Page 37 of We Are All Guilty Here

A burst of static preceded Dylan’s answer. “Yes ma’am.”

Emmy paged through the health textbook before placing it on the floor, then she put the paper bag on top. Only one other item remained in the locker. Again, she used her phone to document a white mailing envelope. The return address showed a C-shaped gear with a lightning bolt cutting through the middle. Emmy recognized the logo for the Clifton Tool and Die Company. It was the de facto family crest.

Celia asked, “Cheyenne’s father works at the factory, right?”

“Felix Baker. He’s an engineer.”

Emmy opened the envelope. There was another photo, this one showing Cheyenne fully nude. On the bare mattress. On her back. Legs splayed. Arms out. Mouth open.

“Dear God,” Celia said. “What were they mixed up in?”

Emmy put the photograph back in the locker face-down. Shedidn’t want to touch it, didn’t want to know all the things that Cheyenne Baker had lost in that single moment when the camera had captured the image.

She told Celia, “Cheyenne was taking money for sex.”

“Dammit.” Celia sounded disgusted, but more with herself than the girl. “I had no idea. Was she doing it in school?”

“I don’t know. I need copies of all the CCTV footage from the last month.”

“The cameras only cover doors and hallways. She could go into one of the empty classrooms. Bathrooms. Changing rooms. Not that she’d have to. Everyone knows that the system is glitchy.” Celia pointed up at the camera behind Emmy. “We just got that one back online last week.”

“Maybe we’ll get lucky.” Emmy doubted it, but she would go through the footage anyway. “Have you heard any of the kids talk about someone they call the Perv?”

“That’s a bit on the nose,” Celia said. “But no, I haven’t heard of him. Is he your suspect?”

“Could be,” Emmy said, but she was questioning Jack’s reliability. “Where’s Madison’s locker?”

“Down here.”

Emmy waited while Celia slipped the key into the lock. She held her breath, bracing for the horrors they might find. The door swung open, but there wasn’t anything as dramatic as Cheyenne’s. No photographs. No textbook. No brown paper bag. In fact, the locker was empty but for a SIM card that had been cut into three pieces.

“Those little shits,” Celia muttered. “I confiscated Cheyenne’s phone last week. Madison must’ve stolen the SIM card.”

Emmy immediately recalled the conversation about Cheyenne’s burner phones. One of the numbers had gone offline nine days ago and a new number had replaced it. “Where’s the phone?”

“If I’ve still got it, it’ll be in here.” Celia motioned her down the hall. “Two days after I took Cheyenne’s phone, Madison came to my office asking for a tampon. I told her to go to the nurse, but she said she was too embarrassed. I can’t believe I fell for it. I left her alone in my office. She must’ve stolen the SIM card then.”

“You’re sure it was two days later?”

“Absolutely. We had a fire drill that morning. Madison was standing outside my door when I came back from the football field.”

“Was your office locked during the fire drill?”

“Yes, but I unlocked it so she could wait inside. I told you she was sneaky.”

Emmy was more interested in the logistics. Why not take the phone? Why only steal the SIM card? And why destroy it?

If they were right about Madison’s phone logs, Cheyenne had replaced the confiscated burner with a new one the same day. Then two days had passed before Madison had stolen the SIM card. Cheyenne clearly didn’t need a phone at that point. Who had told them to get the SIM card back? And why hold onto the plastic pieces, when cutting it up destroyed whatever data was stored on the card?

Maybe they were supposed to show it to somebody in order to prove that it had been destroyed. Maybe the kidnapper had sent Madison to steal it.

Celia walked through the counseling center to her office in the back. Her desk was piled with neat stacks of papers. There were two framed photos: one of Emmy holding Cole and one of Tommy playing the banjo. It was an old photo. He still had most of his hair.

Emmy scanned the bank of monitors above the filing cabinets across from the desk. They showed the empty hallways, the auditorium entrance, the doors into the back of the building. Dylan had done his job keeping out the kids. The only thing that looked out of place were the contents of Cheyenne’s locker that were still laid out on the floor. Emmy thought about the photos inside. Madison had turned fifteen only yesterday. Her body was less woman than child.

“Here you go.” Celia grabbed a cardboard box off one of the filing cabinets and plopped it down on her desk.

Emmy felt her heart sink. There were at least a dozen phones. “Do you remember what brand Cheyenne was caught with?”

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