Chapter 2 - The Compass in the Drawer
Jasmine lived with her mother in a narrow brick house at the end of Lark Street.
By four that afternoon, three news vans were parked outside.
Someone had placed a handwritten sign against their fence.
LIARS LIVE HERE.
Her mother, Elena, pulled it down without speaking.
Inside, Jasmine sat at the kitchen table with an ice pack pressed against her wrist. She had injured it while pulling Daniel from the mud, but she had not noticed until they reached home.
Elena switched off the television.
The reporters had already obtained Jasmine’s school photograph.
On screen, she looked younger than seventeen.
More frightened.
The headline beneath her face read:
STUDENT’S DIGITAL ERROR LEADS TEAM INTO QUARRY DISASTER.
“It wasn’t my error,” Jasmine said.
“I know.”
“You didn’t even ask what happened.”
“I know you.”
Elena filled the kettle, though neither of them wanted tea.
For seven years, she had responded to fear by making tea.
She had made tea when the police found her husband’s car beside Highway 16.
Tea when they discovered blood on the steering wheel.
Tea when investigators suggested Aaron Cole had abandoned his family.
Tea when the search ended.
Jasmine removed the black compass from her hoodie pocket.
Mr. Park had allowed her to keep the school tablet long enough to photograph the corrupted map. She enlarged the symbol on her phone and placed it beside the compass.
They matched.
Elena dropped the kettle.
Water splashed across the floor.
“Where did you see that?”
“On the route file.”
Her mother stared at the compass.
Aaron had given it to Jasmine when she was nine. After his disappearance, police returned it with the other items found inside his car.
Elena grabbed the phone.
“Who else saw this symbol?”
“I don’t know. Maybe everyone.”
“You must delete the photograph.”
“No.”
“Jasmine.”
“Dad knew something about that quarry.”
Elena’s face closed.
“Your father is not part of this.”
“The same symbol was on his compass.”
“That proves nothing.”
“It proves more than you’ve told me.”
Elena stepped away.
For years, Jasmine had accepted the official story in fragments.
Her father had worked for the county Geographic Information Office.
He had discovered financial irregularities.
He had become frightened.
He had disappeared before testifying.
No body was ever found.
No suspect was ever charged.
“What was Dad mapping?” Jasmine asked.
“Public land.”
“What kind of public land?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You remember everything about him.”
Elena looked toward the dark kitchen window, where the reflection of a news van pulsed red and white.
“He was reviewing emergency evacuation routes.”
“For the quarry?”
“For the entire county.”
Jasmine stood.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because asking questions destroyed him.”
The sentence struck harder than Jasmine expected.
Elena lowered her voice.
“Your father believed some roads were being hidden from public records. Service tunnels. Private access routes. Properties transferred under false names. He thought the maps were being used to move something.”
“What?”
“He never told me.”
“Who was involved?”
“He never told me that either.”
Jasmine did not believe her.
Before she could challenge the answer, someone knocked on the back door.
Three quick knocks.
A pause.
Two more.
Elena went pale.
“Go upstairs.”
“Mom—”
“Now.”
Jasmine moved into the hallway but did not climb the stairs.
Elena opened the back door.
Daniel Reyes stood outside on crutches.
His older sister, Sofia, waited beside him.
Daniel’s face was bruised, but he was smiling.
“I wanted to tell Jasmine something,” he said.
Elena allowed them inside.
Daniel lowered himself into a chair.
“The school tablet changed before we reached the quarry,” he said.
Jasmine leaned forward.
“You saw it?”
“I took a screenshot at the bridge because the signal was weak. The route turned east.”
“That was my original path.”
“Twenty minutes later, Victoria said we had to go north. When Mr. Park checked the tablet, the path had changed.”
Sofia took Daniel’s phone from her bag.
“The screenshot is gone.”
“Deleted?” Jasmine asked.
“Not normally deleted,” Sofia said. “The whole folder was remotely wiped while Daniel was in the hospital.”
Jasmine looked at the compass.
“Did you see a symbol on the map?”
Daniel nodded.
“The circle with three lines?”
Elena gripped the counter.
Daniel continued.
“There’s something else. When I fell, Victoria wasn’t surprised.”
“What do you mean?”
“She was scared, but not because of the landslide. She kept looking toward the quarry buildings.”
Jasmine remembered the navy umbrella.
The clean shoes.
The way Victoria had remained at the rear of the group.
“Did she know where we were going?”
“I think she was waiting for something.”
A stone struck the kitchen window.
Everyone turned.
Another stone hit the glass.
Then a voice shouted from the street.
“Murderer!”
Elena closed the curtains.
Jasmine’s phone vibrated.
An anonymous message appeared.
STOP SEARCHING THE MAP.
May you like
Beneath it was a photograph of Jasmine standing inside her kitchen.
The photograph had been taken through the window less than a minute earlier.
