Chapter 4: Back Stairs

The van's door slid open, and a man in a gray hoodie got out.

"That's him," I whispered. "That's the one."

Ryan's hand went under his jacket to his gun.

"Don't," I said. "If you pull that on him, he calls Gwen from the sidewalk, and the baby is gone."

His hand stayed where it was. His jaw worked.

"Then what do I do?"

"You go to the front door and talk to him like you never heard that recording."

I pulled him into the hall and pointed at the end of it.

"I'll be in the boiler room. It has a window onto the lobby."

He looked at me, then at the lobby doors, where a shape was already pressing a face to the glass.

"Erin, if he comes in..."

"He won't. You're a cop in a school at midnight. He'll lie and leave."

He nodded once.

I slipped through the boiler room door and stood on a milk crate under the window, my side burning where the stitches pulled.

Ryan unlocked the front doors.

"Help you?" he said, flat and easy.

"Delivery for the cafeteria," the man said. He kept his hands in his hoodie pocket.

"At midnight."

"Got a late start."

Ryan stepped out onto the walk and looked at the van.

He took his time reading the plate, and I knew he was memorizing it.

"Cafeteria's closed for the summer," he said. "Try the district office Monday."

The man's eyes went past him into the empty lobby.

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