to detail. She was doing what he usually did, had been trained to do, and she was doing it by instinct.
Janie next checked under the bed. He’d already done that and found nothing unusual.
But she pulled out one tennis shoe. “This isn’t his.”
Rafe looked at it: dull brown and somewhat new. “How can you be sure?”
“Derek would never wear this color.”
“What color is it, exactly?”
Janie gaped at him in disbelief. “It’s green.”
Rafe wasn’t one for sharing what he didn’t consider a disability. But, in this case, it might make a difference in what she could see and what he couldn’t.
“I’m color-blind, which means I have poor discrimination with certain colors. Green being one of them.”
Her expression went from disbelief to pity. Well, an artist would feel sorry for someone who couldn’t appreciate every color’s beauty.
“That must make your job harder.”
“There was some concern that I wouldn’t pass the vision test. I did, and luckily, my condition is considered mild. The fact that I work for a small rural county makes a difference. I also wear corrective lenses.”
“Derek wore black, gray and white. It’s almost as if he was making a statement about his personality. Green is the color of safety.”
Rafe dumped the shoe in a baggie he pulled from his pocket and ran out the door to ask the Chaneys what size shoe Derek had worn—Mrs. Chaney said her son was an eleven.
Rafe reentered the room as Janie was bending to check an unzipped backpack that was stuffed to the side, books and papers spilling out. Janie riffled through it for a moment, then she pulled an art book from a side pocket and flipped it open. Derek’s inked name was on the cover. She thumbed through the pages.
He touched her arm and angled her so he could read over her shoulder.
“This is his, this is the right one. He’s done most of these thumbnails or scrapped them. No writing yet, but maybe there’s something at the end, some reason he didn’t want to turn this one in to me.”
He noticed how carefully Janie held the book—for a witness, she was getting too involved.
It only took her a moment to make it to the final pages, but it felt much longer to Rafe. Then her face turned white. He took a step toward her. She didn’t notice; she was focused on the art book, not on him.
Derek’s final drawing told Rafe exactly how much danger Janie was in.
Two dark trees, lots of dirt, and an open grave with a body in it. Derek had penned a few words underneath:
I have to tell somebody. I can’t live with this. But if I confess, whomever I tell will be in as much danger as me.
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