Near Miss

Chapter Two: Shards

Officer Steele of the Skybrook Police Department stood halfway down the passage, facing a wall. Although he appeared to be examining the wallpaper intently, Sylvie thought it more likely that he'd just happened to zone out in an inconvenient place. Still, he was probably thinking about the case, which wasn't exactly a bad thing.

Sylvie, for once, was almost glad he wasn't paying attention- because he hadn't noticed her approach.

As was not unusual, Sylvie had definitely picked the wrong shoes. The floors of the real estate office were of the same smooth tile as Sylvie's bathroom floor, and her shoes announced her presence before she was halfway down the passage. At least, they would have if Officer Steele had been paying attention.

"Hello?" Sylvie attempted halfheartedly.

Steele turned away from the wall in a perfectly natural motion, as if nothing had happened. He ran his fingers through the mess of his hair, trying to smooth it down. "Hello?" His tone carried the same inflection as Sylvie's- a question, definitely, but it seemed as if he was more concerned with who she was than whether she would respond.

Sylvie tried to stand as straight and confidently as possible, which was not something she often found necessary. "I'm a friend of Detective Knapp's," she said importantly. "She's a bit busy, so she asked if I'd come over to take a look."

She felt certain Officer Steele was going to make a comment about her age, but he didn't offer one. His brow furrowed. After a moment he said: "Isn't Detective Knapp taking vacation time?"

Sylvie couldn't help but wonder why on Earth Rorie hadn't told her this. It only took a moment for her to recover. "That's what I meant."

Steele looked doubtful, but he shrugged anyway. "This isn't that important, I guess it's fine if we let the public see it." He rolled his eyes. "It'll be in the paper tomorrow, anyway. I swear there's some kind of leak, although we can't seem to figure out where."

"Why do you say that?"

"Oh, I don't know. And even then, the paper seems to figure everything out before us." He scoffed. "Those burglaries on Woodcreek Street? We didn't realize it had to do with a teacher, not until the paper ran an article about it the next day."

Worried that she might give herself away, Sylvie attempted to change the subject. "So this was just pretty straightforward vandalism?"

"Well, see, we thought it was," Steele sighed. "But they left a couple of notes, and it's clear enough that they knew what was going on."

"And what was that?"

"I can't say," Steele said importantly, smoothing his hair again. Then, after a moment, he seemed to reconsider. "This real estate place has had a history of... well... dishonesty," he finished lamely. "It's only just starting to come out, but whoever wrote the notes clearly knows a lot more about it than we thought."

Sylvie's eyes were already flicking from corner to corner, examining the front room. Several chalk marks had been traced on the front desk, but she suspected that these had more to do with Officer Steele than with the vandalism itself. The front wall was almost completely glass, making it easy for Sylvie to spy the carefully tended rows of bushes bordering the windows. The left front window had been smashed, leaving jagged shards of glass clinging to the edges. To Sylvie, who was rather tired after getting a less-than-optimal amount of sleep the previous night, it almost resembled a gaping mouth. The floor was clean except for a few small chalk marks; Sylvie assumed that these marked spots where glass had fallen to the ground.

"The cleaning person left at about midnight last night," Steele explained. "Saw nothing."

"Did the security cameras catch anything?"