We pulled into our driveway, a small, unremarkable house on the edge of town. I helped Maya inside and took her straight to the bathroom. The blue sealant was already beginning to harden.
“I have to use the heavy soap from the shop,” I told her quietly, pulling a jug of industrial mechanic’s scrub from under the sink. “It’s going to sting.”
“I don’t care,” she whispered, staring blankly at the tile floor.
I spent the next two hours carefully scrubbing the caustic blue chemical out of her hair and off her skin. The smell of the chemicals filled the small bathroom, making my eyes water. Every time a chunk of hardened resin pulled at her scalp, she flinched, but she never cried. She just stared straight ahead, completely broken by what had happened.
When the worst of it was finally gone, her skin was raw and red, her beautiful dark hair severely damaged. I wrapped a towel around her shoulders and sat her on the edge of the bathtub.
“Maya,” I said gently, kneeling down so I was at her eye level. “I need you to tell me exactly what happened. I know that wasn’t a prank.”
She didn’t look at me. She pulled her knees to her chest, hiding her face again.
“They destroyed my camera, Dad. My thirty-five millimeter. The lens is shattered.”
“I can buy you a new camera,” I said. “Why did Trent target you? Sterling said something about you sneaking around taking pictures.”
Maya’s head snapped up. Her eyes were wide, and for the first time, I saw panic replacing the shock.
“I wasn’t sneaking around the school,” she whispered rapidly, glancing toward the bathroom door as if someone might be listening. “I was doing my environmental project for AP Science. I was taking photos of the old riverbed down at Silver Creek.”
My brow furrowed. Silver Creek was on the far edge of the county. It was miles away from the school. “Trent dumped the paint on you because you were taking pictures of a creek?”
“Dad,” she said, her voice shaking violently. “Trent wasn’t pulling a prank. He and three other guys jumped me in the parking lot this morning before classes started. They dragged my bag away and slashed it open. They were looking for my camera. They poured the sealant on me so I couldn’t run away.”
“Why?” I asked, my heart hammering against my ribs.
Maya slowly uncurled her legs. She reached down to her left boot, which I hadn’t managed to pull off yet, heavily caked in mud. She dug her fingers inside the lining of the boot, wincing as her knuckles scraped against the hardened leather.
When she pulled her hand out, her fingers were scraped and bloody. She opened her palm.
Sitting in the center of her hand was a small, black USB memory card adapter containing a tiny micro-SD card. It was smeared with blood from her scraped knuckles and coated in a thin layer of fine river clay.
“Because they didn’t get this,” she whispered, her voice dropping to a terrified breath. “They crushed the camera and slashed the bag to find the film roll. But I didn’t shoot on film yesterday. I used the digital backup they didn’t know about.”
I stared at the tiny piece of plastic in her trembling, bloody hand.
“What is on that card, Maya?” I asked, a cold dread washing over me.
She looked up at me, tears welling in her eyes again. “I saw them, Dad. Trent’s dad. Mr. Sterling. They didn’t know I was in the brush. I have pictures of what they’re doing down at the creek.”
A sharp, violent knock rattled our front door, echoing through the quiet house like a gunshot.
CHAPTER 2
The knock came again, heavier this time, followed by the rattle of the front door handle being tested. My instincts, dormant for more than a decade, flared instantly. The air in the bathroom seemed to freeze. I looked at the bloody memory card in Maya’s hand, the mud on her boot, the terror in her wide brown eyes.
“Stay here,” I ordered, my voice dropping to a gravelly whisper. “Lock the door.”