Page 45 of Make No Mistake

I sucked in a breath. If he was saying this, then the school had officially acknowledged it.

“The school has another statement they would like us to add to a special edition to the paper. We’ll need to have it ready to send out through email by nine this morning.”

Jay and I looked at each other and groaned. We had less than three hours to put it together.

“Mac.” I looked up to see Mr. Jowett and the entire group looking at me. “I’d like you to be in charge of this one. Jay will obviously be there to help and will write a statement, but I want you to take the lead.”

“Of course.” I had a feeling this was his way of approving my project. He was giving me this to use as my senior project.

Jay rubbed my back, and I knew he was thinking the same thing.

Once we were dismissed, Mallory turned around to congratulate me. “Let me know what I can do to help.”

“Thanks.”

Lennon stood and looked at me for a beat before speaking. “What do you need from me?”

I shot a look at Jay. I wasn’t used to being the decision maker. “Have you taken shots of each of the areas where attacks have occurred?”

“I have the first two.”

“Great. I’ll need some from the scene last night.”

He nodded once and was gone.

Jay pulled out his laptop and opened it. “Tell me what to do, boss.”

I shot him a look. “Get me your statement, and I’ll work on mine. If we have those done in thirty minutes, we will have plenty of time for edits and finalizing the format before this goes live.”

He nodded and began typing.

I opened my own laptop and began an outline of what I wanted to cover. I’d already warned people to stay away from dark, wooded areas alone at night, but still, people weren’t listening.

I instantly felt guilt for placing any blame on the victims. Of course the girl in my complex had every right to take out her trash whenever she felt the inclination. I hated that this person was taking that away from people, but right now that was our reality.

Until the suspect was arrested, we needed to remain aware and take precautions.

This guy wasn’t even fighting fair. The girl last night may have been trained in self-defense, but when you’re struck from behind there’s nothing you can do to defend yourself. Same with the girl running on the path. She might have been carrying pepper spray and not have the chance to use it since she was blindsided.

I finished and sent it to Jay to have him review it and waited for him. He looked deep in thought, so I stood and made my way through the tables and chairs to the other side of the room where our designers were working.

I pulled out a chair and watched Mallory put together the template. She already had the school’s official statement in place as well as the images of the first two crime scenes.

“That looks great.”

She smiled and kept working. “It’s pretty easy since there’s not very much copy text to add. Lennon said he would email me the images of last night’s location when he took them.”

“Perfect.”

Things were coming together smoothly, but I still felt pressure to get this out on time. We had about an hour left, and all we needed were two short articles and a photo. I could handle this.

“Mac!” I turned at my name and saw Jay pointing to my computer. “I need you to review mine.”

I nodded and turned back to Mallory. “We should have our copy to you in the next ten minutes. Would you let me know when you get the photo so I can review the whole thing before we send?”

“Sure thing.” She smiled and quickly went back to work.

I hurried back to my table and read Jay’s statement a few times, looking for typos or any discrepancies in facts, but of course, he did an excellent job and I was able to send it over to Mallory.