“Thank you for your cooperation, Bailey,” Chris said afterwards, shaking Bailey’s hand.
“Sorry, I probably wasn’t much help.”Bailey frowned as he got up to follow Chris towards the exit.
“Any information is helpful, Bailey and, if you remember anything,” Chris held out his card.“Give me a call.”
Bailey took the card to slide into his back pocket, then Bailey went to walk out the door.That’s when he remembered one little detail he forgot to share.Bailey spun on his heel.“Detective Walker!”
Chris stood by his desk, raising his head to offer a curious gaze.
“I forgot something, though I may have seen it wrong, but I think there was the letter R burned into one of the buildings.”
“The letter R?”Chris asked.“What do you mean?”
“When we were running, I looked back, and I thought Boomer had written the letter R into one of the buildings.”Bailey felt a little silly.Panicking and running were not a delightful combination, especially when trying to recall details.So he shook his head.“Sorry, I probably was seeing things.Forget I said that.”
With that, Bailey said goodbye and walked out the door.
“You are going to be the end of me, Bailey Schaefer!”Amery hollered when Bailey entered his dorm room.She threw himself at him.Though sore, he caught his crying friend.
“Are you okay?”she hiccuped.“We saw the news!Then I tried calling, but you weren’t answering and none of us heard from you.We were so worried!”
“Well, she was worried,” Ryan corrected her, earning him a tear filled glare.“It’s nice seeing you’re alright,” he added.
Bailey chuckled.“Yeah, sorry, Amery.It’s not like I tried to get into trouble.On the plus side, though, my car is fine!”
Bailey looked at Amery as if he expected her to be excited at the news.He had just found out because the battle between Seraph and Boomer ended.With town getting cleaned up, Bailey was informed that he’d get his car back sometime tomorrow.Amery did not receive the same joy Bailey did at that knowledge.
“What’s important and what’s on ‘the plus side’ is that you are ok!”Amery jabbed her finger into his chest, causing Bailey to curse.
“Keep stabbing me with your nail like that and I won’t be ok and that will be your fault,” Bailey explained.Scowling, Amery released him to rub her red eyes.
“Sorry, I really am okay,” he added, pulling her in for a real hug.“Thanks for worrying about me, but it’s fine.Everything is fine, and I will do my best not to let it happen again.”
“You better.”
Amery squeezed Bailey one last time before letting go.Then she dragged him to take a seat on the bed.A plate of brownies rested on the bedside table.She made them earlier to calm her nerves, though Ryan chimed in that she added,“maybe he’ll sense the brownies waiting for him and be okay.”
“So what happened?”Ryan asked, smirking at Bailey’s brownie stuffed face.
“Ryan!”She hissed, spinning on her heel with her hands on her hips.“Don’t go asking something like that right after a terrible thing.Bailey needs time.”
“I’m fine, though,” Bailey interrupted, shrugging.“To be honest, it all happened so fast it’s hard to remember it all.Zane was there, though.”
Amery choked on her brownie.Ryan laughed until she threw a brownie at him.Bailey wasn’t sure why she did that because he caught it and ate it, so that wasn’t much of a punishment.
“Seriously?I bet he hates you after this,” Ryan said around his laughter.
“He hated me before,” Bailey replied, shaking his head.“Anyway, it was so hectic that I’m not even sure if I saw things correctly.”
“What makes you say that?”Amery inquired.
Bailey wasn’t sure if he wanted to tell them or not.He honestly believed his eyes were deceiving him.How the hell could there have been a R carved into a building?
Amery jabbed Bailey in the side with her elbow to show that they were still waiting for his response.He looked at their inquisitive gazes, then sighed, “I keep thinking that I saw the letter R on one of the buildings.I think Boomer actually wrote something, but that’s stupid, isn’t it?”
“Not really,” Ryan replied, sitting a little straighter on his bed.“Maybe the attack was some sort of message, then she literally left a message.”
Amery rolled her eyes, but Bailey gave him props for coming up with a potential reason.It made some sort of sense because why else did Boomer attack in the middle of the day in a college town?Sure, she exploded a bank and probably stole the money, but why cause so much damage?Why not just take the money and go?Why not hit a bigger bank in a more prominent area?There were so many questions that Bailey wanted answered.He imagined Detective Walker must have been thinking along those lines, especially when Bailey remembered all the questions he asked.
