Page 76 of Locke 2

“He put a lot of work into it,” Jem replied, thinking. “You only do that when you’re thinking about that person a lot.”

“That’s exactly it,” Locke replied. “He may have trusted this man, which would be good, because that means we should be able to find him.”

The picture made my skin crawl. Why had Lenny drawn that? I tried to imagine the boy picking up the crayon and drawing a circle for a face—

I paused, staring hard at the floor while my mind wandered. Something niggled at me. That same feeling I had before when I’d seen the picture for the first time.

“It wasn’t the first time he had drawn a face.”

Despite talking, they’d been paying close attention to me, too. They went completely quiet. All eyes settled on me.

I looked up, meeting their gazes, nodding because I remembered now. “In his planner…he drew a door, and there was something on it.”

“What was on it?” Jem asked.

But I didn’t need to answer. Locke’s voice cut in. “A lock.”

I nodded, my heart picking up. “And he drew something else, too. A face.”

“The same face that was on the wall?” Conor questioned.

I shrugged. “It could have been, but it was a face, and it…” I paused, my face paling as I recalled the face and what was around it. “The window. There was a window around it, and at the time, I thought it was supposed to show someone looking out the window, but—”

“It was someone looking in,” Jem cut in, his face paler than a sheet of paper.

I nodded, wordlessly.

Jem and Conor exchanged looks, but Locke was solely watching me, his eyes carrying that fear I’d seen just outside Lenny’s bedroom.

“What’s outside the window?” Jem asked.

“A patio,” I answered, looking away from Locke to stare at him.

“And beyond that?”

“Well, a street, and then a new housing development.”

“So, it’s in construction.”

“Yeah.”

“Deserted at nights.”

Conor’s voice piped up. “If someone wanted to pay Lenny a visit by jumping the fence, would there have been any witnesses?”

“We’ll find out when you both pay those neighbours a visit tomorrow,” Locke returned.

This time, Jem didn’t look as itchy when he looked at Conor. “I need the old Conor for that.”

Conor’s lips flinched into a smirk. “A little bit of the old me.”

“More than a little.”

“I’m not going back to prison.”

Jem smiled dangerously. “For this, I’d be happy to.”

That seemed to break the ice between them. When they strategized, there was no bickering or jabs. They began to develop a plan, and Locke was already sending out orders to his men that were discreetly stationed all over Georgewel.

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