any prompting. We were all desperate to know what was happening.

“Thanks for coming in on such short notice. I know most of you are missing class, and I wouldn’t have asked that of you for anything less than breaking news.”

I looked out of the corner of my eye and met Jay’s gaze.

“There was another attack.”

There was a collective gasp, and murmuring started. He held up his hand and the group fell silent.

“We have very limited information so far. It was another female victim. It took place early this morning, around four a.m. It was inside the McKinley dorms grounds.”

“That’s it?” a voice from the front asked.

Mr. Jowett nodded. “That’s it.”

There was more whispering, but Mr. Jowett ignored it. “The school has asked that we send out an immediate notice.” He looked toward a group that was in charge of formatting. “I’ll need you guys to have an email template ready to send out as soon as we get the article written. I want text notices with this one.”

He searched the room before looking directly at me. “Mckayla, I want you to do the write up. Quickly.”

I nodded and stood. I stepped carefully through the crowd toward the computers. I hadn’t planned on needing my laptop this morning, so I was going to have to quickly write on one of the staff computers.

There were only a few facts, so the article was short but to the point. We didn’t know for certain that the two attacks were related and I knew the school wouldn’t want me to make that connection so I left that out, for now.

I had a feeling they were, but I didn’t have proof. That would be my next task. Within twenty minutes, I had written and sent it over.

I found Jay on his laptop and sat next to him. My class was already over so I had time.

“I think I figured it out.”

He looked up and met my gaze. “You figured out who the attacker is?”

I shook my head. “Not yet.”

“Okay then. What did you figure out?”