Bass Case

Chapter 28: Secrets Revealed

"Face it. There's nothing." Brenda retorts, sagging down in defeat.

I draw back from under the desk with a sigh, leaning against the wall beside her. I growl in frustration. All this trouble just to find that all the evidence is wiped clean. Every drawer is unlocked, and there doesn't appear to be any secrets... I guess it was a lost cause. I hear the patter of the guards roaming the halls. Then they take their place back at their original post. "Great. How are we getting out of here now?"

We hear a muffled gleeful voice from the outer parts of the door. Through the small window frame in the door I can make out the figure of the band director. He's casually having a conversation with the security guards. Then I pop up, emerging from Forte's office. "Daniel! What are you doing?" Brenda whispers in her panic filled voice.

"It's Vibrato." I reply, waving my hand to get his attention. His smile stiffens once he catches site of me, but he carries on his conversation as usual. After a few moments he somehow manages to convince the guards to slip away for a bit. "That's our chance." We take the opportunity to bolt out of the door as quietly as possible. Our softened footsteps echo throughout the wide walls of the building. "That was close."

"Yeah. Luckily we had Vibrato there to help." Brenda replies.

"Hey! You two! Stop right there!" We freeze up, slowly turning in the direction of the authoritative voice. A man in a thick uniform approaches us with hard eyes. "I saw you two come out of the orchestra room. It's off limits right now. What were you two doing?"

Crap! What do we do? "Uh," I utter, "we had to get something we needed from there."

"All personal belongings were to be taken home last week. No students are aloud in there. What were you doing in there?" The guard proceeds further. I struggle to find my words, and Brenda doesn't fair much better. Just when I lose hope Vibrato comes back into the mix.

"Wait! Wait! Sorry, they're with me. I asked them to go retrieve something for me." The band director states, running up next to us, placing both his hands on our shoulders.

"Vibrato." The security guard growls, "I made it clear that no students were to enter that room."

The professor scratches the back of his head in embarrassment. "Yeah. Hehe...kind of forgot, but surely I thought the security guards would be there to stop them if they couldn't go in."

"They weren't there, sir." Brenda states, "So we mistakenly thought we could go in. We didn't mean any trouble."

The man growls in frustration, still unconvinced, "Okay, what exactly did you go to retrieve then? I don't see you with anything?"

"It got cleaned out. It wasn't there, so we didn't get it." I reply. The man stares at the three of us hard for almost a solid minute before finally sighing and letting us go on with our day. I can feel a wave of relief wash over my body, sending a tingly sensation throughout. I can feel the heat decrease in my face as we proceed along. "Thanks Vibrato." I whisper.

"Okay, come with me. I backed you up, but I still want to know what's up." The band director states, leading us to his band room. The white walls of the room envelope us in light. It looks to be similar to the orchestra room but on a larger scale. He has his office on the side where he leads us in to sit. His desk is black with many drawers, and his office is slightly larger than that of Forte's. Unlike the rest of the room, his office is lit by a dim lamp. The room smells of disinfectant. It makes me nervous as though I am in a doctors office. We sit across from him and the large high tech computer monitor on his desk. "So, wanna tell me why exactly you were sneaking around in the orchestra room?"