Relic Page 9

  “I’m Lisa Green,” Lisa said, shaking the detective’s hand.

  “I’m C—Colin,” Colin said, shivering. “Colin Blane.”

  When she turned to me, I froze and stared at her outstretched hand. I was reminded yet again that if I touched her hand, I’d be inexorably linked to her. Police officers were pretty high on my list of people not to touch. They got shot at every day, plus they were always going into dangerous places and fighting dangerous people. The only profession higher on my list of people to avoid was soldiers. Visions of officers or soldiers getting killed would probably be a special kind of horror, and what can you do to stop someone going to war? Not much, that was for sure. I wasn’t about to link myself to this lady.

  I brought my hand to my mouth and coughed. “I’m Dean.” I held up my palms. “I’d shake your hand, but I think I’m coming down with something.” I felt a twinge of guilt for not touching her hand. I wondered if maybe I was being selfish. What Archer would think if he knew I was trying not to touch people. Would he care? Would he think I was a coward?

  The officer shrugged, then eyed us carefully. “So, you three know something about a robbery?”

  “That’s right,” I said. I took a second to consider the lie, or half lie, that we’d created on the way over. “We were—”

  Detective Peters held up her hand. “C’mon back.”

  “Back?” Colin asked.

  “That’s right,” she said, pulling open the door and standing to the side. “Through here. I’ll take your statement.”

  Chapter 19

  Detective Peters led us down a narrow hallway and through another door that opened into a large room humming with activity. A few dozen desks filled the area, and police officers moved between them like marching ants. The detective herded us to an empty workstation, pulled two empty chairs from neighboring desks, and told us to sit. She typed some stuff into her computer, then turned back to us and stared, unblinking, for what seemed like several minutes.

  “Tell me about this robbery,” she said finally.

  Lisa spoke first and kept to the script we’d worked out. “We heard two guys talking outside the museum. They said they were going to break into the place tonight.”

  The officer remained stone-faced. “There were two of them?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, doing my best to sound confident.

  “And all three of you heard them?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the three of us said together.

  “And they said they’d be breaking into the museum?”

  We nodded.

  She turned to Colin. “What did they look like?”

  “Oh, we didn’t see them,” Lisa said, answering for him. “They were behind some bushes.”

  “But we heard them,” I added quickly. “Clear as a bell. There was no mistaking what they said. Plus, they sounded dangerous.”

  “They sounded dangerous?”

  I swallowed. That part wasn’t part of the plan, and I could see the muscles in Lisa’s face clench. She was worried, no doubt, that I’d gone off script. I hadn’t intended to say that, but the detective didn’t seem as interested as I’d imagined. The last thing I wanted was for Detective Peters to think we were lying or had heard wrong. She eyed me with obvious suspicion.

  “They sounded dangerous to me. You know, hushed tones, all serious.”

  “Hushed tones?” she asked. “But you said, just a second ago, that they were speaking clear as a bell.”

  Lisa’s whole body stiffened, and Colin shifted uncomfortably on his chair. I felt beads of sweat form on my forehead. It was time for me to shut up or I was going to ruin everything. “I’m not sure what I mean,” I said. “We did hear them clearly and maybe it was just the way they spoke that sounded dangerous.”

  She turned to Colin. “Tell me how you knew there were two of them?”

  “Um, well, we heard two voices,” Colin said.

  “But you didn’t see them at all?” Her expression remained the same, but I could hear in her tone she wasn’t buying it.

  “The bushes were really thick,” Lisa offered.

  The officer drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Look, you three seem like good kids. I know you might think it’s funny to play a prank.” Her eyes met mine. “Maybe get some revenge on a museum for kicking you out?”

  “W—What?” I asked.

  She raised her brows. “Did you think I wouldn’t recognize you from the paper, Mr. Curse? You’ve been in it a few times, you know. Plus, I’m not about to forget a story about the boy who took down a monk.”

  “We’re not lying,” Colin said, raising his hand like he was swearing on a stack of Bibles.

  “Okay, Colin,” she said, nodding. “You heard two men talking about robbing a museum. Two men, only a few feet away, just beyond some bushes, and you expect me to believe that you didn’t even peek to see who they were?”

  “N—No,” Colin stammered. “I mean, um, yes.” He cleared his throat and tugged at the collar of his wet shirt.

  “Which is it?” Her voice hardened.

  This was not how this was supposed to go. We’d talked through all the possible questions the police might ask us, but her not believing us so quickly caught us off guard. Of course it looked like I was just getting revenge on the museum. I should have realized that. I could’ve kicked myself for being so stupid.

  Colin turned to me then glanced around the room, frantic for someone, anyone, to rescue him.

  “I’ve been a detective a long time, Colin,” Peters continued. “I know witnesses. I also have five older brothers and three kids of my own. Sons.” She said the word sons like she was saying the name of a great battle. “You remind me of one of my brothers, and he wasn’t the kind of kid who would hear two men planning a heist and not peek. You still expect me to believe that you just walked away without a glance?”

  She was right. Colin would have hopped the fence to try to shake their hands. Real live robbers. He would have treated them like movie stars. He probably would’ve asked them for autographs.

  Lisa and I opened our mouths to speak, but the detective pointed at us and spoke without taking her eyes off Colin. “You two don’t speak. Not a word. I’m talking to Mr. Blane for a moment.” Her gaze narrowed on Colin. “Well?”

  In my head, I begged Colin not to mess it up. Just say you didn’t look. Just say you couldn’t wait to get away from there, find the police to report it.

  “I…I, um, might have peeked,” Colin said. I slapped my forehead. The detective glanced at me with an expression that screamed “Gotcha!”

  “No, you didn’t,” Lisa interjected.

  I groaned. We hadn’t talked about what the people could have looked like because we had agreed we weren’t going to give descriptions. Colin tugged at his collar and rubbed the back of his neck. He looked more nervous than I’d ever seen him.

  “Ms. Green, I won’t ask you to be quiet again.” She turned back to Colin. “What did they look like?”

  Colin’s gaze darted around the room again, flitting from one place to another, never fully settling on any one thing. Then he turned back, and in a rush of words that seemed to fall from his mouth, said, “One of them had brown hair, a mustache, and a green windbreaker.”

  “And the other one?” Peters raised one brow.

  The next description came just as fast, like he didn’t like the taste of the words and wanted them out of his mouth immediately. “The other one was black, about six feet tall, with really short hair and a goatee. He was wearing dress pants and a white button-up shirt.”

  I sighed. Not bad, Colin. A button-up shirt wasn’t very burglar-like, but that’s not a bad thing. Colin wasn’t usually such a quick thinker. Actually, he wasn’t much of a thinker at all. I hoped our interrogator would buy the descriptions.

  Peters glanced over her shoulder, then back to Colin and then to me and Lisa. “Do you guys agree? Is that what they looked like?”

  What could we do? If
we said no, then we would make Colin a liar, but if we said yes, maybe they’d go out and round up everyone who matched that description. But as long as they believed us, they’d have to go to the museum. They’d have to increase patrols, and besides, Colin’s description seemed pretty believable to me.

  “Yes,” I said, “that’s what we saw.” Lisa nodded, hesitantly, in agreement.

  “Hanson. Mitchell,” Detective Peters called over her shoulder. “Could you guys come over here for a second?”

  I groaned when the two men stepped up. “Colin, you idiot,” I muttered. Officer Hanson and Officer Mitchell were identical to the two men Colin had just described, right down to the windbreaker and goatee. If it wouldn’t have made me look nuts (or more nuts), I would have stood up and punched Colin right then and there. Not that I would have done a lot better, I supposed. I felt my face flush, and Lisa lowered her chin.

  “What’s up, Peters?” the officer in the green windbreaker asked.

  “Oh, I’m just wondering if you two are planning on robbing the museum later this evening.”

  “Um, no,” the officer with the goatee said. “But plans can change. Do you want me to let you know if we change our minds and decide to steal some dinosaur bones later on?”

  “Yes, please,” Peters replied. “Thanks, guys, that’ll be all.”

  The two officers turned and walked away snickering. Great.

  “Let me guess,” she said, glaring at Colin. “The men you saw and those two officers shop at the same place?”

  Colin stammered for a couple seconds, a series of random syllables that made him, and, by association, us, seem completely out of touch with sanity. The detective looked each of us, one by one, directly in the eye.

  When her gaze settled on me, I gulped and gripped the armrest on my chair. Maybe if I explained, not the whole truth, but enough for her to know we weren’t making it up…I tried to work out what I could say in my head, but everything seemed to end with the Society being compromised. “We didn’t actually see any—”

  “Don’t,” Peters warned, her slender finger pointing at my face. “You helped that Russian fellow who was getting mugged, and then the three of you tried to help your neighbor not too long ago, so I know you’re good kids. But I’ve been doing this job a while, and I’m pretty good at telling when people are lying. You guys are the worst liars I’ve seen in a while.” Her eyes narrowed. “You didn’t overhear anyone planning a robbery, did you?”

  Her words scratched me like sharp branches. She was right: we were lying. And it was ruining the whole thing. Not that the truth would have been any better, but maybe if Colin hadn’t bungled it with his stupid descriptions, or if I hadn’t messed up and put her on edge in the first place, things would have gone a bit better.

  “Here’s what I’m going to do,” Peters said. “I’m going to give you just ten seconds to walk back the way you came and I’ll forget this ever happened. I won’t say a couple kids tried to file a false police report; I won’t call your parents. It’ll be just between you and me. Ten seconds.”

  “Sounds good,” Colin said.

  He and Lisa stood and turned for the door. But I couldn’t move. I couldn’t just walk away from this. I leaned forward. “Please, Detective Peters, could you just have a patrol car drive around the museum at…” I paused, if the deaths were supposed to happen at 12:40, the actual break-in would be at least ten minutes earlier—or maybe fifteen? How long did it take to break in, get caught, and kill someone? I took a guess. “Around 12:25? Just have a car loop the block at that time, please?”

  Her mouth became a thin line, and she stared hard at me for several seconds. “Ten, nine, eight, seven…”

  Colin heaved me to my feet and dragged me through the door we had come through, down the corridor, across the lobby, and out the main entrance before our seconds expired. None of us seemed to care that the rain hadn’t let up or that we were drenched again. We just lowered our heads and slogged our way to the bus stop.

  Silently.

  Chapter 20

  The bus pulled up about fifteen minutes after we made it to the stop. By then, we were no less drenched than if we’d just crawled out of a pool. I collapsed onto a seat at the back and dropped my head into my hands.

  “I’m sorry, guys,” Colin said after the bus lurched forward. They were the first words any of us had spoken since we’d left the precinct, and it just made frustration flare in my chest. Colin added, “I just didn’t expect someone so small to be so intimidating. I got flustered and then I just—”

  “We know what you did,” I snapped. Colin stared at the floor.

  “It’s not all his fault, Dean,” Lisa said, “and you know it.” I couldn’t remember the last time Lisa had come to Colin’s defense, and given how Colin looked up suddenly, I bet he was just as confused.

  “What do you mean it wasn’t all his fault?” I asked. “Of course it was.”

  “It was my fault,” Colin agreed.

  “It wasn’t totally your fault,” Lisa said sternly. “But you are an idiot for giving a cop’s description to another cop. I mean, what the heck were you thinking?” Colin shrugged, and Lisa added, “It really doesn’t matter, though. That cop wasn’t buying our story from the minute we walked in there.”

  “She might still send a car,” Colin said. “She might. And if she does, that might be all we need to stop the robbers.”

  “Sure, Colin,” Lisa said. “That’s not wishful thinking at all.” She lowered her voice and muttered, “We’ll have to call Archer.”

  “Archer.” I groaned. “Great. We’ve been part of the Society for, like, a day and already we have to call and say we couldn’t do it on our own.” Several long seconds passed, and when I looked up, Colin was grinning. “What?” I asked.

  “You said we.” His smile widened. “You said ‘We’ve been part of the Society for a day,’ not just you’ve been part of it. Thanks. I thought that maybe with my screw-up back there you might not want me to…you know…”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll see if you’re still thanking me when we’re trying to stop some burglars and security guards from killing each other tonight.” That made Colin laugh, but it made a fist-sized knot form behind my ribs. Still, I forced a smile and jabbed Colin’s shoulder.

  Lisa rolled her eyes. “Are you guys going to kiss or something? Because if you’re all done making up, we better make that call.” She fished her cell out of her purse and held it out. Water beaded off the surface, and the display, or at least parts of it, flickered like it was having a seizure. She blinked and gasped. “Oh no. It got soaked in the rain. My parents are going to kill me!”

  I pulled mine out of my pocket and it was just was wet as Lisa’s, and just as broken. “Mine too,” I said, groaning.

  Colin smirked. “I’m not sure if you can have visions of yourself, but at least if Lisa’s parents are going to kill her, you can give her the heads up twenty-four hours before they do.”

  I cringed a bit at the thought of seeing one of my friends in a vision. Colin pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and held it up. It was just as wet as mine and Lisa’s, but the display was clear. “They do make waterproof phones, you know.” He pressed the speed dial and handed it to me.

  ***

  I called Archer six times and left two messages before the bus arrived at our stop. Lisa stopped me when I tried to call for the seventh time; she said I was going to scare him off. I was pretty sure you couldn’t scare someone who had the same kind of visions as me, but I decided not to push it.

  “Where is he?” I wondered out loud.

  “He’ll get your messages,” Lisa said. “Don’t worry.” Her voice shook, and I was pretty sure she was just as worried as I was. We trudged down the puddled sidewalk. The rain had eased from a torrent into a sprinkle that I barely felt because I was already so wet.

  “We can’t just wait for him,” Colin said. “We can’t just hope he gets the message or that he’s going to handle it for u
s. Remember what he said? How we’re supposed to handle things on our own?”

  “Not something like this,” Lisa insisted. “He told us to call him if it didn’t go well at the police station. I’d say it didn’t go very well.”

  “Fine,” Colin snapped, “we called him. Do you really want to just sit around and wait to see if everything works out?”

  “Colin’s right,” I said before Lisa could argue back. “We have to do something.” Our options were pretty limited. We had tried the police, and we’d called Archer. That left only one option that I could see, and by the way Lisa was chewing her lip and Colin was nodding, they knew what I was going to say. “We’ll have to go there.”

  “Unless Archer calls,” Lisa said.

  “Unless Archer calls,” I agreed.

  After a few more minutes, Colin said, “It won’t be that tough, guys. All we have to do is sneak out, bike down to that little park across from the museum, and just call the police if we see anything.”

  “And why didn’t we just do that in the first place?” Lisa asked sarcastically. “Oh, yeah, because last time we did that, Dean’s neighbor got killed.”

  “This is different,” Colin said.

  “He’s right,” I said. “What else can we do?”

  “The guards have real guns, Dean,” Lisa said. “Guns that shoot real bullets. I don’t want to get shot.”

  “None of us want to get shot,” Colin said.

  “We’ll stay in the park,” I said. “We’ll do what Colin said and call the police as soon as we see anything suspicious. The police department isn’t so far away from the museum; it’ll take them, like, two minutes to get there.”

  “We won’t leave that little park?” Lisa asked. “Not for anything?”

  “Not for anything,” I said.

  She turned to Colin, who put his hand on his heart and smiled. “Not for anything,” he said. “It’ll be easy. Remember, Detective Peters might make police patrol the area anyway, so the robbers might not even show up.” He turned and muttered, “But I wouldn’t count on that.”