I duck into the girl's bathroom and splash some water over my face. It makes me feel a little better. I lock myself in a cubicle and try hard to think.
Lynch is out in the middle of town right now. Hopefully she will have found somewhere to lie low, but she's still out there, and still unaware that the police are mounting a full-scale search for her. I could wait until the end of the school day, but by then it might be too late. She has to be warned. Which means I have to get out of school.
I wait in the toilets for an hour, until the bell rings for lunch. Then I head out to the front of the school. Students in the final year are allowed to leave the campus for lunch hour, and my plan is to blend in with them and hope that nobody notices.
As I approach the gate, my heart does a flip. The police cars are still there, and I recognise Miller standing by the gate along with a couple of other officers, talking casually. It takes all my willpower to keep walking and pretend that everything is normal. I pass through the gate along with a small stream of older students, and set off quickly down the road.
I make myself wait until I'm at the end of the road before I relax. Once I'm certain that I'm out of sight of the school gates I start to move at a rapid jog.
It takes me twenty minutes to get into town. I head for the spot where I left Lynch this morning, but unsurprisingly she isn't still waiting there. Breathless from the jog I turn around in circles, searching the scattering of midday shoppers. If I was left alone in a strange high street for a day, where would I go to get away from the crowds?
I try the food court of the mall. It's crowded with people, but none of them are Lynch. I try some of the quieter coffee shops along the high street, but they're similarly empty. As I leave the last one I catch sight of a couple of police officers in fluorescent jackets wandering down the middle of the thoroughfare. They're stopping people at random and talking to them, showing them what looks like a picture. My heart starts thudding again and I duck back inside the coffee shop and head for the toilets. I lock myself in a cubicle and set about removing my school blazer and tie and stuffing them in my bag. I allow myself five minutes to calm down, then head back out.
The two police officers I saw aren't the only ones. They're everywhere; I see a couple of them attaching posters to lampposts, and I don't even have to go close enough to read to know the gist of what those posters say.
"Where are you, Lynch?" I whisper under my breath. I'm starting to panic now, slow burn. Desperate I start heading for the shopping mall again, wondering if I might have missed her. I'm halfway there when it hits me. Of course; if she was looking for somewhere quiet to spend the day then she could hardly do better than the city library. How could I not have thought of it before? I've spent long enough hiding out there myself that it should have been obvious.
I change course and start towards the library, praying that I won't be too late.
