The breeze picked up, and leaves skittered across the asphalt. The air smelled cold and dry. Auggie was touching his temple.
“How is your—”
“I know what you’re saying,” Auggie said, “but why would Orlando or Wayne or both of them want Nia dead? I cornered Orlando at the dumpster and made him confess that he’d known about Genesis. What really happened, I mean. He said his family had tried to keep it a secret from him; that’s why he lied. Maybe there’s something there, a motive, although I can’t imagine Orlando doing any of this.” Frowning, Auggie shook his head. “I don’t understand. I believe you that all this could be connected, but I don’t know how.”
“Let’s see if we can figure it out.”
It only took a few minutes for Auggie to find an address for Cedric and Tonya Corey, Deja and Nia’s parents, on a white-page lookup. Over Theo’s objections, Auggie paid for an Uber again, and this time they headed to a pleasant, middle-class neighborhood of homes that had been built in the 80s and 90s. It was near the center of town.
When they got to the Coreys’ home, though, it was empty. Nobody answered the door, and by the time Auggie and Theo had given up knocking, the Uber was gone. Auggie requested another ride, and while they waited, Theo went around back. He checked the windows to make sure nobody was inside, refusing to answer the door. The curtains were open. He recognized the signs of a family trying to control an uncontrollable grief. The home looked neat at first glance, the furniture all relatively new, everything color coordinated. But patches of darker paint on the walls showed where pictures had been removed. Empty casserole dishes were stacked in the kitchen sink, and a pile of cards—our deepest sympathy, my sincere condolences—lay on the kitchen table. By the time Theo came back to the front of the house, he had made up his mind.
“What took you so long?” Auggie asked.
“Let’s have a look inside.”
Auggie canceled the ride request, and together they went around to the back of the house. A pair of French doors led into the living room, and they were easy for Theo to jimmy. As soon as they opened, though, an alarm sounded.
“Shit,” Theo said. He closed the doors, wiped down the surfaces he had touched, and caught Auggie’s look. “Well, how was I supposed to know?”
Auggie pointed at the sticker on the inside of the French door’s glass. Brinks Home Security.
“You could’ve said something.”
“I just noticed, but I’ll have plenty to say later,” Auggie said, with a tiny smirk. “In fact, I think I’m going to be talking about this for a long time. But right now we should probably skedaddle.”
“Skedaddle,” Theo grumbled. Then he ran.
They ran for half a mile before Theo thought it was safe to try for another ride request; he suggested a visit to Genesis. But Auggie hesitated. Then he said, “You said she’s an athlete.”
“Who? Genesis? Deja?”
“They are too, but I meant Nia. Tennis. Just like her sister. And you said she signed with Wroxall.”
“Like Genesis too,” Theo said.
Auggie frowned. He opened his mouth, seemed to consider what he had been about to say, and shook his head.
“What?”
“I don’t know,” Auggie said. “But you’re right. It’s a strange coincidence. I want to check a few things on campus.”
So they went back to Wroxall instead of the Sigma Sigma house. When the Uber dropped them off, Auggie had his hand pressed to the side of his head.
“Let’s call it a day,” Theo said. “Your head must be killing you.”
“It’s not even noon. And I took my medicine. I’ll be fine.”
“I really think—”
“Brinks Home Security.”
Theo gritted his teeth.
“Every time,” Auggie said. “You’re never going to live it down.”
“God damn it.”
They walked through Eveleigh, but since the old Field House had been transformed into the robotics facility, there wasn’t anything they could link to Nia, Deja, or Genesis. For that matter, there was nothing they could connect to Cal or Wayne—or Orlando, although Theo wasn’t willing to voice that particular suspicion yet.
It was Saturday, but the building still seemed half-full, young men and young women working in the labs, some of them fiddling with what, to Theo, looked like robots—which made sense—while others were busy on computers. In a lounge, several of them sat laughing, drawing equations on a whiteboard they had laid across the back of a sofa, laughing more whenever somebody got something wrong. It all seemed surprisingly good-natured, although Theo couldn’t for the life of him understand what was so funny.
Next, they went to the new athletic center. They swiped in with their student IDs, but when Theo headed for the main area, Auggie jerked his head to the side, and said, “This way.”
“Equipment and locker rooms are this way,” Theo said. “Although how we’re going to get into the girls’ locker room—”
“The team locker rooms are downstairs; Orlando mentioned it last year. Over here. Come on.”
He was right. They went down a long flight of stairs to the basement, which was lit with steadily humming fluorescents. The smell of a heavy-duty cleaner tried to cover up the stink of sweat, mildew, and what Theo imagined was a raging infestation of ringworm. They passed a young guy who was carrying a pair of football pads; he didn’t give them a second look. In an alcove, two very tall girls were holding a volleyball between them, turning it back and forth. One of them explained something about spiking the ball. She was using her hand to demonstrate.
Auggie stopped at a sign that said Women’s Tennis. He raised his eyebrows.
Elbowing open the door, Theo called inside, “Custodial.”
“Creative,” Auggie whispered.
“A little less feedback—”
“Brinks.”
Theo snapped his jaw shut. Auggie just grinned.
When no one responded to a second call of “Custodial,” they went inside. The locker-room funk was even worse—apparently girls were not an exception—and their steps echoed against the tile and the bare cement. A dogleg hallway connected them to the locker room proper, and Theo and Auggie took a few minutes orienting themselves.
“Here,” Auggie called, tapping a locker. The metal rang out under his touch.
Theo joined him. A plaque with a piece of tape held Nia Corey’s name written in Sharpie. A padlock secured the locker.
“Great,” Auggie said. “So much for this.”
“Find something small and hard,” Theo said.
“What?”
“Small and hard. Preferably with a handle.”
Theo moved off to begin his own search, and after a moment, he heard Auggie’s steps moving across the tiles. The first place Theo checked was the locker room door, hoping for a doorstop, but he didn’t have any luck. He backtracked and checked the other lockers, hoping to find one open. No luck there either. He tested the door to the team office, and the handle jiggled slightly, but then it held.